Chapter 10
Regulus~
Regulus woke up to Sirius hitting him with a pillow. So, of course the only natural reaction to this was kicking him in the groin and laughing when he doubled over.
“You’re horrible.” Sirius said, sitting up next to Regulus.
“Thank you. What do you want?” Regulus smiled smugly.
“James tells me you’re coming with us tomorrow night, that true?” Sirius laid out on Regulus’ bed, making himself comfortable.
“Yeah, why?”
“You don’t like parties, I remember. Why are you coming?” Sirius looked up at him with knowing eyes, though also missing the point completely.
“James asked me to come and I figured I’d thank him for helping me with this girl-” Regulus stopped himself, realising his mistake. Merlin, he’d gotten away without Sirius clocking his mistake with the whole “girl” thing for a few weeks, just for him to fuck up now.
“So, are you finally going to tell me who this guy is? That’s why you didn’t tell me who ‘she’ was, right?” Sirius put over dramatic finger quotes around the word ‘she’.
“...Partially? It doesn’t matter.” Regulus couldn’t believe he’d gotten away with that.
“Whatever. Anyways, since you’re coming with us to the party, I figured we’d need to go shopping.” Sirius stated as if it was obvious.
“Why would I need to do that? My clothes are perfectly fine.” Regulus defended.
“Not for a muggle party, they aren’t.” Sirius brushed off.
“What? Muggle party? Why the fuck are we going to a muggle party? How’d you even get invited?” Regulus questioned, shocked at how James could just leave this out.
“Well, technically we weren’t really invited… Mary was, we’re her plus-.... Plus fives. Well, you and your lot are coming so… plus tens.” Sirius smiled widely.
“This is ridiculous.” Regulus rolled his eyes dramatically. “Fine, I’ll shop with you.”
“Thank Merlin. You’re wearing my clothes to the shops, no way in hell are we going to muggle London with you dressed like you.” Sirius rolled his eyes, pegging a pair of flared black jeans and a white tight fitted cropped t-shirt with an obscure print on it.
“It’s cold outside.” Regulus noted.
“It's a long sleeve.” Sirius combatted.
“Can’t you give me a jacket or something?”
“No, now hurry up.” Sirius rolled his eyes, leaving the door wide open as he left.
Sirius’ clothes weren’t ugly, they just weren’t what Regulus was comfortable in. He didn’t see anything wrong with his wizarding robes and clothes. Obviously, they wouldn’t fit well into a muggle party but did he really need to wear this stuff? It didn’t feel like him. The cropped clothing fit Sirius, the tight shirts fit Sirius, the flared jeans fit Sirius. It felt foreign on him, it didn’t feel like it was him. If all muggle clothes were like this, he wants nothing to do with them.
Walking down to the main area of the house (which everyone had decided to be in for some reason, if not purely to spite Regulus) had him feeling self conscious, which isn’t something he usually feels about his appearance. Regulus isn’t the pinnacle of self-love, he’s just never let himself think on his physical appearance long enough to begin to loathe it. He loathes enough things about himself - he doesn’t need to add his body to that. But, he’s also just never given himself the space or time to evaluate it. He knew what clothing he liked and what clothing fit him, moving outside of that zone of comfort has given him both far too much time and space to evaluate.
“Regulus- you’re- you look- are those- are those Sirius’ clothes?” James stuttered, red faced, the second Regulus came into view. James looked sick, was it really that bad?
“Yeah, I’m borrowing them seeing as someone decided to leave out the fact this was a mug-” Sirius ran over and put his hand over Regulus’ mouth. Euphemia quirked her eyebrow at them.
“I’m forcing him to go muggle clothes shopping with me! That’s what he means.” Sirius smiled fakely. James nodded hastily next to him, throwing fake smiles to his parents. “We’ve got to go! We’ll see you all later.” Sirius waved to all of them before pushing Regulus out of the room, not letting anyone ask or say anything. Sirius kept his hand over his mouth until they were fully out of the manor.
“What the fuck?” Regulus asked, pushing him into a pillar the second they got to the front veranda.
