chapter twenty-three

It's a sweltering, bustling summer.

Three days a week, Jo downs stiff and itchy Healing robes and apparates to London, where she spends six hours shifts at the Janus Thickey Ward.

At first, Jo wasn't quite sure what to expect of her volunteer position at the home for those permanently affected by a spell gone wrong (or, in some cases, a spell gone too well). But Jo settles quickly there, surrounded by older and sharper Healers who guide her along the way. So she spends her days there, speaking sweetly with patients and dusting their belongings and cleaning the floors and fetching their potions and taking orders from the short and stout, stern and unshakeable, Freya Campbell, lead Healer of the unit who is more than happy to bark out orders whenever Jo's been standing idle for more than a minute.

And even though she's dead tired, and she can hear dear Freya's voice ringing in her head hours after she's found her way back home, being a Healer feels exactly the way Jo thought it would, and every night she finds her way back home after her shift, she feels a little bit more whole than she did just the day before.

There are these moments Jo has there, when she's speaking with her patients, with the people who have forgotten everything about themselves and the lives that they've led, that Jo can see something sort of flash behind their eyes. A bit of recognition, a flash of a memory, of something, before it fades away again. A bit of hope, it's enough to make Jo's eyes well up each time. And Jo feels some sort of rush, feels like she's doing what she's meant to be doing.

Sometimes she'll drift between wards as well; on particularly busy days, Jo finds herself observing as unsuspecting muggles have their memories erased, filing paperwork for cursed artifacts, and, more often than not, spending a fair share of time in the Alchemy Room with a certain redhead.

This is where Jo grows a certain type of appreciation for Lily Evans. Whereas in the halls of the Hogwarts castle, Lily treated Jo with the caution one would use for a wild animal, in the dark Alchemy Room of St. Mungo's, Lily is strict, firm, and direct. She has the potions ready for Jo before she even steps foot into the room, and doesn't waste a second of her time. There is sort of seriousness, this directness to Lily, that replaces the idea of her in Jo's head. She is no longer the tattle-tale that snitched on her brother and willingly spent her time with Severus Snape, Lily Evans is now, to Jo, a colleague she trusts.

A massive step-up, Jo thinks.

And, to the absolute delight of her brother, Jo does, indeed, go for tea with Lily. She goes for tea with Lily a few times. Three, to be exact, and each time they sit in the same corner of the same cozy, dimly lit shop, and try to figure out how to speak with one another outside of the context of work.

Jo figures that Lily doesn't really understand why she's never liked her, she can sense that in the way she's hesitant and careful with her words, like she's unsure what she could say that might set her off. Lily keeps her mug close to the tips of her lips and speaks her words into them. The first time, they hardly even say anything to each other. Just comment on the business of the day, on the sweetness of the tea.

The second time, Lily's gained a bit of confidence. She asks after Jo, asks after her friends, asks about what she thinks of the Healers at St. Mungo's. She looks positively shocked after she earns a bit of a chuckle from Jo after she makes a comment about how Freya Campbells resembles a puffed-up pigeon.

And the third time, Jo leaves thinking that maybe, Lily's really not that bad. Not anymore, at least. When she sees her around the house, spending time with James, Jo no longer gives her harsh glares or eye rolls, but greets her instead with a soft smile and a wave. James reacts to this as if he's received news that the war has ended.

It hadn't, though, that is something Jo is constantly, painfully aware of. The war hasn't ended, doesn't seem to be any closer to ending and her stomach churns at the thought of what it might take for it to end. There's news every day-people missing, homes destroyed, the occasional but horrifying increase of lifeless bodies turning up with a Dark Mark hanging above them. Jo can almost see the fear in those around her, every magical space now feels heavy with dread.

Even her brother, the ever-proud James Potter, is oftentimes reduced to a bundle of nerves, spitting out his anxieties in outbursts of frustrations. He insists on accompanying Lily wherever she goes. He drags Jo out into the backyard and makes her practice her defensive spells.

