Regulus POV
I want to stop at the library before class starts so I get up from the table, forcing myself not to look over at the table on the opposite side of the hall. I know Evans had joined the boys sitting there, not because I was watching James, just because her hair is an ungodly bright shade of red.
“Reg, why do you walk so damn fast,” I hear behind me and I slow to a stop as James comes up next to me having the audacity to not even be out of breath.
“What are you doing here James?”
“Well, I couldn’t have my boyfriend walk by himself could I?” He winks and I look down.
“Fake,” I mumble.
“Right, anyways where are we off too?”
“I’m going to the library, feel free to get lost,” I roll my eyes and continue forward.
“Oh come on, I wouldn’t be a good boyfriend if I didn’t hang out with you,” I feel a brush against my hand and I jerk back.
“Let’s be clear Potter, this is fake, I do not like you. You are just a convenience. Do not touch me, do not speak to me, do not look at me,” he recoils and I resist the urge to take it all back.
“That defeats the purpose of fake dating, Black,” he scowls, the hurt that flashed across his face now gone.
“Do you see anyone around?” I gesture to the empty hall, “Just go make goo goo eyes at Evans.”
“As much as I would really rather be doing that than here with my best mates cruel little brother, the bell is about to ring so get ready, Black the show is about the begin,” he smiles but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, it’s cold, not something I expected to come out of the sunny James Potter Sirius told me so much about.
Just as he finished the bell did indeed ring and I groaned inward, this stupid little argument getting in the way of my library time, still people were coming in the corridor making their ways to class, most not even hiding the fact that they were staring at us.
Right. I decided to fake date James Bloody Potter, the star of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and heir to one of the biggest thrones in Europe. The idea that I could get off easy was a stupid idea.
“Don’t let it get to your head, Potter,” I grab his hand and start pulling him towards Transfiguration, my first class of the day.
“It looks like you’re trying to pull my arm out of its socket,” James grunts, “no one’s going to believe this.”
“Maybe they think we’re going to go snogging.”
“Yeah right outside Minnie's class I doubt it,” I turn and while his words are unbelieving there's a slight pink dusting his cheeks. I decided to ignore it.
“Minnie?”
“Yeah Professor Mcgonagall,” he shrugs.
“I’m sorry you call Professor Mcgonagall, scariest teacher and head of your house ‘Minnie’,” I look at him like he’s grown three heads.
“Oh right,” he laughs, the bitness from earlier seemed to have disappeared, he’s a strange one, “you don’t know.”
“Know what?” I scowl.
“Professor Mcgonagall is basically my aunt,” my eyes widened in shock.
“What?” I cry out.
“Yeah, her and Madame Pomfrey come over and have brunch with us every Sunday, for as long as I can remember.”
“Mcgonagall and Pomfrey?”
“Oh yeah, they’re married.”
“What?!” Oh yeah that’s it I must be dreaming or I hit my head there’s no way that this is real. Mcgonagall is gay for MADAME POMFREY?
“I’m not lying,” James says at what I guess is disbelief on my face, “some to a Sunday brunch sometime and you’ll see.”
“Yeah go to the house my brother I haven’t talked to in 2 years ran to after leaving me,” I snorted, “hard pass.”
“He didn’t run away from you,” he frowns, “He ran away from them. That house was killing him. You of all people should know that.”
I’m startled, there’s no way he could know that. I was careful not to be seen. I buried that night deep down to make sure mother could never figure out how Sirius, on the brink of death, managed to escape when she went to find him the next day.
“I don’t know what you're suggesting, Potter,” I turn my nose up.
“Oh come on Reg-” I don’t give him the chance to finish. I was not having this conversation, not here, not now, not with him.
“Look even if I wanted to join you,” I add at James' hopeful face, “which I don’t, mother would never allow me into that house.”
“But why not? I am a pureblood, hell we’re part of the sacred 28-”
“You’re muggle sympathizers, you’re a family full of Gryffindors, you have my brother,” I sigh, “my mother doesn’t want another heir taken from her. Even if it is just her backup.”
“But you’re not just a back up, Regulus,” he tries but I roll my eyes.
“Aren't I just yours?”
“That’s not fair,” he argues, always trying to be the better man, “you came to me.”
“Right, James, I wasn’t even the backup choice,” it came out sadder than I intended. He was right. I came to him. I asked for this. I had put myself in this position, “This was stupid I have to get to class, Mcgonagall may love you but I’m still an evil Slytherin.”
“Wait Reggie,” James goes to reach out to me but I push away. The halls are now empty though our conversation was low enough that no one heard us.
I enter the classroom and sit in my normal seat, Barty and Evan are too busy making goo goo eyes at each other to notice me. Not that that would last long.
James Fleamont Potter was always a ray of sunshine, a beacon of hope. He brightened my brother's life, saved him when I couldn’t. Me? I was dark enough that he would burn me if I let him close, blind me if I stared too long.
But I was a Black, I was used to pain, why would this be any different?