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James traced the name reverently. Regulus Black. It was in the Slytherin dungeons, where it had been for the last three hours since James started watching it. He watched it the night before too, unable to stop thinking of Regulus’ smooth voice, his hair, his skin, his everything.
It was bad. He couldn’t think, couldn’t function without the burning need winding around his lungs. His friends were starting to notice, and it had only been a single day. He couldn’t pay attention in his classes, despite the way the professors had drilled the importance of the seventh year into their heads. Sirius was a wreck, swinging violently between fiery anger and numb fear, his eyes glassy and his hands clenched into fists.
James was being a bad friend. He was being a bad best friend. That had never happened before, and he didn’t know how to fix it.
Regulus Black would fix it. If James could see him, talk to him, have him… it would fix James. He could fix James.
James watched Regulus’ name slowly leave the dungeons. He waited only a moment to make sure the other boy wasn’t stepping out, but wasted no more time in slipping out of bed, putting slippers on, and pulling the cloak over his head. Silent from years of practice, James made his way out of the dorm room and out of Gryffindor Tower. He followed the map until he came to a corridor on the seventh floor and-
Regulus.
He looked like he wasn’t real. His skin glowed in the soft moonlight cast through the castle windows, his hair draped down his back in curls of shadow. He looked like a ghost, he looked like a god.
James would worship him. James could worship him so well, he could picture it. Smooth, pale skin against silken sheets, silver eyes flashing in dim moonlight. He imagined Regulus’ fingers, his rings and chains carding through James’ hair, could almost feel the stone digging into his knees as he knelt in supplication.
The Regulus of the real world leaned onto his cane, and looked intently at a blank stretch of the wall.
“And I simply ask it for what I want?” he said, his voice the slow, light misting of not-quite-rain on an overcast day.
“You’s must be walking in front of the Room seven times, my lord,” a small voice answered, which was when James noticed the house elf that was standing next to Regulus. Regulus nodded.
“Thank you, Bippy.” He traced his fingers lightly over the house elf’s head in what James would have assumed was a demeaning gesture, but Bippy sighed happily and twirled so that her apron fluttered around her little legs.
“Anything Lord Regulus be needing, just be calling Bippy or one of Bippy’s brothers or sisters,” the elf told him, clasping her hands behind her back and dropping into a little curtsy.
“I will, don’t worry.” Regulus looked down at her. “Go rest, it’s late.”
Bippy curtsied, and disappeared with a small pop. Regulus stood and studied the wall for a moment longer before turning and starting to walk away from James.
James shuffled silently forward, ready to continue following, but after only three taps of his cane, he turned and started walking towards James, who stopped in his tracks and also stopped breathing.
Already, the need in his chest was simmering. He could feel Regulus’ pull, the need to get closer.
James watched as Regulus paced back and forth seven times, and then as a door materialized into the wall he had previously been looking at it. Regulus hummed, pleased, and James felt the sound in his throat. Regulus pulled the door open and peered inside the room, stepped in, and shut it behind him.
With very little thought and even less shame, James settled across the door, curling up under the cloak and staring at it. He looked at the door, but in his mind he saw Regulus.
It must have been hours before the boy himself actually appeared again. He simply opened the door, stepped out of the room, closed it behind him, and walked away. James didn’t get up off the floor, both because he was exhausted and because his legs were asleep. He watched as the door in the wall disappeared, melting back into the stone wall.
Eventually, James got up and made his way back to the dorm. He fell into bed, fell into sleep, and fell into his dreams. He was not surprised about who they featured.
For the next four nights, James pretended to go to sleep. He waited and watched the map, grabbed his cloak, and went to see Regulus pace and slip into the room. He settled on the floor, waited, and watched Regulus leave.
It was abysmal. It was everything. He was more exhausted than he could remember feeling in his life, but the pit that grew in his stomach during the day when he could feel the need consuming him lessened and grew warm with even just the glimpses of Regulus in the moonlight.
Saturday night, his friends were having a party in the common room. James was sitting in the hallway.
