Six
5th October 1976
Cross my heart, won’t tell no other
And though I can’t recall your face
I still got love for you
James
On Tuesday morning as James fumbled around for his wand on the bedside table, he accidentally knocked The Marauder’s Map onto the floor. He and Sirius had been looking at the map late into the night planning their route for their upcoming prank and when he went to pick it up he realised that they hadn’t deactivated it. As he was moving to do just that, he was distracted by a dot that wasn’t where it was supposed to be. It was five in the morning, so Regulus really had no reason to be on the top of the astronomy tower instead of in his dorm or on the quidditch pitch. Overcome with curiosity, James quickly dressed and took off towards the astronomy tower.
As he moved through the castle, he made sure to keep an eye on the map, every time he checked it Regulus remained in the same spot. James considered for a moment that Regulus might be doing an astronomy assignment, but who worked on homework at five in the morning? When he was finally climbing the steps to the tower, he considered that he himself didn’t have a good reason as to why he was here. Sure he had seen Regulus’s name here on the map, but he saw lots of people in lots of places at weird times and had never bothered to investigate. Even without a good reason to give himself, he definitely didn’t have one for Regulus if he were caught by the boy, who wasn’t even allowed to know about the map; but James had come too far and wasn’t about to turn around now, even as he was cursing himself for not grabbing his invisibility cloak.
He climbed the steps to the tower as quietly as he could, not even sure if he wanted to make his presence known when he got to the top yet. As he got higher, he heard the faint sounds of Regulus’s voice being carried towards him by the morning breeze. James stopped for a second to check the map again and saw that Regulus was indeed still alone, so who could he be talking to?
“...just like you said, Sirius. He’s so funny and smart and god, he’s so bloody kind, even when he doesn’t have to be and most especially when he shouldn’t be.” He could hear Regulus clearly now that he was almost to the top, and now that he had some of his answers he somehow had even more questions. “I know I gave you so much shit for choosing him over me, but I get it now Sirius, Potter is incredible.”
Regulus was talking about him? That just didn’t make sense. Why would Regulus come to the top of the astronomy tower at five in the morning to have a pretend conversation with his brother about James?
“I know he’s your friend, not mine, but being able to practise with him in the mornings reminds me of when you and I would go out early and play games against each other. Do you remember that?” Regulus let out a soft laugh. “You used to wake me up saying we’d never sleep later than this at Hogwarts because we’d have so much to do. Guess you were wrong about one thing, huh?”
James could hear the strain in Regulus’s voice as he fought back tears. He heard a few sniffles before Regulus continued, “being around Potter is just so easy, he just pulls you right into his orbit without you even realising it. I remember you telling me over Christmas how he’s like that and I couldn’t understand it at the time, but I get it now. Honestly, he’s such a sop that if I didn’t turn up for quidditch practice soon he might go hunting the dungeons to make sure I’m okay.”
As much as he wanted to mentally argue with Regulus’s claim, he couldn’t really. If Regulus failed to show up after a month of them meeting every morning, he probably would be too concerned to finish practice until he found him again. The concern for Regulus shook James, he hadn’t realised that he’d started to actually care about the other boy throughout the weeks. He wasn’t sure what that meant, or how the real Sirius would feel if he knew that his best friend was essentially meeting his brother every morning for quidditch practice.
James quickly realised that Regulus was wrapping up his imaginary conversation and scurried down the stairs as fast as he could manage. By the time Regulus made it onto the pitch, James had managed to make himself look like he’d been up there for a full half-hour already. He watched as Regulus mounted his broom and kicked off the ground, joining James high above the rest of the world.
“Alright Potter?” Regulus nodded towards him, a small pull in the centre of his brows told James that he hadn’t masked his emotions well enough.
“Alright, yourself?” He tried and failed to sound casual.
“Yeah.” Regulus replied before flying off to his end of the pitch. They spent the rest of the morning how they had been the last few weeks together before once again heading their separate ways. James wondered if seeing Regulus up the astronomy tower so early in the morning was a normal occurrence or if it was something he only did on occasion.
The next morning when his alarm went off, the first thing James did was check the map to see where Regulus was. Once again, the little dot denoting where he was in the castle showed him at the top of the astronomy tower alone. James wasn’t sure why he went back up there, he knew Regulus would meet him outside when he was done, and he definitely knew it was an invasion of Regulus’s privacy, but up he went anyway. When James got to the top, he stopped again and listened.
This time Regulus was enthusiastically talking about a recent transfiguration assignment he’d managed to get full marks on despite it being his worst subject, for some reason it brought a smile to James’s face to hear the normally stoic Regulus sounding like an overly-excited child. When Regulus transitioned to talking about the latest book he’d been reading, James leaned against the wall, closed his eyes and pretended that Regulus was telling him these things instead of imagining that he was talking to his brother. This tactic worked too well as in his mind he could see the lively spark behind Regulus’s eyes and the excited way he would be moving his hands around in the air as he explained the incredibly dramatic part he’d just read the night before.
