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Regulus Black looks like a painting.
James really ought to kick his habit of longing after pretty faces with smart mouths. Not that he’s ‘longing’ for Regulus Black, not in this universe at least. (Maybe come the time the sky starts to bleed will he long for...) The day James starts to proper fancy a Slytherin, a Black of all things—not including Sirius, of course, his best friend denounced his last name long before he ran away—is the day he’ll truly claim to have gone mad. (Truly and wholeheartedly, James couldn't spare half a rat's arse about a damned house, but Regulus Black...oh Regulus Black.)
He’s only just gotten over Lily falling into a relationship with Pandora during their fifth year. Though, he supposes that it was inevitable. He always knew, even as he stumbled over himself trying to woo her silly, that her heart will only ever be held so fondly in Pandora's soft hands. They look at each other so tenderly, after all. Almost as passionately as Sirius looks at Remus, though James has truly been fed enough of their relationship. It honestly boggles him how indifferent Peter is with their PDA, though Peter has always been rather indifferent at the prospect of love.
James would never get that, not even if Peter tried to hit him upside the head with a pan. He’d always fallen to love so easily, swayed by fleeting crushes that never lasted longer than a month but would trap him in a whirlwind nonetheless.
To think of all the people in the bloody universe whom his eyes could have wandered to, this time, it’s Regulus Arcturus Black.
He does look like a painting, though, a canvas that’s been streaked on with passionate fingers and oil paints. His skin is porcelain and unblemished save for a freckle on the highest point of his cheek, right below eyes so grey and so light they looked silver. And what of the slope of his nose, the curve of his thin, pink lips? How is it his hair is even darker than Sirius’, charcoal enough to blend in with the night sky? James is so sure that if he were to streak his hair with glitter it’d look like he'd been crowned the stars. The stars he remembers the younger Black loving so tenderly when he was young.
James is sure there is a universe where he longed for him so; if only his blood was not ice. No, Regulus Black was the epitome of Slytherin, a perfectionist down to the curl of his hair, the way those thick strands brushed the shoulders of his robe that fit his lean frame so perfectly, as dark as the shadows framing his sunken-in eyes and the shadows at his tail. He bit before he barked and spilt blood before he bruised without so much as a heartbeat of hesitance.
Even now, just watching him across the dining hall, holding a conversation with Barty Crouch Jr, his expression is like stone. It seldom flinches; even his anger accompanied by a sort of muteness that was bone-chilling. Barty leans over to swipe a crisp off Regulus’ plate and Regulus responds by coldly stabbing his knife right between Barty’s fingers, muttering something James cannot hear over the chatter of the dining hall. Barty drops the food and his utensil with a clatter, widening his eyes and yelling out what James is sure is something McGonagall would write him up for.
As if sensing him, Regulus’ eyes snap up then. Even at their distance, James can see how they glint, finer than any polished sword or crystal. His expression darkens tenfold, and James feels apprehension raise the hairs on the back of his neck. He looks down at his dinner, appetite less demanding despite his wails of hunger not even an hour ago.
“Merlin’s beard, your brother is absolutely terrifying, Pads,” James mutters.
Sirius, who’d been busy trying to spoon-feed a reluctant Remus pudding, looks up at him with a frown. “My brother?”
“He’d been glaring at ol’ Prongs just a moment ago,” Peter, ever the observant little bastard, says. “I reckon it’s ‘cause James had been looking over at him first, though.”
James feels heat crawl up his neck, unaware that Peter was watching him so.
“Wormtail, have you got six sets of eyes? I could’ve sworn you were too busy drooling over that slab of chicken to notice the second coming of Jesus.”
Peter rolls his eyes, taking a bite out of said chicken and replying, “You shouldn’t have been staring so obviously then.”
“Why were you staring at Regulus?” Sirius asks, more confused if anything. “Do you speak to him, like, at all?”
“No,” James admits, “not outside of him insulting me on the Quidditch field. And I wasn’t staring, I just happened to catch him stabbing Crouch Jr with a knife, caught my attention ‘s all. At least, until he looked up at me.” James swallows, throat dry. “Honestly, does your brother have daggers for eyes?”
“Probably got it from dear ol’ mumsie, the way he inherited everything from those DNA-sharing bastards of mine,” Sirius mumbles lowly, a thread of disappointment weighing his tone. James winces, guilty for bringing the topic up in the first place. He’d forgotten how sensitive the relationship between the Black Brothers was, especially after Sirius had finally run away the summer.
Without Regulus.