He almost didn’t believe it was real when the door opened only a few minutes after Regulus had first closed it and the boy himself peered out from the room. Regulus raised an eyebrow, sweeping his gaze down the hallway.
“Would you like to come in?” he asked, and James’ breath caught in his lungs. “I’m assuming it’s uncomfortable to sit out here all night,” Regulus continued, “so you can come in if you’d like.”
James looked left, and then right, and then down at himself. He was still covered by the cloak, still invisible, so how-?
“You’ve been tripping my wards,” Regulus said casually, opening the door wider, eyes still moving around the space. “And also, I know when I’m being watched. Really, come in.”
Don’t talk to me and I won’t talk to you, Regulus had said. James wanted to talk to him. He wanted to talk to him so badly.
He got up and walked across the hallway, past Regulus and into the room behind him before pulling the cloak off. He heard the door close behind him, but was too busy peering around the pay much attention to it.
The room was like something out of a book. Dark wood paneling and bookcases on every wall fit to bursting with books on so many subjects James didn’t even try to read them. There was a big table with metal and tools and notebooks scattered across it, all displaying complicated charts and runes. A roaring fireplace in front of a plush couch, and soft carpet and moonlight streaming through big domed windows, which shouldn’t be possible because he had walked into the castle.
“What is this?” James asked after swallowing a few times to make sure his voice would work. He heard the clicking of Regulus’ cane, and watched as the boy came into his view and made his way to the couch. Cautiously, James followed, until he was standing hesitantly in front of the couch while Regulus lounged on it
“The Room of Requirement,” he answered, leaning his cane against the arm and pushing his hair to drape over the back of the couch. It was done differently every day, and that night it was simpler than usual, just a few small braids running along his head to meet under a thick metal band that held the rest of his hair into a ponytail high on his head. James could see small braids weaving through the cascade of the rest of the hair, which was slightly curly, “or the Come and Go Room, if you ask the elves.”
“What does it do?” James followed all of Regulus’ movements with his eyes, and lurched awkwardly towards the other end of the couch when the other boy nodded towards it.
“It gives you whatever room you desire,” Regulus explained calmly, folding his hands in his lap, his rings clicking together shimmering in the flickering firelight. “I use it as a place to relax, as well as a workshop.”
“A workshop for what?” James leaned forwards, pulling his legs up to curl under him. He was right there, he was right there, ethereal in the low light, and he was looking at James.
“My braces.” Regulus held up his hand and shook it lightly, making the chains against the back of it rattle slightly. “They require fairly frequent upkeep.”
“Is that hard?” James asked, and, without any input from his brain, reached forward to carefully cradle Regulus’ hand in both of his own.
Regulus’ skin was cold, was the first thing James noticed. His hand was cold, and so pale that it looked luminescent against James’ darker tone. His fingers were long and delicate, and the rings on them were even more detailed than James had originally thought. Runes so small he could barely read them were engraved all over the silver, precise and beautiful. Even the chains made of small silver disks were engraved.
“In the beginning, yes,” Regulus said, and James had to take a moment to remember what he had asked, “but I’ve gotten quite used to it at this point.”
“It’s incredible,” James murmured, thoughts swinging between the intricacies of the silver and the feel of Regulus’ hand in his own, his skin smooth and the touch leaving James’ palms tingling.
Regulus hummed, and James looked up at him to see those sharp silver eyes fixed on him curiously.
“Why have you been following me, Potter?” he asked, slowly extricating his hand from James’ gentle grasp. James leaned back, fighting the blush he knew was creeping up his neck and frowning.
“Call me James,” he said. “‘Potter’ is so impersonal.”
Regulus’ lips twitched up slightly, prompting James’ own to spread in a wide grin.
“Alright then, James,” Regulus repeated slowly, and his voice traveled up James’ spine just like the first time, an echo of James’ own name, “why have you been following me? I assumed it was about Sirius, but I’m beginning to think otherwise.”
The plush couch sank slightly as James leaned sideways into the back of it, pressing his hands into his thighs to savor the leftover feeling of Regulus’ skin against his.
