“Bit bright today, isn’t it?” James turned his head to the side so he could look up at the sky and shaded his eyes with a hand, squinting up at the sun peeing through the clouds. A faint scoff left Regulus’ lips as he propped himself up on his elbows and raised an eyebrow.
“Good observation,” He muttered. “Is that your attempt at ruining the peace and trying to start a conversation?”
James smiled and lifted his head from the ground, moving his hand to gently tug his fingers through Evan’s hair, where his head rested on James’ chest. “Well, what else could it have been?”
“I don’t know but you ruined the relaxation of the moment.” He huffed and shuffled around on the blanket, grabbing a sandwich from the basket and opening it, picking off the bits of zest from the marmalade and flicking them away into the grass one by one.
James stared as he did so, smirking and silently counting each piece as it fellow across the field. He was met with Regulus’ cold glare afterwards.
“What?”
James shrugged, still grinning. “It’s just,” He grinned wider. “Before we left, when we went to the kitchens, the elves asked if you wanted shredless and you said ‘No, don’t be silly, I can handle a bit of orange peel.’ and now look where we are.”
Regulus scoffed and put the top piece of bread back, gently tearing the crust from it and handing it to Barty. “You are so easily amused.” He took a bite of the sandwich and glared at James again, almost daring him to say something. James, of course, did.
“Good thing we didn’t pick the multigrain bread too.” Regulus threw an apple at him and James caught it swiftly, taking a bit and making Regulus pull a face.
“Sometimes I wish we could just tape your mouth shut.”
“Kinky,” Laughing, Barty dodged the slap to the head Regulus was trying to give him and shuffled closer to James and Evan. “What? It was a good idea. So, Jamie, what do you think of-”
Across from them, Regulus had squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears with both hands, sandwich abandoned on his plastic plate. “Can you two please stop it! You’re going to make me lose my mind.”
“Never.” They both responded at the same time, pointing and laughing at each other when they realised. Regulus rolled his eyes and decided to lie down and relax as much as he could with those buffoons around.
Barty loomed over Evan happily, blocking his view completely. “Hello down there.”
Evan reached up and placed a hand around Barty’s neck, bringing him down to kiss his nose gently. Barty smiled and looked to the side, grabbing a strawberry from the punnet and trying to place it into Evan’s mouth gently. Evan turned away and covered his face. “Are you trying to murder me? Do you want me to choke and die?” He sat up and felt James sit up and try to pull him back, so he shuffled in between his legs, leaning against James's chest whilst looking at the strawberry suspiciously.
“No! I was trying to be romantic! I thought strawberries were your favourite?”
Evan squinted and hummed. “I can feed myself perfectly fine, thank you.”
“That’s not the point, Ev! Just let me do it. Please?”
He groaned and nodded. “Fine, go ahead.” That was instantly met with a grin as Barty tried again, putting the strawberry into Evan’s mouth and nodded contently as he chewed. He reached into the punnet and took another two, eating one himself and feeding Evan the other.
“How come you’re never romantic like that with me?” James grumbles, resting his chin on the top of Evan’s head.
“That, my dear, would be because you are the only one here who matches my chaotic energy and I use that combined potential very well, meaning I don’t have time for romantic stuff.”
James nodded and Barty moved closer, leaning over Evan to kiss him but James shrieked and shoved him away.
“James! I thought you wanted me to be all sweet and romantic?”
James leaned back even further and put a hand between them. “I’m allergic to strawberries! You know that!” At the same time, Regulus said the same thing, with his eyes still closed.
“Well, I most certainly did not know.”
James gawped at him. “I literally mentioned it this morning!”
Barty shrugged and moved back to where he was before, kissing Regulus and resting his head on his lap. “Ah well, your loss.”
“It would have been ‘sorry for your loss’ if you kept going like that.” James whispered, earning a snort from Evan.
Regulus looked back at the castle and sighed. “Okay, I don’t want to ruin the mood but people will be getting back from Hogsmeade soon and I don’t want any rumours to be spread about James so we solid probably get going soon.”
The other three nodded but didn’t move. They didn’t want to, it was far too perfect to abandon just yet.