𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐋𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐞𝐬 | 𝐉𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐋𝐔𝐒

PART TWO i: Visor

QUICK NOTE: this chapter is /gen copyrighted because it's adapted from my original novel, so. yeah. no stealing because you might be sued LMAO

Regulus Black is about ninety percent sure that Hestia Jones thinks he's gay.

To be completely transparent, he can't blame her. She's been valiantly attempting to make a move on him since third year when he'd first started sprouting height and his jawline had begun to sharpen, and he hasn't so much as looked her way twice.

Whatever. Who cares? Regulus certainly doesn't. It isn't his fault if Hestia bloody Jones has the wrong impression of where his painfully blatant disinterest is spawning from.

Even if he were gay, as though it bloody matters , Regulus thinks his pure disliking of Hestia could only ever stem from her acrid personality. Looking past her pretty blue eyes, there isn't much to like in any category - let alone fall in love with.

There's a headache building in his temple, and Regulus knocks his forehead against one of his bedposts with a groan.

He's too tired for this. His late-night rendezvous with James fucking Potter in the library has sucked him dry.

Merlin, James Potter is an exhausting bastard. Regulus is prepared to swear on his life that ever since the Head Boy had approached him with his utterly ridiculous idea for the upcoming winter, he has not gained a minute of true rest.

James is just... everywhere. Around every corner, hiding behind every bookshelf. Each time Regulus attempts to smuggle in some alone time between classes and talking with friends, James Potter seems to find him. He'd even followed him to the fucking Slug Club little over five days ago.

So, to say the least, he's fucking tired.

For the sake of his own sanity, he's ignoring whatever the fuck those memories from the library are attempting to taunt him with. He may be feeling the late night in his bones, but thinking about it in too much depth makes him physically ill.

The tape.

Merlin, that fucking tape.

He hadn't thought it was real, to be honest. There is simply no plausible way in the world James Potter would hand him one of his father's music tapes.

No way in the world.

At least, he'd believed so, until this morning when he'd been ruffling through his bag and knocked dainty fingers against the godforsaken thing.

He hasn't had the bollocks to play it yet. Sue him for being afraid of it, the change it symbolises.

His mind's much too... preoccupied in this moment to consider it in depth, but he can already predict the rolling tides of emotions he won't dare touch that'll plague his veins. Even if James Potter may be taking up an unprecedented amount of storage in the liminal space of his mind, there are people on the opposite side of a wall chatting shit about him that he can't help but pay too much attention to.

"It's just... Oh, Eleanor," he hears the girl cry in horror, "he isn't interested at all! I don't understand what I've done so terribly wrong."

"Nothing, sweetheart," Hestia's companion - Eleanor, apparently - soothes, and Regulus battles down the urge to scream. "You've done nothing wrong at all."

"Exactly! It's been three years of me being nothing but kind and loving to him and he hasn't given a dime back."

"Perhaps he's simply an arse," Eleanor muses, "like his brother."