Chapter 5: Liar

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Regulus could see that James was panicking. All he'd done was ask why James called his brother 'Pad Foot'.

"It's uh, it's just a nickname we have for him." He tried to laugh, but it was obviously forced, this man was a terrible liar, but Regulus decided to let him be, he could ask Sirius about it tomorrow.

'Okay, that's weird but I've never really understood nicknames.' Regulus hoped this was enough to calm James' nerves. Merlin, look at him, worrying about James.

"Oh– you don't have any nicknames?" James visibly calmed, his shoulders loosened and he stopped wringing his hands.

'Barty calls me 'Reg,' Sirius calls me 'Reggie,' and Andi calls me 'Little Star.'' Regulus felt stupid for telling James what Andi calls him, he barely knows him.

"Little Star, huh? Sounds cute." James said, his smile was lopsided, the left of his mouth lifting higher than the right, it was unreasonably attractive. Regulus felt his cheeks heat up at James' words. No one had ever called anything to do with him cute, he was always described as sharp and mean, never cute.

"Aw, no need to get all shy, I'll come up with my own nickname for you." James pauses to think, "Regulus is Latin right? For 'Prince'" Regulus nodded, "Then I'll call you Prince." Regulus shook his head, "No? Ok, how about Leo?" Regulus raises an eyebrow at him. "No again? Alright, how do you feel about Thisbe?" Regulus felt both his eyebrows rise at that.

'You know about Thisbe and Pyramus?' James nodded as he read.

"Yes, of course, Sirius told me all about your star you know?" Regulus did not know, and the fact that James knew this much about something so important to him had his cheeks heating up again.

James continued trying to give Regulus a nickname, Regulus hated all of them, but James kept on guessing until they parted ways at the bottom of the Tower. Regulus walked into his dorm with a small smile on his face, and as soon as Barty saw him, he rolled his eyes and huffed out a laugh.

~

James was joined by a Slytherin girl on his walk to Runes. He knew she took the class, he'd seen her there before, but she'd never walked with him. He felt that she wanted to say something to him, but he was honestly too scared to confront her.

"You've been hanging out with Regulus." Is what she finally said. James nodded.

"You better be careful with him, Potter, he has friends, and we're all far more than willing to hurt you if you even think about betraying his trust." If he remembers right, this girl is Dorcas Meadows, the Slytherin girl that hexed a bunch of boys for trying to flip up her skirt, Lily had called her a hero, he silently agreed with her.

"I understand where you're coming from, but I wouldn't hurt him, even if I wanted to, his brother shares a room with me." Meadows nodded her head at him, and then finally left him to walk with a few other Slytherins. James let out a sigh of relief, just as Lily grabbed his arm and pulled him close to whisper shout in his ear.

"James Potter, you are going to tell me what that was about right now." Lily looked a mix of angry, scared and concerned, it made his heart swell to know that she cared about him as much as he cared about her.

"Wait until after class, I'll tell you in the free period." James could tell that she wanted to interrogate him, but she just nodded and walked into class beside him.

As they walked out of the Runes classroom, Lily grabbed his arm, again, and dragged him to the Gryffindor common room, sitting him down and then staring at him.

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you, Merlin." James shook his head at her antics. Lily just sat closer to him, still staring.

"Why were you being interrogated by Dorcas Meadows?" Lily said this, her voice was ice and he finally realized what Lily thought happened.

"It wasn't anything gross like what happened in second year, I've been hanging out with one of her friends and she just warned me not to be a prick, that's all." James grabbed her hands, hoping she could see his sincerity.

"Okay, as long as you aren't being gross, I would have had to sick Mary on you if you were." James laughed at this, knowing full well that Mary could probably beat him to a pulp if she was pissed off enough.

~

'Dorcas, why did I just get a letter from James saying that you intimidated him?' Regulus wished his friends were nicer, just once.

"I've no idea, I don't even know who James is." Dorcas lied through her teeth with a smile.

'Yes, you do you bitch, what did you say to him.' If she lied again Regulus was going to turn her hair red and gold.

"I didn't say anything." Regulus pulled out his wand, pointed at her head, sent off the spell wordlessly and walked away without looking to see her reaction.

"Oh, you little SHIT!" Regulus let himself laugh at that.

She came up to his dorm a few hours later, her hair still bright red and gold, a look of pure anger on her face.

"Fix it." She said, glaring right at him, and then shooting Barty the same glare when he laughed. Regulus rolled his eyes.

'If I do, you're apologising to James.' Regulus knew that it would embarrass Dorcas, a proud Slytherin, to walk around school with Gryffindor colours in her hair, and he was hoping that she would pick her pride over her hatred for James.

"Fine." She spat the word out like it physically hurt her. Regulus smiled and waved his wand at her head, he watched as the colour slowly bled out of her hair and it was left as its usual black.

Notes:

this chapter is exactly 1000 words im so cool B) also did you guys catch the little reference to Just Lovers?