Barty Crouch Jr.
James wakes up at 5 am on the day filming begins. Although they were supposed to show up at 8, James was determined to be there early, which involves waking himself up at an ungodly hour. He walks through the apartment and makes coffee for Lily and Marlene and tea for himself. Lily had stayed the night in Marlene’s room so she and James could get ready for the first day together. He walkes towards the door of Marlene’s room and knocked softly. When there was no reply, he opens the door and goes to wake them up.
As soon as the door opens, a pillow is thrown across the room at James.
“You fucking prick, James!” James didn’t think he had ever met someone as grumpy as Marlene was in the mornings. He picks up the pillow from it's spot on the floor and chucks it back at Marlene.
“Good morning, Lily. You’re in a better mood than Marls, yes?” He walks over to where she is sitting up in bed, handing her coffee.
“Thanks, James. You should have seen her earlier. When the alarm went off, they smacked me in the face rather than their alarm clock.”
“Fuck off, both of you."
"Rude."
"You both deserve it for waking me up this early.” Marlene replies, grumpily.
After twenty more minutes of Marlene’s complaints, the three finally make their way to the kitchen. Lily sits on one of the barstools with her makeup bag as James cooks them breakfast.
James got dressed in blue jeans and a red patterned button-up with a white top underneath. When he returns to the kitchen, Lily is finishing her hair. “I’ll be ready in ten, sorry!”
James chuckles, then goes in search of his phone. They manage to leave the house by 7:00, meaning they will get to the studio at 7:30 if they walk quickly. Lily insists on stopping for coffee on the way, even after James’ protests that he had woken her up with coffee that morning. James reluctantly agrees, but refuses to stop anywhere but the cafe Peter works at.
“Hey, Pete,” James says as they approach the counter.
“Hi, Peter.”
“Hi, guys. The usual?” Peter asks with a smile that James can tell isn’t completely real. Both James and Lily nod. “So, where are you off to today?”
“Filming starts today, and we were on our way over. I insisted on stopping for coffee, though, and James is using it as an excuse to visit you.” While Lily talks, James slips a $20 bill into the tip jar.
Peter laughs, “Thanks James, that’ll pay for my dinner tonight.”
“Anytime, Wormy.”
“We should get going, but Pete I’ll text you and Remus about the new book later, yeah?” Lily says, referring to the book club meetings that she, Remus, and Peter scheduled every month.
“Ooh yes! Good luck today!” Peter slides James' drink across the counter to him.
“Cheers mate.” James waves at Peter as him and Lily head through the door.
When they had graduated, Peter went into acting alongside Sirius and Marlene. Remus also did a few acting jobs, but he mostly did modeling. Unfortunately, while Sirius and Marlene quickly found big roles and rose to fame, Peter was unsuccessful. He tried to find acting jobs for a few years before he had to accept that the career wasn’t working for him. He applied for a position at the cafe and had been working there ever since. James knew it wasn’t what he really wanted to do with his life, and he couldn’t help but feel bad for Peter. All of their friends had big projects to work on, Marlene and Sirius with acting, Remus’ modeling career, Mary’s stylist job, Lily’s makeup line, and James’ photography. Yet, meanwhile, Pete was forced to give up on his dreams. James didn’t know what he could do, so he just tried to make him smile when he could and be there for him.
James was walking incredibly fast as Lily was yelling at him. “James! Slow down! Not all of us are fucking 6 feet tall!” She grabs his arm as she laughs.
“Sorry, sorry.” He laughs with her, slowing his pace.
They arrive around 7:45 and are met with the face of Minerva Mcgonagall. “Ms. Evans, Mr. Potter, good morning.”
“Morning, Minerva,” James replies as Lily smiles alongside him.
“You are the first two to arrive, so Ms. Evans, you can set up the dressing rooms if you’d like, and Mr. Potter can join you. At 8, I’ll be making announcements, and everyone will have arrived. I’ll send actors into the dressing rooms around 9, and they’ll have my lists of instructions for their hair and makeup. The rest of your team will also be here, so make sure to talk with them before that.”
