when the stars will drown

always an option

[oshyavi]

I hate this new chapter too (I think I've experimented too much with stream-of-consciousness in this one, like tf is this even I can't), so I'm jumping into another fic lol

[oshyavi]

I somehow hated 6th Chapter and I still somehow do, but Chapter 7 is just flowing, in weird direction but it is, and now I need to stop to pack because I have train at 5am, life is unfair lol (I want to write more of Remus being tortured by the visions... I'm a monster)

[oshyavi]

when the stars will drown — Remus is all alone (again) (tragic) (yes it's wip and I know it's horrible, especially the use of empty in one single paragraph, maybe it will be fixed later - or won't)

Not empty the way it was usually, no. It wasn’t the kind of empty where one could still feel the shape of a person in it, still smell them on the pillow, still half-expect the door to bang open. This wasn’t even close to that. It was just empty the way it is when no one is coming back to it, when the emptiness has had time to settle in and get uncomfortably comfortable, to stop being absence and just become the way things are.

The dust was telling. A fine film over the floorboards, over the bedframe, over the window boarded from the inside, and Remus found himself staring at it, trying to count how long could it take for it to settle like that, how long it was since someone’s boots dragged through it.

The moon was already up. He knew it, in his hand and his teeth and the base of his spine before his mind caught up to it, the particular tightening, that particular wrongness starting somewhere under his ribs that he had spent years learning to recognize, and some part of him went very still and very cold, because there was no one at the door.

No one leaning against the doorframe, no one finishing the dinner like there was a timer set for it, no one’s voice, stupidly brave and caring, talking to him in some sort of recurring scenario: I’m staying, you’re not alone in this even if you’d rather I left, especially if you’d rather we left, you don’t get a say in this one, Moony, it’s a democracy and you’re outnumbered, sod off. Not even one murmur. Just the door. And the boards. And the dust, a lot of dust. And him, and the wolf deep inside him, and the hum starting in his blood, and the unsettling fear because he didn’t have to deal with all of this alone since so long and now—

[oshyavi]

when the stars will drown – Regulus obviously doesn't give a shit about James bloody Potter, but there is the Vow, you know

Regulus wouldn’t really care about what he saw that night. He seriously wouldn’t – well, maybe except that part of his own demise, he might entertain a thought about it, but the other visions?

Definitely not.

Because why would he? He was never very altruistic or empathetic, so why would he care about the life of someone who meant absolutely nothing to him? He had learnt to fend only for himself long ago. Regulus was all alone and he was dealing with it quite well. He had even realized that it’s way better to keep to himself; everyone was going to turn their backs on him anyway, so why even bother with the whole act?

So he definitely didn’t care that James bloody Potter would meet his end because of a betrayal. If anything, he found that strangely karmic. The person he had stolen from Regulus would be the very reason for his end. Everyone reaps what they sow.

But there was this one thing. The Vow.

Everyone has done something highly stupid during their childhood – Regulus made the Vow. He was maybe six, which made Sirius seven, and the two of them had been peeking through the keyhole to their Father’s study. Orion Black had been trying to strike a deal with Abraxas Malfoy. Regulus remembered the way the two men had grasped each other’s forearms tightly, and how Mother had stepped forward to mutter a binding incantation over their hands. There had been so much raw magic in the room that the air in the corridor grew heavy from it.

Regulus couldn’t remember why the idea seemed so appealing to them back then. What mattered was that they had mimicked that thing with terrifying accuracy, and had learnt about the consequences about breaking the Unbreakable Vow only afterward. There was a chance that the magic hadn’t even taken hold because they were so young, but Regulus wasn’t going to risk it.

So he had to make sure that Sirius didn’t end up dead or ruined, because that was exactly what he had vowed. That he would protect his brother’s life with his own, with the whole stupid purity of his childhood heart.

It was the ultimate joke, really. Sirius had packed up his bags a long time ago, turned his back on their blood and left him to rot all alone in that suffocating house, and yet Regulus was bound to him by the Vow. He clenched his jaw, a bitter wave of resentment washed over him. He didn’t want to have anything to do with Sirius, but he flatly refused to die because of his brother. 

