guardian angels
poly james potter x reader x regulus black
synopsis: when your boyfriends james and regulus rush to the infirmary after you knock yourself out, they’re relieved to see you awake… until they realize you don’t remember them and instead start flirting with them, completely unaware you’re already dating them.
tags: minor injury, concussion, mentions of being drugged due to a medicine, light angst, playful banter, angel imagery, temporary amnesia. (3k words)
The minute Remus had barged in and told James, who was lounging beneath a tree with Regulus, that you were knocked out in the infirmary, both of them were on their feet before he had even finished the sentence.
James moved first, which was not surprising considering the way his entire body had gone rigid with alarm the moment your name left Remus’ mouth.
One second he had been sprawled comfortably in the grass with his glasses sliding down his nose and the next he was halfway across the courtyard already, hair disheveled from running his hands through it as he demanded, “What do you mean knocked out? What the hell happened?”
Remus barely had the opportunity to answer before James was off toward the castle.
Regulus followed a moment later, though unlike James he was not panicking aloud, which did not mean he was calm; the fear coiled beneath his ribs, gnawing at him with the knowledge that something might have taken you before he could reach you. The image had arrived uninvited and vivid in his mind before he could stop it; you lying somewhere on cold stone, injured, alone, hurt because someone had been careless, and all he could think, over and over, was Remus’ words: knocked out, knocked out, knocked out, knocked out, knocked out—
He had already noticed something was wrong long before Remus appeared. You were always punctual when it came to your Thursdays with them, sometimes arriving early simply to irritate James by stealing his spot under the tree or tugging his hair loose just to annoy him. The fact that you had been thirty minutes late was unusual enough to make Regulus fucking anxious.
So now he was striding through the corridors of Hogwarts with long impatient steps while James practically barreled ahead of him, knocking past startled students and muttering frantic curses under his breath.
They pushed through the infirmary doors with enough force that they slammed against the wall, startling Madam Pomfrey who looked up with immediate disapproval.
“Mr. Potter,” she began sharply.
“Where is she?!” James demanded before she could continue.
Poppy sighed with weary patience. “Bed six,” she said, gesturing across the room. “And before either of you begins shouting, she is fine.”
James was already halfway across the infirmary.
Regulus followed more slowly, though the tightness in his shoulders betrayed how little he appreciated the situation.
Poppy continued explaining as they walked. “Apparently she was practicing a charm during class with Barty Crouch,” she said, her tone carrying particular disapproval, “and the spell went rather wrong.”
Regulus stopped walking. Slowly, he turned his head. “Wrong h0w?”
“The charm caused her to levitate far higher than intended,” she explained briskly, “she drifted all the way to the ceiling of some empty classroom before Mr. Crouch panicked and cancelled the spell entirely.”
“He dropped her?!” James said faintly.
“In short, yes.” Pomfrey confirmed.
(Regulus was already plotting the most violent methods to fucking murder him.)
“She struck her head on the way down,” Pomfrey added, “which resulted in a minor concussion. Nothing serious, though she has been unconscious for about forty minutes.” she explained as they had reached the bed.
James froze.
You were lying there beneath the pale infirmary sheets with your hair spread across the pillow, looking deeply asleep except for the faint crease between your brows that suggested the headache waiting for you when you woke. There was a small bandage near your temple and the sight of it alone was enough to make Regulus’ stomach twist unpleasantly.
As for James, he looked like someone had drained every drop of blood from his body.
“Oh, love,” James murmured.
Regulus stood at the foot of the bed, arms folded tightly across his chest as his gaze swept over you with sharp precision, assessing the situation the way he assessed everything.
You were breathing normally.
No visible injuries besides the bandage.
No sign of distress.
Still, his jaw tightened.
James sat carefully on the edge of the bed, reaching out to brush a strand of hair away from your face with surprising gentleness. “She looks fine,” he said quietly, though the words sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
From behind them Madam Pomfrey gave a patient sigh, clearly accustomed to the dramatic tendencies of Hogwarts students when anyone they cared about so much as sneezed.
“Oh, don’t fret so terribly, dear,” she said, her tone warm but practical as she approached the bedside. “As I mentioned earlier, it is nothing more than a minor concussion. I have seen far worse injuries walk out of this infirmary without so much as a lingering headache.”
James glanced over his shoulder as he and Regulus exchanged worried glances.
Pomfrey adjusted the edge of the bandage at your temple with practiced ease before continuing.
