If this is what you want, then fire at will
“What are those?”
James is fixing his appearance in the full-length mirror, checking his hair is smoothed down sleek for once. There is a ridiculous amount of product in it, but his dad was only too happy James finally wanted to imbibe in the source of the family fortune. Lily had even helped him turn the wire frames of his glasses from silver to gold, to match his cufflinks, pocket watch and buttons – all in immaculate contrast with his bottle green dress robes.
“Dress robes?” James offers, taking in Sirius’ reflection behind him.
His friend is wearing a three-piece black velvet suit with a sheer shirt beneath it, unbuttoned just lower than is strictly speaking appropriate. Not that James can judge. He’s technically wearing a jacket-cut shirt tucked into trousers, which would be fine, except the ‘jacket’ doesn’t close. Minnie is going to have a whole litter of kittens when she sees him.
“How is it that Golden Boy Potter makes me, the biggest slag in the history of Hogwarts, look like a prude?” Sirius demands, crossing his arms testily.
“Never be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling,” James quips, a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
Sirius pouts a bit, but perks up when James helps him loosen one more button on his shirt. The two of them set off for the Great Hall together.
“So, how’d you convince Walburga?” James asks, strolling along with his hands in his pockets, while Sirius keeps adjusting and readjusting his jewellery.
“Haven’t,” he answers, rearranging his stacks of silver rings. “Remus had another stroke of genius: we did a photoshoot – me with Marlene and Reggie with Pandora. We conjured sets and scenes and everything. Reg reminded us of the Room of Requirement, and it was perfect. Beyond perfect. Now, we have a decent stack of ‘evidence’ to send home, and we can enjoy the Ball with everyone else.”
“And you wore that, did you?” James looks him up and down.
“Am I an idiot?” Sirius fires back, but, at James’ expression, changes tactics. “Don’t answer that. No. Kreacher sent us more traditional dress robes from home. Even the girls dressed much more conservatively. Well, Marls did. Pandora, apparently, enjoys draping herself in innumerable swaths of floaty fabric.”
“MR BLACK AND MR POTTER, HALT AT ONCE,” McGonagall’s voice echoes down the corridor.
With a quick glance at each other, James and Sirius take off, slipping behind a tapestry shortcut long before Minnie can hope to catch up.
* * *
Regulus does up his boots, stepping around in them to make sure they’re comfortable. He is planning on quite a bit of dancing this evening, and new shoes aren’t getting in the way of that. Thankfully, they seem to have yielded after whatever Evan and Barty did to them.
“Salazar’s left nut, Reg,” Evan drops, stepping out of their shared bathroom. “Let me take you to the Ball.”
Regulus can only smirk in response, gathering his wand and checking his nails.
“Did Madame Malkin make those?” Evan presses, looking forlornly down at his simple, yet elegant, all-black tux.
Regulus shakes his head. “Dorcas helped me order them for next-day delivery from this little boutique along the Seine in Paris. Sirius paid.”
“For a bloke who don’t like making waves, you’re turning heads tonight, mate,” Evan surmises, eyes raking down Regulus’ bare arms and back.
The trousers cover his legs fine, tailored to follow their shape exactly, without being skintight. The top, however, is technically one big, endlessly looping scarf, hanging from the back of his neck to cover his front. The entire thing is a Christmas bauble red, while his boots and nails are black. Pandora had done hers and Dorcas’, and insisted Regulus making his black would tie his outfit together. He can’t help but agree.
“Is everyone else ready?” Regulus asks, then, wondering what time it is.
“Should be,” Evan answers, leading the way out of their room and to the common room.
There, they find their friends waiting on them. Pandora looks like something ethereal, her dress consisting of tied and taped bits of translucent fabric that appear to run down her frame like liquid. The various soft colours are repeated in her long cascade of pale blonde waves. She has never looked more beautiful. Sometimes, Regulus almost finds himself yearning to be straight, just so that he can love Pandora how she deserves to be loved forever. Tonight, however, she is on the arms of Barty and Evan, looking like their fae queen.
Dorcas – a vision in white with her braids veined and her nails shimmering like fresh snow – appears to be paired up with one Remus Lupin (at least until after the opening dance), who looks like a grizzled fairytale prince in his pale grey double-breasted coat and trousers, topped off with a fur cape. Standing tall and comfortable in his skin, he’s more regal than anyone in the ‘Noble and Most Ancient House of Black’ can ever have any hope of being. He affords Regulus a mischievous wink and an approving nod at his dress robes. Regulus returns the sentiment.
Together, the friends set off towards the Great Hall.
* * *
James and Sirius make it to the Great Hall right as the champions line up to make their entrance and open the dance floor. McGonagall gives them each a reproachful look, signalling she’s far from done with them, but James has a sneaking suspicion she’ll hold off with punishments until after Christmas.
Marlene has shown up in a skintight, quite short red number, with a cutaway shoulder detail, and red heels that make her legs turn heads. She catches James’ eye and makes a face at him, to which he responds with only silent, gestured praise. She looks stunning.
Then, her mouth drops open at something behind James and Sirius and they both turn at once to see the procession coming down the stairs, Dorcas in the lead. James can’t fault Marls her reaction: Dorcas looks like a mythical snow queen.
However, James knows Sirius isn’t fixated on the same vision as James when he says, “Godrick’s pants, he looks gorgeous.”
Though, as far as James is concerned, the sentiment very much applies to Regulus as well. James’ only comfort is that Regulus takes just as much of a pause to take in James.
“Wow,” James breathes as Regulus finally joins him.
