Archive of Our Own

Year eleven had always seemed like a pretty cool thing to James, and since the beginning of secondary school he had been hyping it up in his head to be a great year. The year elevens got bigger, more private dorms, each with their own (albeit small) bathrooms. They also got designated study rooms, and were served first in the dining hall at lunch. As the Year ten summer holidays drew close, James had been more adamant than ever to make his GCSE year a good one, having spent the latter half of the previous year struggling with a rapid decline in his hearing, which had caused an unimaginable amount of issues surrounding school. 

The holidays came and went, and soon enough James was boarding the train that would take him to Scotland, and in turn, Hogwarts. Hogwarts, in James’s opinion, was glorious. Although he’d had his ups and downs in the previous years, he felt sure in his steadfast belief that this year would be as pain free as possible. At the very least James was gearing up to have another year of chaos, adventure, and if he was lucky, love. 

Once he’d settled back into the routine of school, and classes had been running for a few weeks, it became all the more apparent to James that this year would not in fact be ‘just another year’. It was going to be majorly different from all the others, not for the reasons he’d anticipated, but rather for all the ones he hadn’t. 

For better and for worse. 

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After the rapid deterioration of his hearing over the summer term of the previous year, James had gone back to his audiologist and presented with several treatment options. The deterioration had been quite alarming as James had experienced little change in his hearing in the years between then and his diagnosis at the age of seven. After some careful consideration and a lot of research, James had decided to try using hearing aids again. 

He’d experimented with hearing aids once before, just after his diagnosis. It had been a disaster in all areas, with James taking issue with the feeling of the devices sitting in his ears, as well them getting broken and lost quite frequently. Less than six months after getting his first hearing aids, James had abandoned the devices completely. Almost a decade on from that, and a drastic change in his hearing ability, he felt maybe it was worth it to try again.

As James’ hearing had deteriorated from around 40 decibels of hearing loss bilaterally, to around 70 decibels of loss in his left ear and 80 decibels in his right, which left him profoundly deaf, there was a limit to how useful hearing aids could be. In the initial appointment where his hearing was re-tested, the audiologist had made it clear that it was unlikely that hearing aids would be able to get James to hear at a ‘normal’ level, rather they would assist in his understanding verbal communication. 

James hadn’t really expected anything much to happen when he was pulled out of school on a Wednesday morning for a doctor's appointment. He’d known about it all in advance, waking up early to greet his parents at reception. 

James had had moulds of his inner ears created almost two months before this appointment, where a doctor had prepared him as much as possible on what to expect when he did get his hearing aids, talking him through the pros and cons for the hundredth time, explaining how they might feel to wear and how the devices worked. This was also where James got to choose the colour for the hearing aids. After that, and his own research, James had approached this appointment feeling fairly confident. 

Nothing in the world could’ve readied James for the experience of having his hearing aids turned on. As soon as the tiny buttons were pressed at the sides of his head, it was as though the very air around him sharpened, and while everything stayed fairly quiet and dull, it was a huge leap louder than what he’d become accustomed to. Every little sound the aids picked up on seemed amplified to James, multiplying and expanding against the inside of his skull. It felt like he was getting the sounds deposited directly into his brain, dumped roughly onto him with their sharp, irritating edges grating against the rest of his senses.

As the doctor began to talk, James felt almost as though he’d left his body, too focused on overwhelming ringing in his ears that heightened at any sound the hearing aids picked up on. The ringing seemed to come from the hearing aids themselves, and clashed horribly with the softer, yet just as incessant ringing of his own tinnitus. He struggled through the rest of the appointment, nodding along to the questions and care instructions from the doctor.

James barely said a word the whole car ride back to school, too distracted by the new alien sensation of the aids actually sitting on his ears and trying not to think about how he much preferred to simply feel the vibrating motor of the car, rather than have another rumbling, repetitive sound added to his already overwhelmed ears.

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James spent the rest of that first day alone in the dorms fiddling with the settings on his hearing aids, trying to find a bearable volume, trying to counteract the ringing, trying to get rid of the sharp edge of discomfort. Eventually he pulled them out of his ears to finally escape the feeling  of being attacked by his senses. 

After that he began to get more accustomed to the hearing aids, finding a volume to balance out the helpfulness of the devices with the awful ringing. While this wasn’t a complete fix, the adjustment to the volume helped James to not feel as though he had nails scratching endlessly on a blackboard inside his mind, although it did mean the hearing aids weren’t being used to their maximum efficiency. Maybe as he became used to them, James would be able to handle the higher volume, but for now he was happy with the balance he’d found.

Apart from the discomfort of the hearing aids  themselves, it took a while for James to adjust to how much louder everything was. While he still couldn’t hear the exact form of the  words that were spoken, he was much more likely to pick up on the fact that someone was speaking to begin with. Every other sound was considerably more present, too. Now he could hear the general sound of people talking near him, the buzzing mumbling sound  became an annoyance that rivaled that of the incessant ringing from the hearing aids. Not only that but the buzz of James’ own voice had heightened, seeming to reside permanently somewhere between the inside of his ears and the back of his mouth whenever he spoke. It was an odd sensation as he couldn’t say he was exactly hearing his voice, not in the way others would, but it was always more present now, distracting him at first from the words he was trying to say. He couldn’t exactly say it was enjoyable. 

All of that was pushed aside when some bigger problems began to pop up in James' life, all stemming from his acquisition of the hearing aids, or the renewed attention towards his deafness.  

Throughout his life, James had dealt with his fair share of ignorance surrounding deafness, questions such as ‘but how can you talk?’ (because he wasn’t born deaf, and had learnt to talk before losing his hearing), and ‘ can you teach me to swear in sign language?’ (no, he wouldn’t) being brought up over and over in almost every conversation he had with a new person. For the most part, he was pretty good at keeping a level head and explaining how, he could mainly just rely on the muscle memory of words he had learned as a child in the place of learning new words that he would inevitably struggle to pronounce, or that it’s quite disrespectful to only learn how to swear in sign language because while you as a hearing person may find it funny to know that particular sign, it wouldn’t be at all helpful should you ever find yourself in a situation where you might need to communicate with someone who relied on signing. Let alone the fact  that it had been a hard enough fight to get BSL recognised and taught as its own language without people treating it as some kind of game. Sometimes people’s utter stupidity just pushed James past the point of understanding, leaving him more than frustrated at the general ableist beliefs society continued to harbour…

“Hey,”

“Hey,”

“HEY!” 

