‘Jamie…’ He waited for a response and sighed when he saw him try not to smile as he shuffled closer, not opening his eyes. ‘James. Jamie, c’mon, get up.’ James finally opened his eyes and looked at Regulus, now having given up pretending to be asleep.
‘I was sleeping Reg, you inconsiderate monster.’ Regulus laughed and ruffled James’ hair, smiling as James propped himself up on his elbows to look at him properly. ‘What is it?’ Despite making a slight effort to get up, he still had his head extremely close to falling back into the pillow and his arms around Regulus’ middle, making it clear he wasn’t thinking of moving away any time soon.
Regulus seemed to ignore these signs and played with a particularly messy lock of James’ hair. ‘You’ve got to go, love. Don’t pretend you didn’t hear the alarm.’
James closed his eyes and whined petulantly, pulling himself even closer to Regulus as he did so. ‘Nooo. I don’t want to gooo. Don’t send me away Reggieeeeee!’
‘You are actually a toddler. Stop acting like you’re being evacuated to the other side of the country, I’ll see you tonight.’ He muttered, pressing a kiss into James’ hair before sitting up, trying to bring his partner with him but to no avail. Merlin, James was stubborn.
‘If I’m a toddler, wouldn’t that make you a pedophile?’ James smiled, still keeping his eyes shut and his head firmly on the pillow.
‘I’m not a pedophile.’
‘Hmm, you see, that’s exactly the sort of thing a pedophile would say!’
‘Hang on, if anyone is the pedophile here, it’s you. You’re the one dating your best friend’s itty-bitty tiny baby brother aren’t you?’
‘Hey! We were born less than a year apart! I’m literally 9 months older than you, Reg.’
‘Mhm, whatever you say, nonce man.’ They looked at each other for a few moments and then Regulus clicked his tongue and grabbed James’ arm, pulling him upright. ‘Right, that’s enough of that. You need to go. Your friends will notice you’re missing and it’s Wednesday so we have class soon. You’ll see me tonight anyway, won’t you? Get up.’
James pulled his arm away and groaned, burying his face in the pillow again. ‘They won’t care that much! And anyway, I have a free period first so…’
‘Well I don’t. Besides, you’ll miss breakfast if you stay much longer.’
Humming, James tilted his face slightly so he was able to see Regulus’ disappointed expression. ‘I don’t need breakfast.’
‘Oh yeah? Well I really don’t want to be at fault when the whole castle is put in danger because James Potter missed his beloved breakfast and is now in one of his moods because of it.’
James slapped his arm and pretended to be heavily offended by the statement. ‘I am not moody!’
‘Uh-huh. Now get up.’
James whined some more, though eventually sitting up in the bed. Of course, though, he had to go and spoil it immediately.
When he smirked and leaned in to kiss Regulus’ neck as a way of luring him in and getting his way, Regulus smiled and pushed him back gently.
‘Nope. No persuasion, Jamie. You can’t bribe me with kisses. You need to go.’
But I don’t want toooo!’ James, once again, sounded like a stroppy child.
Regulus didn’t have a chance to comment on that, though, as their conversation was interrupted by another voice, this one coming from Evan’s bed.
It was, unsurprisingly, Barty, the lightest sleeper and least patient of them all, including James.
‘Could you two shut the fuck up? Some of us are trying to sleep here if it isn’t so inconvenient!’
‘Sorry, Barty.’ They both called back, rolling their eyes almost in unison. They then looked back to each other, James whispering so they wouldn’t be hounded anymore.
‘Five more minutes?’
Regulus retained stubborn eye contact for a few seconds before signing in defeat; he started lying down and opened his arms so James could crawl into them and cling onto him like a giant koala.
‘Fine. But only five.’
-
‘SHIT SHIT FUCKING SHIT!’ James scrambled around the dorm, grabbing his clothes as quickly as he could. ‘I HATE MYSELF SO MUCH! ARGH!’
‘What’s his problem?’ Evan pointed at the panicking boy, his other arm still around Barty as they watched the rather entertaining scene before them.
‘Somebody thought it would be a good idea to stay here later than he should and is living to regret it.’
‘WHERE THE FUCKING FUCK ARE MY GLASSES?’
Evan and Barty continued laughing and Regulus sighed, looking around the room and then picking up his wand from the bedside table and holding it upwards when he couldn’t find them. ‘Accio glasses.’
The glasses flew into his hand and James stepped forward and grabbed them immediately. ‘How did they even- ugh whatever. Thank you so much for finding them Reggie. What would I do without you? You’re my actual hero, love.’ He kissed Regulus’ forehead quickly, trying not to be irritated at the way he was still lying casually in his bed, watching as James paid for his actions and decisions.
‘How did five minutes turn into twenty?! I hate everything I hate this fucking place! I hate myself! I fucking hate it all!’
Barty raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you need a therapist, Potter?’
‘Shut up! I need to check if I’ve missed anything!’ He pulled his shirt over his head and threw his jumper, tie and tubes over his shoulder. ‘I’ll deal with this crap in a minute. I’m gonna miss breakfast and my friends are gonna hate me. OH FUCK WHAT WILL SIRIUS THINK?! THEY ARE GONNA BE SO MAD!’ He continued panicking as he picked up the invisibility cloaks from the back of Regulus’ chair and got ready to throw it over himself when he left the dorm, kissing Regulus once and hurriedly nodding towards Evan and Barty as he left, letting the door slam behind him.
‘Well that was fun to watch.’ Evan commented lightly, the others muttered and nodded. They were all silent for a moment before Regulus spoke.
