PART I JAMES
Time passes.
James focuses on Quidditch.
On his exams.
Sometimes he sees Regulus—across the Great Hall, walking through the corridor—he tells himself they're coincidences, that he isn't looking for him. That he isn't purposely hanging around Regulus's classes or the hallways he knows he likes to take. Not that it matters. Regulus never sees him and James never says anything. They pass one another like strangers.
He talks to Regulus all the time in his head. He tells him about stupid things that don't matter, or things he thinks Regulus would find funny. He tells him that he misses him. That he loves him. He tries to stop but he can't, until eventually it feels like every thought he has is part of a one way conversation. Sometimes he imagines scenario's where they run into one another or get forced into detention together—somewhere that they have no choice but to talk. And for some reason that changes things, and suddenly Regulus decides to leave Slytherin and sleep in James's bed every night and come home with him at the end of the year.
Sometimes he hates Regulus a little bit. But only a little. Only on his worst days. When he lies awake at night and wishes he could rip the heart out of his fucking chest.
"Oi, captain hurry up!" Sirius shouts from downstairs. "You're gonna be late for your own bloody game!"
"I know, I know!" James is frantically tearing through his things, looking for his Quidditch gloves. Dragon hyde, brown, water resistant, and with a grip that's to die for. "Where the fuck did I put them," he curses, yanking open the drawers in his bedside table.
He starts throwing things on the floor—the map ends up on his bed, some old quills clinking as he tosses them aside, a few letters from his mum...
"Where in the fuck," he grumbles, now really starting to get annoyed. He yanks open the second drawer with such force that something heavy from the back slides forward, nearly falling out.
James freezes.
It's a wooden box, shoved to the back during one of his many temper tantrum's over the past few months.
For a moment he just stares at it, unable to move, or breathe, or think. His life has become a series of minefields. Faces he can't see and words he can't hear and things he doesn't want to touch.
Slowly, he picks the box up, sinking onto the bed beside him as he holds it in his lap. The world suddenly shrinking. Becoming quiet. Reduced to no more than a tiny red ball. Carefully James takes it out, feeling the magic humming between his fingers. And there, when he turns it just right—
J & R
The sight of their initials entwined together sends a feeling so painful through his chest that James actually whimpers, fingers clutching more tightly around the ball.
Fuck.
This is not what he needs.
Not right now.
Not before the final Quidditch match of the year.
Not before he has to face him on the field.
"JAMES!" Sirius screams, loud enough that McGonagall probably hears him. "Your bloody parents are waiting for us!"
"C—" his voice comes out strangled and choked and he has to stop, clearing his throat. "Coming!" he manages on the second try. He throws the box back in its drawer, slamming it shut. Sometimes it's like he gets so sad he gets angry. Like he just wants to break everything. He's never felt like that before—never been the type to punch walls.
