#and doesn't recognise her because his dad hid all her pictures

[limetimo]

I watched The Other Woman the other day and now my brain is making me sad with a modern AU James cheating on Regulus and Regulus finds out and blames himself a lot because James is James and adhkj. And Regulus realises his whole life is devoured by James, his friends are James' friends and he works at James' dad's company and he's raising Harry and Neville even tho he's always been afraid to have children and the only person he can talk to about all this is his husband's lover. he's afraid to tell Sirius because sirius picked james over him once already and regulus wouldn't be anle to bear it happening again

Lily is a cut-throat lawyer and when she finds out her boyfriend of two months is married she drops him like a hot potato because she's not a homewrecker. Regulus is already pretty wrecked tho and Lily recognises that he's in a difficult situation and offers the listening ear and a comforting shoulder

"Was he your first?" Lily asked. He shook his head. "I used to date my friend Barty at high school." Lily hid a vince in her wine. She couldn't imagine marrying a second boyfriend any more than she could imagine marrying the first. And high school was - so long ago! "It wasn't very good. He was… hurting me." The faint smile on his lips was the most heartbreaking thing. "But at least from him I saw it coming."

anyways regulus recconects with barty (who's still in jail because of the involvement with murdering of neville's parents, it's a whole thing) and evan (who's dying of cancer for some reason wtf brain? But he's also totally up to taking regulus live in if he decides to leave james and that's sweet of them)

neville notices papa is very sad all the time now and makes him a picture at school to cheer him up and that's what convinces Regulus he HAS to address the issue with James. He can't let it affect the children

As like in the movie Lily invites James to her office and she's there as an emotional support friend for Regulus as he lays out the options they came up with: marriage counseling, divorce, some variation of polyamory. Regulus is pretty much too sad and tired to care about himself he just wants what's best for the boys.

Idk why james cheated in the first place but unlike the dick in the movie he doesn't try to lie about it. He knows he fucked up and he's willing to do everything he can to fix that. They do the marriage counseling and on the counselor's reccomendation they both take separate therapy too. They consult a child physiatrist on how to best handle the situation regarding the boys, and have some very difficult conversations with them.

they find out harry is the baby Lily got from a drunk one night stand and gave up for adoption because she didn't want to be a mother and couldn't find the father

sirius finds out/is told and is super upset on Regulus' behalf probably punches james too and there's a lot of crying on everyone's part

regulus takes more time for himself to feel like his own person again. The first friend he'd made in years was his husband secret lover how pathetic is that? So he starts going out more like he joins craft classes n stuff to meet new people, his mental health gets loads better (he's been a right mess because all the old insecurities and trauma from his childhood reared their ugly heads)

idk if it ends with all three of them going separate romantic wasy or if it ends up with jegulus jily regulily or jegulily, and I think it should stay open ended

[dribs-and-drabbles]

Plus & Minus ep 8: a Serious Review™