“You, too,” Regulus responds, eyes battling to leave James’ exposed torso.
Shaking himself, James holds out a clear container to Regulus containing a rose corsage. He pushes out his chest for James to pin the flower onto him, which happens to match the red of his suit exactly. Pleased, James holds out an arm for Regulus to take and they make their way to the Hall.
“Last I heard, you weren’t going at all,” Regulus notes. “Where did you get the robes at the last minute?”
“Oh, just something I had, you know, lying around,” James dismisses, not wanting to make plain for even a second how utterly mad the dash had been for him to send his measurements to Madame Malkin and then have Mary modify what she’d sent just in time for him to get ready for tonight. “What about you?”
Reg, however, doesn’t miss a trick. “Oh, just something I had, you know, lying around.”
Right as they’re about to enter the Ball, though, Regulus brings them to a halt to pin James with a slightly desperate look.
“I’m really sorry that I questioned your motives,” he tells James, slipping the hand on James’ bicep down to lace their fingers together. “I was wrong.”
Closing his eyes for a moment, James reckons now is as good a time to come clean as any. So, with a deep breath, he levels with Regulus. “Not entirely.”
Regulus frowns, but doesn’t pull away, waiting.
James presses on. “When I first sought you out, it was as a favour to Remus, but also to myself. I was going to fail my seventh year. I’d barely passed my sixth. As a result, I was banned from entering the tournament and they threatened to take my Quidditch Captaincy away. Remus saved me, so taking you out seemed a fair shake.”
It’s then that Regulus makes to pull away and leave, looking utterly rattled. As though his entire world is collapsing in around him.
“Wait, Reg,” James says, refusing to let him go. “It hasn’t been about my academics for a while now. Remus caught me up long before I asked you to Hogsmeade. That darling girl of yours, Pandora, brought me to my senses. She made me see that you’re exactly right for me: you’re strong and uncompromising and infinitely compassionate. You’re also fit as hell, mind.”
Regulus goes limp, eyes fixed on James.
“You challenge me, keep me on my toes, drive me mental, leave me pining… Merlin, Regulus Black, I’m crazy about you,” James finishes, gaze burning into Regulus’.
Unable to stand the space between them any longer, he pulls Reg to him, kissing him fiercely. Regulus goes pliant against him, letting his fingers slip beyond the tucked fabric of James’ shirt, mapping the muscle there. James gets his hands on that slip of a waist Regulus likes showing off, fitting their bodies together.
It’s when Regulus’ hands go up to knot in the back of James’ hair that James feels brave enough to whisper, “We could…skip the Ball?”
Kissing him dizzy and breathless, Reg responds, “No chance. I’ve been practising my dance moves for days. You’re spending the night in my dorm, though. I’ll organise with Lupin.”
* * *
The rest of the year flies by. The Triwizard Tournament comes back in full force in the second semester, quickly separating the wheat from the chaff. In the end, it’s not even a competition: Beauxbatons wins by a ridiculous margin, Marlene and Remus still confused as to how it happened. The moment the winner is announced, Dorcas celebrates by grabbing Marlene up in a head-spinning kiss, much to the chagrin of Madame Maxime and the delight of everyone else.
Through it all, Slytherin wins the Quidditch Cup, and everyone has a sneaking suspicion it’s because a certain Gryffindor Captain couldn’t stand to bring his A-game against Slytherin. Marlene swears this is untrue, however. She insists it’s because she was too distracted by the Tournament to focus on academics and quidditch. James and Regulus sent her a new set of quills for her Healer studies.
Sirius was inconsolable at the thought of Remus going back to Serbia, until Remus reminded him that he’s in his final year, same as Sirius. Since they’re both graduating, Sirius went to see his Uncle Alphard about emancipating himself from the Black family. Regulus followed suit, making a big show of informing his family that he is with a pure-blood and that whether or not they decide to have children someday is no one’s bloody business.
In the end, Professor McGonagall had been so impressed with James’ NEWT results that she’d let his and Sirius’ ‘utterly inappropriate dress choices’ slide – even going so far as to write his parents about his stellar progress and write him a glowing letter of recommendation. James decides to get a job at the Ministry, to stay close for Regulus’ final year.
As for Marlene and Dorcas: no sooner had Beauxbatons won the Tournament than Marlene wrote her parents requesting to do her Healer training in France. Turns out, her kiss with Dorcas had made the front page of the Daily Prophet and her parents were not amused. The Howler her father sent will go down in infamy, but she doesn’t let that stop her, applying in Paris, anyway. When she not only gets in, but is offered bursaries and the like, her parents have no choice but to relent – provided they get to help her move and meet Dorcas’ family.
“Should I be afraid of your mother hunting me down?” James asks Regulus on their last afternoon before James’ graduation.
They’re stretched out on the grass by the Black Lake, watching Sirius play fetch with the giant squid. Barty and Evan take turns being the ‘fetched toy’; Sirius levitating them out to different parts of the Lake for the squid to retrieve.
“Probably,” Regulus says, staring down into James’ eyes, his head in Regulus’ lap.
“Any tips?” James presses, acutely aware of Walburga Black’s reputation.
“You can’t flirt your way out of a confrontation with her. She has the sexual charisma of a dead fish.”
James groans dramatically, “I guess I’ll have to save my MILF-wooing abilities for a worthier adversary.”
“I make no such promises about Monty. I saw him at the Award Ceremony. Strong possibility I went for the wrong Potter,” Regulus muses.
Quicker than Regulus can clock, James has him levitated out to the centre of the Lake before dropping him into the dark water, with a loud cry of “FETCH!”