Without meaning to, Regulus had learned just how terrible it could be letting Sirius back into his life, even in the smallest amounts. He had learned and lived and grieved as if Sirius had died. He had spent so many nights holding the wound closed with nothing but shaking fingers. Some days, he would tear right through the scabs just passing by Sirius's room, some days he'd close his eyes and cover his ears and scream, if only to forget the ache existed anywhere outside his throat.
He hated Sirius.
He loved Sirius.
It was why he couldn't pick up the phone, even as it went from ringing once a week to twice a day. Every time his name would light up, Regulus's stomach would writhe. He'd close his eyes and hope to some higher power that he would juststopcalling altogether. Otherwise, he dodged Sirius like it was his full time job, stepping back into a building here, crossing over there.
On the very last Thursday of the month, on a cool and misty morning, Regulus's luck, or maybe Sirius's patience, wore thin enough to break.
"Reggie," Sirius called, and though Regulus heard him coming, he still flinched when they collided as Sirius half-tackled him into the cement.
Regulus's legs crumbled under their combined weight and he stumbled forward pulling his brother down with him.
"Shit," he grunted, the ground coming fast at his body, but just before his knees buckled completely, Sirius gripped him by the elbow and hoisted him back up, steadying them both in one fell swoop.
"Sorry, sorry," Sirius said. "You're thinner than I remember," he said, but all Regulus heard was the blood pumping in his ears, screamingwhy, why, why.
Anger flared between his ribs and ignited his blood cells, burning them white hot under his skin. They dug at the surface begging and begging to explode outward.
"My nameisn'tReggie," he growled. "And why do you always have to fucking touch—"
He spun then stopped, frozen in time. His jaw hung open, half a word dying on his tongue before he could give it any semblance of life. His eyes widened to twice their normal size as if he was staring at a ghost. He smashed his teeth together and pressed his lips into a thin line.James, his brain told him.Sirius's James.And then, all of his thoughts skidded to horribly quick halt.
For a moment, everything was still.
"You," Regulus accused, taking a step forward towards the man with messy curly hair and a sideways smile that fit effortlessly on his face. His cheekbones dusted a timid pink and Regulus noticed for the first time a small mole speckled just below his right eye.
Sirius, ever oblivious, marched onward.
"This," he said, with an over-embellished wave of his hands, "is James Potter."
Again, Regulus's blood boiled, burning hot as hell under his skin in the cool air of the morning. His arms crossed his chest and he sneered, feeling something like gravely ill but not quite grasping why.
"Funny story," said James looking nothing like he was about to say something comical. "Turns out we kinda, already met."
"What? How?" Sirius's head whipped back and forth between the two of them, strands of black hair falling loose from his bun and fluttering around his face.
Regulus frowned while James made a soft noise with his mouth and rubbed his palms nervously against his jeans. "You know professor Binn's class?"
"Uh-huh," Sirius nodded.
"I'm the TA for it this semester. Regulus is also taking it."
As Regulus listened to James speak, his chest constricted, his ribcage folding under the pressure. He sucked cool air through his nose and pretended it did anything other than deflate him further on his next, hot breath out. Wind dashed violently across his bare skin: his neck, his wrists, his fingers. He pulled at his clothing in a vain attempt to limit exposure.
"Nice of you to tell me," he said, spitting through the discomfort.
"And me," Sirius added with a third as much venom.
James sagged as if he had been tried and found guilty of a brutal crime he surely committed. He grunted. "I'm sorry. I just — well, I've been a little preoccupied is all," he said, wincing at the words at they fell from his mouth. He blinked over and over, like someone who was trying to rid themselves of an unpleasant memory.
"Mm," said Sirius, giving James a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
Regulus wrapped his hand around the strap of his backpack and squeezed until his knuckles went bone white. They'd been in the same vicinity three times a week for the past month.Why didn't he say anything?Regulus thought incredulously, rage once again forming in his blood and pooling at the base of his skull.
"Why didn't you put it together?" Sirius asked, rounding onhim. "Did you get one too many punches to the face over the last four years?"
Regulus bit like an animal. "It's not like James is a unique name! How was I supposed to know? I would have thought he'dsay somethingonce or twice." His voice edged dangerously close to shouting.
"I guess," Sirius said with a shrug, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, no more threatened by Regulus's outburst than he might be if confronted by a small mouse. "Anyway, this is a good thing, you know."
