This Trying Affair • Jegulus •

XV. Idiotic Fool that You Made Me

James Potter was stupid. That was one thing that Regulus Black had been sure of before and even now. The boy was reckless with his feelings and actions and thought he could move heaven and earth with his smile. Yes, James Potter was stupid, but so was Regulus.

Or at least he was an idiotic fool when James Potter was on his mind. After that night in the Astronomy tower, Regulus constantly pondered James words, playing the offer over and over in his head until he was sure that his mind would explode from the overthinking he never stopped doing. Every night he would get so close to writing the boy, telling him that he had made a msitake, and they could start new. 

Everything within Regulus ached to be able to do that, to fix things with James, to get to be around his dazzling smile and heart warming laugh again. But then his brother's scared and scarred face would come to mind. The panic both the Black brothers had felt that night that seemed so distant now surfacing again in a deep pit of Regulus's stomach. 

It was all it would take to remind him why that could never be a possibility, to remind him that he had given up James for a reason. No boy mattered more than his brother's safety. No one;s happiness mattered more to Regulus than Sirius's. Not even his own. 

No matter how many times James's curly hair entered his mind and warmed the cold empty feeling within him, how many things reminded him of the days they had spent in secret together, Sirius was the thing that grounded Regulus and reminded him why he had chosen this path for himself. 

One thing that had made it all easier had been his friendship with Emily Diggory. Though the girl was still worried for her friend, the two were as thick as thieves once again, talking for hours on end about their stupid classmates and Emily's wonderful, adorable, beautiful, perfect girlfriend that she seemed to never run out of compliments for. 

Shocking both Regulus Black and Lily Evans, Emily had gotten both of them to meet each other in the Three Broomsticks over Butterbeer. 

The meeting had been all kinds of uncomfortable as first, Regulus aware that he was not supposed to be enganging in polite conversation with 'mudbloods' and Lily aware of the way the Black brothers had been raised to think of witches and wizards like her. 

Emily had quickly dispelled their distraught emotions, reminding them that she was what they had in common so obviously they would get along and muttering to Lily that Regulus wasn't actually a blood purist like his family. 

The conversation had still been tense, but the two were more open to it and once Potions had been brought up - a subject that Emily refused to talk to either about- the two had long forgotten their worries. Lily Evans and Regulus Black were both amazing at Potions and considered it their favorite subject at Hogwarts, but becasue Emily was so dismal at it, neither got to talk to someone else about it as often. Lily had remarked that her and Snape use to discuss it, but ever since he had fallen in with 'that crowd' they were no longer talking. 

They shared tips and tricks for the more intense potions that Professor Slughorn often assigned them, agreeing to meet in the library and discuss it in more detail. Neither of them had seen the astonished gazes of James Potter and Remus Lupin watching the two talk animatedly with large smiles on their faces. They were both dumbfounded at the site, sure that they had been dreaming it, or in Remus's case that he had somehow entered James's dreams. 

"Wow, Regulus," Lily laughed, staring at the boy bright eyes. "You are both exactly like I am imagined and nothing like I imagined." 

"How so?" he said, raising a curious eyebrow at her. 

"Well for one, you're as smart and collected as Sirius always made you out to be, but you're not evil like he exaggerated his entire family was and you're always nothing like him. Well, except I guess that troublemaker is rather smart as well. You're just better behaved."