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“You’re not gay!” That’s how all this started. A simple shout from Sirius. James had just come out to his best friend, his brother. Sirius was gay, sure very few knew, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t.
“You’re right, I’m not, sometimes I fancy blokes and sometimes I fancy girls, I don’t know the words for it, I’m not even sure if it’s possible but...there’s this one guy who has been at the forefront of my mind, I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind since,” James broke off in thought, it had been that long since he fancied this one guy, “fuck, second year? It wasn’t as strong then and I kept thinking that I just want to be friends with him and I was just being silly, I didn’t really fancy him, I couldn’t,” tears were welling in James’ eyes as he took a breath, “but as soon as fourth year hit, I couldn’t deny it so I started focusing on Evans so nobody would be suspicious,” Sirius cut his friend off.
“James I didn’t ask for your fucking story, I’m telling you, you aren’t gay!” Sirius stormed off, pushing past a confused Remus in the process.
“Hey mate.” Remus announced himself carefully as he approached the messy haired boy.
“Hey, how much of that did you hear?” James asked, sniffling and frightened.
“All I heard was Sirius shouting that you aren’t gay? Want to tell me what that’s about?” Remus sat near his friend, putting a comforting arm around him, knowing that James was a tactile person after living with him for practically six years.
“Well, I told Sirius I liked this bloke and he told me that I’m not gay, the thing is I don’t only like blokes, I like girls too sometimes.” In all honesty James wasn’t exactly sure where Remus stood on the whole homosexual “issue” but he might as well find out, Remus was fine with Sirius, although, James supposes, liking both girls and guys was a bit more abnormal than just liking one or the other.
“James, did you know there are terms for that?”
“What?” James took his head out of his hands to look at his friend as if he’d just grown another head.
“Look, I’m not going to tell you who you are or what you are, I’m not going to tell you to label yourself or anything but there is a book, it’s fairly new, it came out in ‘69, it’s called Abnormal Psychology it’s by William J. Ray, it has explanations for how you feel. Look through it, you can find it in the library fairly easily, if you are uncomfortable with checking it out I can check it out for you, Merlin knows I checked it out enough times for Pince not to be suspicious by this point.” Remus gave a little chuckle to show everything was okay.
“Why did you check it out? Was it for your furry little problem and just stumbled upon it?”
“Believe it or not, it’s a muggle book, muggles don’t know werewolves exist. I needed it for the same reason you need it.”
“Oh,” it took James a second to figure it out, “OH! So are you...?”
“I’m bisexual, James.”
“Is that what I am?”
“I don’t know James, I can’t answer that for you, that’s something for you to figure out.”
James decided to lay back on his bed, naturally Remus followed, James turned to face Remus.
“You wanna talk about boys?” Remus gave a hearty laugh.
“Sure James, you have a crush?” Remus smirked at his friend.
“Maybe, do you?”
“Maybe.”
“Twenty questions about our crushes and we have to guess?”
“Sounds good.” Remus agreed, in all honesty Remus was probably just relieved James wasn’t talking about Evans.
“You ask first.” James stated, he had obviously been waiting to talk to someone about this, he had had this bloody crush since year fucking two!
“Okay, what color hair does this particular boy have?” Remus had an amused look on his face.
“Black, what color hair does yours have?”
“Black as well, what color eyes?”
“Grey, does yours like quidditch?”
“Of bloody course that would be the most important thing to you if I ever dated someone,” Remus gave an eye roll, “but yes, he is even on his house team. I’m assuming yours does or else it would be a deal breaker for you?”
“You assume correctly he is also on his house team. Do I know him?”
“Quite well, how about you do I know yours?”
“Well you two are forced to spend a lot of time together.” James let an airy breath escape from his nose. However, Remus’ face stilled as he sat up, pacing around the room.
“What is it Moony?” James asked, concerned not well hidden in his voice.
“Black hair, grey eyes, quidditch team, spend a lot of time together? James, please tell me we don’t have a crush on the same person.” This freaked James out, he could never compete against one of his best friends. Especially not for a boy who he didn’t even know if he liked him back.