[oshyavi]

when the stars will drown – poor Remus and oblivious James

Remus had been trying to get the vision from last night out of his mind the whole day, but it all rushed back to him in an instant flashback. The whole morning he tried to reason with himself, to logically cross out the possibility that it was real, and the reason he wasn’t able to do so was the feeling. Because whatever excuse his mind made up, deep inside he felt that it was, somehow, true. Remus despised himself for that, for the fact that he was even able to believe that Sirius would really, really be able to do something so… And that was why he acted the way he acted before. Not because he didn’t want his friend to pry into what had happened on the patrol, but because the seed of doubt was already planted. 

But he didn’t want to believe in that. He needed the vision to be fake, because…

‘Is it about Sirius, isn’t it?’ James asked. ‘Did something happen between you two?’

Remus swallowed; his throat went completely dry. What was he supposed to say? Yes, Prongs, it is about him, because my life seems to oscillate entirely around him lately. No, nothing happened between us, not yet at least, but the person I’m feeling something very weird for is apparently going to end your life at some point and the worst thing is that I believe it but I don’t want to? James would think that he’s nuts.

‘No, nothing happened,’ he muttered instead. ‘A hypothetical. What if you woke up tomorrow and you just… knew things? What if you knew, for an absolute fact, that someone you care for deeply is going to do something unbelievable?’

James stared at him, his hazel eyes narrowing behind his glasses as he examined Remus’s serious expression.

‘Unbelievable like… turning their back on us?’ he asked. ‘Like becoming a supporter of that pure-blood supremacy propaganda? Going over to You-Know-Who?’

Remus didn’t answer, because it was something like it, yes. And it was quite worrisome that James, a seventeen-year-old prankster, thought instantly about something like that instead of laughing it off.

‘Well, if I knew for a fact they were about to do something that mental, I’d just stop them.’

Remus blinked. Stop them. It was that easy. Instead of beating himself up for believing that someone dear to him would kill someone dear to him as well, he could just do something to prevent that, no matter if it was real or not.

‘How?’

‘I don’t know, knock them out? Lock them in a broom closet?’ James shrugged, though there was no humor in it. His jaw tightened. ‘You don’t just sit there and let a mate ruin their life if you can help it. You change it. You go to them, drag them into a room, lock the door and force them to tell you what is going on. If someone I care about is going to do something that terrible, it means that they see no other way. And it’s my job to pull them out of it. But why are you even asking this? Who are you talking about?’

Remus was this close to actually telling him. To just vent to James about what he saw at night with Regulus Black, because it was always so easy to tell him everything, and he was taking him so seriously, and… He opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the sharp voice of Professor McGonagall

[theoccasionaloracle]

Re-blog this if:

- you’re gay - can read - support gay people - want to hold a match between your fingers as you wander the halls of an ancient castle because it’s your only source of light amidst the ghosts of people long past - are an antelope - or want a chocolate bar.

No one will know which applies.

[oshyavi]

when the stars will drown – it's a long way for wolfstar, apparently (chapter 6 wip snippet)

‘You don’t even know what you’re talking about.’

‘Enlighten me, then.’

‘You don’t need enlightening.’ Regulus’s voice had dropped into something colder. ‘You need to stop pretending you understand a single thing about him. It’s pathetic, really.’

‘I’ve known him six years.’

‘And I’ve known him sixteen, Lupin, which is apparently nothing, because you and your so-called friends seem entirely convinced that seeing just what someone is letting you to see is the whole picture.’ Regulus’s arms had crossed over his chest at some point without Remus quite noticing the movement happen. ‘You just see what he wants you to see. And what you want to see yourself.’