James whirled around from where he stood, bent over his desk rifling through a stack of papers as he frantically tried to find a missing piece of homework.

“Mary!” he let out a surprised cry when he saw the girl standing in the doorway, his normal warm smile pulling at the corners of his lips, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

A frown formed on Mary’s forehead, knitting her brows close together. “I was trying to get your attention for ages, are you alright?”

Confusion grew in James at her words. He replied slowly, unsure exactly how to best approach this conversation.

“I’m okay, um, why didn’t you just flick the light switch, that’s usually how you guys get my attention, no?”

This obviously didn’t do anything to lessen Mary’s puzzlement, her frown only growing. “But-” she stuttered, “but- your hearing aids…I thought you could hear us now? I didn’t know we still had to do the light thing.”

James felt his heart sink to the floor. He was sure Mary hadn’t meant anything mean by it, she was very obviously confused, uneducated on the topic. But, that was just what made it hurt all the more that she would assume he’d just be magically ‘healed’ by just changing the one thing in his life. It was stunting to realise his own friends could also be so naive to these things. The people he had spent time explaining how hearing loss worked, the people he had confided in, could also still be so ignorant. If it was the case that hearing aids could’ve ‘fixed’ his hearing, didn’t she think James would’ve leapt at the chance years ago? How long had he known Mary? How many conversations had she taken part in that involved James’ deafness in some way? Christ, she’d even learned sign language after their first year. So how had this situation come to be?

She doesn’t know any better , the logical part of James’ brain pointed out. Which, yes. Mary couldn’t have known how insensitive her remarks were, or the extent to which James’ hearing aids would actually help, having not had that particular conversation with Mary, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. James could remember crying to himself night after night when he was younger, after his diagnosis, wishing to just be normal again, to not be the one the universe decided to punish, begging to whatever might be out there for any sort of cure to come along and fix him. She didn’t know, couldn’t know, but that didn’t stop it from hurting.

It had taken years for James to fully come to terms with the fact that he’d never get that cure, that there simply wasn’t any way he could just take this pill or do that therapy and be able to hear the same way everyone else did. It was hard, his disability had come close to breaking him time and time again from the despairing alienation it brought, but he would always pick himself back up, put himself back together and learn to live with his impaired senses, to accept this was something that was going to stick. And then someone would come along, just like Mary had, and remind him just how little the rest of the world knew about what being deaf really meant, how ignorant they all were to the facts that James had struggled so hard to come to terms with.

After a minute or two of heavy silence, James managed to swallow the hurt, pushing it down. He cleared his throat nervously before addressing Mary. 

“Mary, I- yeah, the hearing aids help , but they don't stop me from being deaf. I’m always going to be deaf, whether I’m wearing my hearing aids or not. That’s sort of the point of them, you know? They're called hearing aids, because they aid my hearing but they can’t cancel out my hearing loss completely. They will never be a cure for my deafness.”

The silence was back, falling thick around them in an uncomfortable blanket of misunderstanding. James wasn’t quite sure Mary had gotten the idea or not. Maybe he should have explained it further? What else was there to say?

“So, like with the hearing aids, I can hear that you’re speaking, right? But i can’t make out your exact words without reading your lips, and if I’m turned away from you then it’s harder for me to pick up on your voice at all, so it’d be really helpful if you kept on doing all the old stuff, like flickering the lights and using sign in louder places, et cetera.”

By now Mary had definitely understood, her cheeks flushing. Her frown had been replaced with a look of slight surprise. James tried not to think too hard about Mary having been surprised that he was still deaf despite his having hearing aids. He tried to brush it off, after all it wasn’t as though no one had ever thought similar things about him before, but it did sting a little that even his friends might not understand how ‘no cure’ really meant no cure, even with hearing aids.

“Oh,” Mary said eventually, visibly cringing at her own voice. “I didn’t realise, James. Sorry, that was pretty stupid of me. I guess I wasn’t really thinking.”

“It’s okay Mary. Can’t really expect you to be an expert on my life can I? Even if I am the most exciting, handsome and charming person to ever exist.” He forced a smile onto his face, hoping it would convince Mary that it was all alright, but he couldn’t quite make that smile reach his eyes, which stayed firmly locked with Mary’s should she say anything else. 

She doesn’t, leaving the room with a small wave, too embarrassed by their conversation to pursue whatever she’d come to the boy’s dorm for in the first place. 

While James hadn’t originally anticipated a reaction to his new hearing aids quite like Mary’s, in retrospect he probably should’ve. All throughout primary school and most of year seven he’d been pestered non stop about the ins and outs of his hearing loss, by everyone from friends and classmates to his teachers and even a couple of times, the dinner ladies. While all of that had died down after starting  secondary school and being constantly in the company of the same people who then learned all they needed to about James’ hearing loss from him telling them in his own time and by his own free will, he should have expected another wave of interrogation like questioning when something disability related changed in his life. Because as everybody knows, disabled people only exist to educate the able bodied people around them, or to act as an endless stream of inspiration porn simply for living as a disabled person. 

As it turned out, to James’ great misfortune, Mary’s was only the first of many less than positive interactions regarding this new development in his life. It was honestly beginning to seem as though everybody else cared more about how James’ life was impacted by the hearing aids than James himself. At the very least they all had some sort of opinion on the matter.

One interaction angered James far more than possibly all the rest combined. He’d been walking down a maths corridor backwards on his way between classes, signing rapidly to Sirius and Peter as they moved towards their English class. They’d been deep into a discussion about the appeal of lacrosse and its usefulness as a sport; Sirius and James both vehemently defending the sport while Peter argued pointedly against its use. Sirius had been right in the middle of listing off some memorised statistics on the history of lacrosse match turnouts that even James wasn’t really paying attention to when he had walked right into another person, sending the both of them crashing to the floor. James scrambled to his feet, picking up both his and the other person’s bags before looking up to apologise, only to lock eyes with a sneering Severus Snape. 

James glanced over to where Sirius and Peter had moved to the side of the corridor, out of the way of the masses of students  trudging along it.

You okay? Sirius signed. James shot them a quick thumbs up in reply before turning back to a now repulsed looking Snape. James stepped closer to him, swinging his own backpack over one shoulder before shoving the other into its owner’s chest. 

