unspeakable | jegulus

a troubled cure for a troubled mind

chapter title: time has told me by nick drake

He half-jogged through the Slytherin common room, and froze when he nearly ran right into Snape on the stairs.

"Sorry, excuse me." James could feel his eyes stinging along with the pain from his split lip.

"That's quite a lot of blood," Snape observed. He seemed amused. "What—"

"It was Sirius," James interrupted. "I'm sorry, I'm having a terrible day. I just need to see Regulus."

"Black seems inclined to solve many of his problems with violence, do you think it's in his blood, or just his temperament? Nature, or nurture, Potter?" He had a slithery little smile curling his pale mouth. "Answer, and I'll get out of your way."

"Knowing the Black brothers as well as I do gives me enough qualification to say it's probably both." He didn't move. He tilted his head, and his long black hair fell to the side, covering half his face. He narrowed his eyes at him a little, appraising.

"Is Regulus also inclined toward violence?" James laughed and tasted more blood.

"Asking me a question like that about Regulus is like asking me whether or not fish are inclined to swim." He still didn't move. James was getting impatient. What was he playing at?

"Do you think Lily is inclined toward violence?" Ah. Alright. He could play this game. His obsession was irritating when he was pursuing Lily, but now? It was a tool in his arsenal. It was something he could use to connect with him. James didn't know why Snape and Lily had the connection they did. Lily never talked about him, it hurt her too much. She knew they hated each other, which didn't exactly invite her to have a heart to heart with him about her friendship with this freak. All he knew was: Snape hurt her over and over again because he wanted to fit in with the Slytherin crowd, and Lily let him to it for a long time for reasons James didn't understand. They were friends when they were children, once they got to Hogwarts. How had they even started to be friends in the first place? He didn't know. He didn't know a lot of things about the two of them.

"Lily is inclined toward justice. She's uncomfortable around violence, but if it's necessary, she'll employ it. She'd have to debate about it first, and she'd probably take forever just sitting there thinking. By any means necessary, with emphasis on 'necessary'. That's Lily." James smiled a little. "But you already knew that, didn't you?" Snape looked at him with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Thank you for indulging my questions, Potter." He moved aside. They were shoulder to shoulder, facing opposite directions on the stairs. This was the most civil they had ever been. Snape said, in a rush, like he couldn't stop himself, "I don't understand you. You relentlessly pursued her for years, even when she hated you. You really seemed like you loved her. I never liked you, I hated you for what you did to me when we were children, but she seemed like she was happy with you, so I tried to make my peace with it. Then, in the space of a week, you replaced her completely?"

"She was the one who broke up with me," he responded instantly. James debated what he was going to say next internally, and decided to spit it out on pure instinct. Maybe this would make Snape hate him even more, maybe it would endear him to him a little. What did he really have to lose? "She was too good for me. I guess she could see it, by the end. She's a better person than I am. I'm not too proud to admit that she's just... fundamentally better than me. Regulus and I understand each other because we're both capable of cruelty. I guess you'd know that aspect of me better than anyone. She isn't. She's strong but she's never cruel. She couldn't understand me, so it didn't work. I'm a bad person, she tried to ignore it but eventually I was cruel to her too and she couldn't ignore it anymore. She wasn't right for me. We weren't soulmates. That's it. Is your morbid curiosity satisfied?"