When he eventually pulled himself away to head to the pitch to meet Regulus, he had a plan formed in his mind. He wasn’t sure what the end goal was other than to just make the younger Black boy feel better. Even though he seemed in brighter spirits this morning than he had been yesterday, James knew that he must have felt so incredibly lonely to come to the astronomy tower so early in the morning just to pretend like he was talking to his brother. James made it from the astronomy tower to the quidditch pitch in record time and went looking for what he was after. He didn’t have long but if he did this right then maybe Regulus could take his mind off things for a while.
“Slacking off today Potter?” Regulus called out as he sauntered onto the field, clearly shocked that James wasn’t already in the air as usual. The confused look on Regulus’s face only deepened when James broke into a broad, silly grin.
“Thought we might do something a bit different than the normal practice today,” James answered as he closed the distance between them.
“Haven’t you been doing the same practice routine every morning since second year?” Regulus cocked his head to the side and surveyed James closely as if he were looking for a sign that he wasn’t really himself.
“Since I was a kid actually,” James nodded, “do you have your snitch?”
“Of course I do,” he answered sceptically, pulling the little golden ball from his pocket.
“How do you feel about some one-on-one? We can go back and forth between both being chasers and seekers so we can practise both positions together,” James didn’t realise until he actually said the words out loud that he was nervous about how Regulus would react. He hoped that Regulus wouldn’t figure out that he’d been listening to him the morning prior, he knew that if that came to light now that Regulus wouldn’t be likely to continue being friendly towards James.
“One-on-one?” James swore he could see the ghost of a smile fighting its way onto Regulus’s face.
“Yeah, thought maybe it could be fun.” He tried to shrug and act like he didn’t care, when the truth was that if Regulus hated the idea and made that known to him, he was sure it would actually hurt his feelings.
“Sounds great!” Regulus was beaming at him, causing his stomach to turn in a way he wasn’t familiar with, it was almost like the nerves he felt before a game, but not quite.
“Brilliant,” James replied with a broad grin of his own. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but something about that morning left him feeling lighter than he had in ages. Somehow it had become easy to be around Regulus even despite all of the differences they had.
That morning’s practice affected James far deeper than he thought it would in the moment, and for some reason he just couldn’t take his mind off of it in the hours that followed. It had been different to play against Regulus in that way, entirely different than it had been the last few years when they faced off during matches. When their teams were playing against one another James spent more time focused on the game than any one player on the team, but playing just the two of them allowed him the opportunity to see Regulus play up close, something he didn’t get when he sat in the stands.
Truly, if he were being one hundred percent honest with himself, James had always watched Regulus when he played. At first it was simple curiosity, this was his best friend’s younger brother after all, and it’s not like they ever had much time to interact. Over time though, and James couldn’t say exactly when this had happened, he started watching Regulus out of pure and genuine interest in him. He’d noticed it only this term, their morning practices ensured of that, but once he did James started to realise that watching Regulus Black just simply wasn’t a new hobby of his.
What was different this term was James’s utter lack of an obsession over Lily Evans. Not that he didn’t fancy her, of course he fancied her, but he wasn’t trying nearly as hard to win her affections. If he really had to place blame for that, he’d also say it was Regulus’s fault. How was James supposed to focus on trying to win over Lily if Regulus was taking up so much space in his brain? Not that he minded, he started to find that putting the confusing pieces of the other boy together inside his mind had become a relatively soothing activity to pass his time.
James used to spend all of Professor Binns’s class fretting over ways to win Lily over or sulking when a plan hadn’t gone right, his mind was always a whirlwind during his lectures and it was becoming stressful. Since he’d been meeting Regulus however, James spent these classes turning over every piece of information he’d started to gather about the other boy. Every little detail, every bit of information, James was piecing together in his mind, trying to form a full picture of who exactly Regulus Black was. Starting with when and why he’d started to care.
That had been the easiest piece for James to put together and the hardest for him to understand. It all went back to Christmas night and everything that had happened. Regulus tumbling through the floo irrevocably changed James, he can’t even say he can remember who he was before that night. The way Regulus’s eyes changed in an instant from the deepest blue he’d ever seen to a steel grey, every single emotion wiped from his face and voice in that one moment. James knew the Black household was one ruled with iron fists, but he’d never seen Sirius change like that and it had shaken him to his very core to see it in Regulus.
In that moment he remembered how small Regulus had looked when he joined them on the train during their second year and his first. James knew Regulus was only a year younger, but he’d looked so small that first day on the train that he felt protective of the younger Black boy immediately, and Christmas had been a shock to his system. He hadn’t slept right since that night, not that there was anyone he could talk to about it. No one knew that Regulus had brought Sirius to the Potters’ that night, not even Sirius himself. At first it was a secret he kept out of obligation to Regulus, but eventually it became a secret James kept out of shame.