(It had been a quiet sort of heartbreak, greeting Sirius at the door and looking for those silver eyes, for that ruined oil painting. Quiet, because James had held Sirius by his shaking shoulders and soaked himself in Sirius' tears and anguish; knew his tears would hit the floor like acid had he let them spill over at that moment, waiting for Remus to come by and sweet-talk Sirius tender to ease his pain. Heartbreak, because James had dared hope, dared wish, the way he always does, with his whole, bleeding heart.)
“C’mon Sirius.” Remus reaches over to hug his shoulders. “You don’t really know that. You haven’t had a proper conversation with him in years.”
“That’s because he’s never had a proper conversation with me,” Sirius argues, defensive in everything but his eyes, so much warmer than Regulus', a shade-off blue as opposed to daunting grey. Sirius looks over his shoulder, looks at the smeared oil painting of muted colours and silver, silver eyes. An oil painting should be hung on a wall, James’d think. Should be admired, looked at, never touched and never sullied. Not Regulus Black, though. Regulus Black was framed into a canvas made of snakes and skulls and tinsels of silver.
Again, the younger black brother looks up and meets Sirius’ eyes so coldly that James shivers. He puts down his silverware, says something to Evan Rosier and not Barty Crouch Jr, and walks off, his robes fluttering behind him. He looks regal, demands a presence. Students of all houses watch as the Slytherin Heir leaves the dining hall with the posture befitting of a noble. Sirius once walked like that too, sometimes still does. It tells stories of books on their heads and whip marks on the soles of their feet had they tripped. Regulus walks like he is proud of those scars, and there's something so horribly twisted about that.
“He can’t even look me in the eye any more,” Sirius remarks sadly. He stares down at his plate before sliding off the bench and walking off as well. Sirius, too, calls for an audience. Although it is different. Sirius’ robes slide off his shoulders as he sulks off, his tie undone and his hair askew. People do not stare in silence, but in joyous and greeting. His posture is purposeful down to his slouch, feet skewed inwards because those scars are emblems of pain, not pride. (It is still, so horribly twisted.)
“I’ll go comfort him,” Remus tells them before following his boyfriend.
Peter withers, pushing at his food with a queasy smile.
“Seems I’ve lost my appetite,” he mutters with a weak grin, “not that it’d be such a bad thing for someone like me, ain’t that right, Prongs?”
James can’t find it in himself to offer back a pathetic smile. It doesn’t sit well on the boyish features of his face, like shoving two mismatching puzzle piece shapes together because they are of the same colour as opposed to the right fit.
“What is wrong with him?”
Peter looks up, a quirk on his brow. “With who? Padfoot?”
“No, no, with Regulus!” James huffs, “Did he want Padfoot to remain in that hellhole of a house with the bloody bastards who beat him silly? It’s not Siri’s fault that he isn’t the perfect heir for that forsaken family like Regulus chooses to be, listening to the Blacks’ bloody morals like they were law.”
It does not occur to James, at that moment, how inappropriate his anger seems. He loves Sirius so strongly that he seethes for him, and that is sweet, the ironclad bond of brotherhood that has kept them like open books to each other. But Sirius loves Regulus too, so much so it gnaws at him in the nightmares James comforts him through when Remus is not there. Betrayal hurts, but it does not overpower his love. And so, it does not occur to James, at the moment, why he's so angry, if not for Sirius' honour alone.
Peter spares a fleeting glance over to the Slytherin table, muttering, “I thought you fancied him?”
James splutters, cheeks a dark shade of russet, “What on earth gave you that impression?”
“You’re always looking at him, for one. Say as you might, but you and I know damn well he caught your eye long before he tried to skewer Barty Crouch’s palm.”
“Well that’s— that’s because, well…I…er—”
Peter sniggers.
James sighs, “He’s pretty alright, runs in the Black genes, I’ll admit to that. But I do not fancy him, Wormtail. Not only because he’s Sirius’ brother, but because of who he is.”
“Do you know him, James?”
James cocks an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, do you know him? Does anyone at our table know him, matters of fact? You heard Remus, not even Sirius has spoken a proper sentence to him in years. And you said it yourself the most you ever interact with him is when he’s spouting insults at you on the Quidditch field.”
“Are you on his side?”
Peter’s expression is hyperbolised ludicrousness. James feels a little silly, like a child throwing a small tantrum over an unshared opinion of sorts. Talking about 'sides' like the narratives could ever be so black and white.
