By the time the healer said it, you already knew something was different.

You were showing now—rounder, heavier, magic humming beneath your skin like it didn’t quite belong to just one life. Regulus stood rigid at your side, one hand firmly on your lower back, as if anchoring you to the room. Barty, for once, wasn’t pacing. He hovered—eyes sharp, grin gone.

The healer cleared her throat.

“Well,” she said, peering at the parchment again, “that explains it.”

“Explains what?” Barty asked too quickly.

She looked up. “You’re carrying twins.”

The world went quiet.

Regulus’s hand tightened instinctively. “Twins,” he repeated, barely audible.

Barty laughed—but this time it wasn’t manic. It was stunned. Soft. Almost reverent. “Of course it’s twins,” he muttered. “Why would anything about us be simple?”

You stared down at your stomach, breath catching. “Are they—are they alright?”

“Perfectly healthy,” the healer said. “Strong magical signatures. Unusual, but stable.”

Unusual. That tracked.

Later, back at the safe house, the truth settled in like gravity.

Regulus knelt in front of you, careful, reverent, pressing his forehead gently to your stomach as if listening for something only he could hear. “Two,” he whispered. “You’re carrying two lives.”

Barty leaned against the doorframe, watching the scene with an expression so unguarded it almost hurt to see. “Bet one of them’s trouble,” he said lightly. “My money’s on the kicker.”

Regulus glanced up. “You’re not helping.”

“Oh, I think I am.” Barty crossed the room, crouching beside you. He rested his hand over Regulus’s, fingers overlapping deliberately. “They’re connected to both of us. You feel it too, don’t you?”

You did.

Magic curled warm and steady under your skin—two pulses, not one. Different, but intertwined.

Regulus finally looked at Barty then. Not competitive. Not resentful.

Resolved.

“We’ll need to be careful,” Regulus said. “Protective charms. Stronger wards.”

Barty smirked. “Already working on them.”

You blinked. “Since when do you plan ahead?”

“Since you,” he said simply.

That shut you up.

Later that night, you lay between them, Regulus’s arm secure around you, Barty’s fingers tracing slow, absent patterns against your hip—never crossing lines, but toeing them shamelessly. The air was thick with something intimate and unspoken.

“Do you think,” Barty murmured into the dark, “they know yet?”

Regulus huffed softly. “Know what?”

“That they’re already loved.”

Your throat tightened.

You shifted, instinctively pressing closer to both of them. Two heartbeats at your back. Two promises surrounding you.

“No matter what,” Regulus said quietly, “they won’t grow up alone.”

Barty grinned against your shoulder. “Neither will you.”

And for the first time, the future didn’t feel terrifying.

It felt full.