Regulus did not know.
"You basically have your own personal tutor! James was great in professor Binn's class. He took it twice!"
"I don't need a tutor," Regulus snapped, "especially not one that failed the first time around."
"He didn't fail," Sirius said firmly.
"Oh really, then why'd he take it twice?"
James cleared his throat and both brothers turned on him in an act of simultaneous and accidental aggression. He threw his hands up in innocence. "Er — I'll need to get used to that," he murmured. Regulus and Sirius exchanged sideways glances, each bearing its own kind of dissatisfaction. "I took the class twice under unusual circumstances but I aced it both times. I really am qualified," he rubbed his neck awkwardly, "anyway, I'm glad we get to officially meet, I'm sorry it's taken such a long time."
Regulus wrinkled his nose and attempted to look as angry as he felt, but he found the emotion to be fleeting — too hard to hold onto. Really, he was tired. After four long years he had forgotten just how exhausting it could be to be around Sirius.
He stared at the pair of them for a long moment, letting a blanket of unsettling discomfort suffocate them.
"If we're done here?" Regulus said, taking a step away.
Above them, the clouds shifted and the sun began to shine down overhead dispelling some of the morning's gloom. Sirius tilted his head and tried to smile, but Regulus could see something shifting beneath the surface causing his jaw to twitch.
"Answer your phone sometimes, huh? Don't be such a stranger."
Regulus didn't respond.
Moving forward, Regulus spent a good portion of his energy ignoring James in class, despite his best efforts to talk to and generally bother him. He hid in the back, as far from James as he could physically get while still occupying the same room and it worked — for a week. But then, one afternoon when Regulus was huddled up in the upper right corner of the room, pulling at his sleeves as the air conditioner kicked on overhead, James waltzed in and stomped all the way up the stairs. Regulus wondered vaguely where he might be headed before horror, dread, delusion even, washed over Regulus and he propelled through all five stages of grief in a matter of moments.
James dropped casually into the empty spot next to him, much to the entire class's bewildered outrage. Every single pair of eyes had tracked him straight to Regulus, then looked athimlike he had committed a horrific crime and not at all like he was the victim of one! Even the professor frowned up at the two of them but, after a silent contemplative moment, he merely shook his head and carried on.
During the quiet minutes between them before class could officially start, James opened his laptop and began working on — wellsomething. He tapped away at the keys, over and over and over, never once looking towards Regulus. He didn't know whether to be outraged James was silent or happy he had finally decided to somewhat respect Regulus's wishes. His mouth made the choice for him.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed, glancing at James sideways and then glaring at the boy sitting in front of them who had turned to gawk.
James waited a whole beat before he took his eyes off his laptop.Playing innocent,Regulus thought with a sneer.
Truly, his eyes seemed to drag slow and with immense effort. They dug deep into Regulus as they made contact, like James could see into another dimension and couldn't help but watch as that dimension swallowed him whole.
"Hm?" he said quietly, his dark auburn eyes searching.
"What, you don't speak English?" Regulus said incredulously. With a frown, he removed his attention from James and the way his curly hair fell wild around his soft features and set his gaze on the front of the room.
"Siento, solo hablo español."
Regulus rolled his eyes.Two can play at that game."Arrête de faire le malin," he muttered and James snorted.
"Should have known you'd insult me in French," he said, not sounding all that broken up about it. It sent a shock of annoyance traveling up and around Regulus's spine. "Sirius does the same thing." He sighed and Regulus's frown deepened.
"We are brothers," Regulus said but the word tasted unexpectedly bitter in his mouth.
Theywerebrothers but by blood and nothing else. Sirius was loud, obnoxious, and self-centered. There was always another argument to have, another hill for him to die on. He treated self-sacrifice like it was an Olympic sport and anything less than gold was utter and complete failure. He went on and on about standing up for yourself, about being there for other people, aboutcaring. Regulus had learned the hard way that Sirius was nothing more than a hypocrite.
He swallowed around the ache, grimacing.
"You didn't answer my question," Regulus said, his mouth dry.
James kicked back in his chair, seeming to shake off whatever mood had been crushing him only moments before and smiled.
"It's exhausting sitting up there, all those people staring at me."
The professor began to prattle off in the front of the room and Regulus dropped his voice to a whisper.
"Bold of you to assume anyone was staring atyouand not the projector screen behind your head."
