Halloween party
Regulus never really liked Halloween. He didn't hate it, it was more that he had never celebrated it and generally didn't plan on starting now, especially since the major attractions of Halloween were meant for children and he was already seventeen. He never understood why Sirius went out of his way to disobey their parents and celebrate every year. I mean sure Regulus didn't believe in what his parents stood for and honestly couldn't give any less of a shit what they thought of him, but he wasn't going to go out of his way to get on their bad side, especially for something as trivial as a holiday. Walburga and Orion didn't have anything against Halloween specifically, it was more a general disdain for all holidays, or anything that allowed for their children to be anything other than their picture perfect pureblood heirs for that matter. So, since Regulus wasn't too keen on upsetting his parents he never really got 'into the spirit' of any holidays. Sirius however didn't see it the same way. Sirius would take any opportunity possible to disobey their parents. As a result Sirius loved all holidays, especially the ones that didn't require him to go home.
Although Regulus didn't particularly like holidays, he figured if anything could get him to celebrate it would be James. James always managed to find the good in everything, which is probably why he and Regulus were so perfect for each other. James always found a way to balance out all of Regulus's negative energy with his own positive energy, and find the good in all the situations where all Regulus could find was despair. Now most of the time the upside to the situation that James would find would be rather small and quite frankly a little bit stupid, but Regulus found humor in James's ability to find something good in everything and everyone.
Regulus sighed deeply as he finished his makeup. He had remembered how much James had loved when he wore eyeliner in the past and figured he might as well wear it again. After putting down his eyeliner Regulus began looking around for an outfit to wear. Suddenly he spotted James's Gryffindor sweater in the corner of the room. Regulus quickly walked over to the sweater and put it on over his plain black T-shirt. Then Regulus tied his hair back into a small ponytail before leaving his room.
-A few minutes later, in Gryffindor tower-
When Regulus got to Gryffindor tower he simply let himself into the common room. Over the course of the school year so far he had snuck into the common room late at night so many times he had the password memorized. Regulus made his way through the common room and walked to James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter's dorm room and knocked on the door. He had showed up to the common room about an hour early so that he could help them set up and see James for a little while longer. when the door opened Regulus saw James standing in the door. He had already changed for the party. James was wearing an ABBA T-shirt and a pair of loose fitting worn down jeans with holes and patches all over them, along with a headband with antlers attached to it. His hair was poofy in the front almost covering the band of the headband and his glasses were slightly asque. James adjusted his glasses and turned his head to look at Regulus."oh, hey Reggie, come on in." James said as he motioned for regulus to enter the room. Regulus smiled gently and stepped into the room. gazing around the room he noticed that all of the marauder's were wearing headbands that matched their animagus form. Peter was wearing a pair of mouse ears, Remus was wearing a pair of wolf ears, and Sirius was wearing a big pair of floppy dog ears which Regulus found a little odd since they looked nothing like what Sirius's real animagus form looked like. "Aren't these costumes a little on the nose?" Regulus said. "I mean you're doing a pretty shitty job of hiding the fact that you're animagi." Regulus pointed out. "Awe, come on Reggie, live a little!" Sirius said with a lively expression on his face. "So your version of 'living' is getting sent to azkaban for being an illegal animagus." Regulus said with an unimpressed look on his face. "It's not like they can prove anything just because we dress up as animals." Sirius pointed out.
"ooh! That reminds me," James said as he reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of cat ears, handing them to Regulus, "I figured since you're an animagus now too you should join the group costume." "You're out of your mind if you think I'm wearing those!" Regulus said with a deadpan expression on his face. James only looked back at him with a sad look on his face. "Reggie, I think he might cry if you don't wear them." Remus said in a sympathetic tone. Regulus looked into James's sad eyes and rolled his eyes as he took the headband from James. "Fine." He said as he begrudgingly put the headband on. James's frown quickly changed to a smile.
James looked at Regulus's sweater and his face lit up, Regulus could tell that he had an idea that was probably going to be one of the most corny ideas in the world. Without saying a word James ran into his closet and came back wearing a Slytherin sweater that Regulus had given him. The sweater was definitely a bit snug on James and you could see his T-shirt poking out of the bottom of the sweater. James didn't seem to mind the snug fit of the sweater, he liked that it felt as though someone was giving him a big hug, especially since it smelled like Regulus's mint scented shampoo. "There, now we're matching!" James said with a goofy smile on his face. Regulus couldn't help but chuckle a little at how stupid James was. Regulus didn't think James was stupid in the typical sense, Regulus actually thought James was rather intelligent, he would always get good grades in all his classes and was always amazing at coming up with clever ideas on how to play pranks on people, instead Regulus thought James was stupid in that he didn't care about what anyone thought of him. James would always go to great lengths to make someone he loved happy no matter how stupid it made him look, it didn't matter to James what anyone thought of him, it only mattered that he could make someone smile.
"James, that's way too small for you." Regulus pointed out with a small grin on his face. "I don't care how small it is, I like it." James said, fixing his glasses. "Here," Regulus said as he began untying his tie from around his neck and handing it to James, "Where this, that way we can still be matching without you having to squeeze into my sweater." James took the tie out of Regulus's hands and slung it over his shoulders before quickly taking the sweater off and gently placing it on his bed. "You look so cute in the sweater, honestly it's a bit distracting." James said with a content smile on his face. "Good thing Slughorn can't yell at you for drooling this time." Regulus said in a teasing manner as he grabbed the green and silver tie draped across James's shoulders by its ends to pull James closer to him. "I was not drooling!" James said defensively, moving closer to Regulus. "Sure you weren't." Regulus said in a mocking tone as he pulled James's face even closer to his and kissed him sweetly, he wanted to kiss him more passionately but he figured that he should at least try to limit their PDA in front of Sirius.
