muggle summer // james potter

chapter seven

NO SOONER HAD Sirius Black pulled the door shut then he felt two hands on his shoulders, tugging him around to meet the hazel eyes of his best friend. He inhaled sharply at the crazed look in his friend's eye and braced himself for the incoming interrogation.


"Where were you this morning?" At first, Sirius is confused by James's question, remembering how he was sent to wake up his very energetic friend, so there was no way that he would have been awake when he left. Thoughts racing through his mind as he tried to stutter out an answer that his friend would not take horribly out of context, it occurred to him that James was very much not asleep when he entered his room less than an hour ago. Sirius was struck with a sudden wave of concern as he wondered how much he had heard of Mrs. Potter's teasing.

James was very displeased with Sirius's sputtering and seemed to think that shaking him like a rag doll would be a more efficient way to get his thoughts to corporealize. It seemed to have an opposite effect as Sirius pushed James's hands off of his shoulders and leaned against the door behind him, seeking support in the hardwood structure. Finally, an acceptable distraction tumbled from his lips as he ran a hand through his hair in a weak attempt to collect himself.

"Have you had breakfast yet?" Sirius couldn't stop himself from inserting a few tasteful curse words into his phrase, but the central message was enough to distract James and send him running off to the kitchen. Sirius shook his head, his hair immediately falling to cover his swirling silver eyes which gleamed in amusement at his friend's energy. James's struggles with the guilt of his self imposed house arrest had cast a wet blanket over the Potter household, but the sun seemed to be shining brightly today.

Leaving James to devour the breakfast leftovers in the kitchen fridge with the same puppy-like ferocity that he had been viciously attacked with, Sirius set himself to finally drafting a response to Remus's latest letter.

Remus's letters had been the only letters he had even bothered opening this summer, not that he had gotten much mail since he had run away from the Black house. Aside from Remus, only one person had reached out to him. Being with the Potter's had been like a dream but the unopened letter that was delicately lain across his dresser threatened to burst his bubble and Sirius simply could not bring himself to open it. His parents hadn't acknowledged him after they disowned him, but knowing that his younger brother was still in that wretched house had caused him to shed more than a few tears late at night when James couldn't hear him cry.

He was ever so grateful to James for sharing his home, his food, his clothes, and even his parents. Truly, James was his family. But Sirius felt that he should carry the weight of his sins alone. He had been raised to be incredibly aware of his public appearance, and it was this that drove him to project a very false image to many people. It was this false image that had captured him the hearts of so many young girls, but it was also this false image that trapped him in its shadow. Sirius's deepest fear was that the image he had carefully constructed of himself would fall, and people would not like the person that he truly was.

Shaking the thoughts from his head and ignoring the single tear that etched a wet mark across his face, he pushed his way into his room, sitting down to write a very important letter, complete with his careful calligraphy and the formality that had been strictly imposed on him by the steel hand of Walburga Black since the first moment that he would write.

To My Dearest Friend,

Mr. Remus Lupin... 

As he crisply folded the parchment and tied it to the leg of the Potter's family owl, he failed to notice the single tear mark blurring the careful calligraphy of Remus's name that would still be wet by the time Remus unfurled the letter and set about devouring every word etched into the paper. 

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sorry it took me a while to write this, kinda didn't know where i wanted this to go. anyways, time is an illusion.

now's probably a good time to mention that my regulus black is timothée chalamet

thoughts on the new cover?