In Regulus's peripheral, he saw James smirk.
"You may be right," he said softly, "but unfortunately, my brain can't tell the difference."
Regulus nodded dimly and the next hour carried on with little fanfare and even less excitement. The professor lectured on and on about the history of William Faulkner andAs I Lay Dying.As they neared the end of the period when it seemed everyone in the class had all but fallen asleep, the professor took a long extended breath and seemed to take in every face in the room all at once.
"How many of you have started your paper?" he asked, sounding generally hopeless.
Everyone found someone else's eyes around the room, except Regulus who stared stubbornly at his notebook, his hand flying across the page.
"Right then," the professor said, flicking on the lights and blinding the lot of them, "get started. You have twenty minutes before you're allowed to leave but I'm tired of hearing my own voice."
A quiet thrum of chatter started up then around the room as small tight knit groups began to form.
"Where do you eat lunch?" James asked.
Regulus shrugged, squinting at the deadline displayed on the projector and attempting to copy it down. "I don't," he said offhandedly, licking his lips.Is that a four or a seven?he wondered, then asked aloud. "Is that a four or seven?" He gave James a distracted glance only to see him furrowing his brow and frowning. "What?"
"It's a seven," he said without taking his eyes away from Regulus. "What do you mean you don't? Don't what?"
"Each lunch."
"What?" James gaped.
"What?" Regulus demanded. "What's your issue?"
The air conditioning shuddered to life above them and Regulus shivered, cold before the air even hit his skin.
"Why don't you eat lunch?"
James leaned forward until he was hunched near Regulus's body, his eyes a hard mix between anger and concern, dancing the line with little grace as he swung the gap separating the two. Regulus curled his lip.
"I'm not hungry after class," he said annoyed. "Why does it matter anyway?"
"It isn't healthy."
Regulus snorted, his concentration waning. Still, he kept his hand moving, focusing on each letter as he wrote it. Him and James weren't anything to each other — his opinion should have been inconsequential —wasinconsequential. His mouth opened and he spoke anyway, "why do you care?"
"We're friends," James said matter-of-factly.
Regulus dropped his pencil in surprise. He watched, mouth agape, as it rolled across the desk, teetering precariously on the edge before slipping off and hitting the floor with a thud.Friends,he thought, the word steamrolling through his consciousness.
"Big reaction," James said lightly, digging in his bag and setting a new pencil in front of Regulus.
"We're not," he denied about ten seconds too late; his mouth was dry and it didn't sound anything like he really meant it.
"Why not?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why aren't we friends?"
Regulus stared, his fingers curled around empty air. The girl next to him coughed awkwardly and the boy who couldn't mind his business in front of them turned to give the pair another glance.
"You're my brother'sbestfriend," he said, after a horribly long pause. "And, you lied to me."
James brushed the curls from his face and adjusted his glasses, pushing the gold frames up his nose.
"I'm not sure how your first point helps you at all," he said nonchalantly. "I'm pretty sure me being your brother's best friend means we can skip right over the acquaintance thing."
"I'm pretty sure youlyingto me for an entire month completely overrides that," Regulus said, doing his best to replicate and mock James's tone.
Making a sound like a hum, James sighed. "Alright," he said. "You make a fair point but I did apologize you know."
"I don't remember accepting anything."
"True enough, though it was an honest lie — one of omission. Those hardly count."
"An honest lie," Regulus sneered. "Very funny."
James breathed loud out of his nose and laid his head upon his desk, peering up at Regulus through long and thick eyelashes. Underneath, his eyes seemed dark — almost swollen. Still, he smiled.
"How can I make it up to you?" he asked.
Regulus chewed at his bottom lip and wondered why he was even bothering to humor James. Not only was he under no obligation to but James, for all intents and purposes,wasSirius's best friend, his safe space, his salvation, the one who rescued him.Go back in time, his mind whispered angrily,go back and save me too. He jammed a theoretical hand down his own throat and shoved away the thought, calling it childish the whole way.
"I don't know," he said honestly, coming up empty. His thoughts had begun to falter and slow and disappear into nothing.
"I can buy you lunch — or make you lunch! I could also take you for a drive? Do your laundry? Tutor you? Paint your nails? Really," he said when Regulus didn't react, "I'm very talented."
"You could start by letting me concentrate in class."
"Please, I know you're already finished with your paper. You're basically just doodling at this point," he said, motioning to the spiraling lines coming off the ends of all of his sentences in some kind of post-thought scribble.