He should’ve tried harder, he should’ve done more, done something, anything, to keep Regulus from going back to that house. For weeks after that night he tried thinking of every possible plan, tried talking Sirius and his parents into taking half the Ministry into Grimmauld to break Regulus out, but it was no use. James’s parents said there was nothing they could do unless he asked them for help, and Sirius couldn’t forgive his brother for the damage their parents had done. James tried so hard to get Sirius to see that Regulus had been brainwashed and abused, that he could still be saved, but his best friend was ready to give up on his only brother because he thought he’d given up first. So James vowed never to tell another living soul about his failure that night and every night after. Just as he vowed never to tell that it was Regulus going back to Grimmauld for the summer that caused James to lash out against Snape at the end of last term, rather than the comments that were being made about Sirius.
James felt like a complete and total mess if he were to be fully honest, a feeling that he wasn’t entirely used to. Sure, he had his moments, but ever since that night James just hasn’t felt like he could ever sit comfortably with himself. On nights where he felt particularly bad about not being able to help Regulus, he found himself constantly thinking about what kind of torture he would be going through at home and blaming himself for every second of it. One night when Sirius was feeling particularly awful, he revealed to James that Walburga was a skilled Legilimens and would often use it to get information from her sons that they were trying to hide. Later after Sirius had gone to bed, James read every book in his family library about legilimency and occlumency, every book making him more and more appalled at the idea of ever using something like that on a child.
That was nothing compared to the night James learned that at least two of the three unforgivable curses were commonly used at Grimmauld, a fact that he begged and pleaded with Sirius to take to the Ministry, he refused to say a word. Whether it was from some sense of loyalty, love, or fear, Sirius refused to tell anyone other than James the awful details of his home life. Well, James and Remus. That was the one thing that made things easier on James, Sirius still had Remus to turn to and from what he could tell Regulus had good, loyal friends. It didn’t make the gravity crushing him feel any less, nor did it prevent him from feeling like he’d been knocked off centre, but it made it so James at least didn’t feel quite so guilty when he could feel himself falling apart.
“Oi, Prongs, quit daydreaming about Evans and lets go yeah?” Sirius thumped the back of James’s head drawing him from his thoughts.
“What? Oh, yeah, sorry Pads,” he looked around and saw that everyone else had left already. “Pete and Moons leave already?”
“Yeah,” he replied as James packed up his books and heaved his bag over his shoulder before following Sirius out of the classroom. The two boys walked in silence for several minutes until they turned down a mostly deserted hallway, most of the students having already found their way to class. “How is he?”
“Who?” James felt his heart pound in his chest to a steady beat of he knows, he knows he knows.
“Remus,” at Sirius’s response James felt his heart slow and his breath come back to him.
“Remus? What do you mean? You share the same room and half your class schedule, you see him all the time.” He couldn’t help the fact that a relieved breath escaped him when he realised he hadn’t been found out after all.
“Yeah but,” Sirius’s expression turned pained and he looked like he was ripping the next words out of himself with a rusted hook, “we don’t talk anymore James. Remus and I used to talk all the time and now I feel like he’s so far away he’s actually in outer space, I feel like I’m trapped in his orbit and I can’t move any closer no matter how hard I try.”
“Have you tried talking to him?” The solution sounded pretty reasonable to James but Sirius let out a frustrated huff.
“There isn’t any point, he doesn’t want to talk to me, not anymore.” The hurt in his voice was almost palpable. “I think I lost him, James.”
“I’m sure you haven’t, he’s probably just caught up with his schoolwork, you know how he is.” For some reason he couldn’t explain, that felt like a blatant lie.
“James, we haven’t spoken since February, not properly at least.” He slowed his pace almost to a crawl as they neared the door to their next class.
“Over the summer-”
“Over the summer we talked about what happened and he made it very clear to me that I have not been forgiven,” he almost sounded bitter but James knew it was directed at himself and not at their friend.
“Have you tried to change that?” They’d fully stopped outside the room and were talking in hushed tones at that point.
“I don’t really feel like I can, I think we might be broken beyond repair.” Sirius’s face was pure heartbreak for only an instant before it was blank again.
“I don’t think so, I think if that were the case he wouldn’t bother at all.” James managed to drag Sirius into the classroom and to their seats. “I’ll talk to him about it, yeah?”
“Just…don’t make him feel pressured about it or anything okay? I was already the one that screwed everything up between us and I don’t want him to feel like I’m demanding his forgiveness.” James felt his own heart break for his friends and their fractured bond, he’d always relied on Remus to be there for Sirius in ways he couldn’t and now that that had been taken from him James saw the way it weighed him down.
“It’ll be okay Sirius, Moony could never walk away.” He tried to reassure his best friend in the last few moments before class began, hoping against all odds that he was right about this.