Chapter 1
“What the hell is this?” Regulus holds the stuffed animal by its ear, between his thumb and pointer finger as he looks at Barty and Evan.
“Your birthday gift.” Evan says as Barty stifles a chuckle.
Regulus looks between the pair confused as to why his idiot best friends chose to give him a deer stuffed animal for his 16th birthday. He sees Barty chuckling and Evan nudging him in the stomach to shut it and sighs. “Whatever, you’re idiots anyways.”
“Come on Reg don’t be like that…think of it like this you can talk to it. Tell it whatever you don’t want to tell us…like a diary but with a stuffed animal, yeah?” Barty can hardly pull himself together long enough to say this which makes Regulus roll his eyes.
“What, like I’m five? I’m not going to talk to a bloody stuffed animal.” Regulus huffs and throws the stuffed animal on his bed so he can finish getting ready for classes.
He goes throughout the day as normal until dinner. He’s part way through his meal when he hears singing…he closes his eyes hoping that the singing he hears isn’t what he thinks it is. When he opens the again he realizes it's exactly what he thought it was, walking up to him singing is his brother and his dumb friends.
Regulus moves to get up and leave but Barty and Evan are there immediately and join in on the singing. He groans before resigning himself to sit and bear the fact that they are drawing attention to him in front of everyone in the Great Hall. They’re now in front of him, his brother and James couldn’t look more happy with themselves if they tried. Holding a small chocolate cupcake in hand as they sing happy birthday to him. To their credit his brother's boyfriend and Peter look less enthused at the development of singing to him in front of everyone…but they’re still doing it.
“Happy Birthday Reggie!” Sirius exclaims once they finish singing.
Regulus glares at him but only lightly, they’ve spent the last year making up and he doesn’t want to ruin that. “Sit down Sirius, you're making a scene.”
Sirius, James, Peter, and Remus all take a seat across from them at the table. Regulus rolls his eyes at all of them to make them well aware of how he feels about them singing to him in the great hall.
“Happy Birthday Reg” He hears James say before he looks over and sees James holding out a small box for him. He looks at James curiously, but takes the box when James makes a little motion for him to take it.
“Prongs! You’re not supposed to outdo me by getting my brother a birthday gift!” Sirius exclaims to James then looks at Regulus. “I’ll get you something just wait, I've been busy!”
Regulus waves his brother off with a yeah okay before he starts unwrapping the gift James got him. James, the boy he’s had a crush on for two years and thought was at least mildly attractive for three. James, who he hated before that for having all of his brother's attention when he wanted it. James, his brother's best friend—his brother who he just reunited with. James, who got him a birthday gift when he didn’t have to. He freezes when he opens the box and sees the gift laying inside.
He dumps the rings from the box into his hand and picks one up. He looks at it, seeing the Leo constellation outlined on one of them with a tiny star carved out in the lines, his star Regulus to be specific. He looks over the other rings before looking up at James. “Not bad Potter, thank you.”
The group has already moved on and are talking and eating the rest of dinner as regulus puts the rings on trying not to think too far into the fact that James Potter gave him a gift. A gift he knows Regulus will like because of his affinity for rings and almost undoubtedly personalized considering the engraving on the ring. He can’t help the flutter he feels in his heart at the thought, but he tamps it down knowing nothing can come from it.
“So Potter got you a gift.” Barty smirks and teases him when they get back to their shared dorm.
“Shut up” Regulus snaps, regretting the day he ever told his friends about his little crush.
To avoid dealing with Evan or Barty and the inevitable teasing, he lays in his bed, shuts the curtains on his four poster and casts a silencing charm. He lays there for a bit letting himself enjoy the peace and quiet after his friends, his brother, and his brother's friends were talking all through dinner—paying more attention to him than normal because it's his birthday. He wants to talk about how he’s feeling about it all but he refuses to talk to his friends, giving them more things to tease him about.
He huffs and stares at the stuffed deer laying on his bed from where he threw it earlier and then picks it up and sets it in front of him. After glaring at it for a moment he mumbles “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
“They were joking but I might as well talk to you and get everything off my chest instead of telling them and having to hear about it for the next however many years.” He says to the stuffed animal. “Why did Sirius have to bring his stupid friends with him to sing happy birthday to me? I bet you the only reason James got me a gift was to be polite because Sirius told him they would be singing to me. He seems like the type. I don’t even like him—as a matter of fact I dislike him…very much. Or I used to, ugh it used to be so easy to dislike him. He was all Sirius talked about and as his younger brother I was jealous. I wanted Sirius’ attention but James had it all.”