Regulus frowned hardly having noticed he was doing anything other than taking notes. He set James's pencil down in defiance and opened his mouth to speak, to tell James there wasn't anything he could do, when the professor, with his booming voice, interrupted.
"James," he said, "there are some questions around the room. Be useful."
As he always did, James smiled and nodded like the demand was nothing more than a genuinely well-mannered questioned.
Then, Regulus said quietly, "coffee."
James stopped where he was, mid-step away, and flashed yet another, bigger smile which showed Regulus a row of mostly white teeth, a few sat crooked but only in ways that seemed to add to his personality. "Perfect," he said and continued on.
I hate him, Regulus thought sleepily. His eyebrows pulled together in disgust and he frowned at James who stood swaying in the doorway, a grin painted gingerly across his face, his eyes glued to Regulus like he might be invading someone's privacy if he looked anywhere else.
"You want to —what?" Regulus asked because no way in hell he understood correctly. He was tired, his brain was misinterpreting words — maybe an incoming migraine was causing processing issues. His face screwed up in mild irritation as he padded his temples. Admittedly, now, staring at James his headwasstarting to hurt.
"I'm making up for my behavior by taking you to coffee," James said innocently. "Come on, up you go."
He took a step forward and Regulus shrank back into his seat.
"Hold on," he demanded, stopping James in his place. He rubbed at his temples again and stared at James as he did it.This is your fault, he thought at him. Taking a deep breath, he spoke again. "What are you doing here?"
"Did you hit your head and forget how to speak English? We're getting coffee, so get up. Don't make me carry you, it's already been a long day."
Slamming his math book closed, Regulus stood and gave James the angriest look he could possibly manage under the circumstances.
"Imeantyou could make it up to me bybringingme coffee. To class. Not dragging me out of my dorm at eight thirty at night!" He didn't mean for his voice to rise an octave but it did anyway. "What is wrong with you?"
James grinned like he was having the time of his life. "To be fair, I know what you meant, but I thought this would be much more fun."
"Fun forwho?" Regulus demanded, knowing the answer before it made it halfway out of James's throat.
"Me," he said smirking. "But I also intend for you to have fun. Now let's go, we're losing moonlight."
His mouth popped open to make yet another outraged comment when Barty, with his hair tied half up and a blue pen tucked behind his ear, stepped between them, cutting their eye contact right down the middle.
"As fun as it is to watch —" he paused and made a loose gesture with his hands, "—whatever this is. I have a lot of studying to do, so if you both could do me a favor and get on with it already, I'dreallyappreciate it." His tone shuddered with contempt and shook with arrogance.
Regulus shook his headnowith fervor. "I'm not going anywhere," he said and folded his arms in defiance.
Barty groaned and turned sharply to James. "You — whatever your name is —"
"James," James said.
"—James, are you planning to leave without Regulus?"
He spoke with a wicked grin, "I have nowhere to be for the next four hours."
"Jesus," Barty murmured, rubbing at his eyes. "Just go Regulus. Or I'll invitemyfriends over for a late night study session."
That was how Regulus ended up walking down the street a step behind James in the windy overcast night. Thin layers of clouds danced south across the sky, obscuring a pale, yellow crescent moon and many of the night's dimmest stars. Because it was only a Wednesday, the streets were generally bare aside from a few small streams of people walking along a similar path but heading in the opposite direction back towards the dorms. Around them, the crickets sang.
"How'd you know where my dorm was?" Regulus asked and James slowed his pace until they were walking shoulder to shoulder.
"I just kept knocking on doors until I found the right one," he said casually, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Regulus stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, letting James get in a good step or two before he realized what had happened. He stared hard, first at his back, then at his face, searching for truth, convinced it must be there somewhere underneath.He's joking, Regulus thought,why wouldn't he be joking?But still, his pulse picked up underneath his skin and sweat began to accumulate on the back of his neck, under his shirt.
Squinting ever so slightly, James tilted his head to the left.
"Whoa. Sorry. You look genuinely freaked out," he said in an infinite hurry, taking a step backwards and holding his hands out in front of him. "Really, I just asked Sirius. I don't know how he knew but I assumed you told him? I'm not trying to be creepy, I just make bad jokes."
