Rotten To The Core

Regulus was still sat on his bed, thinking over what just happened, when Mary burst through the door, closing it quickly behind her. She looked out of breath like she had just run down here, but also surprisingly happy. It must’ve gone well with Lily, Regulus thought. 

“What happened to you? Why are you so ha-” As he was speaking Remus also came through the door with the same look on his face as Mary. From what Regulus could gather, they both had very similar experiences to him in the past hour. “So you both li-” He began, but yet again, he was interrupted by Marlene walking through the door, the only one out of all of them who did not have some sort of romantic interaction, unless you count football as romantic. She still looked happy though, which meant she probably made the team. Regulus sighed, before finally starting again. “So by the looks of it we’ve all had a pretty busy last hour and I get that you all probably want to talk about what’s happened to you, but we need to figure out this whole wand thing. We don’t have long to pull this off so we need to get started as soon as possible. Does anyone know anything about the wand or where it’s kept?” He didn’t expect anyone to know anything yet but he wanted to check just in case. The sooner they get this done the better. Everyone just shrugged or shook their heads. 

“Well we have a computer in here,” Marlene said “why don’t we just search it up?” Regulus kicked himself for not thinking of that sooner, he had been so distracted by his little run in with James that he had completely forgotten they had the computers. They all came to stand behind him as he got online and searched up McGonagall’s magic wand and he was pleasantly surprised when it came up with hundreds of results for different news articles and pages about the wand. As he scrolled through them, he saw that none really said the whereabouts of it apart from one, which was the home page to a museum website. 

“So the wand is there? Can we even get to it?” Mary asked, but Regulus didn’t reply because he was too busy reading the article about it. It said that the wand was kept in the museum with high security measures taken to ensure its safety. Great. They couldn’t get to it. 

“It's locked up, we can't get to it. Shit” Regulus said as he leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. He had closed the page so it was now only the homepage of the computer, which said the news, weather, etc… 

“Wait,” Remus said “this says that it’s James’ coronation soon”

“And?” Regulus said, trying to clear his head of the thoughts of James so he could focus on the matter at hand.

“And, it says that the wand is used to like knight him or something.” Regulus sat up in his chair. This was perfect. An opportunity where he could get the wand to break the barrier and get closer with James. 

“Does it say that anyone can go?” Regulus asked

“I don’t know, it doesn’t say anything about invitations or entry or anything, only that it’s next week” Remus said, going through the article. 

“I could go ask James about it, he did say that we could go see him in his room if we had any questions.” Regulus suggested. He wanted to find out about the wand, but he also just wanted an excuse to see James again, he didn’t want to end their last conversation with his flies being down. 

“Yeah good idea, and if we can go then ask if we can stand up front, then we are closer to the wand.” And James, Regulus thought, but instead of saying that he just nodded and left the room. James said he was in room 3110 so Regulus headed down the corridor, watching the dorm numbers count down. He didn’t want to admit it, but his heart was speeding up as he walked to James’ room, excited that he had a chance to see him again today. He wasn’t used to this feeling and didn’t know what to do with it. It felt like an itch that could only be scratched by James. A longing deep in his chest whenever he wasn’t with him, like some kind of rope was pulling them together and Regulus couldn’t resist it. He shook his head, trying to clear it of the thoughts he was having and bringing it back to the matter at hand. He was only here to ask James about the coronation. Nothing else. 

“When he got to James’ door, he hesitated before knocking, as if he wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do. But he brushed it off and knocked. There were footsteps approaching on the other side of the door, then Regulus heard the click of the handle, and the door opened to reveal James, looking just as good as he had earlier. 

“Hey Regulus! What’s up?” He always sounded so excited when he spoke to them all, so happy that he was able to try and improve their lives in as many ways as possible. 

“Hey, I just had a question,” He said.

“Shoot”

“Ok, is it true that it’s your coronation next week?”

“Yeah! I don’t like making it sound like a big deal so I don’t usually bring it up but yeah, next Saturday”

“And do we all get to go?”

“Yeah, the whole school goes!”

“Ok cool, I don’t suppose we could all stand at the front so we can get a nice good view and, you know, really take in all that goodness?”

“I really wish you could but at the front it’s just me, my parents, and my partner, but I’m not dating anyone at the moment so just me and my parents”

“Damn ok, well thanks for that, I’ll see you tomorrow” Regulus began walking away when James called out behind him.

“Regulus, wait!” He turned around and walked back to the doorway where James was standing.

“Your flies are down again” James said, trying to hold in a laugh. Regulus looked down to see that he was in fact right.

“Fucks sake” He said as he pulled his zipper up, trying not to laugh as well. There goes ending the conversation on a different topic. Regulus went to walk away and James waved goodbye to him while leaning against the doorway, laughing. As much as Regulus would usually feel embarrassed, he didn’t mind when it was with James. It somehow made things better. More bearable. Despite his annoyance at how that was the second time today he had been told by James that his flies were down, he still walked back to the dorm with a small smile playing on his lips.