“What side, Prongs? All I’m saying ‘s that you don’t know Sirius’ little brother all that well to say ‘who he is’ like it ends all conversation. It’d do both those brothers well to fucking talk to each other. And it’d do you well not to instigate anything.”
“Now you know damn well there’s nothing I want more than for them to reconcile, at the very least to ease Sirius's conscience. We all tried our best the last few years and have only gotten slagged off for the most part.”
“Of course I know, but you asking ‘does your brother have daggers for eyes’ isn’t helping, is it?”
“Well, I’m not bloody wrong.”
“James, please,” Peter soughs.
James really wants to argue, wants to deny it all.
For heaven’s sake, Regulus Black was said to have hexed a member of his Quidditch team for failing an ‘easy’ shot! Rumours have it that he’s only shades less cruel than Avery, and James had seen that son of bitch try and hex Marlene's tongue off no less than a week ago. Regulus is a massacred image, a walking curse. James isn’t one for prejudice, but Regulus has shaped himself so. By his hand and by others’ tongues, he has massacred his own canvas.
“Why don’t you take a breather, Prongs?” Peter suggests. “I’ll head over to the dorms, just remember to show up in I’d reckon about an hour, Remus would’ve calmed Sirius down by then, and we can host a game night.”
James’ shoulders drop. His lips pull in a genuine but small smile.
“Yeah, you’re right. I'll cool my head. Thanks, Peter.”
Peter shrugs off his gratitude good-naturedly. “Don’t mention it. ‘S what friends are for, innit?”
James laughs softly, gently pushing his plate forward and walking down, nodding his head at every familiar face and gently pushing open the large doors. The halls are rather empty, save for a few stragglers—namely couples—sneaking down the corridor with their hands held behind their backs.
‘I thought you fancied him?’
James scoffs, recalling Peter’s absurdity. He’ll admit, he’d entertained the idea of pairing up with Regulus in his fourth (trickling into his fifth) year before coming to fancy Lily. He really was something to admire, and though he had a viper’s tongue, he wasn’t so brutish with Sirius at the time. No, his cruelness shaped itself like a diamond sculpture around James' fifth year, more so since Sirius ran. He'd always loathed James and the others though, since James' first 'hello' in his second year. (And perhaps James never really stopped entertaining it, entertaining them, even as he stumbled over his words chasing after Evans knowing she wouldn't like him back. Maybe that’s why he chose her to fancy for those months when the sharpness of Regulus' jaw wouldn’t leave his memory, and the guilt of it was rotting his gums. Especially when Sirius would weep—so quietly James ought to think it was the whistling wind—about how his little brother hadn’t spoken a kind word to him since he was 13.)
He let himself walk so-and-so, destinationless and lost in empty thought. He finds himself outside the main building and down the archways to the garden, further into the night, the grass tickling the skin of his ankles. It’s dewy, clouds, stars and the beautiful moon decorating the sky like another painting. A moon as silver as his eyes.
An oil painting, all streaks and muted colours, feeling incomplete, like the artist had forgotten to make his eyes glint. A painting without a resin pour, left to be chipped at, broken, dulled.
Regulus Black.
James walks and walks until he’s by the lake, staring at the still water reflecting the beautiful night sky. The constellations he doesn’t know a damn thing about stare back at him.
Aren’t the Black Brothers named after constellations?
How fitting, to name sacred beauty after sacred beauty.
James sighs, crouches to the floor and sits comfortably with his legs stretched out, just inches from the vast lake, so beautiful it's practically begging James to dive in. He knows better, though. He'd ought to return soon, and walking around in a drenched robe made him feel heavy. (There's something poetic there, about feeling suffocated by something as beautiful as still waters that reflect the night sky. But James isn't a poet, and so he does not dwell on the thought.)
“Oh, Merlin’s fucking ball-sack.”
James startles; whips his head to find the source of his headaches (and thoughts and paintings) staring right back at him. His back is propped up against the wood, curls dripping wet and heavy, droplets of water running down his bare, bare torso, showing off the lean of his muscle and the paleness of his skin. There are faint markings that James cannot make out underneath the shine of the moon and the shadows of the trees, though his knowledge of the Black household paints a grim picture. (Still, even bare, a making of streaks and muted colours.)
“What on—” James pauses. “Did you go for a swim? You're aware that's against the rules at this time, no? And for fucks’ sake aren’t there spells that dry you off?”
Regulus Black lifts a hand to his hair to brush it off his face and James has to look away from the stretch of his muscle as he does so. He arches an eyebrow, reaching for his button-up and tossing it on like a jacket.