Jo stands there, from dawn until the suns hanging in the middle of the sky, almost limp with exhaustion, until the faint wisps of light that fall from her wand have evolved into glowing ball of light until eventually, after hours, an Irish wolfhound works its way from the tip of her wand.

James, after cheering and whooping and congratulating her, asks her what she thought of. Jo doesn't tell him the truth, not that she thought of Regulus Black and his knuckles brushing against hers and the kiss to her forehead or of the feeling of his gangly arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Jo feeds him some lie about her friends and tries to hide the blush on her face as she does so.

Jo spends a lot of that summer worrying about Regulus Black. She worries about him while she tends to her patients and while she bakes biscuits with her mother and while she sneaks into muggle pubs with her friends and there is not a day that goes by where she does not think of Regulus.

She finds herself stuck in spiraling thoughts. Wondering what it's like for him at home. What his mother's doing to him. Wondering if he's in danger. If he's hurt and just too proud to come to Jo, even though she made him promise. She worries about him changing his mind, about what he believes in, about her. That thought keeps her up at night-the idea that he might finally get sucked into the blood purist ideals that have been forced on him since birth. That he might become hateful. That he might start to see Jo as nothing but another blood traitor. That every moment they spent together will mean nothing to him. Jo works herself up over this scenario as often as she can.

Regulus writes to her every day, but he doesn't write much. Jo pours as many details as she can into that journal he left. She talks about her position at St. Mungo's and her tea dates with Lily and her sleepovers with Dorcas and how Sirius took a needle and pierced four holes in her ears and how James nearly lost his head over it. She tells him about how Emmeline won't come over to her house anymore because of Sirius. She tells him about her late night rendezvous in London and how she almost snuck into a muggle punk show with Remus but it didn't feel right doing it without him. She tells him about how her father has developed a new potion designed to give the user a new hair color, for just a few hours. She tells him about her Irish wolfhound Patronus. She tells him that she misses him.

And in response, she gets short, clipped, worrying sentences.

Things aren't good here today. Been thinking about you.

A lot of people here for a meeting. He's here.

Another difficult evening. I like reading about your day.

I miss you, sorry I can't write as much as I promised I would.

It's enough to drive her mad.

And Jo's so busy worrying over him, she doesn't have the time to sort out how she feels. Dorcas doesn't bring it up again, but the questions she left Jo with on their last day of their sixth year hang in the back of her head. She didn't know how she felt when Dorcas first asked her and she doesn't know now. But through the miasma of anxiety, the question nags, pokes at her. Jo tries not to give it any attention, because ultimately she decides that if she had an answer to that question, she wouldn't even know what to do with it. The only thing she could allow herself to care about was whether or not Regulus would make it out of the rotten home of his, she couldn't let her mind wander from that. She wouldn't let herself.

It's a particularly hot evening when Jo finds herself trying to push this very question out of her head. She tosses and turns on top of her duvet, sweat on the back of her neck as she drifts in and out of sleep, waxing moon high in the sky. Her eyes are open to the darkness of her room and then closed to the image of Regulus's fingers on her forearm, fingers running through his hair as he consoles her, his eyes shining down at her, facial features distorted and twisted by sleep.

The way he makes her feel permates through the fog of sleep and she can feel the buzz in the pit of her gut at even the memory of him, the memory of how he touched her. Jo squirms, rolling onto her back and groaning in her sleep, eyes fluttering open and shut. It's been nearly two months since she's seen him and still, even the thought of him keeps her awake.

It's almost a full moon as well, another anxiety that makes Jo's eyes shoot open to the dark shadows of her room before they settle shut once more. Tomorrow she will prepare her potions and she will apparate to Remus's house and she will tend to her friend's mangled and broken body and that is the image that hands in her head as she closes her eyes once more.

Snarling teeth, crimson red blood and purple splotches of bruises and there is a pop.