He takes a breath and picks up the deer to bring it closer to him, laying it in front of him with a hand on it. “But now, it's…he’s still so stupid…and he still has all of Sirius’ attention but for some reason I can’t bring myself to dislike him anymore. His stupid smile, stupid hugs, stupid pranks, everything that used to make me not like him is suddenly…it's suddenly interesting. I notice him more than I should and I hate that. Then he goes and gives me this gift? What does it even mean? Rings? And nice ones? One of which is personalized with the Leo constellation with my namesake being the only star engraved through it? Why is he so—“
He cuts himself off with a sigh and rolls onto his back placing the stuffed animal on his chest. “Why couldn’t I like anyone else? He’s my brother's best friend. My brother I’m repairing a relationship with. But I like him so much, I’m talking to a stuffed animal for fucks sake.”
He closes his eyes, laying his head back, holding the stuffed animal as he thinks about James, a small smile on his face until he falls asleep.
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James Potter is walking into his dorm when a stuffed black cat hits his chest. “¿Qué es esto?” He looks up at Peter who threw it at him, confused.
Peter shrugs, “Saw it and thought you’d like it. When we were younger you had that one stuffed animal you talked to and slept with, yeah?”
“Hey , yeah thanks Pete” James continues walking to his bed before laying down and looking over the stuffed cat.
“You’re cute, I should give you a name” He starts talking to the stuffed animal without a second thought. “Well until then let me tell you about my day.”
As he talks to the stuffed animal detailing his day his thoughts can’t seem to help but shift to Regulus, who is in the Slytherin dorms doing the same. His talk with the stuffed animal veers off on to a tangent of Regulus for a good ten minutes before he finally seems to get a hold of his thought process again.
“Huh that was weird, I mean sure I think about Reg sometimes but not always so singularly focused” He murmurs to the cat but shrugs it off without thinking much of it.
He hears the dorm door open and sees Remus and Sirius walk in. He greets them both, still lying down, only looking up when the mattress dips on his bed and he sees Sirius situating himself on the bed.
“Heya Prongs, Reggie seemed to really like the gift you got him today and I just don’t know what to get him. How did you land on the rings?” Sirius sighs, flopping back on James’ bed still racking his brain trying to figure out what to get for his younger brother.
“I’m not sure Pads, he likes rings, wears them all the time actually so when you told me his birthday was coming up and I saw those I figured it was as good a gift as any and when they offered engraving I figured why not. Plus when they said they could charm them to magically fit whoever wears them I couldn’t pass them up. I mean it just made sense to get them.” James says casually, not thinking much into the gift he got for the younger Black brother.
“Yeah, but you still got him a gift he liked and I got him nothing Prongs” Sirius whines. “What kind of brother doesn’t get their sibling a gift?”
“Padfoot come on mate, you just reconnected. I mean did he get you anything for your birthday?”
Sirius groans and nods, “Yeah, he got me some new eyeliner and some t shirts which I’m surprised he found in the first place since they definitely had to come from a muggle store.”
James thinks over this information for a little bit mulling over something to suggest to Sirius. “Alright well why don’t you have Remus help you pick out a jumper for him and maybe some books? Remus would probably be the best out of all of us to pick something out that would be Regulus’ style.”
Sirius’ face lights up at this idea and he turns to James excited. “Prongs I don't know when you started paying so much attention to my brother but thank goodness you did because that’s perfect! I’ll go talk to Moony about it!”
Sirius bounds away to Remus’ bed before James can respond but he thinks to himself that he really doesn't pay that much attention to Regulus. I mean really it's the normal amount of attention to spend on someone, right? Yeah of course, he pays attention to all of his friends this much and since Regulus is Sirius’ younger brother, he should be paying attention to him. If for nothing else, for Sirius’ sake–look it already came in handy tonight. He thinks these things to himself and goes to sleep satisfied that he was able to help Sirius think of a gift for Regulus.