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James wakes up far too late, which he only realises because of the huge alarm clock next to Regulus’ bed glaring at him with its deep green digits. It takes far too long for it to register in James’ brain, because Regulus is still curled up against him, his head resting on James’ chest, his curls tickling James’ chin. But when he realises his friends are probably already awake and will very much wonder why James isn’t in the dorm when they all have their first lesson of History of Magic together, he properly wakes with a start.
Regulus gets jostled off his chest, grumbling in that very adorable way he does when he’s sleepy, and James quickly reaches out to run his hands through his hair. “Shit, I’m so sorry Reg, didn’t mean to wake you,” he mumbles and presses a kiss to his forehead. “I’m late, I should have left an hour ago, I love you.”
Regulus mumbles something unintelligible and tries to cling to James, pulling him closer, and James would have so very much loved to stay but they are still keeping their relationship a secret so he should really get going. “Sorry love,” James murmurs again before prying Regulus’ hands off him and getting up. He swiftly puts on the school uniform he discarded last night in Regulus’ dorm (once again eternally grateful the Slytherins were lucky enough to have single bedrooms in their dorms for whatever bizarre reason, why the hell did the Gryffindors have to share?) and leans over to Regulus once more to press a kiss to his lips. Regulus blinks up at him sleepily and James gives him a warm smile. “Sleep some more, love, I’ll see you later,” he says hurriedly.
“No, James, wait,” Regulus slurs, but James is already pulling back.
“Sorry, I’m so too late already,” James apologises.
“But you–” Regulus starts but James is already on his way out, tugging his invisibility cloak over himself as he’s going. They’d have enough time later for all the cuddles they couldn’t get this morning. For now he has to save the secret part of their secret relationship by hurrying back to his own dorm where his friends have hopefully not yet noticed his absence.
When he gets there, Peter is currently in the bathroom, Remus is putting on his shoes and Sirius is frantically running through the dorm looking for– James has no idea. He looks up when the door to the dormitory quietly (apparently not quietly enough) falls back into its lock behind James.
“Prongs? That you?” Sirius asks hopefully.
With a sigh James pulls the cloak off himself. “Morning,” he says begrudgingly, seeing as his unnoticed entrance only turned into an entrance.
“Where’ve you been?” Remus asks.
“Eh, just around,” James shrugs. “Fancied a morning walk through the castle.”
Remus’ eyebrows shoot up. “With the cloak?”
James is about to search for an excuse, but Sirius (bless him, James could kiss him right then) interrupts him before he can even say anything. “Do you have the map? I’ve been searching for it for the past twenty minutes!”
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” James says and pulls it out of his pocket and hands it off to Sirius. “Here you go.”
“Thank fuck, I thought I lost it,” Sirius sighs. “And fuck you, Prongs, it was my map time, don’t just nick it from me without telling me. You got me properly worried.”
“As if you’ve never took it when it was my time so you and Moony could sneak out of the castle to make out,” James throws the accusation right back. “I’m only evening out map time here.”
“Oh, so you’ve been sneaking around with someone?” Sirius asks. Damn him for being so incredibly good at reading between the lines.
“Did I say that?” James eludes the question.
“You kind of implied it,” Remus hums, finally joining the conversation.
“Nope,” James denies and goes over to his untouched bed to pack his school bag for the day, “never did anything of the likes! We should leave, right?” he quickly changes the subject, “History starts in twenty minutes, I still wanna get breakfast beforehand.”
“Sure, we were only waiting for you,” Sirius says, taking the bait.
“For me?” James asks indignantly. “Peter isn’t even out of the bathroom yet!”
“Wormtail completely overslept,” Remus explains. “He said we should just go ahead, he still has to wash his hair so he needs a little longer.”
“Aw, poor Pete...”
“He made us promise to save him at least a muffin from breakfast in case he misses it.”
“Naturally,” James nods and slings his bag over his shoulder, “I mean that was a given.”
Regulus has a double free period that morning, which means as opposed to James he can actually stay in bed a lot longer. (James is very much jealous – more so of the bed for getting to have Regulus all morning than of Regulus for getting to stay in. His boyfriend is extremely cuddly in the morning and James is eternally grateful for that. At least when he can actually get to be around Regulus for that time. Mornings could go on forever, in his opinion, as long as he has Regulus in his arms.) Still James sends a glance toward the Slytherin table on his way past it to his own house table on the opposite side of the hall. It is a reflex at this point, scanning the mass of students for soft, dark curls and a tiny smile hidden behind a masked, annoyed expression. Of course James can’t find him. And yet, as he quickly scans the Slytherin table, he can’t help but do a double take.
“Am I imagining things,” he whispers to Sirius, “or are there several Slytherins staring at us?”
Sirius turns his head to follow James’ line of sight. “Nope,” he agrees, “You’re definitely not imagining things. What’s up!” he raises his voice at the end to call to the people staring, who quickly lower their heads and start whispering to one another instead.