‘So…you think we should get ready for class then?’
-
James managed to catch his friends just before they got to the great hall.
‘Heyyyyy, guys! Glad I managed to catch you! I um…had to go and pick something up for…somebody. It’s just head boy stuff, y’know? So…yeah! I’m here now, no need to worry. Just…normal duties!’
‘Uh-huh. And did you…by any chance…pick up a tie with that collection? Or is that a different thing?’ Shit. Please don’t be what it sounded like.
Remus was always too perceptive for his own fucking good.
James almost didn’t want to look down, believing that if he pretended it wasn’t happening, it would just go away. When he did, he could swear he had never wanted to slap himself more than that exact moment.
A Slytherin tie.
Around his neck.
Under suspicious circumstances.
Fuck.
‘Um…that’s not-…I don’t know how that got there…’
‘Really?’
Shut up Remus, shut the fuck up right now.
‘Erm yeah. When I put it in in the morning it was like this. So…’
‘Yeah? It was just magically green? And you still wore it? Don’t you have spares?’
‘Nope.’ At least that was obvious. He did not have spares. He had one tie and it was now most likely laying miserably on the floor of a 6th year boys Slytherin dormitory.
‘Right…’
‘Could uh- couch you lend me one of yours? Just until I figure out what’s happened and…undo it?’
Remus smiled and nodded sarcastically, then his face dropped suddenly, seeing his extreme disappointment.
‘No. Not until you tell us the truth.’
He looked to Sirius with the same level of desperation but was met with that annoying smirk of theirs. ‘Nope. Sorry mate.’
Finally, he looked over to Peter, who had a similar smile to Remus’ and shrugged. ‘Sorry, Prongs.’
‘I actually hate you all. What do you expect me to do now?’
Remus smiled even more. ‘Stay Slytherin or go tieless. Your choice.’
James decided to take off the tie, but by that time, the rumour had already been spread by those who had passed him in the corridors so there was no point now. Ah well, he might as well keep it now.
-
News spread fast.
Very fast.
‘Oh shit, I’m so sorry.’
Regulus and Barty shared a confused look. ‘What do you mean, love? How is it your fault?’
Evan covered his face with his hands in frustration at himself for being so stupid. ‘Shit. I knew there was something off when my tie wasn’t where I put it. I should have said something but I just got one from my drawer of spares instead. I’m sorry. He must have picked it up by accident. I’m so sorry-‘
‘Don’t worry, it’s James’ fault, isn’t it? He’s the one who decided to sleep in so he needed to rush in the first place. You didn’t do anything.’
Barty nodded along to Regulus’ words and placed an arm around Evan’s shoulder, kissing the side of his head when he was aye nobody could see. ‘Don’t worry love, I’ll fix it.’
Evan and Regulus both looked mildly terrified. ‘What?’
‘C’mon, let’s find James.’ They followed him cautiously, not feeling reassured by the slight change in topic he made soon after.
‘Bit embarrassing isn’t it? Potter is walking around wearing a Slytherin tie and it isn’t even his boyfriend’s, it’s mine!’
-
The day had gone by…slowly. Painfully.
They were making their way to dinner and people still muttered the second they saw James, whether they noticed the tie themselves or not.
Rumours were not fun. At all.
Luckily he would be going back to the Slytherin dorms later that night to see Regulud and fuce the tie back to…whichever one of them it had belonged to.
But would that really even matter at this point? The damage was done.
Everybody in the castle now believed that he was seeing some snooty Slytherin girl.
It was almost worse than them knowing the truth.
He thought that the gossips would be the worst part of his journey but then he saw The Trio.
That’s what he had resorted to calling them now. He felt strange calling them ‘the boys’ because that is what he called his Gryffindor friends and ‘the Slytherins’ sounded too vague and somewhat judgmental for a reason he could not figure out. ‘Friends’ didn’t exactly work either because he didn’t know if he could really consider any of them as friends. Not because he didn’t want to but because he was scared ofRegulus and Barty’s reactions to James calling them that would be…not the best. Maybe Evan would have been okay with it but he didn’t really want to risk it anyway.
So ‘The Trio’ it was.
They were walking down the corridor at the same time as them and seemed to notice James at around the same moment. He saw Barty turn to the other two and they all seemed rather skeptical of whatever they were talking about. Eventually, Evan and Regulus nodded and walked in the direction of the great hall, leaving Barty alone. As they walked away, Evan gave James an apologetic smile and Regulus avoided eye contact out of his fear of people somehow figuring out what was going on between them due to one look, though he still nodded vaguely in his direction as he passed.
Barty seemed to be preparing himself for something; he shook his head, took in a deep breath, putting on that typical proud, snarky Slytherin expression and swaggering up to them.
Oh great.
‘Oi, Potter!’
Peter abs Remus sighed, whilst Sirius rolled their eyes and stepped towards Barty. ‘What do you want now? This is starting to become a habit, Crouch.’
‘Woah, calm down, will you? I just wanted to tell dear Potter here that that lovely little enchantment on his tie will wear off soon so he doesn’t need to worry his pretty little head about it.’ He turned to James, not letting his gloating expression falter at all. ‘Luckily for you, it was only temporary, at the 24 hour mark of when we snuck in and cast it, it’ll go back. Take that as us being polite. You’ll have your nice red tie back by tomorrow.’ He laughed and patted James’ shoulder, ignoring the sharp inhale of James’ three friends and slipping a small bit of parchment into his hand as he walked off.
James looked at it when he was certain his friends would notice. Written on it in handwriting even worse than his own were three words.
You. Owe. Me.