Jo can't tell if it's part of her sequence of dreams or not but she shoots upright at the sound of it, the sweat on her neck making her hair stick to it and her chest heaves. She blinks a few times, the pop still ringing in her ears, before she is able to make out the distinct and darkened silhouette that stands in front of her bed.

With a deep inhale, Jo opens her mouth, and screams.

It only lasts for a second before there is a cold and clammy hand clapped over her mouth and his voice hits her ears, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's me, Josephine. It's me," and the recognition hits. Jo blinks rapidly, forcing the sleep out of her eyes and forcing them to adjust before she can make out the shape of his nose, the curve to his lips, and Jo lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Regulus watches as panic drains from her eyes and her shoulders relax and he drops his hands from her at once. "I'm sorry," he repeats again in a low voice, standing awkwardly at the side of her bed, looming over her.

"What are you doing here?" she questions, trying her best to contain her voice to a whisper but her heart is hammering in her chest and she can still feel adrenaline pound through her veins so rapidly she doesn't even process that Regulus Black is standing in her room in the middle of the night.

Regulus opens his mouth to respond, but there is a knock on the door that nearly makes Jo jump three feet in the air. "Josie-you alright in there?" the muffled voice of James comes through from the other side of the door. "Thought I heard a scream."

Jo tries to swallow the waver in her voice as she calls back to her brother, "Yeah, 'm alright, just a bad dream!" and feels desperate for him to leave. She turns her gaze back to Regulus to see that his hands are shoved in the pockets of his robes and his eyes are trained on the ground.

"Alright well, if you need anything," James says, and hesitates, "probably wake up Mum."

"Got it, James, thanks," Jo calls back with a roll of her eyes.

Jo lets her eyes flash between her door and Regulus, who has yet to move, and waits for the sound of his footsteps. And once they come and go, Jo looks to Regulus, waiting for him to make some snide comment about her brother, like he normally would whenever he's brought up, or even to provide some sort of explanation for his presence in her bedroom in the middle of the night, but he remains still and silent as stone, eyebrows drawn together and lips tightly pursed.

Jo feels her gut lurch. She turns, facing him as she sits on the edge of her bed and reaches to grab both of his hands. Regulus does not look up at her, just tightens his fingers around hers. "Are you alright?" Jo asks, tilting her head down, trying to catch his eye.

"Been better," Regulus answers, trying to dismiss it with a shrug but his voice betrays him, not nearly as composed as his expression and cracking.

Jo draws patterns on his hands with her thumbs. "Do you need anything?" she asks.

"Some Calming Draught," Regulus answers, " if you have it."

"Make yourself comfortable," Jo says with a nod. "I'll be right back."

Slipping her hands out of his and sliding out of her bed, Jo leaves him there reluctantly, gnawing feeling in the back of her head that whatever forced him out of his home must have been severe, much more severe than Jo was willing to tolerate. And her mind tortures her with the possibilites as she rushes down the stairs and towards the medicine cabinet they keep in their bathroom, on the first level. Her hands shake as she rushes over their hardwood floor, feeling desperate to get back to Regulus and even more so for answers. Two months of one-sentence responses to her never-ending paragraphs and suddenly he's at the side of her bed. It makes her dizzy.

Jo doesn't waste time searching for just the Calming Draught-she grabs the whole healing kit. Regulus is proud, that's something Jo knows too well, if he's been through enough to ask for a Calming Draught, she can't imagine what else he'll need.

After practically sprinting back up to her room, Jo enters again to find Regulus standing exactly where she left him. She sighs, and approaches him slowly. WIth still shaking hands, Jo reaches for Regulus's arms, fingers tight around them and tries, gently to guide him to sit on the edge of her bed. He's still, and stumbles a bit like he's forgotten how to move. Jo's heart feels like lead in her chest as he sinks, finally, into her mattress, and he stares blankly ahead.