“You almost blabbed to Effy and Monty that we were going to a muggle party.” Sirius stressed.
“They don’t know?!” Sirius rushed to cover his mouth again but Regulus batted away his hands, leaving them in a childish cat fight. “Stop it, you moron.” Regulus pushed him away. “I’m not going if Effy and Monty don’t know.” Regulus ended.
“Come on, don’t be boring.” Sirius whined.
“Siri, I’m not pushing buttons that are better unpushed.” Regulus reasoned.
“What does that even mean?” Sirius rolled his eyes.
“It means they’ve allowed us to stay with them, I’m not going to sit here pushing at their buttons, testing how long till they break.” Regulus explained.
“That's- That’d never happen. Come on, Reggie.” Sirius pleaded. “You never do anything with me, just come with us.”
“Tell Effy and Monty.” Regulus bargained.
“Fine, later. For now, let’s go shopping.” Sirius dragged on Regulus’ arms, mischief in his eyes. Regulus knew he was lying but he’d let himself believe it was the truth because he really did want to go.
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They’d been walking around muggle London for 2 hours, it’d been torturous. Sirius has seemed to have forgotten they were shopping for Regulus because he’s been in and out of changing rooms in every store he claimed would be more ‘Regulus’ speed’. Regulus has tried on two items. Both times he overestimated how it’d fit on him and was too embarrassed to admit he didn’t understand the sizing metric of muggles. The whole situation didn’t bother him nearly as much as he wanted it to. Sirius was happy and for some reason that made the whole thing less horrible. Don’t misunderstand - it was still horrible.
“Sirius, are we done yet?” Regulus asked, surprisingly for the first time of the day.
“What? We haven’t gotten you anything yet.” Sirius answered confused.
“I’ll just wear something of yours. I’m tired.” Regulus supplied.
“No, we need to find you your own style.”
“Well, can we hurry with it?” Regulus whined.
“Fine.” Sirius dramatically rolled his eyes. “Let's start you off with a band-tee.” Sirius decided.
“A band-tee?” Regulus scrunched his brows together.
“It’s just a normal shirt that has your favourite band on it.” Sirius answered casually, it was not a casual matter.
“I don’t have a favourite muggle band. I don’t even know any muggle bands and I doubt they’d have any wizarding bands, not that I know any of those either. We both know Mother never let us listen to anything that wasn’t of the standard of ‘La Chorale Du Calico Coven Capella’. So unless they happen to have a ‘band-tee’ of that, then I don’t think I’ll get one.” Regulus waved off.
“You’ve never heard muggle music?” Sirius sounded appalled.
“Why would I?”
“Because- Because It’s amazing?! You’ve never heard a Bowie song?” Regulus shook his head no. “The Beatles?” Regulus shook his head again. “Queen? Dolly Parton? Elton John? Marvin Gaye? Kiss? ACDC? Elvis? Jimi Hendrix? Billy Joel?” Sirius listed, getting more and more appalled with each one. “None of them?!”
“Nope.” Regulus stated calmly.
“We can’t have that. We simply can not! How are you even breathing?” Sirius threw his hands up dramatically.
“I ask myself that daily.” Regulus smiled humorlessly.
“We’re taking you to a record shop, immediately.” Sirius decided.
“Why?” Regulus sighed exasperatedly.
“We need to educate you, Regulus!” Sirius screamed, though it was more on the side of a demonic screech. Regulus threw his head back dramatically, though following his brother to the nearest record store. Sirius walked them into a store called ‘The HMV shop’, it was filled with muggles wearing colourful clothes, most of them with a suit jacket thrown on top of a clash of colours. It wasn’t somewhere Regulus would go, but it really did feel like his brother's place. A song was playing over the speakers but it really just sounded like noise, too much noise.
“So, how do we start this?” Regulus asked, not sure of his place there.