“Okay on the count of three we say their name at the same time?” James figured it would be a good idea that way they both get hurt at the same time? Maybe this is why he always lost to Remus at wizard chess.
“One...Two...Three…”
“Sirius,” Remus said just as James said, “Regulus,”.
“You have a crush on a Slytherin?” Remus asked incredulously.
“You have a crush on Sirius?”
“I know I should probably be offended but that’s actually a fair response.” Remus leveled.
“You know Moony, I think we are in a position to help each other out.”
“How so my dear Prongsie?” Remus had a smirk for the second time this day but this one was mischievous and knowing.
“Well as it just so happens I live with one Sirius Black and it just so happens that you have prefect rounds with one Regulus Black. Here’s how this is going to work:
We already know that Sirius is gay and gets incredibly jealous when he likes someone so, I start dropping hints that I fancy you, Sirius will get incredibly jealous if he likes you as well, which I’m like 99% sure he likes you because of how he looked murderous when Fortescue was jokingly flirting with you.” Remus blushed at that because, no, he didn’t know that Sirius was ready to kill when Alice said that she’d leave Frank for him if Remus started wearing sweaters with elbow patches more often. James continued.
“You try and find out if Regulus even likes blokes.”
“Do you know how hard that’s going to be? We don’t really talk on rounds all that often and I’m not exactly the definition of smooth and stealthy.”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something, you’re the smart one.”
“Hey, we’re all smart.” Remus reprimanded.
“Yeah but you’re the one that gets the marks to prove it!” James headed for the door.
“That’s because I do my homework!” Remus called after but James just laughed and left.
~~
A week after Remus and James’ conversation they started: day one of ‘Operation Bag Black’, it wasn’t going as well as the two boys had originally thought it would. It started out with James asking Sirius for advice.
“I need a little help with wooing my crush.” James stopped Sirius in the middle of the hallway.
“Dude, it hasn’t worked out with Evans so far, give it up.” Sirius rolled his eyes and shoved passed his friend, still angry with James’ earlier proclamation.
“No not Evans,” James took a pause to look and make sure nobody was around before he pulled Sirius into a secret corridor, “Remus.” James admitted so quietly that Sirius, even with his dog hearing, had to make sure he heard correctly.
“Remus? As in Moony, as in our dorm mate that had been dating Drocas Meadows for two years?”
“Yeah, well, they broke up, like six months ago.”
“You don’t have a crush on Remus, you’re not gay.”
“Why do you have such an issue with this? Why are you insisting that I’m not who I am.”
“Because, James, it’s not a fall back for when you can’t shag the red headed priss! It’s awful, it’s this secret scratching up inside of you, every name that your parents ever said was true! That you were a disappointment! A mistake! That you’re worthless and will never do anything meaningful with your life! You see what happens to gay guys, look at George Brinham,” James looked at Sirius confused, “of course you didn’t read that article, he was killed in ‘62,”
“How am I supposed to know the name of a man who died when I was two?”
“Because I’ve done my research, because I was scared shitless when I first learned what I was. And he didn’t just die he was murdered for being gay and his murder didn’t get any jail time. Look at the AIDs epidemic, there is so much violence and you think this is just fun?”
“No, it’s been incredibly hard on me. I’m just ready to talk about it. Do you know how forbidden being gay is with my heritage, it’s just another thing to single me out, as if being the only Indian guy at Hogwarts isn’t enough, as if my parents think that Evans is the wrong person for me because she’s white and you know what, they’re right, Evans isn’t the right person for me, Regulus is!” James was red in the face and out of breath. Both of them were so furious at each other that they didn’t even notice two other boys come in.
“Remus,” Sirius looked like a deer in the headlights while, ironically, James looked like a lovesick puppy looking at Regulus.
Regulus was the first to speak: “You like me?” Regulus was taken aback while blushing.
“Yeah,” James admitted quietly, “what are you guys doing here?”
“We were doing prefect rounds and heard arguing.” Remus explained with a subtle eye roll.
James put a smile on, he finally came out to two of his friends and his crush, plus his crush didn’t even seem to mind that he had a crush on him. Things were finally going to be okay, James could breathe again.