Chapter Text
James loved his job as an actor. Truly, he did, but if he was being honest, he hated premieres. Of course, there was the excitement of finally releasing a project he’d been working on for years– he’d never forget that feeling of fulfillment from his first premiere at age 15, but simultaneously, it was the number one place where he couldn’t avoid what he hated most: the press. Nothing they said about him was the full truth; always twisting it to become something they assumed people wanted to hear. They twisted everything into something he didn’t want it to be, making him feel like a bad person by exaggerating drama and pretending they knew all of his opinions and beliefs.
That’s why, when James spotted Reeta Skeeter —the worst out of all the reporters he’d ever dealt with— he dodged he and turned around, looking to cling to anyone he knew and actually liked.
Lily Evans, his co-star, was speaking with Xenophillius Lovegood. She carried a tight smile, glancing anywhere but toward Xenophilius— and she was tugging gently at her fiery-red hair, detangling the curls as best she could. She would rather be anywhere but with him. James grinned, running a hand through his hair. He could steal her away; he was sure she wouldn’t mind.
Honestly, he was glad she was the first person he spotted. Lily had a nasty habit of sneaking weed into these kinds of events, and though James wasn’t one for smoking, premieres brought out the worst in him. So, he weaved through the maze of people, resting a hand on Lily’s shoulder when he reached her. “Hey, we were needed for that… Uh, thing, remember?”
Lily turned her head, biting back a grin, “Yeah, yeah, you’re right! Must’ve slipped my mind. Sorry, Xenophilius, I’ve gotta go do this thing with James. We can finish this interview later, or something.”
Xenophilius looked up from his journal, where he’d been rapidly writing things down, “But Lily, I must ask—”
“Sorry, man, we have to go,” James said, tugging Lily’s arm. She nodded vigorously, waving and apologizing one more time before they were off.
She sighed when they were far enough away. “Thank fuck. That guy’s so weird. He’s not exactly a creep, I guess, but I mean, have you read his articles?”
James rolled his eyes, “Yeah, the entirety of The Quibbler is full of bullshit. They wrote an article about how my leg might be artificial, which is why I stopped wearing shorts. It was fucking winter.”
Lily laughed, “At least they didn’t start the ‘Jily’ rumor.”
James scowled, “Don’t get me started on Reeta Skeeter.” She was the bitch who’d make up any rumor or formulate any kind of ‘ship’ she could just to fuck up a celebrity's life. She had made it harder for James to move on from Lily when the whole internet was rooting for them to fall in love. He was in love (or something near to it) with her during their first movie together. She had hated him because he was a nepo baby who’d ‘gotten anything he wanted from birth’. At the time, James had never seen someone hate him so outwardly, and he loved it. It was refreshing. Everything about her was like a breath of fresh air; clean makeup and clear-cut goals. She was everything he wasn’t: organized, on time, and always prepared for anything, but she still had a sort of dangerous edge to her that made him squirm. And God, only Helen Keller would be incapable of seeing how beautiful she was.
But she was always just out of reach, one step ahead of him, with a future that she never considered him a part of.
But she didn’t get what she wanted. The rest of the world loved their on-screen chemistry, and soon they were on to their second project together. And then their third— this one. And through all of that time together— almost seven years now, considering James was turning 26 in a month, they had at least formed a friendship. Then, Lily confessed to him that she was secretly a lesbian after a long night out getting drunk together. He hugged her while she cried. James moved on eventually. He’d sort of given up before she'd ever come out to him in the first place. But sometimes—sometimes it was still an open wound, and he was waiting for someone to stitch it up for him; to love him back.
James shook his head, not letting himself think about that anymore. “I’d love to get high right now. Got any on you, Lils?”
Lily guffawed, “The great James Potter stooping low enough to get weed from a mere commoner?!”
“Oh, please, Lily, the light of my life, you haven’t been a commoner in years .”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Weed isn’t a good idea right now, James. I get where you’re coming from– trust me, I do, but if you’re high and someone notices, or you do something stupid, especially as someone who doesn’t smoke regularly, you’ll only end up fucking yourself over more than you need to.”
James took a deep breath, “Okay, fine, but the second we’re out of here, you and I are sharing a weed stick, or whatever it’s called.”
Lily grinned, refraining from correcting him. “Okay, deal. For now, let's go pretend to like the people here.” She turned her head, and James didn’t miss who she was eyeing.