Jo reaches for her healing kit, and, almost frantically, searches for the Calming Draught. The vial's nearly empty when she pulls it out but she resolves that if he needs more, she will get him more. Jo uncaps the vial, and lifts it to Regulus. Still, he makes no move to take it. Mouth feeling dry, Jo stands before Regulus and places her fingers under the tip of his chin, tilts his head back, and empties the remains of the vial down his throat.

Life returns to him slowly as the potion hits him. He blinks, he swallows, he shuffles in his spot and finally, he looks back up at Jo with his wide, green eyes. "Thank you," he says to Jo in a voice that makes her feel desperate.

Jo drops to her knees, kneeling before him as she tries to blink the tears out of her eyes. "What happened?" she asks, trying not to let the panic seep into her words. She places a hand on his knee and in the dark she can't tell if his pupils are dilating or not.

Regulus shudders, shaking his head as if he's trying to shake away the thought of it. "Just had to get out of there, for a bit," he tells her, voice gravelly and lower than usual. And Jo can't even begin to imagine it, tries her best not to. She swallows, eyes never leaving his and he reaches out to her, fingers tangling in her hair, brushing it away from her face, fingers lingering on the soft skin of her cheek for just a moment before he lets his hand drop once more. Regulus studies her like she's art, eyes wide as he takes in the image of her. "I'm sorry to wake you, I can go now."

"No," Jo protests immediately, gripping the edge of his knee a bit tighter now. She doesn't think she could let Regulus go back, not after a whole summer of worrying, desperate to see him safe, desperate to be with him again. "Stay for the night," she asks of him, feeling utterly pathetic and not at all like herself when she does so. But still she does, without a moment of hesitation. Jo's softer like that, with Regulus around. Different.

The potion seems to have settled in him now as a smile, ever so slight, spreads on the corner of his lips. "You want me to stay?" he asks in a husky whisper.

Jo gives him a wide-eyed nod and feels like putty in his hands. "Please."

"Okay," Regulus gives in at once, nodding. "I'll stay."

Jo stands, feeling dizzy, and reaches for the empty vial to place back in her healing kit, making a note to replace it in the morning. "Are you hurt at all?" Jo asks she shuffles through the potions and bandages, side-eyeing Regulus to assess for any injuries.

"No," Regulus assures her, which earns him a sour look of disbelief. "I swear it."

For a moment, Jo stares, trying to look for any sign of injury but since he took the Calming Draught he's been easy in movement and in demeanor and eventually, Jo sighs. "Alright, but I'll be raging if you get blood on my bed," she tells him, closing up her kit and depositing it on her nightside to be dealt with later.

This makes Regulus falter. His face flushes as his mouth dangles open and he stumbles over his words. "Wh-I'll be, erm, your bed?" he questions, suddenly no longer able to meet Jo's eye.

"Yeah," Jo says with a bit of a scoff, moving to her dresser, where she wades through folded muggle clothes to find comfortable pants that might be long enough for him. "I can't have you sleeping on the floor, now can I?" she questions, pulling out a white, ratty shirt she had stolen from Remus, as well as a pair of red, plaid pajama pants from him and Jo suddenly realizes how much of her wardrobe is stolen from him.

She tosses them towards Regulus, who seems to have not yet recovered from the idea of her bed, the very bed he's sitting on. "Where-where will you sleep?"

Jo gives him a shrug and tries not to think of the knot in her stomach. "I don't mind sharing if you don't," she tells him, desperate to keep her voice level of the buzz of nerves she feels. "I share a bed with my friends all the time."

Jo watches as his shoulders deflate, as he stands, clothes held gingerly between his fingers and eyes on Jo's floor. "Alright then, I don't mind," he mumbles. "Where can I, where-"

"There's a bathroom attached," Jo says, pointing a finger behind him towards the slightly ajar door, and she watches as he wordlessly leaves to change and she thinks that she's never seen him stumble and stutter so much.

