Chapter Text
Evan Rosier was unbearable. He was constantly catching Regulus’s eye and then either grinning or winking (or both), and would get close enough at Slug Club to whisper in his ear. The worst part was that, much as he detested Evan’s politics, and much as he hated that Evan ferried reports back to his family on him (which he was sure Evan was still doing), there came a point where he could no longer deny to himself that he thought, on more than one occasion, and not just in passing, about what it would be like to take him up on his offer.
Not that he’d ever admit that to his friends. Because that would be idiotic.
He watched Sirius exchange not-so-chaste kisses with Bertram Aubrey in the corridors and felt some sort of deep physical ache that wasn’t there when Dirk kissed his girlfriend. It wasn’t as if he fancied Aubrey – of course not – but…
He asked Max and Isaac, one day, “I finished Maurice. Were there – any characters that you found relatable?”
Isaac shrugged and said diplomatically, “I think there were relatable elements in each character. That’s part of why it’s so compelling. Even Clive, even in the second half – there’s something relatable there.”
“When I started,” Max said, “I think I related to Clive, a bit, but really only in the beginning, and then… Alec.”
“Why not Maurice?” Regulus asked.
Max shrugged. “I’ve always been pretty aware of my feelings. Maurice is very bad at being aware of his feelings, even toward the end. Alec’s clearly in love with him and desperate to be with him, and Maurice - despite having had sex with him - thinks it's all some ploy?”
“But with Clive,” Regulus said, “do you really think it's possible for… something like that to happen?”
“What?” Max asked, “Turn straight? No. I reckon he was bisexual the whole time, like Alec, only unlike Alec, he didn't realise it.”
“Yeah, but he never did anything with his wife, did he?” Isaac asked. “We know Forster was gay.”
“The author was gay?” Regulus asked.
“Yeah,” Isaac said. “But I don't think Clive was bisexual. The bit about him noticing women was strange, but like… I dunno about you, but that's not how I think about girls. I think he was gay, but I do think he did fall out of love with Maurice.”
“Then what do you make of him noticing women?” Max asked.
Isaac shrugged. “Self-loathing? A desire to be seen as normal? I mean, they’re Muggles, and older than your dad, Max. But everything he mentions about women is so – superficial. He likes the attention he gets from them, but he refuses to sleep with his wife – if he were really attracted to women, why wouldn’t he sleep with them?”
“He didn’t sleep with Maurice, either,” Max said.
“I think that’s part of it, too,” Isaac said. “He’s internalised this self-loathing to a point where he thinks that – actually having sex would somehow cheapen his relationship with Maurice. And it’s contrasted in the narrative directly with how Alec interacts with both Maurice and women. Alec is bisexual. Clive just desperately wants to be attracted to women so that he can fit in in society.”
“I mean,” Max said. “I guess I see your point. But regardless, there’s no way that Clive actually turned straight.”
“Oh, definitely not,” Isaac said. “The ending makes it clear that he’s miserable stuck in that marriage while Maurice and Alec are happy.”
“What about, er, Warbeck’s characters?” Regulus asked, then, in a desperate attempt to change the subject. “Who d’you relate to most out of them?”
“A bit of Leo, a bit of Pat,” Max said.
“Oh, with that, it’s definitely Gus,” Isaac said. “Hands down.”
“Let me guess,” Max said, “you relate to Angela.”
“Well, and Castor, a bit,” he said, as if it didn’t feel like Cassius Warbeck were using his own life as inspiration for Castor. “Last Black heir, and all. And, the, er, nerve… issue. And the Quidditch.” And the snogging Dorian Malfoy under the stands and in the Astronomy Tower – not that he’d ever snogged anyone, but he’d realised that he wanted to, and surely that was enough – and trying to reconcile who he was becoming increasingly certain he was with who his family needed him to be.
“I love Castor,” Max said. “He does sometimes feel the most real out of all of them.”
Regulus reread the novels in which Castor came to terms with who he was twice before exams. Perhaps this summer he’d put some work into figuring out who Cassius Warbeck really was, because there was no way Castor could be based off of anyone else. No one else could know how he felt so intimately.
