Over thinking and under sharing
"It'll be alright Reg, I wont let anyone hurt you ever again."
The echo of James's words from the previous night sat in regulus's mind nonmatter how hard he tried to block them out. After he had finished his mortifying breakdown Regulus had hobbled back down to the hospital wing, still sniffing with James holding him up. After climbing in to bed it was like everything disappeared and he had been out in seconds. Then that morning when he had woken up James was gone, Madam Pomphrey told him that James had been collected by the other marauders at first light and that he to was free to leave. Now he was dragging himself down the stairs back to his own cold, dingy, dungeon common room. And Regulus black had never felt more alone.
"Oi Reg, dorm seemed empty without you. Cant believe you let your bloke snogging brother hex you, honestly my little reggiekins, I expected better from you" Barty Crouch, junior of course. He was strutting towards regulus without a care in the world.
"My... My what. What do you mean by that Crouch, the blood traitor may have been disowned but he would never. would he?" Regulus's mind was spinning. Sirius was gay? Well it did make quite a bit of sense, but still not gay. What if, what if he was with James?
"oh yeah! Did I not tell you dude, your brothers a strait up homo. I caught him snogging that lupin fella in the train yesterday. Didn't think he could be a bigger disappointment if I'm honest" It was like he could breath again. Sirius was dating Remus, it did make a lot of sense. Lupin had personally stopped him marring their cousin Narcisa a few years ago. Regulus was happy, Lupin was a good partner for his brother and he want James. Stop. No that shouldn't matter. He was supposed to be forgetting that silly feeling, but it kept coming back. The fact was Regulus black wouldn't have minded falling in love with James Potter, if only he was a girl.
"Earth to Regulus." Barty swatted him round the head "Bloody heck mate it cant have been that big of a surprise, he does kinda look the part"
Regulus just nodded and they walked back in silence to their dorm.
"Hey Crouch. You found our baby Reg then" Evan Rosier was lead on Barty's bed throwing a small ping pong ball up and catching it.
"Yeah he was slowly, and I mean very slowly making his way down here. And will you stop that, you look like blooming Potter. Haha I think Reg has PTSD from spending one night next to him. Look he's gone white as a ghost"
He didn't like his friends talking about James he decided. He had the overwhelming urge to brutally murder anyone who said a word against him and he was rather fond of both Evan and Barty (although he would never admit it) so he would rather it not come to that.
"No crouch our Reg always looks like that. Poor fella hasn't caught the sun in years, you forget he never leaves this room unless its to got to"
"the library" Barty chimed in. "Still though that potter got what was coming to him, good on Snape if you ask me. I'm telling you now boys if I run in to any one of those marauders in a dark corridor they wont be able to open there mouth to scream for help."
Regulus couldn't control himself, that stupid prat was insulting James the most purest man to walk the earth. James possibly the only person alive who still believed him to be good. And he was good, well the best he could be. In that moment it was James's face in front of him, the same smiling face that he wanted to fight for telling him it wasn't worth it and there's no need to start a fight. He closed his eyes and tried to think what James would do. To anyone, maybe excluding Snape, James would move on. What did it matter. Words mean nothing. But still.
"Barty will you shut the fuck up" Oh no he had done it, usually at home he could just put his head down. But after seeing what his parents had done to Sirius over summer and not helping he wasn't going to allow his friends to do the same to his big brother at school. Was he even his brother anymore though. The thought swum in his mind no matter how much he tried to ignore it he couldn't bring himself to ask that question. "No ones to touch any of them. You hear me, spread the word. No ones to touch a hair on a marauders head but me. Especially James Potter the brother thief"
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"Cheers lads, for waking so early" James said cheerfully strutting out of the hospital wing.
"Well mate we didn't really have a choice did we, you woke me up on the two way mirror" Sirius moaned "I'm going to have to come up with a spell so I can silence it, why'd you have to be such a morning person" he groaned holding on to Remus for support in his tiredness as they watched James skip down the corridor.
"James pal, you don't look like someone who had their body torn to shreds less then 48 hours ago" Remus chimed in.
"Well you of all people know how how good Pomphrey is at heeling shit don't you moony" and you cant forget the presence of Sirius's beautiful little brother that sure did help as well, nope best he didn't say that part out load. "Anyways where's wormy. Did he not fancy escorting me back to humanity"
"Actually he's in my pocket" Remus said pulling open his robes pocket to reveal a plump rat that was either in a very deep sleep or dead. With a rather hard poke from Sirius however he woke up with a loud squeak and jumped out of Remus's pocket scuttling down the hallway.
"Come on pads was that really necessary?" James chuckled.
After that Sirius and Remus had fallen in to a deep conversation and James was supposed to be on the look out for Peter, neither of the others had noticed however that his mind was anywhere but in the moment. He hadn't been able to face seeing Regulus wake up as all he wanted to do was pull him in to another deep hug, but he knew that wouldn't have been appreciated and couldn't face the heart ache the rejection would have caused. But still he couldn't get the image his mind had created of Regulus's face when he realised he had woken up alone to disappear. Its like he had an incredible urge to protect the small fragile boy he had healed last night, and no matter how strong he pretended to be around other James now knew that Regulus was not the cold blooded monster Sirius had made him out to be. He was just a poor soul who had to fight harder then most to survive. In fact James had seen Sirius's scars from his parents and would hazard a guess that Regulus had ones identical.
He wished that last night instead of getting back in to his own hospital bed he had climbed in to Regulus's along side him and held him tight so that he knew he would be safe. Why hadn't he done that, he was sure Reg wouldn't have opposed. However the thought of lying there in bed next to the baby black made his stomach do a strange summersault that he hadn't experienced since his 4th year, when his crush on Evans was still existent.
