4
Your beauty is beyond compare
With flaming locks of auburn hair
With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green
Your smile is like a breath of spring
Your voice is soft like summer rain
And I cannot compete with you
Jolene
He knew Lily Evans.
Of course he knew her.
Muggle-born and one of the brightest witches Hogwarts has ever seen.
She was, of course, in the year above Regulus but she was one of the only ones he really compared himself to.
No one in his year (maybe Barty, to an extent) could match his skills.
But Lily was a close second, he knew that and he wasn’t too proud to admit that.
Back then, he just didn’t know that their (almost) equal skills in things witchcraft related would not be the only thing he would end up comparing himself to.
It was an open secret that James had a crush on Lily.
Everyone who paid at least a little bit of attention to James has noticed how obsessed he is with her.
It was not like Regulus paid more attention to James than others did.
James just seemed to always be there.
And he was loud, so loud.
He was the exact opposite to Regulus, so of course Sirius liked him better and wanted him to be his brother.
He was always smiling, no matter in what situation he was. And he was a really good person, Regulus knew that.
He never spoke to him but he noticed.
He noticed how James stopped in the hallways to speak to a first year Hufflepuff who was crying. Regulus hadn’t even noticed him, but James sat down on the floor next to him and started telling him jokes, always smiling.
The first year looked up at James with big eyes and as soon as the third year opened his mouth and started talking, the Hufflepuff seemed to forget why he was even sad in the first place. Regulus would never do that. He wouldn’t know what to say and probably just scare them away.
So, yes, Regulus also knew about the crush James had on Lily and he could not understand why she always looked so annoyed. If someone like James would ever talk about him the way he talked about Lily, Regulus would…
Actually, he didn’t know what he would do but he would certainly not look annoyed and walk away.
The first time he heard James talk about her was just after Christmas in his first year, when he was hidden away in a corner in the library and James and some other Gryffindor, Regulus thought his named might be Peter Pettigrew, came in and sat at a table not too far away from him.
“Her hair, Pete,” (so, that really was Peter, Regulus was right.)
“It’s so beautiful I think I’ve never seen hair as beautiful as hers”
“It’s just normal auburn hair, Jamie, you know, the muggles used to burn women just for having hair as hers, they thought they were all witches”
“But… she IS a witch”
“Yes but… Never mind, carry on”
Regulus noticed how confused James was after that and smiled to himself.
He actually smiled.
James Potter.
The only person in years to get Regulus to really smile. And he hadn’t even talked to him yet.
“Yes. So anyways! Have you ever looked her in the eyes?”
“Of course I have. I talk to her almost everyday.”
“No but. Have you ever really looked at her eyes? They are the most beautiful shade of green. What’s the one gemstone thing called again? You know. The green one.”
Emerald. Regulus answered in his head. He long gave up studying and listened to James rant about Lily instead.
“Emerald?” Peter asked James.
“Yes! Her eyes are the most beautiful shade of emerald green! And her skin. She has really nice skin, don’t you think Pete?”
“Her… skin? I mean, yeah, I guess she has really nice skin.” Regulus started feeling sorry for Pettigrew. He must’ve heard similar things from James many times.
“It’s ivory Pete! She has ivory skin! And her smile! I feel like, every time she smiles there’s a breath of wind coming.”
Regulus decided that he should stop listening to their conversation before he started crying.
She really was beautiful.
Regulus couldn’t deny that.
And she was smart. Almost as smart as himself, he already admitted that.
The more he thought about her, the more he realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea of him to compare himself to Lily Evans.
Because yes, he was smarter than her, he had been trained since… forever.
Regulus didn’t know a time in his life where magic hadn’t existed. He grew up with Kreacher in his childhood room. Kreacher bringing food to the table. Paintings of his ancestors talking when he was walking by. A fireplace in their house of which people came out almost daily.
He knew he was going to go to Hogwarts and learn how to use a wand. How to fly a broom and how to brew potions.
She hadn’t known that.
She probably grew up in a small house somewhere in the muggle world, going to a muggle school and learning muggle things.
Regulus actually knew next to nothing about how muggles actually grew up but he knew it wasn’t with house elves raising their children and cooking their food, it wasn’t with talking paintings and fireplaces where people could appear and disappear from.
So, Lily Evans was probably smarter than him.
She learned everything she now knew in just those two years while Regulus had his whole childhood to study.
And in just those years she already learned so much that Regulus thought of her as his only real competition, except for maybe Sirius’ other friend Lupin but he was sick so many times that he couldn’t really keep up (Regulus had no idea what that was about).
And not only was she smart and beautiful, but she was also really popular.
Regulus almost never saw her alone. She was always surrounded by her friends, laughing with them, and playing around.
She did not spend her entire free time in the library studying.
So, maybe Regulus could not compete with her at all. While he may be smarter than her (at the moment at least), he would never be her.
She was beautiful and Regulus looked like he hadn’t slept in years (he hadn’t, not really) and hadn’t eaten in days (also, might be true).
Regulus did have his friends but… they were just the children of his parents’ friends, so he was kind of forced to hang out with them.
Lily had friends.
Real friends.
Friends she made just because of her personality.
Regulus had also never talked to her but he knew that she had to be a great person, if someone like James Potter spent their whole day running after her.
Regulus wondered if he would ever find someone that talked about him the way James talked about Lily.