Let’s go he signed to his waiting friends, knocking past Snape in a blatantly purposeful way, half hoping the other boy would fall again. 

He had barely made it two steps before James felt a yank at the back of his neck, being pulled back by the collar of his shirt. 

“What the hell?” He let out a surprised shout, spinning around angrily. With a glance at the smug look on Snape’s face, James had to refrain from shoving him into the wall behind him. He had never liked Severus Snape, finding him to be far too much of an insufferable prick with outdated opinions and a generally sour outlook to bear being in the presence of for prolonged periods, or any amount of time he wasn’t forced to share the same space as him, really. Snape wholeheartedly shared this sentiment, and wasn’t shy to voice his opinions of James and his friends. The day James Potter and Severus Snape shared a confined space without trying to kill each other would be the day hell froze over.

For a couple of years the two had coexisted, only butting heads occasionally. But then Nicholas Mulciber had recruited Snape into his band of bullies, who just so happened to find immense joy in picking on both Sirius and his brother Regulus. Snape had started with fairly small aggressions; knocking Remus’ cane from under him and occasionally walking up behind James before suddenly planting both hands on his shoulder, effectively making him jump right out of his skin. But somewhere around Christmas of their third year Snape had begun to get steadily meaner. He had stolen the wheels of Regulus’ wheelchair and hidden them in the Whomping willow, otherwise known as the tallest tree in the school grounds. Regulus had ended up dislocating both his hips, having to take a trip to the local A&E to have them relocated. 

Then he had followed Peter around for weeks, one arm pulled out of his school jumper, waving the empty sleeve at him, yelling ‘Freak’ whenever a teacher wasn’t present. When Peter had eventually lost his temper and started a fight with Snape, he had been given detention while Snape walked away clean. 

The final straw for James had come in early May of the previous year, when Mulciber and his lackeys had held Sirius down, fighting and screaming while Snape pulled his NG tube right out. He’d bled from his nose and mouth until he’d passed out, having been found much later, unconscious and icy cold by James. The scar tissue that had consequently formed still hindered Sirius when placing his tube to this day. James, Lily, Remus and a whole host of their other friends had bombarded their teachers, headmaster and the head of Slytherin house with reports of Mulciber and Snape’s actions, along with a list of the other people present, provided by Sirius themself, but almost all complaints had fallen on deaf ears. Only Professor McGonnogal had fought to get the situation investigated, to no avail. 

So James harboured a little more than a grudge against Snape. In general he didn’t like to think he was a hateful person, but if James Potter hated anyone, it would be Severus Snape. They’d been in tussles before, James had punched him for calling Lily a cripple once, but oddly enough James had rarely found himself on the receiving end of Snape’s more blatant ableism. 

“Ugh, aren’t you embarrassed, prancing around waving your arms like some idiotic goon, Potter?” Snape spat, top lip curled up in obvious disgust. It made James’ blood boil. 

“Are you really that fucking stupid Snivellus? British Sign Language is literally recognised as an official language in Great Britain, whether you like it or not.” At this, Snape outright laughed, he actually doubled over in faux amusement and James had to fight the urge to kick him. Besides Snape, James can see Sirius itching to have a go at Snape himself. 

Snape eventually straightened up, a nasty smile on his face. “Be that as it may, there’s no need to be parading around like that, the rest of us normal people don’t need to see-“ James doesn’t catch the end of his spiel, the other boy having turned away mid sentence, leaving James unable to read his lips. It’s vaguely annoying but he knew Snape only did it to get under his skin. That’s fine, he had gotten enough ammunition to retaliate from what he had understood of the prior part. 

“‘Be that as it may’ it’s not the eighteen hundreds Snivellus. Don’t turn your nose up at me for how I communicate when your own vocabulary is outdated by about two hundred years.” James threw back easily, flitting his gaze once more to a smirking Peter and Sirius who were barely containing laughter themselves. 

“Well, at least I'm not gallivanting around the school looking for attention from everyone else. No one’s going to give you the pity you’re looking for,” a weak echo of ‘gallivanting’ from Sirius who had lost their internal battle and was now snickering behind their hand. 

“We all see right through you Potter. I know you don’t need that stupid hand waving stuff, especially not with those ugly arse things in your ears.” Snape was obviously grasping at straws at this point, realising there was no way he was going to succeed in riling James or Sirius up enough to be able to get either of them into any kind of punishable trouble. 

“Sounds to me like you’re jealous. Are you jealous of me, Snivellus? Would you like to be able to speak four languages? Seems like jealousy to me. What do you think, Pete?”

Oh, definitely jealous Peter signed back, eyes gleaming with delight as he turned his face to Snape, flashing him an innocent smile. 

“Would you like that translated for you? He said-“

“Enough.” Snape roared, “You think you’re so smart Potter, with your hilarious jokes. Well, you’re nothing more than an egotistical, arrogant twat.”

“Oh yes. I’m a very proud egotistical twat, not arrogant though. That’s all Siri.” Sirius took a theatrical bow, grinning a wonderful shit-eating grin from ear to ear. “And as for these” James lightly tapped one of his hearing aids, “You wish you had the balls to wear bright red hearing aids.”

Snape’s face was thunderous, contorted into a look somewhere between fury and humiliation, his top lip still turned comically upward, giving off the vague impression of a french bulldog, or something equally ugly. He stalked off, muttering  something indistinguishable to himself as he went. 

Once he was out of sight, Sirius and Peter turned back to James, the corridor long since deserted by all other students. 

You okay, James? Sirius asked, all laughter wiped from his face, forehead creased in concern. Snape was especially good at getting under Sirius’ skin, having learned how to push all their buttons, where to dig in to make it really hurt. It made them detest the Slytherin even more than James did. James however tended to be a little better at keeping a level head around Snape, than his fiery best friend, not allowing him the satisfaction of landing more than a surface level insult that James could easily brush off. There had been a few instances where James had been considerably shaken up by something Snape had done, and while this altercation had been far from kind, it hadn’t been nearly as bad as some of his previous actions. 

Nevertheless, James was a little hurt by the boy’s harmful words and quite annoyed by his little turning away stunt, but he wouldn’t let Snape’s words stick, he wasn’t worth James’ time to dwell over. So Snape was an ableist bully, what else was new? 

Yeah, I’m alright. We’re going to be super late to english though he grimaced, starting to walk back down the empty hall. 

Fuck English Sirius signed back enthusiastically. 

