Regulus Black and The Marauders

REGULUS: I met John Seeley in early July of 1980, at our Saturday show in Nottingham. We’d stay there for two weeks before doing the ten added shows of the tour, so it was our last show for a bit. We were all tired, and to be completely honest, I just wanted to get through that show and go to bed for three days. 

JAMES: It was our first full house. Every seat taken up, and people cramming inside when possible. It baffles me how Reg saw him. Noticed him. I didn’t.

REGULUS: He was in the fifth row from the front, on the left aisle seat. Wearing a blue button up shirt and plain jeans. He didn’t sing to any of the songs, but swayed to the music, like he was really feeling it, you know? 

Oh, and he was beautiful. Devastingly so.  

SIRIUS: We played our set, met a few fans. I went to bed with Remus at maybe midnight. 

PETER: I met a lovely girl whose name I cannot recall and we spent a wonderful time at her place… stargazing. 

JAMES: I did some brainstorming for songs, called my mother, thought about calling Lily, then went to bed. Regulus did not come until maybe eight in the morning. Back then, we were still sharing rooms. Remus and Sirius in one, and the rest of us in another. I suspected Peter wouldn’t, but Regulus… unexpected. 

REGULUS: I planned to go to bed, honestly. Did I feel drawn to the stranger? Yes, of course. But I wasn’t really in the mood to seek anyone out. But I didn’t have to. On my way out, he called out my name, and stuck out a hand in front of me. 

He said, “I’m John Seeley and I’d like to buy you a drink.”

And I’m nineteen and he’s fit. Of course I say yes. 

JOHN SEELEY (Sales Representative for Flourish and Blotts Publishing): Regulus Black and I dated for a couple of months in 1980. July to October. It was a short-lived relationship, and I do not recall the events of the night we first met. 

REGULUS: He ordered an old fashioned and I think I just got a beer. And he told me he was a fan and I said something about the band being great, but he interrupted me and said, “No. I’m a fan of yours.”

We talked for hours. He told me that he was an aspiring writer and he loved the way I wrote. He said it was the only music that made him feel anything. Of course, I told him James and I usually wrote them together, but he said the ones I wrote were his favorite. “All Too Well” and “Sad Beautiful Tragic” to be specific. 

…

He said he related. He leaned over and told me that he too had suffered from someone who didn’t treat him well. And that I made him feel like he wasn’t alone.

John always knew exactly what to say to make my heart break. To make me say yes. To make me think the way he thought. And I didn’t know any better. I thought they were my own thoughts, my own opinions. 

But I didn’t know that then. I was in awe of him. He seemed to know exactly where I was coming from, exactly who I was. People nowadays say I was old enough to have known better. But he was thirty two. Don’t you think he should’ve known better? I was a baby.

JOHN: At the time of our relationship, I was thirty two. He was nineteen. It was a perfectly legal relationship and we were both of age. If he was ever uncomfortable, he never expressed it, and had he expressed such feelings, I would have ended it. 

REGULUS: I thought it was fine. I mean, it was legal. I didn’t think it was inappropriate at the time. We were both of age and consenting. I didn’t know that a thirty year old has absolutely no business being with a nineteen year old. I wasn’t even twenty. And I’m not shaming couples with age gaps or whatever, but that has to start when both people are mature, not just of age. And at nineteen, I wasn’t mature. 

But I went back to his room with him. We didn’t do anything, though. We just talked and talked and talked. I left at seven in the morning and walked back to the hotel, absolutely sure that he was the one I had been waiting for. The cards had dealt me Barty, and this was it. This was my gift. 

PETER: When I got back from my little escapade, Reggie was nowhere to be found. We were all worried sick, and at eight in the morning, he swaggered into the room in yesterday’s clothes, looking absolutely glowy.

SIRIUS: I demanded to know where he had been and he just smiled and said, “I met someone.” And that’s all he said before he crawled into bed. 

JAMES: I was… I don’t know. I just didn’t feel good. About him finding someone. Part of me was jealous that everyone was finding all these people to love and to fuck and I was just lonely. And the other part of me… there was something else. I couldn’t quite place it, though. 

REMUS: We saw John every single day. We were staying in that little hotel for the two weeks to explore and whatnot, and he’d pick Regulus up every single day at ten o’clock in the morning, usually with a gift of some sort. They started dating immediately, maybe after a week of just hanging out. 

PETER: He was so happy and giggly. It was kind of odd. 

SIRIUS: I didn’t trust John, but I didn’t have a reason to. At the time, I chalked it up to normal brother behavior, but now… now I know it was something bigger than that.

REGULUS: He was perfect at first. He’d take me to all his favorite places and he’d pay for everything, despite me being insanely wealthy. He loved to talk walks in the parks or go window shopping. But most of all, he liked to read to me out loud. 

We’d sit in his front yard on a blue and white blanket, my head in his lap and his arms holding a book. He had a way of reading out loud that made you feel like you were saying those words, like you could see the entire scene right in front of you. 

