i really loved him

chapter 31

Regulus POV

Sunday, 17th October – Only idiots would train at this time on a Sunday morning. Before sunrise with a sickle-shaped moon still standing white against the twinkling navy sky. Yet somehow, when Regulus emerged from the empty changing rooms, James was waiting for him. Already clad in his scarlet quidditch robes, already tousle-haired and sweating.

"How long have you been here?" Regulus demanded as they met halfway across the grass.

"Not long," James said breathlessly. "Dunno, twenty minutes? Just had to get my run done first."

That explained it.

"Oi, you should come with me one day," he added eagerly. And, when Regulus gave him a sceptical look, "It's fun! A bloody good warmup too, helps wake you up a bit at the arse crack of dawn, y'know? Gets lonely, going by myself."

Regulus pondered. On the one hand, he should say no to that. The last thing he needed was yet another excuse to spend time with James. On the other, the sight of James himself messing up his already messy hair with one hand and flicking the snitch into the air with the other clouded the majority of his rational thoughts.

So instead, he shrugged.

"Perhaps I will," he said.

"Brilliant," the older boy beamed, so bright and enthusiastic that Regulus couldn't help but smile.

Merlin's beard, it was impossible to say no to James Potter.

James POV

They were in the air soon after that, having mobilised the snitch and sent it skedaddling into the sky. Training so early wasn't exactly ideal for a couple of seekers searching for a tiny, flitting ball in the near darkness, but James shrugged that off, convinced that it would just be even better practice; prepare them for anything. If they could find the snitch without sunlight, what couldn't they do?

Regulus called that blind optimism. James called it a positive attitude.

The crisp air whistled past his ears, biting at his exposed skin as he swept in a broad overhead arc above the tops of the stands. Though James didn't mind the cold particularly, still a bit hot and flushed. From his run.

It had only been a few laps around the stadium, this time. His favourite routes involved skirting the edge of the Forbidden Forest so that he could dip in and out of the woods or stop to climb trees whenever the fancy took him. But he hadn't wanted to keep Reggie waiting, so had settled for the pitch.

After making sure the snitch wasn't hovering up high, James angled into a short nose-dive and darted lower, not being able to resist a couple of Sloth's Grip Rolls on the way. He pulled up level with the scoring hoops and looped through each one a few times in twirling figures-of-eight. Just because.

On the other side of the pitch, Regulus was in the middle of flying in wide rings close to the ground, keeping right to the edge at he went.

That's not like him, James thought, slowing down to watch.

Usually, Reggie would zoom straight up for an aerial view then make his way gradually down, scouring every inch of the stadium as he did. It was an efficient, calculated approach, very unlike James' main method of whizzing around for a bit, hopefully catching sight of the snitch after few minutes and almost certainly getting ahold of it through a combination of reckless speed and stubborn determination.

Obviously, there was a bit more to it than that; he did focus, practise different skills, all that boring stuff, but for the most part, winging it had worked out just fine. Even so, it was always fascinating to see Regulus carry out his meticulous set of techniques that were yet to lose him a game against anyone other than James.