We’re in our GCSE year now Sirius, we’re going to need to go to English. Peter chided, waggling his finger dramatically in the other’s face. Sirius pulled a face, hands raised and ready to argue back, Snape already forgotten. 

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Over the following few weeks, James had continued to be bombarded with questions from strangers and acquaintances alike, either patiently explaining things to them or simply walking off if he’d had enough of the masses if uneducated people who thought they knew better than him about how to manage his own disability, or if someone asked a particularly stupid or invasive question. 

He had been questioned by all sorts of people thus far, but the one thing they’d had in common was that they were all students. James was by no means naive enough to think that meant all adults around the school were just more well versed in the field of hearing loss, but he did however appreciate the restraint in not also joining in with the constant stream of deeply personal inquiries that followed him around. They at least seemed to be able to exercise some self control. 

That was, until one fateful Chemistry lesson. 

The class had milled into their usual lab, only to find a new seating plan projected into the board at the front of the room. Students slowly gathered around, finding their own names on the board and then the correlating spaces at the work benches around the room. After four years at secondary school, new impromptu seating plans were far from unusual to James; what was out of the ordinary however, was the fact that he’d been placed at the back of the classroom. 

Hovering by Slughorn’s desk while the rest of the class settled into their seats, James cleared his throat, trying to discreetly get his teacher’s attention without drawing too much attention to the situation. 

“Sir,” he started, the man behind the desk jumped, raising his head to meet James’ eyes. “Sir, about the seating plan-”

Slughorn cut him off, snapping his eyes to the board, “Ah, yes Mr. Potter. I’ve put you at the back table there, right between Mr. Lupin and Miss. Greengrass.”

“Yes, sir. But that won’t work out for me. I need to be at the front of the class or I can’t tell what you’ll be saying.” James explained, tone pleasant despite his growing annoyance at how this interaction was playing out so far. 

“Nonsense, nonsense. You’ll do just fine at the back. Chop chop now, we have a class to be getting on with.” With that the man rose from his seat, a stack of papers in hand. 

“Sir.” James gritted out, refraining from physically rolling his eyes. “I can’t hear at the back of the classroom. I can barely hear you at the front, but I certainly can’t from the back. It clearly says in my student file that I should be sat at the front in all my classes.” He was really getting sick of all these problems arising. 

“Well, yes. Of course I know what your file says, dear boy. I simply assumed that with the new, ah, development in your life,” Slughorn gestures to his ears, “that I wouldn’t have to stick to that so religiously.”

“How many times do I have to explain this? My hearing aids help my hearing. Help. Not fix. I’m still deaf with my hearing aids and I still can’t hear you from the back of the classroom. It’s a basic accommodation to have me sit at the front of the class, sir! My file hasn’t changed since the beginning of the year so I’m not sure why you thought I'd just be fine at the very back but I'm telling you now for the third time that I won’t be.” James burst out angrily, at his very wits end. Maybe it wasn’t entirely fair to go off on his teacher, but after countless less than pleasant interactions stemming from his wearing hearing aids, all happening right after each other, James didn’t have any patience left to give. 

“I’d rather you refrain from taking that tone with me in the future, Mr. Potter. You may take the empty seat next to Miss. Meadowes, will that be satisfactory?”

Without deining Slughorn with a reply, James turned to walk back across the classroom, taking his new seat next to Dorcas Meadowes. 

Other than the fact that she was Marlene’s girlfriend, James knew very little about Dorcas. He knew that she had joined the school in year eight, having moved to Scotland from Los Angeles. He also knew she was Regulus’ friend. But that was about the extent of his knowledge. 

She looked up as James sat down, flashing him a quick smile, “Hey, I’m Dorcas.”

He smiled back, pulling his books from his bag, “Hi, I’m James. I think we’ve met a couple of times before actually.” 

She laughed at that, answering the puzzled look James sent her with a smile, “We met at a party last year, but I didn’t think you’d remember that. Marlene talks about you quite a lot though.”

“I must confess that there are a lot of parties I don’t remember. Sorry about that,”  he replied sheepishly, and then after a pause and a small smile of his own, “Marlene never shuts up about you either.”

They were stopped from any further introductions by Slughorn finally beginning to teach the lesson, launching into some long winded speech on the properties of Ions. James zoned out, having done more than enough lessons on Ions and their electrons, to the point that if he had to sit through one more his head might explode from the boredom of it. By the time he refocused his attention they’d moved onto revision of the periodic table, Slughorn picking on random students to answer questions about the different elements. 

“How about… Mr Potter, could you tell me the state of boron? Solid, liquid or gas?“

“Er, it’s the red liquid isn’t it?“ James answered.

“Boron Mr Potter, not bromine. The metal. Listen up please.”

I can’t listen up, you moron James wanted to snap back at the teacher, but held his tongue.The last thing he needed was a detention for picking a fight with a member of staff. Instead, he let the growing annoyance fester in his mind, thinking of all the things he so wanted to say to Slughorn, starting with calling out his unconscious bias and ending somewhere around pointing out what had rapidly become flat out ableism. He barely noticed as his hands began to absolutely tap on the desktop in an agitated rhythm, his mind too full to process the unconscious stim.

A soft nudge on his shoulder snapped James out of his thoughts, turning to meet Dorcas’ eyes. She simply handed him a worksheet, before looking down to start on her own. James only got about three questions in before his mind strayed once more, his unfocused gaze falling on one of the solar system posters stuck to the wall in front of him, not really seeing it. His hands began to thrum the same rhythm onto the table, duh, ba-dum, da du-bum dum, over and over and over. The feeling of his fingers hitting the desk was soothing. The way each impact sent a dull vibration up his hand helped some of the pent up irritation seep away.

He was interrupted again by Dorcas tapping his arm. James stilled his hands immediately, suddenly, very conscious of the fact he’d probably been distracting the whole table from their work. He often forgot that the little things like tapping his fingers on the desk made so much noise to other people.

“Sorry, was I distracting you? I’ll stop.” He said, cringing slightly at his own words. He’d always been loud and outgoing, but James didn’t like how he could often make too much noise unconsciously, becoming a distraction and annoying his classmates. 

“No, no you’re not distracting me. I was just wondering, what’s this song you’re tapping? It sounds familiar.” Dorcas asked with a sincere expression.

“Oh, I guess it’s just something I made up? Might be from a song, but I can’t think of which one, sorry.“ James answered lamely, an embarrassed blush creeping up his neck.