He thought of Evan Rosier’s words back at New Year’s. His father wasn’t unhappy, and he was that way, too.
And, besides, maybe there was a pureblood witch Regulus could fall in love with. He just hadn’t met her yet.
Exams were over, and Regulus threw himself on his bed, feeling a strange mix of relief and dread. Exams, coupled with Quidditch, had nearly killed him, but he didn’t want to go home, either. Home meant Mum and Dad and having to pretend that he and Sirius were on opposite sides and being careful about what he wrote his friends because his mother was surely reading each letter.
Home meant pretending to his parents that he was a proper, poised pureblood heir who was excited at the prospect of marrying a witch, and not a terrified teenager who nearly went into a panic attack anymore at the thought of spending the night with a witch, and who thought far too much about snogging other boys.
Max sat cross-legged on his bed, petting Thalia. “Erm,” he started, “so, I’m… not quite sure how to say this, but I think you both deserve to hear it.”
Regulus’s brain cycled rapidly through a hundred possibilities, each worse than the last. He really did have the same bad nerves as Castor Black.
“Okay,” Isaac said, sitting up on his own bed. Regulus forced himself to do the same. “What is it? You know we’re here for you.”
Max took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Well, truthfully, I’ve known… forever, really. Since I could think for myself, I think.”
He wasn’t Cursed, was he? Surely Newt Scamander had attracted enemies, some of whom wouldn’t really be above cursing a child.
“I’m gay.”
Regulus felt a rush of relief, mingled with something he couldn’t quite place.
“Oh,” Isaac said.
“Well,” Regulus said, trying to collect his thoughts into something more coherent than thank Merlin you’re not Cursed or I think I am, too, actually, what a coincidence, “you know that we love you.”
“It doesn’t change anything,” Isaac said.
“As long as my parents don’t find out until we’re of age,” Regulus added, because surely Max knew that his mother read his letters, and if he mentioned it there… “But I was starting to think you’d been Cursed, or something.”
Max laughed, but he still seemed anxious. “Not Cursed. Just gay.”
“Have you got a boyfriend?” Isaac asked, and of course he did, because he’d spent all year mooning over Emmeline.
Regulus tried to pretend that he wasn’t overly invested in the answer to this question. Max was his best friend. So what if they were both… whatever it was? He wanted him to be happy.
“No. No boyfriend,” Max said. “But I… wanted to tell you both. You’re sure you’re okay with it?”
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
“You have met my brother, haven’t you?” Regulus asked. Sirius had been flaunting his relationship with Aubrey as of late, and while Regulus found it annoying and nauseating (he didn’t want to know anything about his brother’s sex life! why did Sirius have to shout about it?), he had to admire his brother’s courage.
“But that’s your brother,” Max said.
Regulus knew, really, if he said that it was him, too, that his friends would understand and support him… but he couldn’t. Not when he was going back to Grimmauld Place so soon.
Max continued, “We share a room, we use communal showers…”
Regulus rolled his eyes. “Max, I’m not concerned about sharing a room or showers with you, gay or not.”
“Neither am I,” Isaac said. “I mean, look, we share with him,” he jerked a thumb toward Regulus, who rolled his eyes. “And his family wants us dead. And I, for one, have known you for nearly as long as I can remember. I know you wouldn’t do anything inappropriate.”
“I think,” Regulus said, “I’d actually be offended if you stopped being as affectionate as you are.” Because where would he be without Max’s constant touches? Without Max laying in his lap, without carding his fingers through Max’s hair?
Max breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without both of you.”
“So,” Isaac said, a devilish grin forming on his face. “You haven’t got a boyfriend, okay, sure. Have you got anyone you fancy, though?”
If Max’s glance flitted to Regulus while he blushed and denied having a crush, well, Regulus was sure it was just for moral support. After all, everyone in Isaac’s family was straight.
There was no way someone as wonderful as Max would ever feel anything like that for Regulus. The only people who liked him like that were psychotic, like Barty Crouch, terrifying, like Seraphina Greengrass, or… well, he didn’t know where to place Evan (besides “horribly racist”, which was true, charming though he may be), or Miri (besides “literal child”), but the point of the matter was that Max didn’t belong with them. Or with him. Max deserved better.