They make their way over to the dressing rooms, the lights practically blinding and mirrors covering almost every wall. Lily begins taking her supplies out of her bag and adding name cards of actors to different mirrors to designate which mirror belongs to which actor.
Lily and James make conversation as they set up, Lily working on the dressing room while James looks over his camera. A soft knock on the open door alerts them to the person standing there. She was tall, with dark skin and her hair was in long white braids that went down to her hips.
“Hi! I’m Pandora, you must be Lily?” Her eyes go back and forth from Lily to James.
Lily looks frozen for a moment, her lips slightly parted, clearly in awe of the girl standing in the doorway. “Oh- wow.” She blinks, “I mean yes, yes, Sorry. I’m Lily.”
Pandora smiles. James waves to her, introducing himself, “Hi, I’m James.”
“Hi! Are you part of the team, too?”
“No, I’m the photographer, I was just in here to chat with Lily before everyone arrived. I was just leaving though. It was great to meet you, Pandora.” He smiles at her and grabs his camera. As he makes his way out the door, he mouths “Good luck” to Lily and winks at her. She flips him off as he turns the corner.
He makes his way down the hall, then turns into another room. He slams straight into someone coming through the doorway. “Oh shit, sorry. That’s my bad.”
When he steps back, he finds Regulus Black staring at him, his face slightly flushed.
“Regulus, how are you?” James smiles at him.
“Hi James, I’ve been good. Just busy with everything. How are you?”
“Pretty good, it’s good to see you. I’ve been waiting to filming to start, I’m thrilled to be doing photos and stuff.”
“Yeah, well, uh, I have to go see Minerva, but it was nice talking with you.” Regulus walks past James quickly.
James had meant to read the script that had been sent to him, in all honesty, he had. He just got a bit distracted the night prior and only managed to focus on it for a single page. He had no idea what scene they were on, what the context was, and could hardly understand what they were saying, but he carried on taking photos nonetheless. These photos would likely end up on some Behind-The-Scenes posts and maybe for some publicity before the movie was out. He was watching Regulus the entire time, constantly in awe of his acting.
Currently, however, someone was ruining his enjoyment of the scene. They were filming a scene with only Regulus and one other actor, who James had learned was named Barty. James watches as Barty's arm slightly touching Regulus'. When Barty rose his arm to touch Regulus' shoulder. The way he had dipped his head down slightly to look at Regulus. Didn't he understand the concept of personal space? In James' opinion, they were standing entirely too close together, and as much as he wanted to deny it, it pissed him off. After a few minutes, he silently leaves the set and makes his way over to the dressing room. He finds Lily reading inside, clearly not busy. He takes her arm and drags her to sit with him on the floor.
“Hi, James, everything okay?” She chuckles.
“There’s this guy on set, Barty. He’s standing way too close to Regulus. I feel bad for him. Not that I care what Regulus does with his life, but the guy needs to back off. He’s giving him no fucking personal space,” James says bitterly.
Lily just stares at James, smiling. “So, James. I’m gonna teach you about something called acting.”
“Shut up, Lils.”
“Just relax. They’re acting. Barty’s just doing his job. I talked with him earlier, he’s not a bad person. I mean, he’s not the most delightful person I’ve met but—”
James interrupts, “Exactly! He’s entirely too full of himself and Regulus looks so fucking charmed by him and he’s falling for his tricks.”
Lily rolls her eyes. “Remember the other day when I asked you why you were so obsessed with Regulus?” She smirks.
“Shut up, Lily. And lower your voice, someone might hear,” He replies, looking around the room.
Thankfully, Lily does lower her voice despite the fact that the dressing room is entirely empty. “Go out there and do your job then, and if you want to talk to him just go talk to him. For someone not obsessed with him, you’re strangely obsessed with him.”
“Fine, you know what? I will go talk to him. Fuck Barty Crouch Jr. Who the fuck even names their kid that?” James spits out as he leaves the dressing room.
