Chapter Text
November 1975
»——————⋆◦𖤓◦⋆——————«
James Potter was falling in love.
He could tell by the flush of his cheeks, the flutter in his stomach, the way his breath caught– though that might’ve been because he had just taken a Bludger to his stomach.
The point still stood: James Potter was falling in love.
He knew this because even though the stands were erupting in outrage, his eyes would not– could not– stray from the ethereal being who had caught him from his fall. He could hear only the beating of his being’s heart and the whistles of the fast-moving wind. He could feel nothing but the biting air as they flew and the hold of his saviour. Everything else was shunned to another dimension.
James studied this existence. They looked otherworldly. Their dark hair fought against the wind like a ship in a storming sea. Their skin glistened like twinkling stardust. Their lips were pursed and their eyebrows were furrowed, creating a wrinkle between them. (James wanted to place his thumb on them and smooth them over. He wanted to smooth over any frustrations in their life, for a creature so beautiful deserved nothing of the sort.)
The creature turned to him and he nearly swooned. Their eyes were a thunderstorm and they never left his own as the two descended.
When their eyes left him, James almost whined. “I think he might be concussed.” Lord, even his voice was angelic. “He won’t stop staring at me,” they wrinkle their nose, “it’s creepy.”
Then, James’s vision was assaulted by the sight of Madame Pomfrey and her judgemental gaze. He tried to look past her to spot his savior but to no avail.
⋆◦𖤓◦⋆
James came to on an infirmary bed surrounded by his friends. The first words he uttered were “I have fallen in love.”
His declaration was met with unimpressed silence. “Well, you’ve certainly fallen,” said Peter after a while. The others laughed as James sat up to glare at his friend.
Sirius joined in on the mockery, “Did you meet Evans on your descent to death?”
“No,” James melted at the thought of his rescuer. “No, I met an angel– an angel so beautiful I almost swooned like one of those muggle women in boxes.”
“They’re not actually in the boxes,” Remus sighed exasperatedly.
“I don’t care. The point is, this angel saved me from my fall and I will die if we do not reunite.”
James watched as Remus and Peter exchanged glances, seemingly holding a full conversation with their eyes. Peter looked from him to Sirius to him again, his grin growing with every passing second. “Say, James, did this ‘angel’ of yours have dark hair and pale skin?”
“Grey eyes, perhaps?” Remus adds.
“Yes…?”
Sirius whispered to himself, “No.” The other two burst into laughter so hard that Peter fell over holding his stomach. Sirius grabbed him by the shoulders. “Prongs, no!”
“Accept it, Sirius,” Remus said in between giggles, “you’ve lost him to the Regulus Fanclub.”
James had had enough of being left out of the loop. “Will any of you prats tell me what the hell is going on? What does Regulus have anything to do with this– oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” Sirius gripped his shoulders firmly before shaking him again, “get another ‘oh’ out of your system and come back to your senses.”
“I can’t just fall out of love like that,” James whined.
“We’ll throw you off the astronomy tower and you can fall in love with whoever catches you and forget about my little brother.”
Remus pulled Sirius’s hands off James, “Hey, let him alone.”
“Yeah, anyone would fall in love if someone caught them like that. Especially if that ‘someone’ was as fit as your brother.”
“Not another word, Pettigrew.”
“He pulled the most insane Wronski Feint I have ever witnessed– almost killed our Seeker in the process, caught James, and then caught the snitch with James in his arms. I think falling in love is the natural next step,” Peter shrugged.
James was brought out of his stupor, “Wait, if he caught the snitch, then we lost the match.” He grabbed Sirius’s hands, “We lost the damn match, Sirius!” Sirius paid him no mind.
“He didn’t even catch James. James fucking fell on him and he just happened to not let go. I know he was contemplating it, though. I could smell his desires in the air.”
“You couldn’t smell shit.”
“I will hurt you,” Sirius glared menacingly.
Peter raised his hands in surrender, “If you’re going to hurt anyone, hurt the one who called your brother an angel and sighed like a damsel when he was mentioned.”
Sirius turned to James again, who was still holding his hand and mumbling about the lost match. “James Potter, if you so much as even think about Regulus again I will throw you off a broom and ensure no one catches you this time.” He held James’s confused face in his hands, “Listen to me very closely, Potter. Regulus Arcturus Black is not an ‘angel,’ he is a little goblin that will not hesitate to chop your hair off in your sleep and drop you to your death. The only reason he did not drop you was because he did not want to be blamed for injuring two players in one game.”
Logically, James knew Sirius was right. His head was clear enough to remember the look of disdain in Regulus’s gaze. But his head was also filled with images of Regulus’s look of concentration and the clench of his jaw. How was he supposed to not fall in love with something straight out of a fairytale?
“His middle name is Arcturus?” Remus asked dryly.
Peter burst out in another fit of laughter, “This is hilarious.”
“It is not!”
“James, if you still fancy him, just know that I–” Peter dodged Sirius’s shoe, “–will support you fully.”
“Do not fancy him. Do not even think about fancying him. Hell, do not think of him at all, do not even look at him,” Sirius ordered as he threw another shoe at the fleeing boy.
But James Potter had never been known for listening to orders; he was known for disregarding them.
