scheming
"So Prongs, any plans on asking out Lily this year?" Sirius asked as the four Marauders walked through the corridors on their way to their potions lesson.
"I don't know, I'm not sure she'd talk to me for the rest of the year if I ask her again," James answered simply. He would never tell anyone that he didn't like Lily any more. Not because he wanted to lead anyone on, but because he started liking Regulus Black instead.
Where can one even begin describing Regulus Black. For James, he was perfect. The way his curly black hair fell in front of his face when he was reading, how his icy grey eyes scan every room before entering, how his voice can be sweet as honey and sharp as a knife.
The four of them walk down into the dungeon, wandering through the long and winding hallways to their potions classroom.
“Probably,” Remus agrees, opening the door and walking over to the desk he shared with Peter. Remus has always been one for short and simply answers, sometimes being helpful and sometimes raising more questions than he answered.
“I don’t even know why you’re still trying, mate, especially after what happened last time,” Sirius said, not knowing that James had, in fact, given up and started pining for the younger Black brother.
“Please don’t remind me, Pads,” James grumbled as he sat down at his and Sirius’ shared desk, burying his head in his hands as he tried to forget how before the summer the year prior he had given Lily lilies, pun intended and regretted severely, whilst asking her out in front of the whole school. The whole tragically embarrassing ordeal had ended with Lily handing him the flowers and, as sweetly as she could for someone who had been dealing with this for years, said that he should move on as his ‘obsession’ with her was getting out of hand. Later that day, Lily had found him and talked to him in private, explaining how she actually fancied Mary. James had, at her request, not told anyone and attempted to help her, giving her advice where he could and generally being a supportive friend. Since then, he had kept up the act of someone getting over heartbreak and starting the process of healing.
Remus sent him a knowing look. James had suspected that Lily had also told Remus as they had a tight bond, mainly due to having multiple functioning braincells, unlike their friends, and also the fact that they were both hopelessly in love with their best friends.
“I’m probably gonna start focusing on other things, like-,” James started before being interrupted by Sirius
“WHAT? What do you mean ‘focus on other things’? You’ve been hopelessly in love with her for years,” Sirius said, practically jumping from his seat next to James from the shock of it all.
“Well there’s school, quidditch, pranks, other people,” James said slowly as if explaining something to a child.
“Other people? Who? Who, Prongs?” Sirius grabbed him by the collar of his already crumpled shirt. He seemed more invested in James’ love life than James was.
“No one,” James lied, “I’m just saying that I should start taking my mind off things, I’ve had the whole of the holidays to get over her so I thought I should probably start going out with people”
Sirius gave him a suspicious look, as if to say that he didn’t quite believe him before pulling him into a tight hug. In typical Sirius fashion, he started sniffling dramatically. “Finally, I’m proud of you, Prongs, you should get over Lily.”
James sent a baffled look to Remus and Peter, both of them attempting to contain their laughter at the situation unfolding in front of them. Peter at least attempted to hide how hilarious he thought Sirius’ antics where, while Remus turned a couple shades redder at the suppressed laughter.
After calming down, professor Slughorn entered the classroom and James resided himself to two hours of boring torture.
During their free lesson James had expected the four of them to go out to the courtyard or head back to their common room, but not being forced into the library by Remus. Once they had arrived at the library however, he found himself in the perfect position to stare at Regulus Black.
James hadn’t intended on falling for his best friends younger brother, but then again, he hadn’t expected to be rejected by Lily so many times.
It had all started back in March. James had wandered through the dark and deserted hallways late at night after having given up on attempting to fall asleep. His feet had led him all the way up to the astronomy tower, back then he hadn’t known why but after that night it had become a regular occurrence, coming and talking to the younger Black.
Regulus had something magnetic about him, drawing people to him, even if he didn’t want to. He found Regulus there, leaning against the railing and looking up at the night sky. He looked so beautiful in the moonlight, as if carved of marble just for James. He hadn’t known it at that point. How could he? He didn’t know what love was, he hadn’t ‘loved’ Lily, he was sure of that once he fell for Regulus. Loving Regulus, that was love for him. With Regulus, nothing else mattered to him. The world could be burning and he’d still keep looking at him. Not through him like he used to. He used to see him as Regulus Black, Sirius’ brother, but now he was Regulus.
