Fall in Love With Me.

James wasn’t the most lucky guy, but never had his luck been this bad. At first he just assumed that he was being stalked, but Regulus’ annoyance truly solidified the fact that it was just horrible luck.

First there was the hallway, James was returning to Gryffindor tower after an unlucky encounter with Snape and right as he turned the corner his body slammed into another. The hall was filled with the loud clambering of books falling to the ground.

“Shit- sorry.” James rambles, quickly grabbing every book in his vicinity. 

With the stack in his hands, he stretches his arms out for the stranger to get their books. Only it was no stranger who was brushing the dirt off of their uniform and Regulus gave him his usual cold look before grabbing his books with strangely delicate hands. 

“Well, now that we’re here and I have yet to see my brother around, will you tell me where he is?” Regulus said with a strong voice.

James makes a sour look, “not unless you tell me why. I mean, what makes you think I trust yo- and you’re walking away. Fuck.” 

Then there was the library on the following wednesday. James had merely wanted to get a book for Remus who was deep in study for transfiguration when the unusually heavy book fell from his reaching grasp and landed right on top of some poor kids' open book.

“Sorry-”

“Must you disturb my presence, right now, Potter.” Regulus interrupted, the left corner of his mouth twitching and his voice of which was normally cold and dry was cold and annoyed.

“Wha- Are you stalking me?” James bemused, snatching the book from on top of the other.

“In what universe would I waste my energy on such a thing?”

James actually lets out a bit of a chuckle, “in our present universe where I am the most eligible bachelor at Hogwarts, miniature Black.” 

“If that’s what lets you sleep at night, Potter.” and he’s quickly gone.

Did he just fucking smile?

That tiny smile that Regulus gave James was plaguing James’ mind for reasons unknown for a suspiciously long time. Well, reasons a little known. In his time at Hogwarts James had never seen Regulus show any emotion, of any kind and honestly, he seriously doubted that Regulus had ever even smiled on school grounds. Or ever. Admittedly, it was a bit intriguing for James.

Nearly every day for the next two weeks James ran into Regulus, no way quite the same, and it was starting to wear down on his patience. The only constants of the encounters was a couple testing words exchanged between the two and Regulus leaving on steady feet. Not one time does Regulus admit to why he needs to speak to Sirius, too. All James has learned from the experiences is that he needs to be more mindful of his surroundings, because apparently Regulus was everywhere.

Exactly two weeks since his first encounter with Regulus, James is trying to enjoy his leisure time on his four-poster, doing absolutely nothing but chatting (ranting, really) with his friends. However, James is a very high energy man, so it’s not the most rewarding but it’s mainly an attempt to stay away from Regulus. I won’t bump into him if I just hang out on my bed, unless of course he’s a snake animagus and he fucking slithers his little slytherin body into our dorm room…

“Mate, backtrack, why is he so dead set on seeing pads again?” Peter asks.

“He won’t fucking tell me! It’s so frustrating! Everytime we speak a bit, he just disappears the second I ask about it!” James replies, shaking his hands around.

“You’d imagine if he wanted to speak to Sirius that badly and he didn’t want to give the real reason why, he would just lie about it.” Remus adds, looking over at Sirius.

The ladder of the two is uncharacteristically quiet, staring off out the window from Moony’s bed. Remus sighs looking away. They all knew that avoiding the topic of his family was a bit of a silent rule because it would put Sirius on edge, especially after he ran away in fifth year to live with James, but they knew it was better to know the information that James was giving them than him being silent. 

Remus put his hand on Sirius’ knee, startling him, “it’s okay Sirius, you’ve got us, yeah?” 

Sirius visibly melted from Remus’ words and nodded softly as they gazed into each other's eyes. James rolled his eyes at them, earning a giggle from Peter. He has the giant urge to tell them to ‘get a room’ but one year Peter made a joke along those lines and the two boys were incredibly awkward for over a week. James thinks the group's morale can’t take that now.

James loves the quidditch pitch at Hogwarts, there’s nothing more joyous than the green grass surrounded by giant wooden stands, all coloured for each house to watch as quidditch players compete in any weather the sky gives them. He loves looking at the layout of Hogwarts from in the sky, he always feels so at peace in the pitch of the school he loves so dearly. It's unfortunate that James’ forgot his broom in his dorm or he would’ve been in the air by now.

“Mate, just use a school broom,” Sirius groans, “or, or, make Moony get it, look at him, he has nothing better to do with his time!”

“Sirius, he’s literally studying for the transfiguration quiz that we have tomorrow.” James points to the stands where Remus is surrounded by books and parchment and Sirius just groans again.

Sirius always expressed confusion –and a little annoyance, though he never admitted it– as to why Remus would join them during quidditch practice when he would just spend it doing homework, but in 6th year, James realized that it’s actually because he’s scared of making a fool of himself in front of Remus. That year Sirius failed to manage a dive and his face was beet red and he refused to look in Remus’ direction. Remus had gone to get more books when it happened but Sirius was too flustered to even notice.

“Prongs, did you know that you’re the most beautiful man I've ever seen?” Sirius declares with a wide smile and his arm around James’ shoulder.

James shakes his head with a smile, “oh, Padfoot, you absolutely flatter me! I'm still going for my broom though.”

“But our trick!” Sirius whines.