He finds Regulus after the filming ends and is determined to talk to him. “Hey, Regulus,” James says, getting his attention. Regulus’ head turns towards James and he walks closer.
“Hi, James.”
“You did great. Not gonna lie, I forgot I was supposed to be taking pictures halfway through and was just watching the scene.” He laughs nervously. He can feel his hands sweating and hopes it isn’t obvious to Regulus how nervous he is.
Regulus smiles at him as he says, “Can I see them?”
“The photos? Er- yeah sure.” As nervous as James is for Regulus to see his work, he’s more grateful he's even getting to speak to him. James leans towards Regulus so that they could both see the pictures side by side. He feels incredibly too close with Regulus’ breathing hitting the side of his face. The slight touch of his arm to Regulus' makes his heart race.
He steps away from Regulus, clearing his throat before Regulus speaks. “Oh wow, those look great.”
“Thanks.”
James isn’t sure what to say next, but luckily, Regulus reaches into his pocket, then holds out his hand with his phone in it to James. James just stares at him, confused. “Put your number in, idiot.”
Finding the only bit of confidence left in him, James smirks as he says, “Asking for my number already? Wow, Regulus. Smooth.” He winks.
“Shut up and hand me your phone.”
---
Regulus enters the dressing room a few minutes later, followed by James. He sits down at his mirror and begins to remove the makeup he’s wearing. He doesn’t notice James had gone to chat with Lily before he sees them laughing together in the reflection of the mirror.
The dressing room begins to clear out, and he says goodbye to a few fellow actors. He talks with Barty for a moment before he practically sprints out of the dressing room, something to do with Evan, Regulus assumes. Pandora leaves shortly after, apologizing but telling him they’ll talk more the following day over dinner.
Now, it was only James, Lily, and himself in the dressing room. Regulus began to put his stuff away, turning towards James and Lily as he does so.
Lily’s shoving things into her bag as she quickly says, “I need to head out, I promised Remus I’d stop by and return his book. He might kill me if I forget again. Bye, Regulus! Bye James, see you later!”
“Yeah, dinner tonight, right?”
“Yep! I’ll be there,” She replies, smiling, as she stands on her tiptoes and kisses his cheek. Regulus finds himself trying not to react as he realizes how stupid he is. When he had first met James, he had assumed James and Lily had liked each other. Even so, he had given James his number and gotten his hopes up that James could like him. Apparently, they were dating already, he was just too idiotic to see it.
“Oh! Regulus, you should join us!” She calls as she quickly makes her way out the door. James laughs at Lily, and turns back to him, waiting for a response to Lily’s invitation.
If his face wasn’t red before, it was now. “Uh, I wouldn’t really wanna interrupt your dinner date, but thanks.”
James stares at him momentarily, and then laughs again.
Even his stupid laugh is attractive. It was light and unapologetic and makes Regulus want to laugh with him. “Me and Lily? What? We aren’t dating.”
“She literally just fucking kissed your cheek.” Regulus is even more confused now.
Realization spreads across James’ face before he attempts to respond, clearly flustered. “Oh— No! That’s just Lily’s thing. She does that with literally everyone. I’m not dating her. I don’t want to date her. Not that there’s anything wrong with her, just that, you know. I’m not. Not dating her, I mean.” James clears his throat, his face bright red by the time he's done speaking.
“Oh.” The sudden happiness that this brings Regulus is quickly overtaken by embarrassment. He was so idiotic and now has just embarrassed himself and made James super uncomfortable. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s not a big deal, but uh, I’m not dating Lily.” He chuckles awkwardly, then clears his throat once more. “Anyways, yeah. You should bring some friends or something and join us.”
“Er— Thanks for the invitation, but I have some stuff later, so I don’t think I’ll be able to make it.”
Regulus makes note of the way James’ smile falters, but it's back on his face so quickly he might have been imagining it. “Okay, yeah. That’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, see you, James.”