“She may appear a little disoriented when she wakes,” she added calmly. “I administered a mild draught to help with the pain, so it would not be surprising if she seems somewhat… hazy for a short while. A bit sluggish, perhaps even slightly drugged.”
Regulus raised one eyebrow faintly. “Drugged,” he repeated.
Pomfrey waved a hand dismissively.
“Oh, nothing alarming. Just the temporary effects of the potion settling in her system. In a few hours she will be perfectly herself again.”
She gave James a reassuring smile.
“So truly, Mr. Potter, there is no need to look as though the world has ended. Your sweetheart will be as good as new before the evening is out.”
Regulus hummed quietly as Madam Pomfrey moved away to tend to another student. Both of them had prepared themselves for something far worse than the sight that greeted them in the infirmary, yet the reality of you lying there motionless had still settled heavily in the room.
James continued pacing.
“—and what if she wakes up and her head still hurts? What if she’s dizzy? What if she—”
“James.”
He kept walking.
“What if she can’t—”
Regulus stepped forward and caught James firmly by the shoulders, forcing the taller boy to stop moving altogether. The sudden interruption startled him enough that he actually looked up. Before James could launch into another frantic thought, Regulus leaned in and pressed a brief, gentle kiss to his mouth.
“James, mon beau,” he repeated quietly.
He blinked, clearly caught off guard.
“Reggie,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair, “I’m just worried.”
“Stop panicking and pacing,” Regulus continued calmly. “She’s fine and she’s gonna wake up soon, yeah?”
James dragged a hand down his face and nodded, attempting to convince his own brain.
“Yeah. Okay. Right. She’s okay,” he said, the words coming out slightly uneven as he forced himself to breathe properly again. “I just… her head.”
“It’s wrapped,” Regulus replied sweetly. “Not missing.”
James huffed out a quiet laugh despite himself. “Right. Yeah. Okay.”
“When she wakes up I am going to have a very unpleasant conversation with Crouch.”
James snorted weakly. “Get in line.”
For a few minutes the infirmary settled into a strained quiet.
James remained seated beside you, leaning forward slightly with his elbows braced on his knees while he watched your continued breathing. Every so often his hand drifted back to yours or brushed another stray piece of hair away from your face, small restless gestures that betrayed the nervous energy he was doing a very poor job of containing.
Regulus stood near the foot of the bed, his posture remained perfectly straight, arms folded, expression cool and unreadable. Anyone who did not know him well might have assumed he was entirely unaffected (which would have been very incorrect; he was one breath away from fucking collapsing, but if he did that then James would lose it, and Regulus refused to have both partners unconscious).
Neither of them noticed your fingers twitching against the sheets.
You stirred slowly, your body shifting beneath the blanket as the fog inside your head began to thin just enough for awareness to creep back in.
James straightened so quickly his chair scraped softly against the floor.
“Hey,” he said at once, his voice dropping instinctively into something gentle and reassuring. “Hey, sweetheart. Easy.”
Your eyelids fluttered open.
For several seconds you did nothing but blink up at the ceiling, your gaze unfocused as your brain attempted the slow and rather uncooperative task of catching up with reality. The infirmary lights were painfully bright, the air felt strange in your lungs, and your thoughts drifted sluggishly through your head as though someone had filled it with cotton.
The first thing you noticed was that there were shapes hovering above you.
Two of them.
Tall silhouettes standing close enough that their outlines blurred together against the light behind them.
You squinted harder, attempting to bring them into focus, but right as your vision began clearing both figures leaned in at the same time.
One of them came very close. Very, very close.
You noticed messy dark hair first, then glasses sliding down the bridge of a nose as the taller one leaned directly over you with such obvious concern that he was practically breathing the same air.
From somewhere beside him another voice spoke, irritated and sharp.
“Give her some fucking space, James.”
“Oh—sorry—”
The tall one jolted back slightly.
“Oh shit. She’s awake. Reggie, she’s awake.”
Your lips curved into a slow, dazed smile.
“Wow,” you murmured hoarsely.
You were quite certain you had died.
Admittedly you could not remember the exact moment of death, but the evidence in front of you seemed fairly convincing. You were lying somewhere soft, the air felt pleasantly weightless, and hovering above you were two very beautiful men who looked so unfairly perfect that they could only belong to heaven.
They were angels, obviously.
You shifted slightly, squinting as your vision cleared enough to properly take them in.
One of them leaned closest to you, tall and broad-shouldered with dark hair. A pair of glasses rested crookedly on his nose and his expression held the sort of open warmth that made his face almost painfully easy to look at. He looked like the embodiment of sunlight.
