Chapter Text
Regulus didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not the other kids in his train car, not the fellow Slytherins he passed on the train, not the friendly candy trolley woman, and definitely not his brother. He did not want to talk to anyone. So he sat in the train car destined for Hogwarts, surrounded by uncomfortably loud Fourth years who sat down in his previously empty car, hiding in his green and black robes. The train car was cold, a strange thing for the end of summer. The summer he had known was hot and sticky, making him shed protective layers of clothing and spend more time inside the house, around his parents. It was miserable and warm. Miserably warm.
“You really believe that the Kestrels are taking home the trophy this year? You have GOT to be joking.” One of the fourth-year girls in Regulus’s cart yelled loudly, an action Regulus found completely unnecessary given the person she was talking to was two feet away from her.
The guy she was speaking to, a blonde young man with creepily blue eyes and the most red face Regulus had ever seen opened his mouth to respond, and Regulus prayed he would have more decorum than his loud friend. Unfortunately for Regulus, the pair seemingly bonded over a needless love of screaming, and the boy launched into a blaring tirade about the might of the great Irish Quidditch team that was the Kenmare Kestrels.
Regulus rolled his eyes and sighed under his robes which wrapped around his arms like a hug. He was too tired to deal with this for much longer.
Out of fear of losing his temper and giving the fourth years a piece of his mind, which would inevitably lead to a screaming match of his own, Regulus got up from his seat, letting his comforting robes fall to his seat as he strode to the door. He didn’t make eye contact with any of the people in his car as he left, and they were too invested in their argument to take much note of his leave.
He opened the door to the car and stepped out into the hallway, letting the door slide shut behind him. The quiet of the hallway of the train consumed him, allowing him to finally breathe. He tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath in. He stood there for a moment, so still, he looked like a statue. The door of a car a yard down from him opened softly, and Regulus didn’t even notice as a body walked out and paused in the hallway. Regulus was too busy imagining himself in the library by his house, the one his mother hated because it was owned by a muggle. He imagined his hands on paper, turning pages on his favorite book, a story he’d read a thousand times before but always returned to. He imagined the quiet and comforting isolation of the spot he always sat in, a hidden alcove in between two bookcases. He imagined-
“Ahem,” A deep voice cleared their throat, and Regulus snapped back into reality. The train he was on, the place he was going, the people he would see. The light in the windows growled at him, burning his eyes with their brightness. He shielded his face from the sun shining onto his features and noticed the body that had disrupted his mental vacation.
Standing there in the hallway, only a foot away from Regulus now, stood a face Regulus knew very well. Curly hair, dark complexion, bright eyes, and a face that just shouted “I have never experienced the struggles of life”! A face that Regulus resented, one that his brother seemed to prefer over Regulus’s own. The stupidly joyful and annoying face, which now held an expression of timidness that shocked Regulus, was the face of one James Potter. His brother Sirius’s best friend.
Regulus put his hand down and took a step backward, bumping into the wall of the train. James, whose face still held an air of out-of-character shyness, stared at Regulus, and his mouth parted slightly as though he was going to say something. Perhaps a greeting, more likely a jest at Regulus’s embarrassing display. James loved his jests. But, to Regulus’s surprise, the mouth closed as quickly as it opened, and James seemed to right his gaze to the end of the train. He stepped forward past Regulus and walked down the hallway of the train without a word spoken.
Regulus stared at him the whole way down, even as he opened the door at the end of the hallway and passed into another section of the train. It wasn’t until James was completely gone from sight that Regulus regained his wits and returned to the train car he was sat in before, desperate to get out of the hallway he just embarrassed himself in. And, for the rest of the ride to Hogwarts, he meditated on the interaction, chiding himself for his obliviousness to his surroundings. But just as the lake in front of Hogwarts came into view through the window, a thought came to Regulus that made him chuckle.
At least James didn’t talk to him.