James beamed, “Yeah, I’m sure it’s so hard to ‘pretend’ you like Mary.”
Lily groaned, “Shut up! She’s with a reporter, so I’d be doing my job if I approached her.”
“How, exactly?”
Lily was beginning to turn a beautiful shade of pink, “By joining the interview, or something.”
James laughed, “Well, if we’re normalizing making other people's interviews our own, I’ll go join Gilderoy’s interview, just to get him upset that all the attention isn’t on him.”
Lily punched him in the shoulder, “You’d rather die than approach him. We all would.”
“He’s not that bad. I’ve gotten used to him; it’s our second movie together, you know.”
Lily scrunched her face up, “Even if his personality was okay, his cologne is enough for me to avoid him for the rest of my life after this press tour. Mary– on the other hand… I’m… yeah, I’m gonna go say hi for a bit, at least. That won’t be weird, will it? We haven’t greeted eachother yet, so it won’t be weird. Probably.”
James smiled, “Probably.”
“James, you need to sound more confident than that!”
James rolled his eyes. “Just go, Lily. I’ll go find someone else to bother.”
“Alright. Yeah. Okay. I’ll go. See you later, James— to get high together.”
“Sounds perfect,” James agreed.
Lily walked off, and James watched her go for a bit before turning to look around for someone else.
He grinned when his eyes landed on black, long, messy curls. Sirius. His best friend. Thank God Sirius was here, he was a singer, so they rarely ran into eachother at events, but he had written the main song for their movie, so he was invited to the premiere, and thank fuck, James always felt more comfortable with Sirius around.
Sirius caught sight of James as he approached him and immediately grinned back. “James! God, I’m so glad we get to be here together, here, meet my brother, Reg.”
James suddenly turned his head. “Oh, hi.”
James knew of Regulus Black, of course; the whole Black family was famous. All known actors and parts of the industry. They were also famous for being extremely controversial, especially in their ways of gaining and maintaining fame. Sirius had separated himself from his family and their standards for a ‘good celebrity’ at 16, forming a small band that he’d met at a skate park, of all places. Remus and Peter. They moved into an apartment for a few years and made music together until Sirius split and released his first album alone. Because he was filming a movie in the same part of town, James lived with them for a while. They all gained a special type of connection living together for those few years— a connection James would never trade for the world, even when Remus retreated to a quiet life, graduating from college and opening up a library, and Peter, against everyone’s better judgment, decided to work a boring office job for the rest of his life.
Through all that time, James had heard plenty about Regulus. He didn’t exactly make the front page often— out of all the Black family members, he avoided drama. Sirius always hated him a bit for being a mama’s boy, for never apologizing for letting Sirius get hurt for so many years until he was forced into running away. Their relationship was complicated, and James had never dared to interfere. As adults, they went through phases. Sometimes they hated eachother too much to speak— and sometimes they missed eachother too much to avoid one another. Right now, it was the latter, but they were never on such good terms that James was able to meet Regulus. This was his first time seeing him face to face, and, well——
Damn.
He was— well, hot. Sure, James had seen pictures, but that was years ago. The press had gotten bored with his lack of drama. They stopped posting anything about him after a while, so James hadn’t seen him and hadn’t realized how hot Regulus had gotten.
He had shorter curls than Sirius. More tame. His eyes lacked any blue in them– all grey. They were sharp, piercing into James, demanding something, though he wasn’t exactly sure what . His nose was straight and long, a little longer than Sirius’. His cheekbones were sharp, but his face was fairly slim. And oh, he was wearing a black suit that was doing wonders for him. James only wondered what was lying underneath, which was… well? Should he be wondering what Sirius’ little brother looked like naked? Maybe not. Was James even gay? He’d never really thought about it. He never saw it as a big deal. The internet would care, but he hated the internet. That was why Lily was still so private about her sexuality.
Regulus blinked. His eyelashes were long. He had to look through them to look at James, who was almost a foot taller than he was. “Hi. You’re James. Your movies are great.”
Sirius grinned, “He would know. He’s a movie critic.”
“Wait— really? How didn’t I know this?” James asked.
Sirius rolled his eyes, apparently used to this kind of reaction. “He keeps it on the down-low. God knows all the antics of my baby brother.”