“Oh! Let’s start with Bowie. Merlin, Moony loves Bowie. He’s convinced he’s a wizard. You’ll love him!” Sirius excitedly pulled him over to a vinyl player and ran over to a section leaving Regulus standing alone by the player. Regulus knew he looked strange, muggle men looked him up and down - probably confused on what he was doing there. One of them winked at him, he wasn’t sure if that was a muggle intimidation tactic but it definitely worked. “Okay! I’ve gotten my favourite Bowie album! It’s a tester so we’re allowed to play it, put those headphones on. Get ready for your mind to be blown! It’s my favourite Bowie song, it’s called Moonage Daydream.” Regulus couldn’t help but laugh at the obvious obsession his brother had with Lupin.
The song kicked off very fast (though maybe that’s how all muggle songs were) the man was singing about being an alligator? A space invader? He was swearing by line three, Regulus was very shocked by that. Regulus could understand how it could be enjoyable, the rhythm was fun but he didn’t understand the lyrics. He hated not understanding. Sirius looked so excited. Regulus has never shied from disappointing those around him before, why start now? He took the earphones off midway through the second half of the song.
“Why’d you take it off?” Sirius questioned immediately.
“I don’t think they’re my type of music… maybe something else?” Regulus smiled awkwardly.
“Seriously? But- It’s Bowie? How could you not-” Sirius ranted on like a broken record, Regulus tuned him out when the next song playing over the speaker switched on. It started off quickly, the second the last song ended - it started. No instrumental to ease you in, just words. Regulus didn’t catch the first words, so he listened closely for the next. There was a small break filled with a piano riff that Regulus pocketed away to his memory to try out later. ‘I am forever searching high and low. But why does everybody tell me no?’ the man over the speaker sang. Regulus understood the lyrics, he liked the lyrics. They made him want to sit and think about them, he loved things like that. Regulus' attention was pulled back to the song as the rhythm picked up and the man began to sing ‘Messenger from Seven Seas has flown, to tell the king of Rhye he’s lost his throne.’ Regulus didn’t understand that part but he wanted to.
He turned to his brother who was still ranting in shock about him not enjoying the band he’d just shown him. “Okay, okay, I get it. You’re shocked I don’t like your band but-”
“Band?! Band?! Regulus- I- I can’t believe you right now.” Sirius huffed in disappointment.
“I know, I know. I don’t care. Who sang that song that just played?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t hear it. Wait- why? Did you like it? Did you find something you like?!” Sirius questioned excitedly.
“I guess? It was nice.” Regulus agreed. Sirius grabbed onto his arm and dragged him over to the counter.
“Hi!” He greeted the muggle behind the desk, who looked rather tired.
“Hello?” The dark haired person looked up at them, they had metal piercings on the bridge of their nose.
“My brother here - mind you he’s a bit musically obtuse.” The person behind the desk huffed a laugh, leaning in closer over the desk to Sirius. “But the last song you played he really enjoyed - I didn’t hear it because I was too busy being utterly perplexed by him not understanding Bowie. BOWIE!” Sirius stressed, while the person behind the counter giggled softly. “But he really liked it. Mind if I grab the name off you?” Sirius smirked. The person behind the counter giggled, again. It took Regulus a minute to realise they were flirting, once he’d realised he longed to go back to moments before when he was still in ignorant bliss (well… more ignorant uncomfortability but that’s better than knowing uncomfortability).
“Well, the last song I played was ‘Lily Of The Valley’ by queen-” Sirius cut the person off, clicking his fingers in their face dramatically.
“QUEEN! Yes! Some taste! My brother has taste! This is brilliant! Personally I’m not the biggest Queen fan but it’s better than ABBA - don’t tell Pete I said that-” Sirius threw a quick thank you to the person behind the desk before pulling Regulus off to the vinyl player again. “Stay here while I pack Ziggy Stardust away, I’ll bring Sheer Heart Attack back with me.”
“How do you remember their names?” Regulus asked.
“Oh, well that’s James’ second favourite album. He’s a big Queen fan, not surprised you are too, you’re around him too much.” Sirius rolled his eyes before skidding between rows of vinyls casually as if he didn’t just throw the biggest bombshell at Regulus. James likes it too. Sirius isn’t surprised Regulus likes the things James likes. Merlin, it’s stupid, trivial things like this that keep him up at night. Sirius ran back with another vinyl, “Okay! Wanna just listen from the start?”