Cool air inflated Regulus's lungs and he let his face fall back to cold and neutral. This was Hogwarts. This was James Potter. Regulus may not like him necessarily, but he wasn't in danger.I'm not in danger, he told himself forcefully.
"It's fine," Regulus said aloud.
Small crickets danced and shouted between them and Regulus felt the distance grow in some unspoken way.
For the first time since they had laid eyes on each other, James seemed genuinely unable to form words. His mouth curved into a distraught frown and his shoulders collapsed around his body. He picked at the skin on his lip, deep in thought.
They walked like that for a time, under dim orange street lights and passing through a chilly breeze, neither saying anything but both frowning at some great offense known only to the two of them.
"So," James said eventually, his voice hardly seeming to acknowledge the awkward atmosphere that had grown over them, sounding nothing like Regulus might if the roles were reversed. "Did you always want to go to Hogwarts?" he asked.
Regulus kicked at a rock in his path and stepped sideways as a bicycle rang by him. The wind brushed his hair into his face but he pushed it back and continued on, his footsteps hardly making a sound.
A quiet minute passed and just when it seemed James might open his mouth to take the question back, Regulus answered.
"No," he said like he was a toddler and it was the only word he knew.No, no, no.
"What made you change your mind?" James asked quietly.
Regulus felt his skin rotting like he was still lying motionless in his bed, wishing, praying, hoping he would waste away and die faster. He remembered the way his greasy hair stuck to his forehead and how he was covered in sweat and still trembling from the cold. He spent hours staring at his ceiling, vomiting when his mother attempted to feed him. He sucked in air like it was his last living breath, shuddering at the memory.
He cleared his throat and shrugged at James. "Hard to say."
"You should know," James said suddenly causing Regulus's stomach to somersault, "there are a lot of people who are glad you're here." Regulus flinched when James set a hand on his shoulder, but James kept it firmly in place, tugging Regulus out of the street he had stepped into and out of the way of an incoming skateboarder. "You being here, it's been good for Sirius I think. He's been… better — lighter almost. He's never talked much about his home life but we've all known him long enough to have gotten the gist of things and —"
Regulus cut him off before he could say anymore, bile rising like ash in the back of his throat. "What makes you think I'd care about any of that," he spat. "I'm notlikeSirius, whatever he told you has nothing to do with me. I'm not here for him and I don't care how he is."
James didn't respond and the two of them stood there, their feet inches apart and staring into each other's eyes in the dim light of the evening. To their left, a group of girls laughed and the joyful sounds carried up and over and out into the air. Regulus still found it odd how life carried on, no matter the circumstances.
Before too long James shoved his hands in his pockets and turned back in the direction they were headed originally.
"Come on," he said over his shoulder, "we'll be there soon."
And they were. After another five silent minutes, on the very edge of campus closer to his brother's apartment than to Regulus's dorm was a brightly lit cafe shining like a beacon in the night and overflowing with customers, most of whom, Regulus imagined, were students. James held the door open, bidding Regulus in. The place echoed with indistinct chatter and clattering dishes. It smelled like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and, most notably, coffee. Regulus's stomach growled in anticipation.
"It's busy," Regulus murmured as James pulled him towards the front, settling them up against a glass case filled with pastries. Hanging overhead was a chalkboard with a handwritten drink menu.
"It's only ever empty at opening," he said with a smile, moving up in line as the person in front of them finished. "Know what you want?"
Regulus nodded passively as James took them toward the cash register where a tall, lanky boy with a straight face loomed over the counter.
"What can I get you?" he asked, monotone and blinking slow.
James beamed at him and then nodded at Regulus. The cashier, with his pale brown eyes, turned to him and raised an eyebrow.
"Small iced americano."
The boy blinked and tapped his finger hard against the screen with a clack. Then, he glanced back up at James.
"Medium vanilla latte for me," he said coolly.
"Hot or iced?"
"Iced — have you eaten?" His head twisted to look at Regulus who reminded silent.
Yes, his brain said.Yes I've eaten. But for some reason, his mouth refused to form the words. Instead, he licked his lips and frowned, feeling like a child desperate to prove they were anything but and failing miserably.
"Any allergies?" James asked and Regulus shook his head no obediently, cursing himself the whole time. "Two blueberry muffins then," he said, gesturing with his right hand the amount.
"Stay here," the cashier said, slipping away from the counter and bagging up the muffins. He handed them to Regulus as James paid for the both of them. "We'll call your name when it's ready."