"Eeeeewwwwwwwww!!!" Sirius shouted from the other side of the room while covering his eyes. Sirius stormed over to James and Regulus with a disgusted look on his face. "You two need to stay at least three feet away from each other all night." Sirius said, crossing his arms with a Serious expression on his face (no pun intended). "You can't ban me from kissing my boyfriend." Regulus said in an annoyed tone. "I can when your boyfriend is my best friend and you're doing it right in front of me!" Sirius said dramatically. "That's not fair! You basically grope Remus in front of all of us constantly and you don't see me banning it!" Regulus yelled. "Well... I'm older than you so I'm allowed to do it!" Sirius shouted defensively. "You're only one year older than me! and you can't tell me what to do, you're not my dad!"Regulus shouted. James found this dramatic display kind of funny, he admired how Sirius was acting like he was Regulus's chaperone or something and Regulus was totally pissed off because Sirius was trying to boss him around. "You are too young to be kissing boys all the time." Sirius said. "firstly I'm only kissing one boy, secondly you're only one year older then me, and thirdly don't even try saying that being a year older than me makes it ok for you to do because you and Moony have been dating for two years and we both know that even before you two were dating you were admittedly kind of a whore." Regulus pointed out. "How dare you call me a whore! I'll have you know that my first kiss was with Moony!" Sirius yelled. immediately Peter, Remus, and James all burst into laughter when they heard Sirius say that. "Mate, you can't actually expect anyone to believe that! You basically had someone's tongue down your throat all of our fourth and fifth years." James said through laughter. "He still does!" Remus pointed out, "only now he just makes out with me."
-about an hour into the party-
It took about an hour for Regulus to remember the fact that he hates parties. I mean it's not like he dispiced them, it was more that parties were never really his thing, especially parties where alcohol was involved. Regulus never cared for drinking, he thought it was stupid to deliberately cause yourself brain damage just so that you could disassociate from the world and embarrass yourself in front of your peers. Apparently something about James made him forget about the downsides to everything, it was like he somehow made Regulus more optimistic about the world around him, and while it was nice to believe that things could be as good as James says they are it came with the solum realization that things aren't as good as James makes them out to be. Nevertheless Regulus found himself standing in the corner of a crowded party trying to get through the night without making a fool of himself or accidentally poisoning himself with whatever cheap booze the Gryffindors found.
Regulus looked down at his cup that he had filled with soda so that people wouldn't be pressuring him to drink all night. He knew that if he were to drink water it would be easy to tell he wasn't drinking alcohol. Suddenly he heard a loud voice yell to him, "Reggie, come get James he's drunk off his ass!" Regulus looked up to see Sirius yelling at him as he made his way across the room. In a few moments Sirius stood in front of Regulus, holding James by the collar of his shirt. "Since you're his boyfriend I figured you should be the one to make Sure his dumb ass doesn't do something stupid like jump off of Gryffindor tower." Sirius explained. James looked at Regulus, it took a moment for it to register in his brain who was in front of him but when it did his face lit up with a big smile. "Reggie, when did you get so pretty?" James said happily. "Jesus christ, yeah he's drunk alright. Thanks for bringing him to me, Sirius." Regulus said as he took James by the hand and tried to start leading him away. "Come on, James. Let's get you to bed." Regulus said, reaching his arm around James to support his weight. "Ok," James said with a smile on his face as Regulus led him away from the party.
Regulus led James to his dorm room and opened the door. The room was dark and had a slight pumpkin scent. Regulus turned on the light and led James to his bed, gently laying him down onto the bed. James quickly shut his eyes and began to doze off to sleep. Regulus laid a gentle kiss on James's forehead before turning off the lights and walking to the door to head back to the party. He didn't really want to go back to the party but he figured that Sirius might get worried if he didn't join the party again. as Regulus reached for the door knob he heard James let out a small groan. "Reggieeeee, don't gooooo." James bellowed out. Regulus turned around to look at James. James could barely hold his eyes open and his glasses were falling off of his face. Regulus walked back over to James and took his glasses off of his head, gently placing them on the nightstand. "Hey, what did you do that for?" James said almost incoherently. "If you don't take your glasses off they'll break, and I'm not repairing them for you again." Regulus said softly. "But now I can't see your beautiful face." James protested. Regulus simply sighed in response. "Don't go, Regieeeee." James said, wrapping his arms around Regulus's waist. Regulus was startled by this at first but after a moment he accepted it and began gently playing with James's hair. "You need to get some sleep James." Regulus whispered. "I'll only go to sleep if you stay here with me." James said. Regulus sighed before finally giving in and saying, "Fine, scooch over." and climbing into bed with James. James made room for Regulus and quickly wrapped himself around Regulus as if he were a baby koala clinging to a tree.
James quickly fell asleep. Regulus however stayed awake for a few more hours. He listened to the calming sound of James's breathing and watched as James's chest rose and fell with each breath. He heard a low rumble of the music playing downstairs. He smelled the slight hint of pumpkin in the air probably left over from James's pumpkin carvings and as the night slowly faded into morning Regulus realized why James had such a love for the holiday. It was a time that he could spend with the people he loved and time he could spend doing things that made him feel like a little kid again. He could do all of the things he did as a child again, and most importantly he could forget about all of the messed up things that were happening in his real life. Halloween was a time that James could throw all caution to the wind and just be free. In this realization Regulus found himself growing fond of the holiday as well. I guess James really could make Regulus love anything if he tried hard enough.