“What’s James’ favourite?” Regulus asked.
“It’s a toss up between ‘Killer Queen’ and ‘She Makes Me’.” Sirius answered. Just the sound of ‘She Makes Me’ hurts.
“Play ‘Killer Queen’.” Regulus decided. Sirius excitedly flipped it on, playing with the knobs on the vinyl player. Regulus put on the headphones, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting but it definitely wasn’t this. This is cool. Not something he’d imagine James listening to. The song was addictive, he wanted to keep it on repeat - playing non-stop. But eventually it stopped and Sirius took his headphones off him. “I wasn’t finished.” Regulus complained.
“You like them?”
“Clearly.” Regulus reached to take the headphones back off him.
“Okay, cool. Come on.” Sirius put the tester vinyl away and dragged Regulus through the aisles of records. He picked up 4 records and pulled Regulus to the line at the counter.
“Sirius, what are you doing?”
“Buying you your first records. Oh, you’re gonna love this one! It’s really new too, only came out a few months back.” Sirius smiled widely at him.
“What if I don’t like them all? It’d be a waste.” Regulus reasoned.
“Well obviously you're not going to like every single record you buy, it’s all about testing. Experimenting, Reggie. Give it a try.” Sirius bumped his shoulder with his own.
“I don’t have a record player.”
“I have two, take one.” Sirius silenced him while he paid for the records, the person behind the desk shamelessly flirting with him. Sirius excitedly pulled them out of the record store and on to the nearest clothing store. “Okay, time to build your style around it! Seeing as you refuse to come up with your own.” Sirius rolled his eyes.
“I don’t refuse. Everything’s just too- I don’t want to say too colourful. I sound like a loser when I say that.” Regulus whined.
“But that’s what it is? The colours? I get that, a lot of my clothes are just black and white. You know, if you’d just said that we could’ve gotten this over with quickerrrrr.” Sirius sang.
“Okay, well I’m saying it now. I want less colourful stores.” Regulus decided. Sirius nodded, pulling Regulus across the street with no care for the cars flying past them. He pulled them both into a monochromic store with a weird name.
“This is where you’d find less colours.” Sirius said proudly as if it was his store. He wasn’t wrong, there were barely any pops of colour in the store. Honestly, it looked like a place where rainbows and people like Pandora would simply die.
“I don’t know if this is what I meant, Siri.” Regulus eyed the scary person behind the desk.
“Come on, you’ve got more of a chance here than you do in the other places. I’ll help you look.” Sirius looped his arm through Regulus’ the way Dorcas does and pulled him further into the store. “Okay, so what should I be looking out for?” Sirius asked, touching every piece of clothing they walked past.
“What do you mean?”
“Like, what kind of clothes do you want? Sweater vests? Flared jeans? Skinny jeans? Button ups? Suit jackets? Corsets? Patterns? Words? Drawings? What are you looking for?” Sirius listed.
“Well- I don’t know? I guess, the muggles seem to really like suit jackets. I’ll try that. I don’t hate these jeans but I hate the top.” Sirius made an offended scoff noise. “I don’t think I want any words, drawings or patterns. It feels juvenile. Also, I think Mother would murder us both if you put me in a corset.” Regulus noted, making Sirius bark out a laugh.
“All the more reason to try it.” Sirius laughed.
“Let’s just stick to something basic first.” Regulus decided.
“Alright, let’s get you some jeans that actually fit you right and go from there.” Sirius decided, pulling Regulus along through aisles and aisles of clothing.
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They’d been in the store for almost an hour, Sirius wouldn’t let them leave until Regulus had at least three outfits. He now had 6. They were nice though, muggles made nice clothing when it wasn’t scalding your eyes with polychromatic patterns. They were now at a tea shop on the corner of a busy road. Regulus didn’t realise how oddly pretty muggle London would be, he liked the busyness. No one seemed all that interested in him because they were all too busy. He liked that. Sirius on the other hand did get a lot of attention, every store they went into at least one person would look him up and down. His brother was just far more eye-catching and he liked being that way. He revelled in their attention, he always has. Even the teashop they’re at now, it’s overrun with busy bodies running out of time but the waitress still stops to give all her attention to Sirius’ order, as if he’s telling her a riveting story. Sirius notices they’re flirting with him but he never seems to care.