Crush. Was that what he was feeling towards his best friends younger brother, a crush. He couldn't possibly that was obscene. Of course he didn't mind being gay, two of his best friends were gay. In fact James Potter never would have minded falling in love with a man, if only it wasn't Regulus Black.
"Oi Potter, while you were sat cosying up to my brother we got a plan set up for those dung bombs" Sirius said completely breaking his thought process.
"Doing what. I wasn't. I never"
"Calm down mate. It was just a joke. I know you'd never even look in that silly little pricks direction" Sirius responded casing James's heart tremendous pain. And this was why, this was why he could never have Regulus black.
That evening after a long day of quidditch practice the marauders had returned back to the Gryffindor common room and claimed their usual seats by the fire. It was time to plan the prank.
"I recon we should shove half of them in Regulus's bed and half in Snivilies. Job done. Simple." Sirius suggested, way to seriously for James's liking so he added in.
"Oi I brought those stink bombs and I'm not wasting them on two people you have a grudge against Black" smooth he thought to himself after saying this. He had protected Regulus, he would have to make sure to tell him about this later. No. He would not be seeing Regulus latter as he had to constantly remind himself.
"I recon we should do what we did last time and put one in each Slytherins bed, then all we gotta do is find out tomorrows password. We can use the map and cloak so none of them all see us as well" Remus suggested.
"Sounds good to me" Sirius responded, unneeded as they had all practically agreed in silence that this was a great plan. "Only problem is we we don't have the Slytherin password"
"I was going to say the same thing" Peter squeaked in.
"Yeah course you was wormy" Remus added causing Peter to go a rather vivid shade of purple. "We'll have a look out and see if we have any luck tomorrow, if not weve got the rest of the week till it changes aint we"
After all agreeing this was the best course of action, they sat and discussed everything they had done over summer that they hadn't had time to talk about on the train. They talked until the moon was starting to fade and peter was snoring loudly. Then Remus and Sirius made their ways up to bed James saying he would sleep down here with peter. He knew his friends did 'stuff' in their room in Remus's bed with a silencing spell. And although he couldn't hear it the thought of being in the room while that happened still made him feel sick. He didn't want to even imagine his best friend who he saw as a brother doing sexual things so he preferred to stay clear away when he could.
Now he was stuck downstairs with nothing but his thoughts. His thoughts of Regulus Black. He couldn't take it couldn't just sit there he was hardly tired, so he threw on his invisibility cloak and made his way up to the first place he thought of, the astronomy tower.
James's strides were long, he really did hate being alone in the castle at night. Not to mention he didn't have the map so he couldn't see if any teachers were around to scold him for being out of bounds. Taking the steps up to the astronomy tower two at a time he raced to the top. When he walked through the large entrance he saw a small figure, sat cross legged by the edge. The boys curly black hair was cut neatly and parted down the middle, and when he turned his head his cool grey eyes shone like a cats in the moon light .
"Who's there" he called out in to what for him was nothing.
Oh yeah the cloak James remembered quickly removing it giving Regulus a fright. James didn't know he would be here, he had a hope in the depths of his stomach but he didn't actually predict it.
"you" Regulus said in a cold voice.
"Come on Reggie I thought you'd be more happy to see me" James beamed back ignoring the look of anger on the smaller boys face.
"You weren't there. You weren't there when I woke up" Regulus whispered "You said you would stay with me and you didn't"
James's heart collapsed, he had caused Regulus pain. He had only left because he had thought that regulus wouldn't want him there. "I'm so sorry Reg" James said with pure sincerity "If I had known you'd want me of course I would have stayed"
Redness flooded Regulus's face "I did want you there. I don't know why. I cant seem to get you off my mind" Regulus said his previously icy aura gone replaced with a softness that emphasised his beautiful features.
James sat down beside him and they sat just like that looking in to each others eyes for what felt like days. Regulus's head moved in as though it was nature and James took it as a sign and leaned in to softly kiss the other boys lips. Although it only lasted seconds it was the best moment of Regulus's life. That is until reality came crashing down on to him. He had just kissed a boy. what would his parents say. What would his friends say. He shot up and rushed down the stairs heading back to his dorm room. James hurrying behind him.
They were only a flight of stairs away before James managed to grab his hand. " Please Reg stop" He begged "if you didn't like it we can pretend it never happened. no one has to kn..." Regulus had leaned in and passionately kissed him stopping James's thoughts in his tracks. Taking lead he pushed Regulus against a near by wall and hoisted him up so that his legs wrapped around James own waist. They kissed desperately panting in between. James felt Regulus's mouth slowly plant kisses down his neck while he fiddled with his charcoal hair.
Just as suddenly as it began it stopped. James felt the suction on his neck release and let regulus down.
"I'm sorry" regulus let out still breathing heavily.
"Why? that was incredible" James choked out still trying to contain his body's want for more.
"I don't know I'm just sorry" Regulus's head was spinning. That was incredible, but it couldn't happen again. "James I've got to go to bed" he concluded.
"I'll walk you"
So James walked him down to the Slytherin common room entrance before planting a soft kiss on Reggie's head as he said "Snake skin" and walked away leaving James alone in the dark.
It was then he realised that in his haste he had left the invisibility cloak up in the astronomy tower, so he clumsily sprinted back to retrieve it. On his way down he met the last person he wanted to encounter. Peeves.
"The little master Black and Potty we Potter. What a shame Indeed" the poltergeist chuckled. Crap. If there was one person in the whole school he would have not wanted to witness that it was peeves. Throwing the invisibility cloak over him he sprinted back to the common room praying to god that the evil spirit would forget what he had seen by the next morning.