Of Pinstripes And Potions

Second Evening

After dinner, they're still alone, and they still say nothing. James doesn't follow Regulus to the bathroom when he goes to get ready for bed, and he waits a good half hour afterwards before going himself, just in case the boy's forgotten anything and suddenly darts back. He wouldn't want to bump into him and allow the awkwardness from earlier on to continue. Once it's dark, Regulus leaves the candle by his bed burning for far longer than necessary, and James wonders briefly if he's afraid of the dark. He's heard that the Slytherin common room and dorms have windows out into the lake, that the moonlight shines through and illuminates the place with calm, green waves. He's never spoken to a Slytherin for long enough that it ever came up, so he can't know for sure if that's true or not. Nor does he know why it suddenly seems important, watching Regulus' face illuminated by the candlelight and imagining it replaced with the soft watery hues.

Regulus finished his book a while ago, and is now laying against his fluffed up pillows with it sitting limply against his chest. James wants to ask about it, made curious not only by his refusal to let James see the previous day, but also by the wistful sigh he gave upon closing the last page, something James had seen Remus, and even Lily do. He's never read a book that made him feel that way. He thinks maybe it's the same feeling he gets when he's sitting in front of the fire in the common room, his friends drifting off to sleep around him between half-arsed jokes and sweets thrown between them, a warmth spreading throughout and leaving him content, wishing he could hold onto the moment for a little longer.

"What?" Regulus asks when he catches James looking his way.

"Good book?"

Regulus considers it for a moment, looks down at his book and then back to James. If their beds were close enough together, he might have simply passed it over, careful not to let their hands brush in the brief transaction. If he was less careful of his belongings, more like Sirius, he might have thrown it. But James has seen the way Regulus nudges his things into place at his bedside, fingers gentle and slow. He gets up from his bed and crosses the space between them. The book is placed in James' lap, and then he hesitates for a moment like he might retreat. He doesn't though, instead settling at the far edge of Jame's mattress, as far from him as he can get on the small bed. James doesn't allow himself to be distracted by this decision, looks instead down at the book. It's bound in cloth, pages yellowed and bears no title on the outside. When he flips the pages slowly, with caution, he can see nothing incriminating about it. There are no spells listed on the pages, no manual for committing any crime as far as he can tell. It seems to just be some boring old story. "What is it?" He asks.

"It's, um... I don't know, the title and everything were ripped out when I found it. It was in Andromeda's room." It's strange, hearing Regulus call her by her proper name, when he's so used to hearing Sirius call her 'Andie' exclusively. It's easier to distance her from the rest of them that way, from their overly-formal upbringing. But then, Regulus is a little younger than Sirius, probably doesn't remember her as well.

"What's it about?"

"There's this man, and he grows up in the hills, he doesn't go to Hogwarts or anything. Then he meets this... woman."

"And?" Regulus is hesitant to tell him the rest, he can tell. James keeps leafing through, eyes skimming the words but still finding nothing particularly scandalous. There doesn't seem to be any sex, or murder, or anything like that.

"She's a muggle."

"Oh."

"Yeah, she... They get married at the end, but then he dies." A short, jerky sort of shrug. He's toying with a loose thread on his pyjama bottoms, self-conscious. "I suppose you weren't allowed to write that kind of stuff and give it a happy ending back then."