Chapter 3
James Potter used to consider himself to be a simple man. His love for his friends, his family, even quidditch was something simple and pure, never anything he needed to doubt and certainly not a confusing mess.
Even when he thought he had loved Lily from his first year to fifth, that had seemed clear in his mind, he was in love with her, she would someday be in love with him and they would get married and have children. What he wasn’t used to was dark hair and grey eyes popping into his head every so often.
It wasn’t even that James had feelings for Regulus Black, I mean truly how could he? He had barely spoken to the man apart from begging him to speak to Sirius and the other refusing him and even hexing him in the process. Really all it was, was physical attraction.
It wasn’t actually his fault if Regulus had hair that looked as if it would be soft to run his hands through, or had piercing flint eyes that he wanted to crack and see the vulnerability within. And it definitely wasn’t his fault that he had soft pink lips and dainty, slender wrists.
So really, James was doing nothing wrong…right?
Wrong.
Even if James had zero interest in Regulus Black apart from getting him close with Sirius again, and potentially kissing him in the process, he knew that Sirius would not take kindly to James having… less than appropriate thoughts about his brother. Baby brother. Fuck.
Except that Regulus wasn’t a baby anymore, he was a 5”11 beautiful boy who was apparently very intelligent considering he did wandless magic twice one after the other without breaking a sweat.
James was starting to wonder if he had a type for devastatingly pretty people who were intelligent enough to want nothing to do with him and showcased this through being mean. Probably. But that was something he didn’t really want to think too much about.
Realistically he knew what it was, everyone knows that James Potter loves a challenge and getting Sirius and Regulus to be brothers again was his biggest one yet.
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“Prongs where were you earlier? Remus and I were looking for you but you had the map?” Sirius called out as James strode into their shared dorm.
James froze, he couldn’t exactly tell Sirius that he was trying to get Regulus to speak to him, and he definitely couldn’t risk letting the other problem slip. “Uh I was just in the library catching up on some work!”
Sirius wrinkled his nose in confusion, “the library? That’s strange, you never usually go there and why take the map with you? You’ve been weirdly attached to that thing lately.”
James let out a huff of laughter which even to his own ears sounded suspicious, “I’m just proud of our work padfoot and besides… I am a nosy person! Right, yes that’s it, I’m nosy and I like to see where people are”
Sirius looked at him even more suspiciously but conceded, “alright…” jumping up, he leapt onto James’s bed, “but you have got to help out with the newest prank I have been thinking of”
James grinned immediately, a prank, a prank would be perfect to get his mind off of certain things.
“Okay the idea is, you know the muggle invention Nair?” James nodded, “we put it in every single male 6th and 7th year Slytherin’s shampoo bottle!”
James’s smile dropped slightly, he definitely did not want to be the cause of Regulus’s beautiful hair being ruined. “Uh Padfoot, what about your brother?”
Sirius scowled, his eyes darkening, “please the bastard is still an asshole even if he ran away, I don’t believe he has changed one bit. He deserves this.”
James could tell that this wasn’t something to push Sirius on especially considering it seemed to be a bit targeted, besides it was just Nair right? He was sure that Regulus could easily do a hair regrowth potion. “Okay, I'm on board!”
The night of the prank was coincidentally the night before Halloween meaning if everything went well, the upper year Slytherin boys would certainly find something scary in the morning… in the mirror.
“Moony” Peter whispered, “are you ready?”
Remus rolled his eyes, walking towards Peter. “Yes Peter, now transform before a teacher catches you.”
Peter nodded, before shrinking into a tiny brown rat and scurrying alongside Remus who seemed to be quite disgruntled.
“You know guys, just because I am a prefect does not mean I am exempt from rule breaking so therefore it is annoying every single time when you make me just walk beside you!” Remus hissed into seemingly nothing but air beside him.
“Moony love, you know that the cloak is too small for all three of us to go under now, and you are 6”4 so it isn’t totally illogical” Sirius’s voice whispered appeasingly from the space beside Remus.
“James is literally head boy,” Remus deadpanned, obviously still a bit peeved off as they made their way to the dungeons.
They all came to a stop outside the Slytherin common room waiting for Peter to turn back into a human. Peter’s animagus was incredibly useful for hearing about things in the castle and just that morning, he had waited by the Slytherin common room until he heard the password.
“Shit wait Pete someone’s coming! Don’t turn back yet!” Remus hissed seeing the shadow of someone rounding the corner. And of course who else would it be but Regulus Black.
James swore he could almost feel himself blushing to the roots as all the inappropriate things he had been thinking rushed back to the forefront of his mind at the appearance of Regulus. Sirius eyed him weirdly, probably feeling the heat had rushed to every area of James’s body but shook it off.
“Lupin,” Regulus somewhat greeted, somewhat stated, “what are you doing outside the Slytherin common room at 11:30pm?”
“I was just taking a stroll around Hogwarts when I happened to make my way to the dungeons and I stopped when I heard someone coming in case it was one of the younger years that I should tell off.” Remus coolly replied, the lie slipping off of his tongue easily.