“Weird,” James hums. “Did we do anything? Some prank on the Slytherins I forgot about that invites this kind of curiosity?”
“Not that I know of. Remus?”
“Hm?” Remus looks up distractedly. He didn’t follow the conversation at all, too focussed on locating a free spot on the Gryffindor table the Marauders could claim as their own.
“Was there some kind of prank recently that James and I forgot about? The Slytherins are being weird.”
“The Slytherins are always being weird,” Remus notes.
“Yeah,” James asserts, “But weirder than normal. They’re staring and whispering.”
Remus turns around and walks a few steps backwards, just so he can muster the Slytherins. “I don’t think it’s a prank. The last one we did was like a month ago.”
“Man, we really need to up our game,” Sirius sighs. “We’re getting sloppy, neglecting our duties as Marauders. A month? Merlin, that’s bad, especially for us.”
James nods in agreement. “Let’s plan a new one this weekend. We can’t have the castle get too comfortable in their inattentiveness.” He throws another glance over his shoulder. The Slytherins are still whispering, although most have stopped staring now. As he said, weird.
They eventually find a spot on the Gryffindor table that has still enough space for them – and Peter, if he manages to show up before they have to leave for class.
As James hurriedly fills up his plate with as much food as he believes he’ll manage to eat in the few minutes they have left for breakfast before they have to go to class, he can’t shake off the feeling that he’s still being watched. He looks up, obviously to check the Slytherin table, but before his eyes even find the other side of the Great Hall they get caught by something else – only one table over a pair of Hufflepuff third years are openly staring at him. Him, specifically. Not at the Marauders as a group but just James. Unsettled James looks around and also notices a handful of Gryffindors looking his way.
“Do I have something on my face?” James whispers to his friends, and then immediately wishes he hadn’t. What if the reason for all the staring is a love bite that Regulus placed unfortunately high up on his neck, above the safety of the shirt collar? Although, then again, Sirius has walked around with far more love bites than James could possibly have and as far as he remembers there hasn’t been as much staring for Sirius in the past.
Remus and Sirius both give him a thorough look over. Sirius eyes narrow ever so slightly as they skim over the top of James’ collar, but don’t linger so James assumes he’s fine.
“Your glasses,” Sirius says eventually.
James gives him an exasperated look. “Do I have anything on my face that would justify all these people staring,” he specifies.
Remus shakes his head. “You look fine, mate.”
“Then what in the world is going on here?” James tries to gesture around as unobtrusive as he can, so naturally even more people look his way, half of them ending up doing a double take and gaping at him. “Did I miss something? Did I fall into some alternative universe where I’m super famous or something?”
Sirius stares down one of the Hufflepuffs staring at James until the kid becomes too uncomfortable and turns back to his food.
“Maybe it’s some elaborate prank they all planned to get back at us,” Remus suggests. “They’re just fucking with us or something.”
“I don’t like it,” James says. “If it’s a prank it’s a shitty one. I feel wholly unsettled.”
“Sounds like a good prank in that case,” Sirius grins, “Unsettling James Potter is an achievement all in itself.”
“Sod off,” James huffs and turns his attention back to his breakfast, trying his hardest to ignore the tickling feeling on the back of his neck of several eyes on him.
Armed with their school bags and two blueberry muffins for Peter, who still hasn’t shown up, they make their way up to the first floor. James makes faces and strikes poses at everyone who gives him odd looks in the corridors, just so they actually have something to stare at him for and he can feel less weird about it.
Peter isn’t there when they get to the classroom, so James sits the muffins down on the table next to Remus and himself down in front of the muffins next to Sirius. Five minutes into the class the door opens quietly. James sneaks a quick glance over his shoulder and grins at Peter, who tiptoes into the classroom and sits down at his desk. The Marauders have the unspoken rule that when one of them is late for class, they always choose the desks closest to the door so the chance the teacher won’t notice them appearing late increases. In this case, it’s very unnecessary because Professor Binns wouldn’t even have noticed had Peter walked all the way up to the front of the room and chosen the seat right next to Binns on the teacher’s table. It does, however, have the advantage that no one can stare at James during the class without having to twist around in their seat, so for most of the class James is left alone.
If History of Magic was any more interesting than it is, James might have contemplated the entire double period why people were behaving so strangely. As it is, though, after only five minutes of listening to Binns talk his attention wavers so badly that for the remainder of the lesson he tries to replicate the Marauder’s Map from memory in the back of his textbook, which keeps him occupied enough that by the end of the class he has forgotten all about the weird morning.
That changes quickly as soon as the class ends though.
“Hey, Prongs!” Sirius pokes him in the side repeatedly until James looks up.
“Hm?”
“Class is over, we can actually leave.”
James looks around surprised. Trying to get the Astronomy Tower right has cost him so much focus he didn’t even notice everyone around him leaving. He packs his things together as Sirius patiently waits for him. Peter and Remus have apparently already left the classroom, seeing as their desk is completely void of either of them or the two blueberry muffins.