“Have you ever tried drumming? You seem like you might enjoy it.” 

Whatever James was expecting, it wasn’t that. He had taken music lessons for most of his life, although he never stuck with a single instrument too long. Three years of violin and then five more of piano had never really piqued his interest, finding the latter no more stimulating than typing on a computer keyboard, without the satisfaction of anything happening on screen. Sirius would go on and on to anyone who would listen about how much he loved piano, but try as he might to relate, James simply couldn’t find excitement in pressing those little black and white keys. He had enjoyed violin slightly more, finding the mellow vibrations from the bow pulling across the strings pleasant enough, but his inability to properly differentiate between notes led to endlessly frustrated teachers that James ultimately grew tired of. 

“No. I’ve never tried drumming, I’m not sure I would like it though.” James eventually replied, a frown forming in between his eyebrows, wondering absently where Dorcas was going with this.

“Well, you never know until you try something, right?” He really didn’t know why Dorcas was being so persistent about the drums, did she know something he didn’t?

“I guess,” he shrugged.

“The Harpies are down a drummer, if you ever wanted to mess around a bit with us, you’re more than welcome to come and have a go.” Ah, so that’s what she wanted. 

The Holyhead harpies was a band Sirius and Marlene had formed in the second year; originally Peter had played bass with Marlene on the electric guitar and Sirius on vocals. Since Peter had dropped out a year later, after a disaster at the Christmas concert, various other people had both joined and left the group. At one point, Sirius had even roped Remus into trying out being a backing vocalist. He’d lasted two practice sessions before quitting, swearing never to enter the music room again. If James remembered correctly, the most recent lineup had consisted of Sirius on vocals, Marlene on electric guitar, Dorcas on bass, and Frank Longbottom, the football captain on drums. Sirius had complained nonstop for weeks when Frank announced he’d be leaving after year 11 to pursue a sport scholarship at a college down in Reading, insisting they needed a drummer to perform with.

“I’m flattered at the offer, really. But can I just ask, why me? I’m sure there’s plenty of great drummers who would be more than happy to play with you.“ James replied, cracking yet another nervous smile.

Dorcas seemed to think for a moment before replying.“I don’t know about that. You just seemed to be really getting into that thing with your hands. I guess I thought if you enjoyed that, then maybe you’d like to try out the drums,“ she ended simply with a small shrug of her own.

“Mmm, maybe. I’m not sure where I’d even start though.”

“I’m pretty sure Sirius can play drums. Some rebellious percussion phase, you know? I’m sure he could help you.” She laughed, “To be honest i'm not entirely sure why he doesn’t take the position himself, but that Sirius for you“

A week on from that chemistry class and James couldn’t get Dorcas’ proposition out of his head. He just kept circling back to the idea of it, something about the novelty of hitting something over and over enticed him greatly. Despite never having touched a drum kit in his life, James felt as though he could already feel the satisfaction of slamming wooden sticks onto the taut plastic over and over. Every time he caught himself tapping his hands against desks, books, bed frames, even the wall, he found himself wondering avidly what it would sound like to him when playing drums. Would he be able to enjoy playing an instrument without being able to properly hear it? 

The main problem he had faced with the piano in particular was that he got very little out of playing it, at least the violin vibrated as you played it, annoying as it might be. For James, it was merely pressing different buttons over and over with very little reward. To him, playing an instrument had always seemed very counter-productive, like a waste of his time essentially. He’d never really thought about the different types of instruments; after all, he'd never had much interest in the field of music, unlike Remus and Sirius with their love of retro stars. But now he really thought about it, even the action of playing the drums would probably be more engaging for James than the piano ever could be. He would at least get the satisfaction brought by the act of simply hitting the drums. That had to help somewhat with this apathy towards music playing, right?

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After being dragged down many, many mental wormholes, overthinking himself in circles, James decided to bring the idea up to Sirius. As it happened, the two of them ended up in the dorm alone, one Thursday evening, while Remus studied in the library with Lily and Peter did… God knows what.

“Hey, pads,” James started, glancing over to where his friend lay across Remus’s bed. “Can I talk to you about something?”

Sirius scrambled to sit up, cocking his head slightly to one side out of curiosity. Sure, what’s up?

James stalled for a second, pondering the best way to bring the idea up in conversation. I was talking to Dorcas a while ago in our chem class, right?

Sirius’s eyes lit up, a manic smile spreading across his face as he slipped from the bed to join James on the floor. Is this about her asking you to play with us? James, are you going to be our drummer?

Don’t get ahead of yourself Sirius. James snorted I don’t know the first thing about drums. I was actually just going to ask if you’d show me a couple things. Dorcas said you can play and I guess I'd just like to try it out. Can’t hurt, can it? 

James, James,James of course I'll teach you how to drum. This is so exciting. Sirius was practically vibrating with energy, bouncing where they sat. We can go right now if you want. Do you want to go now? 

Sure. James wasn’t prepared to be thrust so suddenly into trying the drums out, but he probably should’ve expected the sort of behaviour from his best friend.

Sirius hauled James to his feet, dragging him over to the door before rummaging through the mess of assorted shoes scattered across the floor.

Once they arrived at the music block, Sirius waltzed inside as though he owned the place, James following awkwardly behind him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been in the building, having dropped music at the first chance he got. Now that they were actually in the music room, millimetres away from the literal drum kit, James was beginning to regret his decision to come here.

This had been a mistake. Why did he think this could ever be a good idea? What if he was absolutely awful, it’s not like he’s ever been especially good at the other instruments he had played in the past, so what made him think that this time around would be any different?

James stood frozen in the doorway to the practice room, hands fidgeting at his side. At first Sirius didn’t seem to notice, setting the room up before producing a blank music sheet from a folder sitting on a shelf over on the far wall. When they eventually turned back to James, and saw him hovering by the door, his face softened.

James, I’m not expecting you to be a prodigy or anything. We’re just messing around a bit, trying some things out, yeah? A pause, in which Sirius clearly gathered that James was Not Convinced, before, if you really hate it, or whatever we can leave at any point, okay?

James thought for a second, and then he gave a small nod, shuffling further into the room and took a seat at the store behind the drums, Sirius beside him.

