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“You really scared me,” Potter continues before he releases a shaky breath. “It's been a long time since I felt fear like that. Not since that night,” he whispers like those words are significant and should mean something to Regulus, his eyes filling up as he runs a trembling hand through his hair. “Are you alright, love?”
Love.
Regulus stops breathing and that word echoes in his ears and his silence must last too long before next thing he knows, Potter is leaning back, putting distance between them, dread and fear growing in his loving gaze before Regulus rasps, “I’m sorry, Potter, but what are you on about?”
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After a mishap in his fourth year Potions class (because he's the new Potions professor, having succeeded Slughorn upon the completion of his Potions Mastery) Regulus wakes up to find out that the war is over, the chasm between him and his brother has closed, and, perhaps most surprisingly, in his forgotten years he had fallen in love with James Potter.