The words hit somewhere deep, and Remus wanted to argue, he had even opened his mouth to do so, but he realized that there was no argument he could use. Not even a single one. Because he knew that he tended to stick to only the good parts about Sirius. After that night he was repeating them to himself all the time – that his best friend was loyal, that he would rather get himself hurt before he let anyone touch the people he cared about, that he had spent months of focused research and training just so Remus wouldn’t have to face the moon alone anymore. That was the version of Sirius he kept close, the one polished and cherished.

But there was also the fifth year. There was also what he had nearly done, in a fit of temper and carelessness, sending someone toward the Willow and a werewolf without a second thought for what it might have cost – not Sirius, he wouldn’t have carried the weight of it, but Remus, who would have. And there were the smaller cruelties too, the ones nobody talked about because they were easier to forgive: the way he could go cold when he was cornered, the way his tongue turned venomous the moment someone got too close to a nerve he didn’t want touched. Remus had seen all of it, he had simply decided that it didn’t count as much as the rest.

[oshyavi]

when the stars will drown — no more Quidditch for Regulus (why does it bother James though?)

Remus had read the same paragraph six times now, and he still couldn’t tell anyone what it was about. The fire in the hearth was low, crackling half-heartedly, and the common room had thinned out to the usual stragglers – a pair of five-years arguing about upcoming OWLs, one four-year girl reading some Muggle novel in the corner, and three six-years playing Gobstones by the window.

He kept glancing at the portrait hole, and he didn’t know why. Lily and James went to the library right after Potions, Mary told him that when she went back to the tower for cards to play, and the rest went to spend some time at the Black Lake. He wasn’t sure who he was expecting, but his heart beat a bit faster with every shuffle and glance.

‘Regulus Black quit Quidditch.’

Remus looked up from “Hogwarts: A History” just to see his best friend dropping into the armchair opposite him with a theatrical sigh, running a hand through his windblown hair.

‘And why would that concern either of us?’ Remus muttered, doing his best to not just tell James to shut up. It was only a day since, and they already silently agreed once again to not mention anything correlated to the Black family from that point onwards, and yet there he was, obsessing over the very Black he wasn’t supposed to.

‘Because it’s Regulus, Moony,’ James whispered, leaning in to close the distance between them, his tie brushing the wooden table. ‘He’s Pads’s brother. And–’

‘Well, they’re not really acting the part.’

‘Sirius can pretend all he wants that he doesn’t give a shit,’ James’s voice turned lower and sharper, his hazel eyes glanced straight into Remus’s with intent. ‘But I’m actually living with him, and not only at Hogwarts. I can see that he actually gives quite a lot of shit. That’s why he’s so twitchy about this topic. So, as I was saying…’

[oshyavi]

hi hi! new writing blog for a marauders-era fic I'm working on 🐺⭐

so I've been posting When The Stars Will Drown, The Moon Will Fade on AO3 — a Wolfstar & Jegulus fic, not canon compliant. here's a premise:

Regulus didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. That one name alone hit him like a physical blow, knocking the remaining air straight out of his lungs.

Potter.

The name echoed in his ears. The vision swam, the dark, rain-slicked street blurring at the edges as his mind tried to reject the data. James Potter was dead, for the second time this night. The memory of his horror-struck face flashed yet again, the burst of green light and the thud.

And Sirius wasn’t there. He wasn’t, he wasn’t, he…

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Remus Lupin is trying to prove to himself that a five-minute hallucination out of swirling smoke is entirely fake. He has six years of unyielding proof that Sirius Black is a good person, and he refuses to let a piece of faulty magic gaslight him into doubting his best friend. But the seed of doubt is already planted, and his mind is running out of logical excuses to protect his peace.

Regulus Black was never one for sentiments. He definitely doesn’t care that James bloody Potter would die. Everyone reaps what they sow.

But there was this one thing. The Vow.

When The Stars Will Drown, The Moon Will Fade — Wolfstar & Jegulus, marauders-era, NOT canon compliant, dual POV (Regulus & Remus) 5 chapters in, updating not regular, but so far around every one/two weeks

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asks are open, likes/reblogs are always appreciated, and if you've read it already — I'd love to hear what you think 💜