Being pulled back to reality, James got up and started walking through the shelves of books, still looking at Regulus. Not looking where he was going, James accidentally bumped into someone, making both fall over.
James quickly got to his feet, extending a hand to the person he had just toppled over. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t see you there,” he hastily apologized.
“Obviously,” the other person said, taking James’ offered hand and standing up. “Maybe if you’d stop drooling over my friend, you wouldn’t bump into everything.”
James finally looked at him. Evan Rosier. One of Regulus’ friends. He didn’t know much about him apart from that he was a Slytherin in the year bellow the marauders and that he was quite close to Regulus.
“Yeah, I’ll remember that for next time,” James said, nervously scratching the back of his neck.
“Be glad that Regulus is an idiot when it comes to ‘romance and stuff’, otherwise you’d probably be dead,” Evan pointed out, using heavy air quotes around ‘romance and stuff’, like it was something he wouldn’t usually say. He probably didn’t usually say things like that and was only doing so to explain it to James.
“Probably,” James agreed, knowing enough about Regulus from what Sirius had told him to know that Regulus wasn’t one for romance. “Maybe you should be less obvious about how you stare at Crouch”
Evan looked over at Regulus, Barty, Dorcas and Pandora. “I’m good, Barty’s a bigger idiot than Regulus, sometimes it’s helpful, but…” he trailed off, not wanting or needing to finish his sentence.
“Sometimes you wish he’d notice and do something about it,” James finished. He knew how that felt, craving for them to notice, even for a moment, how much you wanted and needed them.
Evan nodded, still looking at Barty. “It seems like we’re in similar situations, though I’d say mine is easier to deal with than yours,” Evan said, finally looking back at James.
“Yeah, you don’t have to deal with everyone thinking you’re still in love with someone when you’re not,” James answered.
“Evans, I’m guessing?”
James nodded, looking at the floor, suddenly extremely interested in the hardwood flooring.
“If only there were a way to convince everyone that you were over her without annoying Sirius by dating his brother but also getting Regulus’ attention and maybe also helping me get Barty’s,” Evan pondered aloud, his voice dripping with so much sarcasm he could drown someone with it if he tried hard enough.
James looked up at him. “Tell me more”
“Well, suppose two people were to ‘date’ each other as a way to make two very specific people jealous enough to confess their feelings for them,” Evan explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Wait, wait, wait, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“That would depend entirely on what you think I’m saying,” Evan replied smoothly, a smirk making it’s way onto his full lips.
“Fake-dating to make them jealous? And I thought I was insane,” James said with a chuckle.
“You are insane, and so am I, I just come up with better plans,” Evan retorted.
“Hey, I can come up with brilliant plans when I want to,” James said, slightly offended but also admiring the Slytherins guts.
“I guess you don’t want to, then,” Evan smirked at the look of shock on James’ face.
“Still, I doubt it would even work,” James said once he had taken a while to think about Evan’s proposition.
“Doubting me, Potter?” Evan teased, a light chuckle escaping his lips.
“Kinda, I mean, they’d never go for it-” James started before being cut off by Evan.
“I think I’d know my friends and what they’d do better than you, Potter, if we plan it right it’ll work, trust me, I know what I’m doing when it comes to Regulus and Barty”
“If you say so, but how exactly would we plan this whole thing? It’s not like we’re best mates or anything, wouldn’t it not be suspicious if we started ‘dating’ out of nowhere?” James asked, unsure if Evan’s plan would work.
“You Gryffindors really don’t know how to shut up, do you? I’ll handle all that, it won’t be too hard,” Evan answered simply before turning on his heel and leaving James standing in the middle of the library.
James wanted to call out after him, but thought better and held his tongue as he looked up at the shelves around him, pretending to look for something. After a few minutes he returned to the table where his fellow Marauders had already made themselves comfortable. Remus was already buried in a pile of books, too busy taking notes to notice James’ return. Sirius was sleeping, his head laying on his arms as his hair fell on the table around him. Peter was writing an essay for Herbology, a topic which James had never understood and wasn’t planning on understanding any time soon.