“It’s… not really about Sirius,” James admitted quietly. He wanted to look away, to duck his head, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Regulus’ eyes, his cheeks, his lips.
“Then why?”
James opened his mouth to answer, and then closed it, frowning with a furrow of his eyebrows.
“I was going to say ‘because you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,’” he finally said, “but that’s not really true, right? ‘Cause ‘beautiful’ doesn’t really do you justice.”
Regulus' mouth pulled into an amused smirk and he mimicked James’ pose, so that he was also leaning into the back of the couch. James tracked the movement of his hair as he rested the side of his cheek on the top of the backrest.
“So it’s just been to see me?” he asked, his smooth voice sounding curious, and also a little like he was laughing at James. James didn’t really mind; he’d give a lot to hear Regulus’ laugh. He nodded with a self-deprecating smile.
“Why did you come in the door, then?” Regulus continued. James watched as he blinked, transfixed by his long eyelashes and the way they cast minute shadows on his cheeks. “If you only wanted to see me, that is.”
“I wanted to talk to you, too.”
“Alright.” Regulus smiled, then, a real smile. It was small, but James could see the flash of straight white teeth, and the way his pink lips pulled, and the lifting of his cheek.
James wanted to see it again.
The need that lived in his chest was still there, but it was no longer eating away at him. Regulus was there, he was right there, and James had him, if only for that moment. But that new feeling joined it, one that was much more dangerous than the need.
James wanted.
“Talk then,” Regulus said, and James saw the slightest flash of his tongue between his teeth. “Tell me about James Potter.”
“What do you want to know?” James asked immediately, mind already racing.
“Everything.” Regulus’ eyes never left James’ face, unmaking him until all the little porcelain pieces of James were laid out in front of him. “Tell me everything about James Potter.”
James looked at the array of himself. The sharp porcelain shards, the flaking paint, and ugly clumps of inside and outside. He selected one at random.
“When I was a kid, I wanted to learn how to fly,” he started, and Regulus leaned in a little closer, listening closely.
For hours, James picked up pieces of himself and showed them to Regulus, nervously going over the details. Regulus never looked away, never looked bored or uninterested. He handled the porcelain delicately, turning it in his careful hands and asking all the right questions. James had never talked about himself in that way before, never spent more than a passing moment examining his pieces, but Regulus made it easy. He listened when he needed to, and spoke with interest or curiosity when he wanted to, and James felt like, after eleven years of trying and failing, he had finally learned how to fly.
Once, James said something. He’s not sure exactly what it was; it was so late, and warm, and Regulus was so attentive in front of him that he had lost track of his own words. Whatever it was, it must have been stupid, or ridiculous, or some combination of the two, because the most amazing thing happened: Regulus laughed.
Just hours ago he had been thinking about what he would do to hear that sound, and all he had had to do was talk. He talked, and Regulus laughed, and if James died right then he would be content, because Regulus’ laugh was light and small and could almost be described as a giggle. Happiness burst through James' chest, and he laughed in response, not his usual booming chuckle but what was almost certainly a giggle, something he hadn’t done since he was a kid.
Eventually, James had displayed all of the pieces he wanted to and even some he didn’t, and he fell quiet. Regulus had loosened and smiled and laughed (when he wasn’t thinking about it, deep into a laugh, his nose scrunched up and James melted) and he looked content and sleepy in the way that a cat does.
His sharp features had softened in the fading firelight over time. The need was there, it was hot and heavy in his chest, and James still felt that desire to press into Regulus and merge with him, place him on a pedestal and bare himself in reverence, but it wasn’t overwhelming or all-consuming like it had been.
Instead, the want sat warm and purring over his heart. He wanted to press his thumbs into the scrunch of Regulus’ nose, wanted to learn to braid his hair in the complicated way he did, wanted to trace the trail of his braces over his body with his fingertips, wanted to make him laugh and smile and relax.
“It’s late, James,” Regulus sighed into the comfortable quiet, only broken by the still crackling fire. “Or early, I should say.”