The other stood just behind him, pale and elegant in a way that felt almost ethereal. His dark hair fell neatly across his forehead, framing eyes so striking they looked unreal against his pale skin. Where the first angel looked like sunlight, this one looked sharper, cooler; something beautiful carved from the galaxy.
If that was the welcoming committee waiting for you in the afterlife, you must have been doing something very right in your life without realizing it.
Your smile widened with dreamy satisfaction.
“Well,” you said slowly, your voice still thick with sleep and whatever potion was currently drifting through your bloodstream, “this is nice.”
The taller angel blinked.
“Nice?” he repeated, clearly offended by that assessment. His mouth pulled into the most ridiculous pout as he leaned closer again. “Oh, not so nice. You scared the hell out of us.”
Oh, those lips; so dreamy and soft looking. You suddenly had the overwhelming urge to kiss them. (You weren’t entirely sure if kissing angels counted as blasphemy, but honestly… what you would do. Heaven really did hold treasures.)
“So,” you continued thoughtfully, “I’m dead, right?”
Because honestly there was no other explanation that made nearly as much sense as waking up on what felt suspiciously like a cloud while two ridiculously attractive angels hovered nearby looking concerned about you.
And if this truly was the afterlife, then frankly you felt rather lucky about the arrangement.
“Hiii,” you said slowly, the word stretching out as though it had to travel a long distance to leave your mouth.
For a moment neither of them said anything.
The pale one tilted his head slightly, dark hair slipping across his forehead as he regarded you with something very close to amusement. “Oh, amour,” he said gently. “No. You are very much alive.”
You relaxed instantly. “Oh good.”
A dreamy sigh escaped you as you stared between them. “I’m so glad I was a good person.”
The taller angel blinked, seeming confused.
“Well,” the black-haired angel (and really, a very pretty one at that) said dryly, “when you’re no longer concussed I will be lecturing the absolute fuck out of you for whatever idiotic stunt you pulled with Crouch.”
You frowned at him, still floating somewhere between dream and reality. “But… I thought I was good.”
The curly-headed angel laughed quietly beside you, a soft, warm sound that made your chest feel a little too full.
“You are, sweetheart,” he said, the words rich with reassurance, almost teasing in the way he said them.
You pouted slightly.
“Well,” you reasoned slowly, eyes drifting between them, “I must be good if I’m going to heaven.”
The curly-headed angel immediately burst out laughing, a loud, joyful sound that made the air feel lighter.
“Oh, she’s absolutely high as a kite right now,” he said, still laughing, eyes sparkling with mischief.
You ignored him completely, captivated by the pale angel who seemed to embody a cruel kind of perfection, as though the universe had spent too long sculpting him.
“You’re so pretty,” you informed him softly, almost in awe.
The pale angel froze. A deep red flush crept up his neck, spreading across his ears like fire.
The curly-headed angel’s eyes widened immediately, and he grabbed the other by the shoulders with delighted amusement.
“Oh my god,” he said, laughter bubbling over, “look at you—Reggie’s blushing.”
“Ja—” the pale angel muttered sharply, but was interrupted.
“—;ook how cute you are when you blush!” the curly-headed angel continued, pinching his cheeks gently, still grinning like a fool.
The pale angel looked like he might actually bite him, and you couldn’t stop yourself from laughing softly, utterly enchanted by the display.
Oh, how desperately you wanted them both, impossibly radiant and impossible to resist, each one a forbidden fruit in flesh and breath. You had no idea if humans (even dead ones, since clearly that was your current status) were even allowed to court two angels at the same time.
The temptation felt almost biblical, like Eve reaching for the forbidden apple, except you were far greedier; you did not crave one, you wanted both apples, whole and sacred and forbidden, and you wanted them all at once.
You frowned and tilted your head staring at them while you wished to steal a fragment of the perfection they radiated. “I wish I could have two.”
They both blinked in unison.
“Two what?” the curly-headed angel asked, genuinely confused.
You shrugged lazily, hands trailing over the blankets. “I don’t know. Just… wanna have two. But I can’t.”
The curly-headed angel immediately went wide-eyed, offended by the concept. “Well, that’s tragic,” he declared, puffing out his chest. “You ask, and you shall receive, ma belle,”
You turned toward both of them again, suddenly curious. “Are you dating anyone?”
The paler angel raised an eyebrow, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips. “Who,” he asked slowly, gesturing between himself and the other angel, “me or him?”