And disregard he did.
≻───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────≺
He felt the pinpricks of the wind as he sped towards an imaginary Snitch. The girl was following him, though she was cautious. She had heard about his feints then. Regulus would be flattered if it didn’t inconvenience him so. Still, it was her first game and she was not confident enough to distrust him. Tough luck.
Regulus dove without hesitation. The grass got closer and closer as the seconds passed and Gryffindor’s little Seeker did as well. He was 10 metres away from the ground.
9 metres.
7 metres.
5.
3.
2.
1.
Regulus abruptly steered his broom upwards, feeling his broom graze the floor, and watched as his opponent slammed onto the floor, her fall softened by Pomfrey’s expert spellwork. Above him, Vance was advancing towards the goalpost. Regulus frowned. If she made a score, catching the snitch would not save his team from losing.
“Regulus Black pulls off a record-breaking feint! Somehow, this one is even more impressive than the one last year. Down by the stands, our poor Seeker is getting medical attention. Tough luck,” the monotonous commentator today was exceptionally annoying.
Regulus rolled his eyes and caught sight of a little golden ball on the other side of the field. He immediately sped towards it, not wanting to have his catch be for nought.
“Vance makes an impressive pass to Potter! Will they make the score in time or will Regulus Black catch the snitch first?”
He outstretched his arm. He was so close. Just a little more…
“Oof! Mulciber just hammered Potter’s ribs with a bloody Bludger. Potter has fallen off his broom and has just hit his head on Rosier’s broom. Today is not a good day for him, is it?”
Suddenly, his outstretched arm (and consequently, his whole body) was dragged down by a large weight. James Potter clutched the hem of Regulus’s robes and stared. Regulus gave him a look of irritation. Leave it to Potter to ruin his day. He contemplated just dropping the older boy but decided against it. He instead looked to where the Snitch was.
“Thankfully, Regulus Black caught Potter like some sort of Prince Charming. Unfortunately, the heroic gesture lost him the Snitch.”
Just as Regulus was about to curse Potter to hell, he caught a glint of gold from the corner of his eye. He squinted at the Snitch and tightened his arm around Potter before barrelling towards his goal.
“And he is shooting towards the Snitch with an injured man on his broom. Bloody hell, this is Quidditch, it is not that serious.”
The Golden Snitch took him on a 30-second-long journey in all directions before he finally caught it. The stands erupted in cheers.
“Regulus Black ends the game with two catches today. I’ve been informed that his little fan club is welcoming new members. Slytherin wins!”
He sighed as he flew towards the medic with Potter, who had not stopped staring at him unblinkingly. Regulus would be worried if he didn’t despise the boy, but for now, he is simply creeped out. He quicked his descent and exchanged some words with the matron before hurrying off to his team.
Dorcas was already yelling at Mulciber. “If you had been any more obvious, you would have gotten us the penalty points that would have ruined our entire year!”
“But I didn’t,” said the oaf.
Regulus wanted no part in the discussion. He bolted to the showers before his teammates could get a word in with him.
⋆✩⋆
Evan and Barty stared at him as he walked into the dorm. He internally groaned, knowing exactly what was coming.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Prince Charming,” Evan started the abuse.
Barty followed, “Finally come to greet us lowly commoners?”
“Piss off,” Regulus mumbled as he lay on his bed, exhausted.
“As you wish, Your Majesty,” the two of them bowed in sync. Regulus wondered if they had scripted this exchange before he entered the room. He wouldn’t put it past them.
“Are you planning on joining the party tonight?” Barty questioned.
“No.”
Evan jumped on his bed. “Perfect! Then we have all night to talk about how Potter looked at you as if… uhh…”
“As if you were the Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw,” Barty completed for him.
“What are you two on about?”
“Don’t act coy, young man. You know exactly what we’re talking about,” Evan tutted.
“The whole scene looked like something out of a Witch Weekly front cover.”
Barty grinned, “Or like something out of one of Cass’s shitty muggle novels.”
As if on cue, Dorcas and Pandora entered the room. “What about my shitty novels?” She questioned.
“We were talking about Reggie and Potter’s little…exhibition today,” Evan answered.
Docas smiled devilishly as she pulled something out of her bag. Regulus hated them all. “Their little scene today looked an awful lot like this, didn’t it? How scandalous!” She flashed the novel.
The cover of the incriminating thing showed a man holding a woman's bridal style as they levitated above a city. Their faces were ridiculously close to each other as if they were about to kiss. The woman’s ruby-red lips were parted in surprise while the man looked at her eyes with a soft smile. They were both half-naked.
Regulus sat up straight and glared at the girl. “It did not look like that!”
“Oh, it so did,” she chuckled.
“I dunno, mate. It’s pretty accurate,” Barty shrugged. The rest of the gossiping cows nodded along like the little traitors they were.
“I hate you all.”
In the future, if anyone asked Regulus what his biggest regret was, he would say: “Not dropping that bastard to his death when I had the chance.”
That would be a lie, though,
In reality, catching James Potter that day was the best thing he had ever done for himself– and the worst. This action planted the seed of a wild rose, a rose littered with thorns and velvety petals. This action marked the beginning of something beautiful, something painful.