“Do I get to hear about you?” James pushed his glasses up his nose, and it was only when he moved his arm that he realized how tired he was.
“I don’t think there’s time tonight,” Regulus replied. “But you can ask a few quick questions if you have something in mind.”
There was a lot James wanted to know. He wanted to ask about Regulus’ likes, his dislikes, his favorites. He wanted to ask about Regulus’ life, and his experiences, and his opinions.
But, regardless of how off and broken James had been since school started, he was still a part of Sirius.
“Do you hate Sirius?” he asked quietly. “Do you agree with your parents, is that why you stayed?”
Regulus pursed his lips and didn’t say anything for a while. James waited patiently - he could tell that Regulus wouldn’t respond well to being pushed.
“No,” Regulus finally said, and, for the first time that night, his voice wasn’t strong and smooth the way that James had come to like so much. Instead, it was flat and unemotional. His eyes, too, were closed off; the same cold sharpness James had seen during their first meeting. “I don’t hate Sirius, and I don’t agree with my parents, and that’s not why I stayed.”
Hope bloomed in James’ chest. There was a chance, then. A chance to convince him, to get him to come to Sirius, to James. He wanted to continue, wanted to ask why he did stay, and why he was so cruel, and everything else, but he also hated to see that look in Regulus’ eyes, and didn’t like the sound of his voice.
So, instead, he asked: “What’s your favorite dessert?”
Regulus blinked, taken aback, and like it was never there the freeze melted from his stature and he relaxed again.
“I don’t know.” He pressed his lips together thoughtfully. “I’ve never had a dessert before, I don’t think.”
“What?” James asked, flabbergasted. “Dessert? You’ve never had a dessert?”
Regulus shook his head slowly.
“I’ve had chocolate before, in some French dishes,” he said, “but my parents controlled my diet very strictly, and I wasn’t allowed any desserts.”
“And you haven’t had any since you’ve been here?” James knew the Black parents were horrible, of course he did. He knew they were terrible to Sirius and hated them for that. It hadn’t occurred to him, though, that that cruelty would have also been inflicted onto Regulus. It made him sick, and sad, and so, so angry.
“I don’t know what any of them look or taste like,” Regulus told him, slightly amused, “and I don’t just put random food in my mouth.”
James put random food in his mouth. James had never been in an environment where random food couldn’t be trusted.
“I’ll bring you desserts,” he swore, already coming up with a list of must-tries. “When can I see you again?”
He wasn’t desperate, not anymore. It wasn’t truly a need.
But, Merlin, James wanted to see him again.
“You know when I’m here,” Regulus replied with a loose smile. James caught the smile in his hands and placed it in the special box in his head that held all of the other smiles Regulus had given him over the course of the night.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he promised. “I’ll bring you something good to try.” Regulus let out a breath that could have been a little laugh.
“Today,” he corrected, silver eyes gleaming. “What’s your favorite?”
“Treacle tart,” James answered without hesitation. Regulus pushed himself up off of the couch and stretched his arms up, dropping his head back. His hair had come with him, but there was still some of it draped over the back of the couch, so it wound through the air in front of James. James smiled up at him. And then-
And then Regulus pulled his hair fully towards him so that it fell behind his back, grabbed his cane, walked the few steps towards James, and placed his hand on James’ head. Just for a second, just a short, warm press of his palm against the crown of James’ head, just a quick carding of his fingers through James’ hair, and then he stepped away, nodding at James.
“Bring me some treacle tart, then,” he said casually in his silky voice, as if James hadn’t melted into a little puddle onto the couch with the feeling of Regulus' hand in James’ hair. “Goodnight, James.”
“Night,” James whispered, unable to speak any louder. Regulus gave him one last small, secretive smile, and then he slipped out of the Room, the quiet closing of the door cutting off the clicking of his cane.
James sank all the way back, until he was laying across the couch, his head where Regulus had just been sitting. The fabric was warm, and the air around it smelled fresh, like a forest of pine, and metallic, like the taste of blood.