JAMES: I was walking back from getting a jug of milk for something Peter wanted to make when I saw them. Laying on the grass and reading. Just… looking so in love and so happy. It broke my heart. It broke my heart and I cried the whole way home. I never told him, though. 

PETER: John joined us for the remainder of the tour. It was odd, him being thirty two and all that, but we brushed it aside. He made Reg happy, and we wanted Reg happy. And he was inspiring some pretty great material if we’re being honest. Have you heard “I Know Places?” 

We shouldn’t have brushed it aside, though.

JAMES: If I’m being honest, it was fucking annoying. He was always around. At sound checks, dressing rooms, behind the stage. And he was always touching him. Hand on waist or holding his hand, or hugging him… it was foul, and I wasn’t the only one. 

SIRIUS: Did I want Reggie to be happy? Absolutely. But I’m telling you I had a really bad vibe about the guy. But nothing was amiss then so I kept my mouth shut and told James to stop whining. 

REMUS: The tour ended in late August, and it went peacefully. They were in love or whatever, and Regulus asked us if it was okay if John stayed with us for a bit. 

JAMES: I was pissed off but we all agreed. He and Peter switched rooms. The only thing I asked of them was that they be quiet. 

SIRIUS: I did not need to hear my little brother fornicating in the room next to mine. 

REGULUS: The third day he was here was when the problems started. 

I don’t know what set him off, but he was suddenly… distant. He’d be all affectionate one moment and then cold and angry the next. I wasn’t sure what I was doing wrong. 

JAMES: Things started to get weird a couple of days into his visit. They suddenly weren’t so affectionate anymore. At least John wasn’t. He’d keep his distance. Then be normal. It was strange. 

SIRIUS: I tried to talk to Regulus, but he’d lash out and insist he was fine. That they were fine. He threatened to leave if I kept asking him about it, so I stopped. 

PETER: I mean, he wouldn’t even talk to me or Remus. He wouldn’t talk to anyone. He became so isolated. 

JAMES: We’d be trying to write music and John would burst in, saying nothing but everything with his face. And Regulus would get up and leave. It took us three weeks to write a single song. 

REMUS: Because things were getting so bad, we asked Regulus when John was planning to leave, and Regulus shrugged and asked us if it would be so bad if he moved in. 

And I sat there that night with Sirius and Peter, thinking, “Why does a thirty year old man want to live with a bunch of twenty year olds?” Sirius said, “Why does a thirty year old man want to date a nineteen year old?” 

Peter said, “That’s a great question I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.”

SIRIUS: Because we were so worried, we took Reg to dinner and tried to talk to him. Telling him it wasn’t really right that he was dating someone who was still a teenager. He was furious.

PETER: He said we had superiority complexes because we were twenty and that he was only a year younger and we shouldn’t treat him like a baby. But he was a baby. We all were. 

JAMES: I told him the relationship wasn’t healthy. They were fighting all the time, which he never told us, but we heard. Regulus would beg him to talk to him, to listen to him. And John just wouldn’t. He’d ignore him or talk him down. Regulus would always say, “I’m not a child, stop treating me like one.” 

…

I also said they were at completely different times in their lives. John was thinking of getting a house and asked Regulus if he was interested. He talked about marriage and families and all this stuff that was for thirty year olds. 

I told him this would break him. 

And he said, “What would you know about love?”

REGULUS: I was furious. I was furious because they were right. I hurt inside all of the time and the one person who was supposed to kiss the wounds away was the one who made them in the first place. And I regret what I said to James.

I can see his face dropping. His eyes filling with tears. And the crack in his voice when he told me to fuck off. 

…

…

I wouldn’t listen to anybody. So I left them in the restaurant and went to the flat to pack my stuff and suggest we go to his. As I was pulling out a suitcase, he came inside, hair rumpled and lips swollen.

We got into this huge row. I started asking him if he was sleeping with other people and he kept saying I didn’t understand him enough and that I wasn’t the one for him yet. 

He said, “But I know you will be in a few years. Let’s move in together. Alone. Far away from here, from these people. You don’t need them.”

It hit me like a bullet. I was a child to him. He saw me as a kid but still wanted me to do everything that someone his age would. He wanted me to grow up but stay young. He wanted me to skip all these parts of my life for him. Everything I had worked for. 

I started throwing shit at him, throwing his shit out the window and screaming. I told him to get out and that it was over. He swore at me and started saying the same things as before. That I was being childish and I didn’t understand what it was like, and all that nonsense. I pushed him out the door and collapsed, crying and shaking until my brother came home and found me curled up in a ball. 

Peter and Remus went to bed quietly. James didn’t come home that night. 

SIRIUS: I did what I needed to and held my little brother. Listened to him and helped him throw the rest of that bastard’s stuff out the window. Fed him a nice hot meal and a shot of whiskey. Once he was calm, I asked him if he needed anything else or if he wanted to go to bed. 

REGULUS: I asked for a piece of paper and a pen and I wrote the beginnings of “Dear John”. 

It took me a week to write it. And that entire week, James did not come home.