“Better for you?”
“I said dry off, smart-ass.”
“I’m alright, half-wit,” Regulus retorts. “Though, if you’re going to remain here I might as well take off. Can’t stand being around you.”
James frowns, expecting hostility but no less disappointed. “ ‘Cause I’m a blood traitor and all, right? Bugger off, then.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about that,” Regulus scowls. “I just don’t like you, James Potter. Not you, or that pudgy little blonde kid or the tall fucker with scars who Sirius has fallen in love with. ‘S got nothing to do with your blood. You’ve never heard me call Evans a Mudblood, have you?”
James realises with a sort of quiet disbelief that he hasn’t.
“Right then, now that that’s all cleared off, I’ll bugger off as you put it so kindly. I might become infected with your filth if I stay here any longer.”
“Hold on a second.”
Regulus, expectedly, doesn’t, gathering his garments and stalking off.
“I said hold on!” James says louder, more authoritative than before. Regulus flinches violently at his shout, nearly stumbling. He whips around, pulling out his wand and drawing it, cautious. It makes James frown hard, the reaction unexpected and off-putting.
Did he seriously think I was going to injure him?
James remembers then (and how dare he forget really?) that Regulus grew up in the same house Sirius did. Grew up with the same mother who liked to dig the edge of her nails into the skin of Sirius’ chin to force him to raise his head. The one who let Sirius starve for days on end when he acted in any way that was ‘unbefitting of a pureblood Black.’ The same mother who burnt his name off the tapestry the night Sirius ran away, his uncle’s fortune at his aid, the Potter’s residence his new home.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” James promises, raising both arms placatingly.
Regulus doesn't budge, wand still pointed at James like a man before battle.
“What is it that you want, Potter? I don’t do idle chit-chat with the likes of you.”
James’ upset does not ease as Regulus’ suspicions fester. He gets to the point, knowing it’d be a waste of time to reassure the younger Black with empty phrases, and asks, “If you don’t believe in the pure-blood bullshit, why is it that you hate me?" Heavy, his words, like a soaked robe hanging off him. "And my friends," he tacks on quickly.
Regulus’ expression darkens. James feels paralysed by it, the intensity of Regulus’ hate and anger all new and frightening and red. He’d never shown such an expression before, mouth twisted in a fucking snarl and a heavy, heavy (everything so heavy) shadow hovering over his eyes as his curls fall forward, still-wet stands framing his face.
“You don’t know?”
James does not have an answer. Does not want to answer. It's a simple 'no' that he cannot utter, tongue cut out of him.
“You’re telling me all of you thought I didn’t like you because of my parent’s filth?”
James does not have an answer. Does not want to answer. It's a simple 'yes' that he cannot utter, tongue cut out of him.
Regulus' expression falls right then, shatters at their feet, fragments too sharp for James to pick up without cutting his palms. He looks so small, in that second, so vulnerable. He looks like the little kid James remembers, nervously standing in front of hundreds of students, a hat too large for his head swallowing his eyes. The expression wiped off his face moments after the words 'Slytherin' echoed in the Great Hall, and the younger Black wore his birthright like a crown of bones.
“Sirius too?”
James…James can’t answer. (Again it is yes. 'Traitor' Sirius had said. Wicked. Evil. Vile. Scorned. A betrayal tied to his name.)
“Ha!” The anger returns, so hot and bright and scalding James is afraid of getting seared. Regulus lets those flames swallow him; lets them turn his skin to crisps and ash. Lets it kill him, James a witness to it all.
“Well then, Potter. If you fucking insist.” And then Regulus is in front of James, invading his space, holding his collar and pulling him in. He’s so close James can feel his breath against his lips. James has to look down at him, with Regulus being both shorter and smaller, but it feels like he’s being towered over. Feels like a shadow is enveloping him, threatening to devour him.
“You took him from me.”
It hits him all at once, a vice grip of well-worn fingers seizing him that very second.
James gasps, quietly, “What?”
“You took Sirius from me. You took him away from me.” James is let go and thrown to the side aggressively. He trips, falls on his ass, Regulus now really looking down at him. (Streaks of paint for silver eyes too.)
“I did—”
“You took him away!” Regulus cuts off James' denial with a shout. He drops his clothes onto the grass and points his wand at James again, holding the end to his heart. “He would write to me every week, a letter every Saturday that I waited for by the sill, ‘s the only thing I looked forward to. Talked about you guys all the time, said how well you treated him. I was so happy for him, my brother was finally smiling again. But then, guess what?”