“Well, I hope you like dystopia, then.” James offered. The movie he was premiering was based on a dystopian romance novel called Sent. In it, every person had to make a substantial promise and submit it at 18, and if they didn’t fulfill the promise in the next 6 years, they were killed. James’ character foolishly promises to marry someone, and he and Lily marry out of necessity. The circumstances led them to fall in love, but at the very end, James finds out that Lily lied about her promise, and having promised something she couldn’t fulfill, she dies at the end. James was sure it was a good movie. Great even. He didn’t need validation of that fact, but now a part of him wanted it from Regulus.
“We’ll see,” Regulus said, still looking at him through those damn eyelashes .
“That we will,” Sirius said, clapping Regulus on the shoulder as he grabbed James’ hand. “Come on, we should probably get to our seats. See you at the after-party, Reg?”
“Probably not,” Regulus said blatantly. “I don’t do that shit. Makes the day too long.”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “Well, I’ll see you in the near future, regardless.”
“Sure.”
“See you around, Regulus,” James smiled.
Regulus gave him a polite but tight smile, which made James wonder if he’d given off a poor impression already. It didn’t matter, he supposed, but at heart, James was a people pleaser, and he wanted this attractive boy to approve of his existence.
Sirius gave James a weird look as they reached the theater. It was a look that questioned whatever was going through James’ head because Sirius could always tell when James was thinking something he probably didn’t like. It was sort of creepy.
James smiled at him to ease tension and scanned his section of the theater for his reserved seat.
Ah, right next to Lily. He sat down, but she wasn’t around yet. Probably actually doing her job and gaining press instead of avoiding it. He could wait.
She filed in right before the movie began, sending him a small smile. A spark of excitement ran through James. At the end of the day, he was beyond happy whenever he got to hear the audience's first reactions to the movie.
Sure enough, from the moment the movie began, they gasped, and applauded, and cried— but about halfway through, James felt the need to use the bathroom, so he reluctantly excused himself.
He ran into the bathroom quickly, hoping to get back quickly, but as he left the stall to wash his hands, he saw Regulus, breathing heavily at one of the sinks. No one else was in the bathroom but them, and James felt the sudden urge to help him.
He walked up to his own sink and turned on the faucet. Attempting an unfazed demeanor, he cleared his throat. “You al–”
“Don’t. I didn’t know anyone was in here when I came in. I’m— I’m sorry.” He interrupted, breathless. Even like this, he was beautiful.
James walked past him to grab a towel. “Sirius has them too.”
“What?”
“You know. Panic attacks. And anxiety attacks.”
“I never said this was a panic attack.”
James paused for a moment. “I hate premiers. Not watching the movie, I love that side of the attention,” James plastered on his usual grin, “You know, hearing the fans is nice. But people like Reeta Skeeter? The bane of my existence.” He cleared his throat to make room for his best impression: “‘Breaking news! James Potter is so deeply in love with Lily that he was found crying on set because she wasn’t present for a week of filming!’’’ He sighed. “Do you want to know the real reason I was crying? I had just rewatched Titanic.”
Regulus finally turned to look at James, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Titanic? Really?”
“Are you kidding? Leo’s death leaves me in shambles.”
Regulus had to bite back his smile now, eyes flickering across James. “ Shambles, right.”
James crossed his arms dramatically, stepping forward. “Come on! There isn’t a movie out there that just gets to you?” He asked, knowing in his head, he could make a list of about 30 movies that did that for him.
Regulus rolled his eyes. “Even if there was, why the fuck would I tell you? ”
How couldn’t there be? Who becomes a movie critic if they’re not moved by movies? James decided now wasn’t the time to ask that, so he responded to the tail end of Regulus’ sentence: “Because my charm is irresistible!”
“Maybe to your millions of fangirls. Not to me.” Regulus crossed his arm in an imitation of the way James had earlier.
James smiled sweetly, “Be careful. I might just make it my mission to charm you from this day forward.”
Regulus looked up at him through those eyelashes. “That sounds miserable.”
“You’ll love me by the end of it.” If James didn't fall first.
“I’ll drown myself before I ever love you, James Potter.” And with that, Regulus made his way to the exit. Without turning around, he stopped at the door. “Thank you, by the way. For calming me down.”
James grinned. “Don’t mention it.”
He stayed in the bathroom for a minute before heading back, eyes still trained on the door.
Regulus Black.
What a beautiful mystery.