Chapter Text
Regulus Black was so done with feelings.
His, other’s, any feelings.
After a long night of hearing Evan ramble about Barty and how his disgusting feelings for him aren’t reciprocated and tearing him apart, all he wanted was to go to bed.
“But I just don’t know what to do!” Evan whined. “He’s always going off with other people and my very obvious efforts to hint my undying love for him aren’t working!”
”Well,” Regulus sighed, the armchair he was sat in squeaking as he started to get up “Maybe, you could just talk to him?”
He tried not to sound all too annoyed, Evan being one of his best friends alongside Barty— and he supposes he tolerates his brother Sirius and his boyfriend Remus.
To Regulus, Remus is by far the least annoying one out of their little clique, “the marauders” or whatever stupid name they came up with for themselves. Actually, Remus is quite like him if you dig deep enough. They’re both on the quieter side, smart, and make excessively sarcastic comments; so Regulus is somewhat fond of Remus.
James on the other hand, was the most annoying, stuck up, jock Regulus had ever met, and he had lived with Sirius for 15 years. The “Marauders” and their aggravating pranks almost always rooted back to James being the main problem, and that angered Regulus even more for some reason.
As he walked across the room, Sirius and his friends still on his mind, Evan was still complaining about how his crazy infatuation with Barty was getting him nowhere.
”You’ll get over it by the morning,” Regulus huffed before slamming the dorm door shut and changing into his pajamas. They were green and silk, with the Black family crest embroidered on him— perfectly fitting his ‘rich boy’ stereotype.
Sitting on his bed, he opens his book: The Picture of Dorian Gray. He normally keeps his book taste to himself, having a soft spot for anything written by Oscar Wilde. Usually when people see him reading, it’s Barty or Evan walking into the dorm late at night after doing god knows what, or passerby’s seeing him reading textbooks in the library.
He’d been fairly enjoying his current read, almost done with it after starting it the day before, but he couldn’t focus on any of it, restarting the page over and over again, eventually shutting it after getting annoyed by having to restart.
What was bothering him so much? He knew it wasn’t Evan’s little problem, because he couldn’t care less about that. and the only thing besides his O.W.L.’s that had been on his mind was Sirius’s friends, especially that prick James.
Every time he thought of him, his chest burned. He hated him with a passion. Despite the fact that he was smart, and attractive, and tall, there were no good qualities about him, Regulus thought to himself.
He never knew why he felt so strongly about him, he just did. The moment he stepped foot into 12 Grimmauld Place while visiting during Sirius’s first year at Hogwarts, Regulus had already made up his mind.
He hated James Potter.
At first sight, he felt his skin go cold. To a 10-year-old, hatred isn’t a familiar concept, so when Regulus felt this way, he automatically assumed he hated him, after all he had never felt this way about anyone.
Just thinking about him made his face heat up. Why couldn’t he just get out of his head? Thoughts of James’ stupid face continued to pop into his head. Regulus wanted to scream. Couldn’t he just forget him? You aren’t to constantly think about someone you hate. Right?
He still had the burning feeling in his chest. Just. Let. Him. Go. It couldn’t be that hard, but for some reason when he tried to forget, James just came up more in his mind.
He needed to get him off his mind, so after a long 20 minutes of staring up at the ceiling thinking about how to distract himself, he settled on his original idea of going to the library to study for his O.W.L.s.
Getting up and changing back into a sweater and jeans, he packed up a small bag of textbooks and notebooks to get in at least an uninterrupted hour of studying.
As he was passing through the cold Slytherin common room, he noticed Barty was back, sitting awfully close to Evan, Regulus thinking back to his prior conversation with Evan about how his feelings for Barty “Weren’t returned.”
“Oi, Black, come and sit with us,” Barty slurred, pulling out a pack of cigarettes before taking one out and lighting it. “You want one?” He garbled, smiling a disgustingly toothy smile.
“I’m going to have to decline your offer, Crouch.” Regulus huffed, “You know I don’t smoke, my answer hasn’t changed from yesterday.”
”Suit yourself,” Barty rolled his eyes, swinging his legs over Evan’s.
Regulus left the common room after that, freeing himself from the insane tension between the two other boys.
The walk to the library was quite peaceful, Regulus found, the beautiful archways and soft chatter of other students keeping him company.
He was having quite a nice time, he could hear the hogwarts choir rehearsing from a distance as he found a place to sit in the library.
This was, until he started to pull out his books onto the table as he felt someone approaching him from behind.
Whoever this person was, Regulus had no interest in interacting with them, so he acted as if he was focused on taking notes so that they would go away.
Despite his efforts, they didn’t go away— in fact, they did quite the opposite, dropping their bag down in the seat to the left of Regulus with a soft thud.
Looking up, Regulus begins to think that his night might be a whole lot worse than he had originally anticipated. The person that had put their stuff down right next to Regulus was none other than James Potter himself.
”Hey Reg, how’s the test prep going?” James smiled, Regulus’ worst nightmare was starting to come true.
”Thats none of your business. And don’t call me that, my name is Regulus.”
“Whatever you say, baby Black,” James said, smirking at Regulus.
"Actually, I'd prefer Reg over "baby black." But if you're going to continue being an ass, Regulus is all.” Regulus scoffed
‘Why does he have to be like this?’ Regulus thinks to himself, before getting up and walking out of the library, leaving James behind.
He got back to the Slytherin dorms and tried to finish his studies but couldn’t get James off of his mind.
‘Why was he like this? So stupid and somewhat caring. And that stupid face and his stupid glasses, and his stupid hair.’ Regulus thought, staring at the paper, not actually writing anything.
’Honestly, what is his problem?’ he continues with himself, exhaling and lounging his head back onto the pillow.
’Why is he so stupid, but not at the same time?!’ He was practically yelling in his head at this point, ‘In fact, nothing about him is stupid!’
Oh.
Oh.