Regulus raised an eyebrow, obviously not believing him but not caring enough to push it further. Nodding, he watched Remus walk away before whispering the password and entering the common room.
“Shit that was a close one,” Sirius breathed out, “what the hell is my brother doing at midnight walking around anyway? Do you think he has a secret girlfriend?”
Peter snorted, “unlikely considering he ran away because he was gay,” he gasped bringing his hands to his mouth, realising he had said something he shouldn’t.
“What?” Remus broke the silence glancing at Sirius who looked like he had been frozen in shock. “Pete, how do you know that?”
“And why weren’t you going to tell us?” James glared defensively at him.
Peter looked at them mournfully, “I overheard Crouch and Rosier talking about it in the library but when they saw that I was listening they made me swear not to tell in case it got back to Sirius.” He sighed again, “I swear I wanted to say but I do value my whiskers.”
Sirius looked a bit hurt at that, “why wouldn’t Reggie want me to know? I mean it’s not like he thinks I would be homophobic or anything… I mean hello” he gestured to him and Remus.
“I don’t know Padfoot but it’s no good speculating what Regulus says or wants, he’s an enigma and right now we’ve got a prank to finish!” James, ever the comforting one, said and slung his arm over Sirius’s shoulder ruffling his hair until he smiled.
“Alright alright let’s get the Slytherins so everyone has a right scare tomorrow” Sirius grinned mischievously, the twinkle back in his eyes.
The next morning, the marauders were sitting in the Great Hall extra early waiting with bated breaths to see the Slytherin victims straight away. The first to venture in was Snape who looked extra sour that morning, with his cloak pulled around his head though not very tightly unfortunately for him. He was glaring at everything in sight, but when he saw the boys watching him, his look turned downright murderous.
Striding towards them, he viciously pointed his finger and growled, “You! I know this was you four and I swear to Salazar you will regret this.”
Sirius laughed sharply as the cloak fell down to reveal Snape’s horrific mess of hair. It wasn’t just all gone, it was patchy and burnt with bits of scalp peeling off. It looked awful. And hilarious, though that probably wasn’t Snape’s intention when he let them see.
“Oh Snivellous we would never! I mean how on earth would we get in? Moony here is a prefect and James is the head boy, you think we would bother ourselves with such juvenile pranks?” Sirius cocked his head innocently, looking pityingly at the boy in front of them.
Snape’s glare suddenly turned into a smirk, “oh yes Moony,” he stepped closer, “how would you like it if the rest of the school found out your little secret?”
Sirius and James simultaneously stood up, staring Snape down as if he was nothing. Sirius opened his mouth, most likely to say something ridiculously insulting but before he could, a cool voice cut in.
“I think that’s enough Snape.” Snape turned around to see a bored looking Regulus Black, one foot tapping the ground as if he would rather waste his time anywhere else. What was even more surprising though was that his hair looked as perfect as ever, not a single shred of evidence of the Nair they had put in his fancy french shampoo.
Snape stared at him in surprise, “oh trust me Regulus you would not feel the same if you knew what Lupin was.”
Regulus finally stopped tapping his foot in boredom, drew himself up to his full height and smiled nastily, “That’s Black to you, and I couldn't care less about whatever rumour you want to spread about Lupin. I am telling you that’s enough and you would do well to listen to me unless you want to have a very uncomfortable time in Slytherin.”
It was clear the younger boy held a lot of authority in Slytherin and Snape seemed to be even more aware of this, standing beside the Gryffindor table as if paralysed about what to do.
Once it was clear he wasn’t moving, Regulus dropped the smile and moved closer to him before Snape let out a sharp “Ow!”
“What did you just do to me?” he asked furiously, narrowing his eyes at Regulus.
“Oh just a small wandless stinging hex,” Regulus looked back, challenging him, “and that is what I do when I’m not even focused so trust me you don’t want to see me when I’m mad. Now get out of here and if I hear a word out of your mouth about Lupin then…” he laughed dryly, “I think we both know who Slytherin will follow.”
Snape looked shocked realising he had been defeated and nodded hastily, scurrying back to the Slytherin table which had become filled with a lot more partially bald boys.
The four boys stared at Regulus dumbfounded who had started to inspect his nail beds as if he hadn’t just casted a wandless hex and threatened Snape with the entirety of Slytherin.
“Reggie… What the hell was that?” Sirius asked quietly as if he was worried a louder sound would scare Regulus away.
Regulus’s head snapped up and he put the full force of his glare on his brother, “Don’t call me Reggie!” He huffed petulantly, “and Sirius next time don’t you dare put that awful ‘Nair’ in my shampoo, you know how much it costs!”
Showing more emotion than he had in the entire interaction with Snape, he huffily semi-yelled at his brother whose jaw was actually wide open at this point.
“How did you know about the Nair?” Peter tentatively asked, obviously slightly scared of Regulus who just scoffed and said, “it was obvious.”
He started to turn around when Remus quickly rushed out a quiet but sincere, “thanks.”
Regulus just nodded before stalking back to his seat between Barty and Evan who had been watching the entire thing with just as dumbfounded expressions as the marauders.