With her gut a mess, Jo sits at the edge of her bed and tries to sort her thoughts out and she thinks of what it'll be like to lie in her bed next to Regulus and wonders if it's too late to make a spot on her floor for herself because it's like idea just hit her. Sharing a bed with Regulus. Suddenly she feels like she'll puke up her nerves onto the floor. And it's true, she's shared her bed with her friends plenty of times before. Dorcas and Emmeline more than anyone, even Remus a fair few times. But Regulus is different. Jo thinks of Regulus differently than she thinks of any of them and before she can even consider what the consequences might be, the mattress dips, and Jo turns around to face him.

There is something about the sight of Regulus, dressed down in pajamas she fished out from the bottom of her dresser, that makes her mouth go dry. The sight of him like that, dressed down and hair a bit disheveled, she wants it engraved into her memory. She can see him better in the dark now, can see how a curl dangles in front of his eyes, the same one that always does. She can see the twist in his lips and how his chest rises and falls and how his shoulders hunch over. Jo can see the dark bags under his eyes and how they've grown, the hollowness of his cheeks, the exhaustion etched deeply into his features, and there's nothing Jo wants more than to take care of him.

Jo thinks, with a beating heart so loud it's fuzzy in her ears, that she's spent a bit too much time staring at him. She swallows, and drops her head down to her pillow, eyes still wide as Regulus mirrors her motions, dropping to lie in her bed, on top of her covers. "Goodnight, Reg," Jo says but the buzzing inside of her is so loud she doesn't even hear the words as they leave her mouth.

"Goodnight, Josephine," Regulus says, and Jo hears that all too clearly. And once more, he reaches for her, this thumb on the hollow of her cheek and Jo holds her breath as he drags it against her face, along her jawline, before it drops it, reaching for her hand and tangling his fingers in hers.

Their intertwined hands lie between them as they maintain their distance, and Jo's surprised at how easily her eyes flutter shut, at how the darkness of sleep overtakes her. And the last thought she has before she slips into unconsciousness is that his hands don't feel so cold to her anymore.

She's not sure how long she's asleep for before there's a hand on her shoulder, a hot breath on her ear. There's a grumbling, a voice trying to pull her awake. She groans, head loping from side to side. The voice, the grumbling gets louder. "Josephine," Regulus says into her ear, and even his voice is not enough to get her to open her eyes.

"Hmm," she groans, trying to sink deeper into her bed, deeper into sleep.

"I'm sorry," he says, breath still fanning against her skin. "I didn't want to wake you but I couldn't leave without saying goodbye."

This makes Jo's eyes peel open, slowly. Regulus is, at first, blurry as he stands above her, but she blinks until she can see the details of him once more. "You're leaving?" she questions, voice groggy and heavy.

Regulus sighs, straightening out as Jo sits up in her bed, head pounding in protest as the light of dawn pours through her window. "I have to get back before they realize I'm gone," he tells her.

"You don't have to go back," Jo tells him, blinking up at him and wishing and willing him to stay. "You can stay here for as long as you'd like."

That sour smile works its way onto his lips, and he shakes his head. Jo has too much pride to take him by the hand and beg him not to leave her, but not by much. Jo figures Regulus isn't too far off from having some sort of hold on her that no one's ever had before. Regulus leans in close, closer than he ever had before, so close his nose almost reaches hers she holds her breath, desperate to control the wave of emotions that wash over her and almost just as desperate for him. "Goodbye, Josephine," he says in a voice that melts her, and tilts his head to the side.

Regulus has a hand on the back of Jo's neck, gentle and soft, as he leans to place his lips against her cheek, and the heat of the summer is nothing compared to the way this makes Jo feel. And all too soon, it's over, and the skin he touched feels cold without him. Jo blinks, and with a pop, Regulus is gone once more.


another late chapter, i apologize. its been a BUSY week. this chapter is nohting but filler fluff but i will not apologize for it i think its needed at this point lol