Right, so, here are the sticks. You’re going to want to hold them like this. Sirius paused to demonstrate, passing the two sticks to James and smiling encouragingly as he copied them. Yes, just like that! And, as for the drums, you have the bass at the bottom here, you hit it by stepping on the little lever thing. Then you have the Tom drums, the snare and the hi hats. Oh, and of course the cymbals. He explained, gesturing to each component in turn.

Bass, tom, snare, cymbals, and hi hats. James repeated slowly. Okay, got it.

As for the sheet music, it follows pretty much the pattern you’d expect. The lowest note is obviously the bass drum, here. Next note up is the space is the floor Tom, which is this one. Sirius continued, pointing from sheet to drum as they scribbled the notes down. Two spaces up we have tom one and on the line below it is tom two, that’s this one and that one there. Then for the notes with the crosses we have the ride symbols on the top line here, closed hi hat above the line, open high hat is the one with the cross inside the note.The hi hat pedal is that one at the bottom and crash symbol is that one on the end with a line through it. You don’t have to memorise them or anything, it’s just useful to know. I’ll leave the sheet here on the music stand, but we’ll just try something simple to start off with.

James' mind was bursting with all the new information, hands itching to get started, spinning one of the sticks idly between his fingers. He honed his focus back in once Sirius gently tugged the sticks from his grasp and began to demonstrate a simple pattern once, twice, three times before handing the sticks back to James.

Okay, I’ll count you in, ready? Sirius grinned excitedly, clapping his hands in time with the melody. One, two, three, four, one, two…

And then James was off. He immediately decided that the drums were magical, instantly falling in love with the sensation of bringing his hands down to crash the sticks against the symbols. The feeling of the bass emanating from the impact of the pedal washed over James, a grin folding the corners of his mouth upwards as he played that short tune over and over, the vibrations from the contact travelling like shots of wild, burning electricity up his arms.Sirius Wolf whistled, clapping his hands enthusiastically at James’ continual attempts.

When the pair left the music block much later that night, both smiling like two idiots, James found himself feeling lighter on his feet than he had in a good few weeks.

“ And where have you two been?” Remus asked grumpily when they finally made their way back to the dorm.

oh, Moony! James is learning drums with me. He’s going to join the Harpies and we will be undefeatable at the festival. It was amazing. He was amazing. Sirius informed, excitedly, jumping up onto his bed to sprawl across Remus’s lap. The latter’s eyebrows flew up in surprise before they fell back into a confused frown.

I never said anything about joining the Harpies. That was all Sirius, he’s just being his usual delusional self. A scowl from Sirius. But, yeah it was fun.

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Over the next month, James found himself frequently returning to the music block, both with and without Sirius, according to whom he was steadily improving, and who had also challenged him to learn the drum parts in Bohemian Rhapsody.

(Remus thought it was hypocritical of Sirius to set homework when he didn’t complete his own most of the time.)

Eventually, after both Marlene and Sirius had physically begged him to, James agreed to join the band at one of their practice sessions. For weeks he’d been ignoring the both of them whenever they’d approached him about the subject. He simply wasn’t feeling up to showcasing his skills (or lack thereof) in front of any more people, despite what Sirius might say about his progress. After Marlene literally got down on her knees to beg, James felt as though it was only fair to at least sit in on a practice. And that was how James found himself walking into the now very familiar music block, one Wednesday evening.

“James!” Dorcas greeted him when he entered, “thank fuck, you finally caved. I thought I’d go insane with all the whining before I ever heard the end of it. Speaking of, you’re here before both Marlene and Sirius, which probably shouldn’t be surprising, but I did sort of expect Sirius to be with you though.“

“Last I checked he was ‘studying’ with Remus. Hopefully he’ll be here soon.“ James rolled his eyes, drawing quotation marks around ‘studying’ in the air.

“Speak of the devil,“ Dorcas nodded at the door through which Marlene and Sirius burst quite dramatically, yelling “James is here!”

Dorcas seem to fight the urge to face palm.

The practice session was actually surprisingly productive, mainly thanks to Dorcas.

The group showed James two of the newest songs, the vibration pounding through his head in a thoroughly enjoyable sensation, he definitely enjoyed live rock more than the classical pieces he’d learned to play as a child. When Marlene handed James a music sheet with a drum part for one of their older songs, James looked at her quizzically.

“Will you try it out with us? Pleeeeaaaaasssse. It’s one of our slower songs so it shouldn’t be too hard to follow.“ She begged, wiggling her eyebrows for emphasis.

“If I say yes, will you stop trying to seduce my mum?“ James questioned back automatically, the old chide quick to his tongue, already moving over to the drum kit.

“Never.” Marlene had a wild smile on her face, eyes glittering with mischievous intent.

Dorcas counted the grouping in, nervous excitement flowing through James’ veins as he waited for his part to come around. It was completely worth the wait though; if James had thought playing by himself was magical, doing so with the group was entirely otherworldly. The bass was at least doubled between Dorcas’ runs, James’ playing and Sirius’ lower notes in his tenor vocals. And while he couldn’t ‘hear’ the music per se, James found that the lulls and buildups of the multi-layered music, made for a beautifully orchestrated mix of dynamics, wave after wave of varying vibrations pulsing through his very bones, each varied, each exhilarating.

“That was fucking awesome!” James yelled the moment they stopped playing at the end of the song. Dorcas smirked, “I suppose it is pretty cool playing together, isn’t it?”

“Hell, yeah,” Marlene fist pumped the air in a way of further punctuating her agreement, an echo of ‘hell yeah’ coming belatedly from Sirius.

They play that song twice more, as well as introducing James to one of their other songs, providing him with his own private concert before Flitwick, the head of music, came to kick the group out, sending them to bed.

James had discovered that if he pressed his hands to the speaker while the band played, he could feel every change in the music, every single note change translated from sound to movement, shaking under his palms. It was thrilling to experience so intimately all the different sounds of a multitude of instruments through this same set up.

“So,“ Sirius started as the four of them slowly began down the path back towards the dorm blocks. “Are you ready to join the harpies yet?“

Running on excitement and adrenaline, James barely even stopped to think before he answered. “If you have me, hell yeah I’ll join!”

Which started off another course of ‘hell yeah’s from Sirius and Marlene, and even eventually a begrudging Dorcas who failed to hide her smile behind her hands in time for James not to take note of it.

