Tea bags
All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.
Immanuel Kant
[ — ]
“Tell him what you told me.”
It’s been two days since James declared his grandiose plan to Sirius. As predicted, he wasn’t a very big fan of the whole Regulus-note thing, but that was okay, because after convincing him that this idea is brilliant and not “the worst thing I’ve heard all year!”, he was on board now. Sort of. Well, kinda. Okay, not really. But he would be! James knew he was, because he was now even encouraging him to tell the plan to Peter, which meant on some level that he supported it, right?
So, here he was, sitting with Peter and Sirius in the living room of his home, smiling from ear to ear. “I’m going to befriend Regulus!” he said excitedly.
Peter blinked confused and then snorts, chuckling quietly into the silent room before he abruptly stopped. “Oh, you’re not kidding. Sorry.”
James rolled his eyes and Sirius shrugged. “Told you it’s a bad idea. Regulus isn’t really into… people.” James frowned.
“He’ll be into me soon enough!” he answered in defence before grimacing, noticing how weird that sounded. Sirius must have the same train of thought, as he started making a gagging sound. “Sorry, weird way to say it.” He cleared his throat and glances at Peter, who was already looking at him in a strange way; his eyebrow raised and a question in his eyes. “Then, what is he into?”
Sirius shrugged again. “‘Dunno. Last time I checked it was linguistics and weirdly enough, the bible.”
“So, he’s religious.”
“Hell, no.” Sirius chuckled a little, like it was outragiously ridiculous to assume Regulus to be religious. “But I guess he’s just interested in the stories. Or he was. Two months ago. Why don’t you go and ask him yourself? Thinking about him stresses me out,” Sirius whines, lying down on the floor.
“Well, I can hardly just walk into his room and go, “Hey, Regulus! I know we never talk, but just out of curiosity: what are you into these days?” can I?” Everyone went silent for a moment, which made James reconsider immediately. “Wait, can I? Was that cool?”
“Why don’t you, when he’s out of his room the next time, just ask him what he’s doing? Or, what he’s reading at the moment? I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen him without a book in Hogwarts,” Peter suggested.
James smiled brightly again, patting Peter on the back. “That’s actually not a bad idea, Pete!”
“I’m awesome, aren’t I?” Peter grinned proudly. “Am I your best friend now?”
Sirius, who had been way too busy staring at the little flower on the tip of his shoe, sat up straight again and held up his finger as if it was a wand. “Hey, now, slow down. I’m still his best friend.”
“Hmm, I don’t know, Sirius, I’ve known him a lot longer than you have,” Peter teased.
Sirius makes a sound that James always thought only mice could make. “Excuse you, I live here!”
“And I—”
”Okay,” James interrupted, dragging out the ‘y’ a little too long. “I love both of you.” He already saw Sirius opening his mouth to say something. “Equally. Can we go back to my Regulus-note now?”
“Is that the official name of it now?”
”Yeah! I like it, don’t you like it?”
Peter and Sirius both looked at him and then, totally out of the blue and slightly rude, if James may say so, Sirius changed the subject. “I’m still sad Moony couldn’t be here,” he grumbled, looking back down to his shoes. “Why can’t he? Remind me again.”
James sighed in exhaustion. “I already told you twenty minutes ago, Prongs. He didn’t tell us, we all don’t know why he couldn’t make it.”
Sirius groaned, as if he were to die any second without Remus by his side.
This obsession was new. It started a few months ago, after Sirius abruptly broke things off with Marlene — not that they were officially dating or anything, but they were doing... everything but the romance part together. Or at least they used to, before Sirius decided to ‘break up’ with her in the middle of the library one day. It’s been hard to stay friends with her, in the beginning. Marlene held a grudge against him and Sirius seemed to have lost all interest in her, emotionally and physically, overnight. Then, after weeks of not talking, Marlene’s anger turned into more of an accepting feeling, and yes, she still holds it over his head that he broke up with her in a library, but at least they can talk again.
Now, the thing with Remus is a lot trickier, as James knows some details that Peter, Sirius and probably no one else knows in the castle. Once, after a party, as James brought Remus back to bed, he slurred a confession of being in love with a friend. James didn’t see a problem with that at first, but then Remus said something along the lines of “He’ll never want me that way.” and it clicked with James.
Like a lightbulb over his head, he understood. Was Remus gay? He hadn’t mentioned it before, even though James had always thought that it was odd how he didn’t mention to have even a little crush on any of the girls around over the years. “Ah,” James mumbled that night, already thinking about how the actual fuck he could comfort him. “Is it a very close friend?”
Remus nodded into the cushion on his bed and mumbled into it before shifting his head so that he was lying with it to the side. “The closest,” he whined, rather pathetically.
James blinked. The closest. Well, there were only four relatively close friends James knew Remus to have. Himself, Sirius, Peter and…
Regulus?
James was just about to ask when he noticed that Remus wasn’t even awake anymore. His eyes were closed and his breathing was even for the first time this evening. James sighed as he got up and left.
He recalled Remus laughing into his face the next day, saying that it’s definitely not Regulus and then he just had to emphasise how ridiculous that was.
The close friend was, as it turned out, no one else but Sirius.
And yeah, that came with a lot of problems. First of all, they were friends. It could ruin a lot of things if Sirius wouldn’t feel the same way. Or if he did, and they’d date for a while but then Sirius abruptly would lose interest in Remus the same way that he did with Marlene after a few months, it would be the equally awkward.
Second of all, Sirius was not gay, probably. He had dated a lot of girls in the past and never even mentioned the thought of questioning his sexuality. Sure, there were comments here and there like “That guy is so fit.” or “That outfit really compliments that guy’s figure.” but never “I’m in love with [insert guy name here].” He was a lot like James, sexuality wise. Admiring, yes. Love, no.
And third of all, now that Sirius was quite literally obsessed with Remus. James could only imagine how hard it must be to get over him. And to be honest, James assumed he did know why Remus didn’t show up today. The answer to that question was sitting in front of him: black hair, blue eyes, frown. Sirius Black.
“So, what’s the plan?” Peter asked, turning his head from Sirius back to James and pulling him out of his thoughts.
“Hm?”
“You know, the plan. You usually have a plan for this sorta thing.”
Sirius snorts. “James usually has a plan for wooing my younger brother? I hope not.” Before James could point out that he was in fact not planning to woe him, just make him like him so that he could be part of their summer fun times, a noise interrupted him.
There was a person walking down the stairs, dressed in black, a hood over their head so they’re unrecognisable. But due to the fact that no one in this house wore black except one person, James knew exactly who that was.
The boy, whose eyes seemed to be glued to the small book in his hands, abruptly stopped in his tracks, slowly lifting his gaze to look at Peter, Sirius, and James, who, to his obvious surprise, were all already looking at him. The book, hardly larger than an average orange, seemed to hold his undivided attention as he nervously surveyed the three older boys before finally finding his voice and speaking up,
“What’s going on here?”
Regulus Black.