James swallows led.
“The letters started coming less, once a week became once a month became the holidays he always spent away became never. Not one damned letter by the end of it. It’s alright, I take it, I swallow it, I bury it and I do not cry. I go, I follow in his footsteps and come to this damned school. But guess fucking what again?!”
Led, led filling his stomach. Poisoning his blood.
“I get sorted into Slytherin, which should be fine and all. I am a Black you know, it’s in my filthy bloodline innit? The one you’ve threaded into me like a second skin. Another branding, right? Not that that applies to Sirius though, not like we’re brothers.”
In his marrow, it’s eating away at him, the kind of poison that has no cure.
“It’s all fine until I look at Sirius and my brother, my own brother, looks away. He doesn’t mean to, I know he doesn’t, but I could smell the stench of his disappointment like my mother’s perfume. I pretend I do not, though, because I dare trust this is no more than a moment, and walk to the table with my head held high because I am Regulus Black. Proud of even my last name. My congratulations are sincerer from my goddamned parents than it is from my brother that day.”
James' heart starts to hurt. It starts to burn. He feels entrapped in Regulus' anger and feels like a sinner among the flames, hot only to him. They fall to the ground, fall to the roots of this fire.
“I learn fast that it’s dog-eat-dog and I survive. My brother is so far away I feel closer to the sin of my mother’s words than I do him. He comes home and hides in his room and I understand why, but I also do not have him any more. I listen to him talk to you between our thin walls and learn what it means to scream silently the way Sirius once did.”
Or maybe it's slime, it's guilt, choking him then. Taking him, hollowing him out, making him sick.
“He starts to call you his ‘true brother’ like I did not share his blood. I obey my parents' commands because I do not want to hurt, and I finally accept that I will not have Sirius there with me to cradle my pain. I am condemned for my subserviency, but theatrical defiance is not the only way to survive. I do not need him any more. I do not want to need him. You all approach me with your smiles and kind eyes and think it is enough to rekindle the love I had, but I know what it means to be in pain, and I am grounded by it forever.”
Regulus is on his knees, straddling James, wand still pointed at his heart like a knife, ready to carve it out and stomp it bloody into the mud.
“You are so considerate to me, James Potter. So sweet. You don't ask me why I don’t sit with Sirius but ask me if I’m okay. You lie and say he still cares, and my heart is fragmented pieces in your palm. You are precious.” Regulus raises his free hand, cups James' cheek, and starts to dig his fingers into his jaw. It doesn’t hurt, not at all, but James swears he means to draw blood. “So, so precious, and I understand why Sirius calls you his true brother. I know he loves Remus Lupin like he’s an antidote to our parents’ poison. I know he gets along so well with Peter Pettigrew and his wisecracks. But with you, I understand.”
Regulus drops his hand, drops his wand. Falls forward like he cannot bring himself to sit upright. James holds him and feels his weight like a tonne of bricks. Feels his exhaustion and wants to scream for Regulus, wants to scream at himself and his lying heart and lying eyes and wants to scream even louder plagued with thoughts of 'what if'.
What if he never fought against his brewing love? What if he didn't seek out a heart he knew would never be his for a fruitless chase, pretending he still wasn't so desperate to turn the other way? What if he didn't look away the first time he caught Regulus staring at the constellations three years ago? When his heart stuttered for the first time? What if he let himself fall, let it be known? What if?
“And then, over the summer, my brother wakes me up after not stepping into my bedroom for two years and tells me to leave. He doesn't look at my walls and doesn't know I've changed. Tells me to run. Says we can finally escape them. That we can reject our names and reject our blood. He tells me to transform everything about myself, unlearn what I taught myself to survive and just run.”
Regulus chuckles without mirth.
“I yell at him, tell him I won't. Why should I? He isn’t my brother any more. He is Sirius, not Sirius Black. Not my étoile promise. He tells me that it’s fine, and tells me that he’s finally found his own family, that he doesn’t need ours. Doesn't need me. And he leaves.”
Regulus looks up at James, and his eyes are so dull they’re grey. (James searches for that silver. Searches and searches and cannot find it.)
“And you think the reason I hate you is that they call you a blood traitor?”
“You should’ve run with him,” James says, can finally speak, the words tumbling out of him like a crashing waterfall. “You should’ve come to us. You should’ve asked for help, to be away. You…you should’ve—” James swallows. “You should’ve come to me.”
Regulus pushes James against the grass onto his back and hovers over him.
