Promises
Regulus sighed. Sirius was out again with their mother to attend his piano lessons. “Stupid golden child,” he thought bitterly. Since Sirius was the first-born child, he was the heir and their parents wanted him to be perfect in everything. Academics, Arts, Music, everything. And Sirius was perfect in everything. Just like their parents wanted. For that reason, he was out most of the time for either tutoring, music lessons or at their family business so that he would “learn the ropes” early. Regulus knew it was not his brother’s fault, but he could not help but feel betrayed by him.
Sirius had promised him the previous night, when their parents were in deep slumber, that they would go out in the streets and play with the neighborhood kids the next day. Regulus had smiled and had fallen asleep, holding onto his promise. And Sirius had broken it. Just because of his stupid piano lessons. So, Regulus was left alone at home with nothing to do. He decided to finish reading his book. The one his mother disapproved of reading. As you can tell, Regulus enjoyed being a rebel. (He was nowhere near being one) He headed up to his room and lodged the book out of the space between the bed’s headboard and wall. He crawled under the covers and propped the book up on his pillow and began to read.
The heavy rain pattered on the windows and shook the doors. Regulus was terrified. He hated storms. It reminded him of his mother when she lost her temper. Almost everything reminded him of his insane mother nowadays. He felt as though his blanket would do nothing to protect him, so he slid under the bed and shut his eyes tight.
“Sirius!” he called out desperately. Then, he remembered that he wasn’t home. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Strangely, Regulus heard someone knocking on the glass window.
Regulus wondered who would be knocking on a window during a storm. Their house was at least 3 floors tall, and it would be quite hard to climb all the way up. Maybe someone did the near impossible. Cautiously, Regulus got out from under the bed and approached the window. A silhouette of a person could be seen. He slowly opened it. The rain came in and made the carpet all soggy. He started to panic. His mother will bring out the stick if she spots even a drop of water on their expensive carpet. He shut the windows again, not caring whether the person who was knocking got hurt during it or not. Regulus turned around, closed his eyes, and sighed in relief.
“Hey,” a voice said. Regulus shot his eyes open. He saw a tanned boy, probably around his age, with the messiest black hair he had ever seen in his life. He looked as though he were wearing some sort of robe. “Wha-? W-who are you?” Regulus sputtered out. “Hi! I’m James, James Potter!” the boy greeted. “Wow, I always wanted to introduce myself like that! I sound so smart! Do I sound smart?” James rambled. “Uh, sure. Uhm, why are you here?” Regulus asked.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “What do you mean by you don’t know?” Regulus furrowed his eyebrows. “I mean that I don’t know.” James spoke slowly, as if he was explaining to a kid.
Regulus made a noise out of frustration. “How did you even come here?” he questioned. “I was flying on my broomstick, and I ended up here,” he explained. “Broomstick?” Regulus queried. “Uh, yeah? Don’t you use them?” James asked, surprised. “No…” Regulus responded. “Whatever. Anyway, I can’t fly out in the rain, so I guess you’re stuck with me!” James said cheerily. “Fun.” Regulus muttered flatly. “Well, if you’re going to be here for a while, you might as well make yourself comfortable,” Regulus patted on a spot on his bed. He snuggled under his covers and continued reading, not having a care in the world. James blinked.
“Soo,” James dragged out the syllable.
“So?” Regulus stopped reading and looked up with annoyance visible on his face.
“Aren’t you going to entertain me? I am your guest after all.” James grinned.
His smile looks beautiful.
Regulus shook his head to clear his thoughts. Why was he thinking about that? He had just met this boy 5 seconds ago. Regulus simply shrugged. “C’mon! Let’s do something! Like, play a game or bake something! Or just talk if you want,” James blabbered.
They had no board games or anything to play at home (his parents hated anything to do with the term “fun”) so that was out of the question and if they tried to bake anything, that would surely end up in disaster. So, Regulus settled for talking. It was the safest option after all. “Fine. Let’s talk. What do you want to talk about?” Regulus raised his eyebrow. There was nothing quite interesting about him to talk about. Unless you counted talking about books interesting. Whenever he ranted about a book he had liked to his brother, Sirius would shut him up halfway through. And if James was anything like Sirius, then he would get bored quickly. (They were quite alike, but oh well)
“Anything. How your day has been or more about your family. Maybe one of your hobbies, although I can clearly see it, is reading. Maybe you can ramble about a book.” James replied. A smile creeped onto Regulus’ face. No one really cared about his interests or feelings. Sirius did, but Regulus barely saw him these past few weeks. And this handsome boy, someone he had met merely 10 minutes ago, cared about him. “Maybe it’s all an act.” Regulus thought. No, he seems too naïve to do that.
He found it quite odd, but he wasn’t complaining. So, he talked. Not a lot at first, but he slowly loosened up. Regulus talked about how his day had been so far, his favorite book right now, a little bit about his brother (he didn’t want to scare James off by telling him all about his family, so his brother would do for now. Maybe later he would talk about his retched family.), how he wanted to learn crocheting, how old he was, what his name meant and probably a million other little things. James nodded along to everything, chiming in with his tales every now and then. James liked how when Regulus talked about stuff he liked, he moved his hands around a bit and his eyes would light up like a bulb. It was very endearing to him.
3 hours had gone by, but to Regulus, it had felt like a few minutes. The rain had stopped quite some time ago, but James had still stayed. It surprised him greatly. Regulus had expected James to leave the second the storm had calmed down. However, he didn’t. He stayed until he had stopped talking, until there was practically nothing to talk about. Regulus’ lips quirked up at the thought of James liking him for himself. No one ever did. They heard the front door slam open and Walburga’s screeching voice telling Sirius to go upstairs to his room. Regulus’ eyes widened. His brother could not see James. (For selfish reasons) “I have to go,” James said abruptly. He got up and picked up his broomstick from the ground and headed to the window.
Regulus’ heart dropped at the sight of seeing James go but he knew it was urgent. He could tell from his tone. Maybe he also did not want to see his brother. Maybe he only liked Regulus. That thought made his stomach explode into a thousand butterflies. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Reggie.” James turned around with a smile before hoisting himself onto his broom. “Bye, James,” he gave him a small wave. James saluted and flew out of his room. Regulus rushed to the window to see James’ figure get smaller and smaller as he went. He smiled slightly.
Sirius came bursting into the door. “Hiya, Reg.” Sirius mumbled. “Hey,” Regulus turned around. “What have you been doing for so long?” he asked. “Oh, y’know, just reading.” Regulus went back to his book that had been abandoned on his bed. “Nerd.” Sirius scoffed, flopping onto his own bed. Regulus shook his head slightly at that comment. He knew he wasn’t a nerd. Not a big one anyway.
He grinned, pretending to read his book. Tomorrow. James had said he would come tomorrow. Regulus waited patiently for him. Tomorrow, he would see him again.