The waitress finally walked away and Sirius turned to him, “She was nice.” He declared.
“Yeah, because she wanted to shag you.” Regulus rolled his eyes.
“Sucks for her, Mother raised a couple of queers.” Sirius laughed.
“One more stupid than the other.” Regulus added.
“That one being you?” Sirius quipped.
“No, I think it’s more the one who’s so oblivious to his own love life that he's convinced himself two clearly romantically incompatible friends are shagging.” Regulus noted.
“Can you stop bringing them up?”
Regulus stopped and pulled an overdramatic thinking face, “Hmmm… not until you stop being a Moron.” Sirius rolled his eyes at Regulus’ delivery.
“I don’t understand why you don’t believe me. They’re dating, Reg.” Sirius stressed.
“No, they aren’t.”
“Yes, they are.”
“No, they aren’t”
“Yes, they are.”
“No, they aren’t.”
“Give me one reason to believe that.” Sirius brushed off, trying to hide his hurt.
“...Well, I’m not supposed to tell you this but-”
“You’re egging me on, I can tell you’re about to.” Sirius rolled his eyes.
“Can I finish or are you just going to keep opening your yap?” Regulus glared at him.
“Go on, not that it’s of any worth.” Sirius looked down at his nails, playing up the uninterested facade.
“Sure, not of any worth. I’m not supposed to tell you but Remus practically begged me to get you to ask him out.” Sirius’ eyes blew wide.
“You’re lying.” Sirius glared.
“For what reason?”
“You’re taking the piss and it isn’t even funny.”
“Again, why would I do that?” Regulus challenged.
“Stop it, he didn’t.” Sirius debated with himself. “He wouldn't. If he wanted to, he would've just asked me. Wouldn’t he have just asked me?” Sirius asked.
“He had some weird reasoning about not wanting to feel like he forced you, or some shit.” Regulus drank his coffee uninterestedly, as if he wasn’t going to floo call Dorcas the second he got home.
“Why would you not tell me this? What the fuck, Reg? This changes everything! You realise this changes everything, right?!” Sirius stood up, snatching all their bags from around them and pulling Regulus up with him.
“Are you finally becoming aware or is this a repeat of a few weeks back? You going to think he’s shagging Peter this time?” Regulus laughed as Sirius hastily pulled them both to an alleyway to apparate them back to the manor.
“Shut up. I will hex you and you can’t defend yourself because you’re 16.” Sirius threatened, though it fell short when he’s literally tailoring around a shit tonne of shopping bags. SIrius apparated them to Regulus’ room, dropping everything in there and immediately going through his bags to find something to wear.
“Is this really necessary? You already know he likes you. Do you really need to dress up for this?” Sirius threw a pair of jeans at Regulus.
“Shut up. Please. Shut up.” Sirius chanted.
“I’m just saying, you’re wasting your time.” Regulus noted.
“You’re no help, this is horrible horrible help.” Sirius grabbed his bags and stormed out to his room. Regulus couldn’t help but laugh knowing he probably would still be in there freaking out over Lupin all night.
—---------------------------------------------------------------
Sirius~
It’s been four hours. Four fucking hours. He still can’t find a single thing to wear, he’s gone through his, Effy’s and James’ closets. Merlin, he even went through Monty’s closet and he has a horrible case of Dad-taste. Everything he put on felt overdone and he felt like he was on fire. If Regulus wasn’t fucking with him then it meant by the end of today it’d be him and Remus. That was terrifying.
Maybe that was the problem, it was the end of the day. That has to mean something, right? Like, it was burn out hours, or something. It was almost 12, maybe going to Remus at midnight would be good luck because it’s the start of the day. Sirius decided he’d go with that, wait out in his room till 12am then apparate to Remus.