James was glad that none of his friends had noticed him talking to Evan Rosier, or that even if they had, they didn’t mention it.
That evening, James joined Lily for their Head Boy and Head Girl duties. He was glad that he could finally talk to her, he needed to tell someone about Evan’s idea and Lily was the only one he could mention it to and know that she wouldn’t tell anyone.
“I talked to Rosier today, in the library,” James started, unsure how to formulate what he wanted to say.
“What did he want?” Lily asked, knowing that he wouldn’t have brought it up if it wasn’t important.
“To talk to me about Regulus. Well, not really, I kinda bumped into him because I was staring at Regulus and he noticed, so he, uhm, he said that there was a way for us to help ourselves and each other,” James continued, trying to explain the whole situation without leaving out any crucial details.
Lily looked up at him expectantly, silently telling him to continue and that she would pay attention and try to help.
“His idea was that we’d ‘date’ each other to make Regulus and Crouch jealous,” James finished.
“You, James Potter, fake dating Evan Rosier? That sounds like a terrible idea, James,” she said, laughing slightly, “it’s an original idea, but there’s no way it’ll work. I mean, you two haven’t even interacted before today, how do you want to convince anyone that you two are ‘dating’?”
“I don’t know, he told me not to worry about that and that he’d sort it all out, I haven’t even really agreed to it yet,” James pointed out.
“How would you even make it look real? You two have no chemistry, whatsoever, anyone with eyes can see that,” Lily said, thinking that this was a terrible idea. James didn’t know whether to agree or disagree.
“Luckily for us, no one in Hogwarts has eyes apart from you and Moony, and if they do have eyes, they don’t have enough of a brain to figure out what they’re seeing,” James answered, earning him a chuckle from Lily.
“True, but still, no one would approve of it, even if it isn’t real. The Gryffindors would be supportive because we always are, but imagine what the Slytherins would do, not just to you but also Rosier, dating a Gryffindor as a Slytherin is going against everything that Slytherin stands for. I mean, they see you as a blood-traitor anyway, but also the fact that most of them are extremely homophobic, it’s a recipe for disaster and you know it”
“I know, Lily, I know, but I also happen to be a magnet for disaster, so it’s nothing I can’t handle,” James said proudly with a wide grin plastered on his face.
“That’s not something to be proud of, Potter,” Lily said jokingly, though James knew that there was a level of concern underneath.
“I’ll be fine, Lils, it’s not like I’m not used to the Slytherins,” James said in an attempt to calm her.
“If you say so, but don’t come running to me unless it backfires completely,” she warned him.
“Got it,” James gave a mock salute as they both started laughing. It was kinda weird how open Lily was around him once she knew that he wasn’t chasing her any more. James was glad that they’d managed to form a bond, even after he messed up with harassing her over the past years. They’ve moved on. Both of them.
Once James returned to his dorm room, he found all the other Marauders fast asleep. James moved through the room silently, he’d gotten quite good at this because of his Prefects, now Head Boy, duties and also his early quidditch practises. Getting closer to his bed, he noticed a letter lying on it. He picked it up and slowly opened it.
Meet me in the library, tomorrow, six o’clock in the morning.
Don’t be late.
- E. R.
James folded the piece of paper back up and slipped it into a drawer of his bedside table. He took off his glasses and changed into his pj’s before slipping into bed.
The next day, James made his way into the library. It took him a while because he never bothered to figure out where the library was, as he’d never felt the need to go there alone. Normally, it would always be Remus leading the way, as the three other Marauders followed him blindly.
It wasn’t hard to find Evan as the library was almost deserted apart from a handful of students wanting to finish essays or get in some last-minute studying before a test. He joined the younger Slytherin in a secluded corner of the library.
“You’re late,” was the simple greeting he got as he sat down.
“Good morning to you too,” James replied in a cheery manner, relishing in the annoyed look he got from Evan.
“I have ideas of how we can pull this off. We can’t just walk out of here holding hands or something like that-” he started.
“Obviously,” James interrupted.
“-this will take a while to make it seem more natural. I think we should start with glances at each other for now, like we’re hiding something,” Evan finished, looking up from his notes, his deep brown eyes piercing into James’ soul.
How had it taken James so long to notice those eyes?