“We can practise the trick when I get my broom, just hang out with Remus while you wait.” James insists and quickly makes a run for it. As the wind rushes past his running body, he hears Sirius jeering at him from the field and he can’t help the smile that stretches across his face. James always finds a lot of appreciation towards his friends, even if they’re praying for his downfall.

Do you happen to remember James’ earlier lesson of being more mindful of his surroundings? Yeah, it did not stick. In James’ rush, the second he leaves the stadium he bumps into someone that he's knocked into so often that he already knows who it is without looking at them.

“Merlin- are you sure you’re not stalking me? This is becoming ridiculous.” James exasperates, staring down Regulus who is just as displeased. 

“Potter, I first became aware of how ridiculous this was when you interrupted my reading in the library,” Regulus replies, smoothing down his jumper, “I am retrieving a book that I left in the changing room because, again, I have better things to do than to stalk you.”

“Uh huh, sure- wait, why did you even take a book to the changing room?” James says, biting back a giggle, “do you practice quidditch while enjoying a good read? No, you just get so bored of showering that you take a book in there to entertain you, is that it?” 

James can’t help but to start laughing at his slightly horrible jabs at Regulus. 

“Continue to laugh at me and I’ll hex you.” Regulus threatens, lip twitching but this is no annoyed twitch, he’s clearly holding back a smile.

James raises a brow at the emotionless boy, a smile still prominent on his face as he speaks, “c’mon, baby Black, I’m not laughing at you, and you have to admit it’s at least a little funny that you’d make bringing a book to quidditch practice a priority.”

“Not as funny as forgetting your broom when you’re literally heading to quidditch practice, I assume.” 

Did Regulus just make a joke? Wait, how did he know I forgot my broom?

“Is my brother in the stadium?” he quickly adds, possibly hoping to catch James off guard.

James straightens his back, “no, don’t even try.” 

“Fine.” and he’s gone.

At about 10pm and the marauders are gathered in their dorm room. Remus and Sirius chatted while they played a record of a song that James forgot the name to while Peter studied for the transfiguration quiz, which left James laying on his bed thinking about his interaction with Regulus while staring at the ceiling.

“Sirius?” James mutters.

“Yeah?” 

He sighs, “does Regulus joke?”

He’s met with the silence of hesitation which he expected. He waits, nevertheless, because he knows Sirius needs time with these sorts of things.

Sirius sighs too, “he used to, maybe not as much as regular children, but… he stopped entirely after he started at hogwarts. I never knew why.”

“Why do you want to know, James?” Peter asks politely.

“I almost made him smile, it was weird, and then- he made a joke?” 

No one really knew how to respond, but they all had the same thought of ‘that's unusual’.

Sirius gets up and mumbles, “I’m going to bed, you’ll take care of the music, yeah?”

Remus nods solemnly and starts to turn it off. Quietly, one by one the marauders shut themselves out from the outside world in their bed spaces with silencing charms surrounding each of them.

James feels restless that night, tossing and turning from one side of his bed to the other before he sits up and rubs at his eyes with a groan. James feels a rather odd spark of curiosity and slips his glasses onto his face before he starts to search for the map. Of course, there’s no reason that suggests that Regulus wouldn’t be in his dorm room but he just feels compelled to take a look. Sometimes he looks at the map out of boredom anyways, this is just that. However, in the slytherin rooms, there’s no Regulus. He starts going up and down the layout of Hogwarts to find him.

“Oh?” James mutters when he spots him.

Right there, in the astronomy tower completely alone, pacing back and forth. James knows he shouldn’t, it’s really a recipe for disaster but he just can’t help the urge to see what little baby Black is pacing around for. As quietly as the creaky floor will allow, he leaves the dorm room with his cloak and map in hand.

As James nears closer and higher up the steps that lead to Regulus, he hears something, he’s not sure what because it seems to be muffled by the door. He’s wearing his invisibility cloak and has zero plan of action.

I’m just curious, maybe this will tell me the whole plan he has surrounding his brother, right? Just a slight peak.

James noticed there was a weak silencing charm, meaning it had to have been cast too quickly or a long time ago, and the door had been locked; but with a quick alohomora, James was able to open the door. He tried being as slow as possible to minimize attention to the door despite the squeaks of the old rusty hinges. 

Honestly, James expected to walk into a secret evil lair created by Salazar Slytherin himself with Regulus pacing back and forth as he snickers evilly while he rubbed his hands together exactly like a villain from the muggle movie that he watched with Lily once. The real sight before him was quite literally the last thing he expected to see.

He had never seen Regulus anywhere near like this, but it reminded him of Sirius the night he showed up at his house, sobbing and rambling, eyes wide and in utter shock of his reality. Regulus’ curly black hair was such a mess it looked like he had just finished a long quidditch match and James managed to hear the boy mumble things like “not having enough time” “it'll never work” “i'm alone” and he just paced back and forth, hand over his mouth as tears fell from his wide eyes like rivers. It shattered James’ heart when he saw Sirius like this, and despite never having a nice and genuine conversation with Regulus, he felt hurt seeing him like this and he’s just so badly shocked he can’t remember to move. 

He sees Regulus fall apart right before his eyes, falling to his hands and knees before letting out a harrowing sob.

James barely catches Regulus’ whisper, 

“they’re going to kill me.”