I adored you Madly, Extravagantly, Absurdly.

Chapter 2

Fun fact: James' full title is Lord James Potter, Viscount of Gryffindor
Because of the French Revolution, Sirius' family doesn't really have a nobility title in France (because they were too low-ranking nobility to get one when they came from England). In England, they'd be considered Lords if anything.

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"I never was any other man's, nor ever shall I be" Teleny 110

The next day, James decides to give Regulus a tour around the house.

He looks lovely in his burgundy waistcoat.

"I had Mr Lupin call on the tailor for tomorrow. He will take your measurements, and you can choose all the colours and materials you like for new clothes." James announces while leading him through a sitting room.

Regulus stops.

James turns around to him, confused.

"Are you sure the tailor is to be trusted?"

James smiles. "You should know as well as I that every untrustworthy person can become trustworthy with enough money."

Regulus crosses his arms in front of his chest. "And you should know as well as I that every person of low character will think they're entitled to money for as long as they know a secret. Especially if you pay them once."

James shrugs. "Then I'll pay. I'll keep you safe, Regulus."

"How romantic," He says with an eyeroll and keeps walking, "And stupid. I'll tell the tailor if he tells anyone, I'll kidnap every person he loves, lock them into a glass box and fixate him in front of them to make him watch how I starve them to death."

James blinks at him. Regulus keeps walking with a skip in his step.

James reminds himself to tell Remus that Regulus is not allowed to make any purchases of large boxes.

"That's excessive, don't you think?"

Regulus turns to him with a shrug. "I could just stab him. But the psychological terror I threaten will have a better result long-term."

He must also be kept away from knives.

"Are you doing that sort of thing often?" James leads him out of the sitting room.

"I have strict parents, a preference for men's clothes, and a homosexual brother. What do you think?"

"You protected your brother. That's amicable."

Regulus shrugs. "He's soft. He would be like you, try to shut people up with money. It never works. You shut them up with fear or death. Sirius made this mistake once with the gardener. He resolved to steal from our father to pay him off. The gardener wouldn't stop until I sneaked into his bedroom one night and cut off his toe with garden sheers."

"You did what?" James exclaims.

Regulus shrugs. "Someone had to put an end to the whole ordeal. Who is this?" He points at a large portrait when they enter the drawing room.

Mentally, James is still at garden sheers and toes. Regulus steps up to the portrait. "When I came into this room yesterday and saw it, I wondered who it was. She must have been important for such an excessively large portrait. It's not your mother."

The portrait is a lovely painting of a beautiful young woman clad in an ornate red dress sitting on a gilded chair and looking at the beholder with a gentle smile.

"My Aunt," James says, "My father's sister. She died when she was sixteen."

"She's beautiful. How did she die?"