Juggling bi-weekly band sessions on top of football and lacrosse practice, as well as the mountain of homework being piled onto the year elevens had initially sounded like a very tall task to James. But he soon found that, although it was a lot of extra curriculars, the band didn’t come with the same stress as a club, it being more of an hour and a half of chilling while having fun, and exercising his creative freedoms with two of his favourite people and Dorcas, who he was rapidly growing very fond of.

Less than a month after James' official joining of the harpies, he arrived late to practise, rushing into the group’s usual practice room to find his three band mates sat in a circle of chairs, pads of paper and pens in each of their hands, heads bowed low in concentration. At James’ arrival, they all looked up, greeting him hhurredly before thrusting another notebook on him, and returning to their own scribbling. This was strange. Very strange.

In all his short time with the Harpies, James didn’t think he’d seen so much concentration spent on writing. He couldn’t think what could’ve possibly possessed Sirius of all people to be writing more than a couple sentences in one sitting, especially at his own free will.

“Er, Guys,“ James spoke up, waving hand in front of Marlene and Sirius’ faces to get their attention. “What are we doing?“

“Oh, James, sorry. I forgot to explain. Flitwick gave us the time slots for the music festival. We are brainstorming how best to structure our set. How to make it memorable, you know?” Marlene explained, waving the ’rock on’ gesture at James for a moment.

“Cool! What can I do to help?“ James asked enthusiastically, dropping into the empty seat between Dorcas and Sirius.

“Right now we’re trying to think of the order to play the songs in. We have time for five songs and a speech to thank people or something. We were planning to play ‘black cats’, ‘thin veil’, and ‘wish you were joking’, but we can’t choose between ‘dying slow’, ‘Beijing skies’, and ‘ragdoll’ for the last two. Our other songs are too quote unquote explicit for a school celebration.” Dorcas helpfully supplied. 

“We all picked one of the songs to play, so you should choose one, too,” Sirius added, after a moment.

“‘Ragdoll’ is my favourite to play,” James decided, after a moment, pen tapping thoughtfully against his chin.

“Alright, ‘Ragdoll’ it is,“ Marlene spoke up, walking over to the whiteboard on the back of the door, writing the set list onto it. Straightening up, she turned back to the group, “Okay, so we need one more song, oh! and we need to think of something we can add to our performance to spice it up a bit. The school’s already heard three of these songs, either at last years’ festival or the leavers show in the summer.”

The four of them fell into deep thought, someone occasionally scribbling an idea down, only to inevitably cross it out a moment later. The practice dragged on, none of them any closer to a concrete idea. A couple of times someone suggested something, only for a flaw to be found in the plan, and everyone to sigh before returning to their notes.

“I’ve got it!” Marlene exclaimed, almost a half hour later. The other three turned to her warily. “What if we signed? Like, I know me, Dorcas and James all have our hands full but Sirius doesn’t have to act like he’s trying to seduce the microphone every two seconds, so he could sign all our songs while we play them. It would be a great way to integrate disability awareness into our performance, and I bet no one else will have a live BSL interpreter,” she wiggled her eyebrows for emphasis, her newest habit.

“Marls, you’re actually a genius! And we can sign the ‘Thank You’ speech too.“ Dorcas praised, blowing her girlfriend an air kiss, and throwing Sirius the middle finger when he pulled a face.

“Sounds good,“ James added, cutting in before Sirius could retaliate to Dorcas.

“But, in that case we should do ‘dying slow’, it's got a more interesting meaning, more sign variation as well because of the repeated lyrics we can use different signs.” James mused, a giddy smile tugging at his mouth at the idea of sign language being incorporated into their performance.

“Cool, cool. I think we have a set list then!“ Sirius high-fived Marlene in their excitement.

“Thank fuck. I’m dead tired.“ A round of nods followed Dorcas’s words, along with a barely stifled yawn from Marlene.

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A thrilling spark grew in James' chest as the band began to prepare for the Hogwarts music festival in the following weeks. The festival was a century old tradition at the school, where at the end of the first term of the school year, the students, teachers and parents gathered for a daylong celebration. The day was always filled with a wide display of talent, from the GCSE and sixth form classes setting up booths to display their talents and food tech classes catering for the event, to the school choir, acapella groups, musical theatre, and assortment of house based bands performing throughout the afternoon and evening.

Teachers were signed up and betted on for a  karaoke tournament as a charity event,and this year McGonagall was the favourite to be with a five-year winning streak.

James had always enjoyed the festival, maybe not as much as Sirius or some of their other friends, but he certainly appreciated the free food and entertainment. Although it had never been his favourite school event, always favouring sports day and the annual water fight over the music festival. That was, until this year. This year, the music festival was going to be the highlight of his autumn term, he was sure of it. Nothing else could compare to the ecstasy he felt when playing with the Holyhead Harpies. He was especially excited to be incorporating BSL into their performance, it felt like taking a stand against the ablest twats in the school (cough, cough, Snape cough cough), and he couldn’t wait to see the look on the git’s face when he realised what was going on, inevitably, quite late through their performance. But most of all, James was excited to show off his new skills, and all the joy drumming had brought to his life thus far, despite his rocky start to the year. Fuck what everyone else thought, James was deaf, and he wouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of it. That was another thing being in a band for the people with disabilities had helped him with.

In the week leading up to the festival, the harpies practised daily, perfecting the steps to the stage. James has been working with Sirius to translate the songs into BSL, a feat that proved to be more difficult than was initially anticipated. But finally, after a few late nights and a heated conversation about on the proper grammar of a couple of versus they had a fairly well structured plan of action.

The day of the festival rolled around in a flash. From early in the morning, the school was alive with the bustling of students, parents rushing to greet their children and frazzled teachers attempting to keep everything in line and running smoothly. James woke early, barely having been able to sleep due to the nerves running endlessly through his veins, leaving him eager and restless. When Sirius finally dragged themselves out of bed, the two of them raced through the halls to the courtyard to meet Euphemia and Fleamont.

After a tour of the new dorm and a lunch of tomato soup and croutons, Marlene caught up with the group, greeting Effie with a hug, and Monty with a playful glare before hugging him also. James was too preoccupied to restrain Marlene, consulting the festival timetable for the millionth time that day alone. Despite having memorised it over a week ago, he was anxious to get the times right, tuning back into the conversation just in time to let out a comedically timed scandalised “Mum!” When he caught Euphemia winking to Marlene after his friend had made a particularly bold comment on Euphemia’s wedding ring.