Oh, what a beautiful painting, a thousand streaks so purposefully and perfectly placed to craft something so impossibly pretty it steals away the beauty of the moon, the stars and the constellations. The stillness of the water, the dewy grass, the soft clouds. Nothing will ever compare to the ethereality of Regulus Black.
“J'étais tombée amoureuse de l'homme que je méprisais,” Regulus whispers over James lips.
“What?”
Regulus answers with a kiss, so soft, so gentle. It's paradoxical to the sharp edges that make Regulus Black, the points of his fingers, the fangs in his smile. He kisses like he's made of feathers, like he fears James' is made of glass. James kisses him back with the same softness, the same delicate passion, brutal in every way but how it hurt. The kind of passion that's been brewing miserably for years, so scared of setting free and seeping out.
Regulus pulls away, and James chases after him. Regulus has never been in reach, before. James has never bothered to chase.)
“Do you want the truth?”
James nods, he nods so fast his glasses skew. Regulus fixes them; pushes them up his nose like this is more than a moment
“Nothing hurt me more than realising that I could never forgive you for taking him away. That I could never forgive him for forgetting me.”
James' heart stops.
“Regulus no I—"
“They ruined me.”
And squeezes.
“You are not ruined, Regulus. You are here, with me, and telling me what it means to hurt. That is not ruined. Ruined are the hexes people like Snivellus cast on others for the hell of it, jeering when they bleed. You are not that. You are not ruined."
Regulus falls on top of James, holds his shoulders and buries his head in his neck. James immediately wraps his arms around him, feeling the coldness of his skin and the dampness of his shirt.
“I wanted to die” he whispers, a confession soaked with the tears James feels dampening his shirt. “I wanted to give up. I felt broken. He left. He left me for you. He abandoned it all and forgot about me. His brother.”
“He still loves you,” James promises. “He still loves you so deeply, I swear. It tore him up to leave you.”
Regulus’ cries are silent, more silent than Sirius’. James can’t hear anything, can only feel the way he trembles in his arms and the wetness against his skin.
“Why? Why did he not choose me?”
Oh. Oh, how painful. How badly did he hurt? How often did he cry to learn to not draw so much as a heavy breath? What did he have to go through, as we listened to others’ tongues so desperately to find a reason to hate?
“He’ll always choose you,” James whispers, pressing a kiss to his head of hair. “Let’s start slowly, let’s start with a conversation. You’ll know, I swear on Godrick’s name, that he’ll always choose you. He doesn't let people go, he just loves that much.”
“You can’t lie to me, James. I won’t be able to take it. Not this time, not again.”
'Again', he says, and James is scared to touch his heart and feel the scars that line it. For every betrayal, for every heartbreak. Mosaic is as beautiful as it is broken.
“It’s not a lie. It’s not a lie, darling. I will not lie to you. I’ll never lie to you.”
Regulus pulls away and looks up at James. (His eyes are silver again. James feels like he can breathe, like he can see, like the stars have hung themselves back up in the sky in Regulus’ name.)
“Répète ça.”
”Pardon?”
“Call me darling, again,” Regulus orders with a light blush.
James tilts his head back and laughs softly.
“Darling,” he repeats, lowering the tenor of his voice with a demure smile.
Regulus' cheeks pink his pained expression softer, less screwed up. He shuffles upwards.
“Will you help me with my brother?”
“Without question.”
“Do you like me?”
“Without question.”
Regulus giggles, a smile curling at the edges of his lip. It’s breathtaking. It’s so breathtaking James feels like he’s gone hysterical with giddiness. (Delusional with love.)
“Moi aussi mon cher. Alors s'il te plait reste amoureux de moi.”
“You sound like bells, but I haven’t a clue what you’re saying.”
Regulus pecks his lips.
“Thank you, James Potter.”
Regulus gently stands up, runs his fingers through his hair and offers James his hand, helping him to his feet. Regulus reaches over to shake off the grass in James’ hair, dusting his shoulders off. He lets James button up his shirt and pull on his robe, lets James touch him, too. He does not utter another word, let the wind whisper what they cannot, not at that moment, not with their bridges burned so.
When he walks away, James is sure it isn't a goodbye, nor is it with the same hatred he let brew in his heart for so many years of agony. James is not forgiven at that moment, they are still strangers who stare at each other from across the dining halls, and rivals who spit vitriol at one another on the Quidditch field. They are not friends, they are not lovers.
(The wind still whispers.)
Regulus turns the corner and is out of sight.
An oil painting debauched, defamed and defiled.
Beautiful.
Regulus Black.