With that, James led them to the far end of the cafe where they waited for their order. Regulus could have sworn James didn't give them a name but he hardly cared enough to ask. He leaned tiredly against the wall and closed his eyes. Regret swelled inside his chest. He wanted to be asleep in bed, however uncomfortable —
He hissed as someone slammed into his shoulder and pushed him forward, stumbling into James. He frowned, throwing his head over his shoulder to give whoever it was a dirty look but they were already headed in the opposite direction, yelling to a group of students who were sitting at the other end of the cafe. Regulus huffed and found James's face, his mouth already open and ready to complain when he realized how close they were to each other. He snapped his jaw shut.
"Are you ok?" James asked. His eyebrows were pulled close, his head was tilted and frozen there, his deep brown eyes were wide. A faint red color painted his cheeks.
"Yeah," Regulus said, stepping back. "Sorry."
James seemed to breathe again for the first time. "Don't worry about it," he said and just then, a feminine voice called for 'Potter' a hint of fondness dripping from her tone. "I'll get that," he said, strutting over and snatching up their drinks. Regulus watched as he leaned in and muttered something to the barista, causing her to bark a laugh and blush.
"Should we find a seat here or—?" he asked having taken three massive steps back towards Regulus, his hands now full.
Regulus let his eyes trail dimly across the establishment not only not finding any open tables but cringing at the ever-growing volume. Without needing words, James nodded and led them back into the night, holding the door open for Regulus as they left.
"I know a good spot," he said.
Together they wove back through campus, following a much different path than the one they had come, west towards Sirius's apartment. Their route was unfamiliar to Regulus in the dark quiet of the night. Buildings loomed like shadows overhead, their height seeming to stretch ever upwards and into space. For a minute, Regulus wondered if James was kidnapping him, forcing him to see Sirius, but his worry shrank away as the came upon a green courtyard cast a deep blue in the night, surrounded by dying white rose bushes and smelling of freshly cut grass.
Near the edge of the lawn and up against the back of a brick building was a collection of stone picnic tables. James sat down at one, a small nearby streetlight flickered on as he did.
"During the day," he began, pushing Regulus's drink across the table and exchanging it for a muffin, "the building shades all of these tables. It's the best spot on campus."
Regulus watched with surprising interest as James tore at his muffin, long fingers pulling apart the fluffy pastry. It was odd, the way Regulus became entranced by those hands. Dark and thin shadows danced around his body - with his body, as he moved effortlessly mundane and sweetly hallowed at the same time.
He watched as the veins and muscles worked under his skin, noticing only after a few moments the skin itself, a warm brown covered in — scrapes? Regulus tilted his head and squinted as if it would help.
"Did you get in a fight with a cat?" he asked, taking a sip of his bitter drink, amused at the idea of James wrestling with a street cat, desperate to pet a being with hard boundaries and sharp claws.
James's eyes went semi-wide as his head snapped up to meet Regulus's gaze across the table. His expression went blank — unreadable.
"What?" he asked, his whole body frozen in place.
"Your hands," Regulus said gesturing. Then he too popped a piece of muffin in his mouth, chewing slowly. It was soft and sweet and easily the best thing he'd had since he arrived at Hogwarts. He took another careful bite while his stomach growled impatiently.
"Oh," James let out a what could have been called a laugh. "You could say that I guess," he said and dragged a fingernail against one of the scabs.
Regulus cringed. "Don't pick," he said quickly, scowling. "They'll get infected."
"Ah." James smiled that sideways smile of his and tucked his hands under the table. He leaned forward, his face becoming serious, as if he was about to spill an important secret. "How come you don't eat lunch?"
Regulus leaned opposite of James, backward into the night. He twisted his foot against the ground and pushed away his food, feeling suddenly and urgently full.
"I don't like to eat in front of others," he said, wincing at the thought of anyone seeing him existing.
James hummed and nodded. Then he said, "we eat lunch here everyday. Sirius, Remus, Peter and I. Usually a few others too depending on the day. At least one of us is almost always here when the sun is up."
Regulus narrowed his eyes. "Didn't I just tell you I don't like to eat in front of others?"
"You did," he said, nodding again. "But sometimes I think it can be easier to exist when you don't have to do it alone."
"I didn't ask what youthink," Regulus said, but a part of him wondered if it could ever be true.
"Nope, but real friends will tell you what they think anyway," James said and he flashed a smile.