A knock on the door cut off his thoughts, “Padfoot? Can I come in?” Remus asked through the door.
SIrius was going to murder Regulus.
“Uh- One second! Don’t come in!” Sirius yelled.
“Okay, I’m coming in?”
“No- I said-” Remus cut him off, stepping into the room.
“Regulus invited me… told me you weren’t feeling okay… what’s with the clothes on the floor and why are you wearing a tiara?” Remus asked while picking up some of the clothes.
“I don’t know what you mean, this is perfectly normal.” Sirius defended.
“Hmm, yeah… very.” Remus sighed, sitting down on the spot on the floor he cleared. “Where’d you even get a tiara from?” Remus smiled fondly.
“My cupboard.” Sirius answered, scotting in closer to Remus.
“Right, of course.” Remus chuckled softly. “Alright, what’s going on?” Remus pressed his knee to Sirius’.
“I don’t know.” Sirius lied, adjusting his tiara.
“Okay, let’s start with why there are so many clothes on the floor.” Remus prompted.
“I was trying to pick an outfit.”
“For what?”
“To go see you.”
“Oh… what’s wrong with the one you have on now? Minus the tiara.” Remus smiled.
“I like the tiara.” SIrius argued.
“Where’d you get the dress top from, though?” Remus asked.
“You don’t like it?”
“No, I do. I’ve just never seen you in it before. I do like it.” Remus assured.
“I bought it today with Reggie. We went shopping.” Remus’ eyes blew wide/
“Just you and Reg?” Sirius nodded. “Did something… happen, while you were there?”
“I guess.” Sirius agreed.
“And you needed to see me? Why?” Remus questioned, eyes alert.
“I don’t know.” Sirius lied.
“Okay, let’s talk about it tomorrow. For now, let’s get off the floor. Also, you should probably sleep.” Remus said, helping Sirius up. Sirius stopped them, holding onto Remus’ arms.
“I don’t wanna sleep yet… I can’t sleep, not yet. I need to tell you something or I won’t be able to sleep.” Sirius confided.
“Okay, but I’m not standing here while you do it.” Remus walked them both back to the bed, sitting opposite of Sirius, knees touching. “Alright, shoot.”
“Do you remember when I dated Mary?” Sirius asked.
“Wow, that is not where I saw this going- but yes, I do.” Remus admitted.
“But you like, you really, really remember?” Sirius clarified.
“Yes, 5th year. You both claimed to be gayer the second it ended.” Remus joked.
“But, do you remember when I used to tell you about her? Like- Do you remember the things I used to say about her?” Sirius asked, urgency in his eyes.
“Yeah… I remember it all.” Remus’ smile dropped. “But, you told me you didn’t mean any of it… that you were just lying to cover who you were.”
“No… I meant it… all of it.” Sirius admitted.
“Oh.” Remus clenched his jaw. “So, you want to get back together with her?”
“No? You’ve misunderstood…”
“Then explain it.” Remus demanded, his tone hurt.
“I meant it… every word, Moony. Every single word I ever said about her, it took everything in me not to say your name.”
“What?” Remus’ gaze shot around Sirius’ face, looking for a tell.
“Reggie told me that you asked about me… I clearly didn’t know how to handle that.”
“You like me? I mean I knew that but I want to hear you say it.” Remus admitted.
“You only like me?” Sirius looked up at him, fear laced in his tone.
“What?”
“It’s just- I guess I thought you loved me? Because we loved each other as friends, I didn’t realise it was meant to drop down to like when it became romantic… guess I missed the memo.” Sirius’ view became watercoloured. He felt stupid.
Remus moved in closer to Sirius, cupping his face with his hands, “I do love you. I wouldn’t do everything I’ve been doing if I didn’t love you.” Remus confessed, pulling Sirius into his arms.
“You knocked my tiara off.” Sirius laughed into Remus’ chest, snaking his arms around his waist.
“We’ll pick it up tomorrow.” Remus dismissed.
“So, you’re staying?” Sirius looked up at him from his arms. Remus leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.
“Of course.”