Orientation
Regulus
Its been about 2 hours since he and Sirius arrived, and this is what Regulus has done in that time:
Freaked the fuck out about sharing a cabin with James for an entire summer (why does the universe hate him?)
Met a strangely whimsical girl
Get distracted by the lake
Get dragged to the Eagle Lounge (stupid name) by Sirius for orientation - kill him now.
This is going to be the longest, most torturous summer of Regulus’ life, he’s sure of it.
James
James is the most excited he’s ever been in his whole life, he thinks. Camp has always been his favorite place in the whole world, but he has a fantastic feeling about this year. He looks around the room, and waits for the other counselors to get there.
Lily gets there first.
“Hey, how’re you feeling?” she asks him, because of course she does
“A little nervous, but a lot excited.” James replies, truthfully
“I’m just glad we have two weeks this year instead of like 6 days like last year, it would’ve been a complete mess with all the new people we’re going to have to train.” Lily says
“I know, I practically had to beg mom and dad.” James replies, “I’m going to miss all our old counselors, we had such a good group.”
This will be James’ first camp without all his friends there - Frank, Alice, Gideon, and Fabian had all moved on to bigger and better things. Although its good for them, it leaves James, Lily, and Sirius in a bit of a rough spot, being the only counselors with experience.
James and Lily talk for a bit more, then Sirius and Regulus show up, right on time.
He has to be honest, when Regulus first showed up on his and Sirius’ doorstep last spring James would have never thought he would be here, at James’ parents’ camp, at orientation. The world does really work in mysterious ways.
Once Sirius and Regulus are there, everyone else follows right after.
Here we go James thinks.
Over the next half an hour, all 20 of his staff shuffles in, and by 3:00, everyone is here. James is thrilled that everyone seems to be talking and mingling and getting along with each other. He recognizes some of them from the few interviews he sat in on with his parents. Marlene, with her blonde hair cut in probably the coolest shag James has ever seen. Ellis, with his big smile and arm tattoos. Pandora, with her skirt hanging all the way down to the floor.
As James is attempting to remember everyone’s names, he hears Lily clearing her throat next to him, reminding him that he needs to get this started.
“Alright! Everyone’s here, so we should get started before it gets too late” James says, catching everyone’s attention.
“I’m James Potter, your head counselor, and welcome to Camp 7 Oaks!”
Sirius whoops, and everyone applauds. So far, so good.
“This is Lily Evans, your program director, so everyone make sure to treat her with the utmost respect.” James says next, “We’re going to need to get to know each other, so I thought we’d start today with our names and why they’re here this summer!”
“I can start,” Lily says - thank god for Lily Evans - “I’m Lily Evans, as you all already heard. I’m from Chatham, New Hampshire. I just graduated from Yale, and I’m going to Harvard Law in the fall. I’ve been coming to this camp since I was 6 years old, and I’ve worked here for 5 years now and I just love it entirely too much to not come back every year.”
The next one up is Sirius. “Hi everyone, My name is Sirius Black. I grew up in Washington, D.C and I moved out here for school, I just graduated from UCLA. I’ve been here almost as long as Lily here and I couldn’t bear the idea of leaving.” That earns him a few scattered laughs, then its Regulus’ turn.
“I’m Regulus Black. I grew up in Washington, D.C, and I go to school at NYU. This is my first year, and I got practically dragged by my brother to come here.” He says, which puts James off a bit. Hadn’t he wanted to come? He had seemed so excited about it back at their apartment.
Unfortunately, James gets a bit too distracted on Regulus’ words to catch the next 2 stories, but he just catches Mary’s.
“Hi, I’m Mary Macdonald. I’m from Florida, and I just graduated from the University of Miami. I’m here because I’m going to be a teacher next year and I want to spend some more time around kids before I’m responsible for their education.” She laughs here, and everyone else does, too.
The rest of the little icebreaker goes smoothly, and then it gets back around to James.
“Hi everyone. Again, I’m James Potter. I’m originally from New York City; I moved out here for school, and my parents have been owning and running this camp longer than I’ve been alive, so I can’t imagine spending a summer anywhere else.” James says, still a little caught on Regulus, and how his eyes are currently burning holes into the side of James’ face.
“Alright,” James says, getting excited again, “now that we’re all friends, let’s get in to it”.
They spend the next 45 minutes going over camp activities, emergency protocols, and basically everything they’ll ever need to know about running the day-to-day activities. He explains the required training that’ll happen over the next two weeks, and then After James is finally done talking, he passes it on to the specific directors of activities. First Marlene, then Pandora, and Emmeline.
“Alright, hi again, everyone,” Marlene says when she stands up. “As you already know, I’m Marlene and I’m going to be the sports director for camp this year. Like James said, there’s going to be different specialized week-by-week camps going on for the younger kids, and some of the older kids are here all summer, and have a more general, ‘summer camp’ experience.”
“I’m going to be running a soccer camp, a basketball camp, and a volleyball camp, for some younger kids and I’ll be putting together different games and sports activities for the kids that are here all summer.” She explains, “I’m going to need at least one volunteer to help me run the specialized camp, it would obviously be preferred if you had some experience in the sport,” she laughs slightly, “but we’re really just here to have fun and teach them the basics. The rest of the time I’ll be a regular counselor, and just be going where I’m needed.”
Marlene sits down, and then it’s on to Pandora.
“Hey, I’m Pandora, again, and I’m going to be the arts and crafts director this summer.” She begins, “I mostly just applied here because I thought it would be fun, but James asked me to be arts director after I showed him some of my work - I’m an artist myself, and I actually just sold a couple pieces to some museums across the country.”
She continues explaining the camps she’ll be running and the help she needs, and James can’t help but feel a little bit proud of himself, and the team he put together. Although he’s been at this camp his whole life, this is the first year he’s actually running it completely by himself. His parents are planning on retiring next year, so this is his trial run. All James wants is to make his parents proud, and they deserve the easiest retirement in the history of the universe, so he has to make sure everything goes off without a hitch.
As Emmeline starts explaining her camps and her job as the resident wilderness guide, James can’t believe how well everything is going. The vibes are all amazing, and everyone seems equally excited to be here, well.
Everyone except for one.
Everyone except for Regulus.
James cannot for the life of him figure out what is going on with Regulus. He really did seem excited about camp when they were at James and Sirius’ apartment, but now he just seems like this is some sort of inconvenience. As he takes back over at the end, his thoughts of Regulus seem to linger annoyingly in the back of his mind. He’ll just have to do everything in his power to make sure Regulus has the best time ever this summer, he decides.
“Alright, everyone,” James says as Emmeline sits back down, “That’s all we have time for today, so now I’ll let you guys go and get settled in your cabins, and we can meet down by the docks in about an hour, and I’ll give you a proper tour of this place.”
James can’t quite put his finger on it, but something about this year feels different. Something big and important, and as he watches his new team make their ways out the door, he can’t wait to find out.