Smile When You Dive In

Chapter 22

A week into June, Regulus felt as though James was following him. Without the distraction of the full moon, he supposed it was possible. Mostly, he had put it down to his imagination. James was on his mind most of the time, so it made sense that he would be able to easily pick him out of a crowded hallway, or to notice when their paths crossed. While he had agreed to follow Willa's advice and find James that morning, he had no intention of doing it first thing when he woke. The quidditch pitch wasn't the place to have a serious conversation, and if he was going to start convincing James to see things his way, they would need time to talk, away from the prying eyes of the other students. The problem was that it was now the fifth day he had been avoiding him, and depriving James of attention certainly seemed to be one way of attracting his.

At breakfast, the owl that they usually used to send letters to one another perched on Regulus' shoulder. There was no letter delivered, all the owl did was peck at his head, and yet he couldn't help but feel as though James had set the owl up to it. When Regulus went to the library between classes, James appeared behind him not ten minutes after he'd arrived. They didn't speak, and James pretended to be looking at the books shelved behind Regulus' back, but he cleared his throat twice to get Regulus' attention. Thankfully, Regulus had Transfigurations to get to, and he knew that James had Potions, so he didn't have to make an excuse for his quick escape. During his prefect duty that evening, Regulus felt as though he could sense somebody behind him as he patrolled through the corridors. He reached for his wand, but when he turned and saw James, he couldn't bring himself to act surprised.

"You're following me." He accused, folding his arms.

"Took you long enough to catch on." James smiled sheepishly as he ran to catch up with Regulus, no longer hiding in the shadows. He'd changed out of his uniform for the day, and was wearing a crumpled red t-shirt and the same muggle jeans he was so fond of.

"You've been following me since the Great Hall, at least." It didn't really matter, but Regulus didn't like the insinuation that James could follow him around without him noticing. He had noticed that somebody had been following him, and had only been waiting until he was sure to say something. James only shrugged.

"Been following you since Tuesday, actually. S'pose you've been too busy with Ollerton to notice."

"Careful, Potter. Somebody might think you're jealous." He hadn't expected a response to that. He certainly hadn't expected James to grab him by his jumper, pulling him into the nearest alcove. Finally forced to look up into his brown eyes, Regulus could see that for once in his life, he was completely serious.

"You said it wasn't like that with her."

"It isn't."

"I saw you kissing her yesterday." Instead of pointing out that he actually hadn't been kissing Carmen, Regulus rolled his eyes.

"What, and you haven't been kissing anybody else since we started this?" Regulus hissed. He knew that they shouldn't have been discussing what had passed between them so brazenly where anybody could overhear, but he had also been having imaginary arguments with James for almost a week and wasn't sure he could wait much longer to let something slip. The rumours Regulus heard about James and the girls in Gryffindor (among others) weren't even something that he was particularly bothered by, but if that was where James wanted to jump off, he'd join him there for a moment.

"That's different. You're with her all the time. It's never serious when I kiss girls." Again, Regulus didn't bother pointing out that James was the only one kissing girls. He didn't need to.

"Except Evans."

"I haven't kissed Evans."

"You want to, though." James didn't bother to point out that Regulus was now the one who sounded jealous. Whether it was because he knew it would sound a tad hypocritical or because he didn't want to think about what Regulus being jealous meant, Regulus was grateful. For a while, James said nothing. He didn't deny it, and Regulus wouldn't have believed him if he had. Instead, he reached for Regulus' hand. It occurred to Regulus that he had started to miss James' touch, but he didn't give in yet.