“Are you trying to make a second Map?” Sirius asks to fill the silence.
“Nah,” James denies and slings his bag across his shoulder. “I’m not willing to go through all those spells again, once was definitely enough.” It took them nearly as long to get all the stairs to move and all the people to show up correctly as it did to become literal Animagi. Another map would be cool, already just so they wouldn’t have to fight over whose turn it was to keep it this time, but it certainly isn’t cool enough to go through all this trouble again.
Remus and Peter are waiting outside of the classroom for them, currently deep in conversation about the subject Binns apparently talked about. It surprises James every time that these two actually manage to listen and care enough about History to discuss it afterwards. Lucky for him, because otherwise he probably wouldn’t even have passed his first year History class.
“Good morning Peter,” James greets him.
“Morning Prongs,” Peter greets back, “I’ve heard you had a bit off an odd morn–” but he stops in the middle of his sentence when he turns to look at James, his mouth just hanging open as he stares, not unlike half the castle’s population has done all throughout said odd morning.
“Okay what the heck,” James starts, “Please, Wormtail, explain–”
But James doesn’t get to say what it is Peter should explain to him.
“Fucking finally,” a fifth voice joins the conversation. At the sound of it James’ head instantly snaps up, so drawn to Regulus the mere sound of his voice makes him feel several degrees warmer from the inside out.
“What are you doing here?” Sirius asks confused. “Don’t you have Divination in like five minutes?”
“Astute observation.” Regulus rolls his eyes at his brother, ignores Remus who watches the entire conversation, a puzzled expression on his face, and walks past Peter, who is still looking at James aghast, right to James.
“Hi,” James breathes out. He’s aware he’s smiling a little dumbly at Regulus and should probably get his face under control what with their secret relationship being secret. But he so rarely gets to see Regulus between classes and, well, this is just a very nice surprise.
“You’re an idiot,” Regulus mutters, but James’ smile only widens at the clear fondness in his voice.
“I’m sure you’re right,” James hums, “But why?”
Regulus reaches out and tugs on James’ tie until it’s loose and hangs it around his own neck.
“What the fuck,” Sirius says confused. James would agree with Sirius on this matter, if he wasn’t too busy being distracted by Regulus, who now pulls his own tie out of his pocket, wraps it around James’ neck, and gently tugs on it until James follows the motion and leans down a little. Regulus presses a quick kiss onto his lips, then turns and hurries off towards the nearest staircase.
“What the fuck,” Sirius repeats a lot more enthusiastically as James stares after him in wonder. What the fuck indeed. This was not how he expected his morning to go.
“Why did Regulus just steal your tie?” Remus asks.
“I absolutely do not know,” James says honestly.
“Why did Regulus kiss you, is the far more important question here,” Sirius points out, waving his arms around wildly.
“Uh, that I do know,” James stutters blindsided. No point in hiding it anymore, Regulus obviously wanted to let the world (or at least his brother) know about them now. “I may or may not be dating Regulus. Since like two months ago.”
“What the fuck,” Sirius says for the third time in the span of as many minutes.
Peter makes an odd noise which eerily sounds like he’s trying not to laugh.
“Were you going to tell me at some point?” Sirius asks offended.
“I mean I told you now?” James tries, mostly just happy about the fact Sirius seems only upset about the fact that it took him two months to find out that his best friend and brother were dating, and not the fact that they were dating at all.
“Okay that’s cool and congratulations and all that,” Remus says, “But again, why did he steal your tie?”
“Heck if I know.” He runs the tie Regulus switched his out for through his hands and frowns at it. “Am I supposed to walk through the castle with a Slytherin tie now? How the fuck will that look, what are people supposed to think?”
The odd noise from Peter comes out again, only this time he doesn’t quite manage to keep it in much longer as it quickly turns into a full-on laugh. It doesn’t take long for him to double over, bracing his hands on his knees as his entire body shakes from laughter.
James, Sirius and Remus all stare at their friend.
“I think he’s finally lost it,” Sirius states.
“If you want to, I think a fourth what the fuck would be appropriate here,” James notes.
“Peter,” Remus adds, “Did you accidentally put yourself under a Cheering Charm? If you need us to bring you to the Hospital Wing clap your hands please.”
Peter doesn’t clap his hands. Instead he holds one up, motioning for his friends to wait for him until his laughter has ebbed away enough. When he can finally speak again he straightens up. “I oversleep once,” he wheezes with the remnants of his laughing fit, “And James outs his relationship to all of Hogwarts.”
“What?” James asks confused. “No, I didn’t. Besides you three no one knows.”
“You sure about that?” Peter starts giggling again and points at James’ tie. “Merlin, I’ve never been more glad my Animagus form is a rat,” he exclaims. “A dog, a deer and a wolf are cool and all, but at least I can still tell bloody red and green apart.”