“Both of you,” you admitted, voice soft.
They exchanged a glance, a flicker of something private passing between them, before answering simultaneously: “Yes.”
And they smiled at each other.
You deflated immediately, pulling the blanket over your head. “Oh.”
The curly-headed angel leaned over with a laugh, his warmth filling the space around you. “Oh come on, why are you hiding, baby?”
Your muffled voice emerged from under the blankets. “Was gonna ask you out…”
He snorted softly.
“But too late,” you continued, tone heavy with mock despair. “You have someone.”
He chuckled, brushing a stray lock of hair from your face with a gentle hand. “Well maybe you should ask us out when you’re actually awake.”
The blanket shifted as you peeked back out. “I can ask you both out?”
The pale angel’s smirk lingered, faint but unmistakable. “Well, if you want two,” he said smoothly, “why settle for one, right?”
You considered this carefully, closing your eyes briefly as you imagined the impossible, the weightless air around you, the dizzying thrill of having them both so near.
“Hm,” you murmured, still dreamy, still half-lost in the impossibly bright, soft space you were convinced was heaven. “As long as I’m not kicked out of heaven…”
The curly-headed angel laughed, “Oh, you won’t get kicked out, don’t worry. Not for thinking you can have two angels. Besides…” He leaned closer, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Heaven’s really just about giving you what you’ve earned.”
You let out a small, sleepy giggle, feeling the lightness in your chest. “I suppose that makes sense,” you murmured, still half-lost in the soft, impossibly bright air.
He grinned, shaking his head slightly. “See? Nothing to worry about.”
Your eyes drifted between the two of them. “Y’know… you’re both very pretty,” you said thoughtfully, “but you must already know that if your partner tells you.”
He scoffed, shooting the pale angel a pointed look. “Yeah, actually,” he said, “I barely hear it.”
The pale one’s glare sharpened immediately, lips pressing together in a mock scowl that barely hid the blush rising to his cheeks.
You frowned, sleepy sympathy softening your expression. “Well, they suck.”
The pale angel choked on a laugh. James wheezed beside you, nearly falling off the edge of the bed with his amusement.
“I don’t want to be a homewrecker,” you continued, voice drifting with drowsy honesty, “but if I was dating both of you, I’d definitely remind you how pretty you are every single day.”
“Well, that’s enough angel talk for now.” the curly-headed angel leaned closer, whispering, “Come on, sleepyhead, you’ve got to rest.”
The pale one bent down, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. “Rest now, amour. You’ve worried us enough for one day”
You let out a contented sigh, curling deeper into the blankets between them. “Okay…”
Wrapped between them, feeling impossibly safe, impossibly lucky, you allowed yourself to sink fully into sleep, two guardian angels holding the space around you as the world outside melted away.
****
You had been asleep for a good two hours, long enough for a lot to happen in the background, when Sirius suddenly barged in with Remus close behind.
Sirius pretended to sob as he enveloped both his brother and best friend in a dramatic hug, all while thrusting a ridiculously oversized bouquet into the bedside infirmary—flowers from Merlin knows where. (“Idiot. What the fuck is she supposed to do with these?” “Reggie, he’s trying to be nice, say thank you!”)
By the time Regulus had given Sirius and Remus their marching orders (though he was far nicer with Remus) with the excuse that you were still out of it, the room immediately felt calmer.
You stirred awake for the second time, blinking as clarity returned, and immediately noticed Regulus at your side. You reached out with both hands. “Oh, Reg, c’mere.”
He stepped closer, brushing a loose strand of hair from your face before pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your lips. “So… you’re conscious now,” he murmured.
You hummed, smiling faintly. “Yeah. I think I’m good, just a little lighthea—”
Before you could answer, the curtains were abruptly pushed open again. Regulus stiffened immediately, jaw tightening as he muttered under his breath, “Not Sirius again…”
You turned your head, only to find Barty standing there, noticeably paler than usual, eyes wide and nervous.
Standing there, wide-eyed and panicked, was Barty. His hands twitched awkwardly. “Oh—Regulus, y’know, I didn’t mean—”
Regulus’s head snapped up, eyes locking onto Barty with a glare so sharp it could have dug a grave.
“You!” he pointed a sharp finger at his friend, “Outside. Now. We need to talk.”
James let out a soft, mischievous giggle, burying his face against your shoulder. “Oh,” he murmured, shaking his head, “he’s so gonna kill him.”
“Yup, he’s as good as dead.”