Peter and his parents joined the steadily growing group as they made their way out to the outdoor stage, cheeks a matching rosy pink from the sharp late October wind.

They huddled around a crowd of other students just in time to catch the beginning of the infamous teacher karaoke competition. The tournament kicked off with a one-man rendition of ‘You’ll be back’ from Hamilton by the headmaster. Dumbledore was followed by a performance of the school anthem by Flitwick, who managed to get students and parents alike to join in to the raucous booing of his fellow staff from backstage. A number of assorted acts cycled by, including the… interesting spectacle of the history teacher, Professor Binns, attempting an Ed Sheeran song. Finally, McGonagall took to the stage to immense cheers from the Gryffindors scattered around the steadily growing crowd. She sang ‘Don’t Stop Me Now' by Queen and within the first two bars, before she had even begun to sing, Sirius was yelling his support to her, professing his love at some point around the second chorus. Much to Sirius’s delight, and everyone else is amusement, McGonnagall was awarded first place for the sixth year running, shaking her cup rather aggressively in Slughorn’s face, who, according to everyone around James, had done an absolute disservice to Billie Eilish with a ballad version of ‘Bad guy’.

The day stretched on, and while James was enjoying himself, sampling the food stands with his parents, and laughing with his friends at the assorted performances, the growing anticipation only gathered in his stomach as the hours ticked slowly by. What had been restless fidgeting that morning had long since turned into endless pacing and ringing hands, James' skin feeling as though it was vibrating with pent up energy by the time the sun set, although that was possibly due to the cold nature of the autumn nighttime and his lack of a coat.

He had settled somewhat when the band performances had finally begun, and a Ravenclaw group, ‘the Queen’s crown’ took to the stage with their opening song ‘lost in time’. The Harpies were on third, after a Slytherin band consisting of Regulus, two boys James couldn’t name, but who always seem to be glued to each other’s side and a girl called Pandora, whom James had only met once before. Dorcas called them ‘the skittles’ or some such thing and seemed to be excitedly anticipating her friends’ performance almost as much as their own.

The Queen's Crown exited after a tribute song to Flitwick, the head of house, who had apparently formed the group in the first place. When the Skittles filed onto the stage, one of the inseparable boys wasn’t there. The blonde one was, but he seemed a little distracted, glancing repeatedly into the wings of the stage. As their set began and the boy still hadn’t joined his friends on stage, Dorcas excused herself from the group where they had been waiting by the very front of the stage in a fenced off area with the other performers, saying something about checking up on someone, presumably the missing boy.

Despite being down a member, the skittles performance was extremely enticing. James didn’t have to hear the music to be enthralled by the presence. The blonde boy was playing guitar upside down, which was impressive enough on its own. Pandora was playing what looked like a table with a wire poking out of one side, waving her hands decisively about it.

From the shocked look of the crowd around him, James assumed the strange instrument wasn’t the most common, or the easiest to play. The focused look on Pandora’s face along with the careful nodding of her head in time with the beat all but confirmed his theory. According to Remus, who turned to James with an awed look in his eyes, she was playing a theremin, which was apparently an incredibly hard instrument to work with, let alone master to the degree Pandora was playing with such precision.

Regulus seem to be following in Sirius’s footsteps, singing main vocals to the skittles tracks, but what enthralled James the most was the way he was playing on a grand piano at the same time, his pale ghostly fingers dancing gently like across the keys, telling a sultry story of something that felt strangely familiar in the soft way he pressed each one in turn. And his expression as he played was so full of emotion, James didn't think he’d ever seen Regulus look so alive in all the years he’d known the boy. Fierce intent glinted in his wandering grey eyes as they flew over the crowd, searching so hungrily. For what? James couldn’t guess, even as he continued to watch them slide from one face to the next without pausing for a moment, almost as though he was looking past the crowd, piercing straight through them. The small smile formed at the edges of his sharp mouth softened his face considerably as he played on and on in that passionate way James could only describe as one thing. It was… Beautiful.

Dorcas met James, Sirius, and Marlene backstage, looking considerably calmer than when she had left. In the final minute before they walked on stage, Marlene clapped each of them on the shoulders, throwing James a thumbs up just as the slytherin band walked off past them. Regulus very decidedly not looking at Sirius’ face, his own features harsh and unreadable once more.

The moment he stepped in front of the waiting crowd, James was hit with a surge of adrenaline, fighting to keep his smile from splitting his face, eyes creasing in excitement. As he played the opening bars for black cats, James could barely believe what he was doing. He was playing drums. On stage. With his friends. In front of a crowd of real people. And they were enjoying it. Oh. The crowd was enjoying it. James could see Peter at the back, jumping around wildly, hand cupped around his mouth as he screamed something, Remus stood next to him, loving eyes locked onto Sirius’s form as they Signed out each lyric, accentuating each movement.

As they made their way through ‘thin veil’ and ‘wish you were joking’ James found himself soaring high above the stage in spirit, treasuring each moment he spent on that stage with his friends, his people. When it came time for the group to make their speech, they each stood in turn, having decided to dedicate the time to praising each of their loved ones, thanking them for the parts they’d played in bringing the band to where they now stood, signing their words as they spoke them. When James’ turn came around, he began by thanking his parents, Sirius whistling his agreement beside him, and then turned his praise to Dorcas, Marlene and Sirius in turn for each of their roles in encouraging James to pursue drumming, which he then segwayed into hying up ‘ragdoll’ while Marlene played a prolonged intro to the song.

The performance flew bye in a whirlwind of surreal acceleration. Before he knew it, they played the last notes of ‘dying slow’, gathered together in the centre of the stage to take one exaggerated theatrical bow before racing off stage, James’ heart pounding in his throat, a crazed laugh ripping from his chest in a triumphant roar of pride.

“We fucking rocked that!” Sirius exclaimed as soon as they'd caught their breath.

“Hell, yeah,” Marlene yelled, eyebrows wiggling.

“Hell, yeah,” Dorcas, James and Sirius echoed. Bursting into more peels of ecstatic laughter.

“I need to use the bathroom, I’ll catch up with you guys later?” James excuses himself from the mess of flailing limbs that was Marlene and Sirius. The moment he stepped inside the dimly lit main school, he paused for a moment to fully take in what had just happened, to notice what felt like liquid gold rushing through his blood in some internal form of a prize.

On his way back to the festival, James took a detour through the school, stopping briefly at the dorms to deposit some new books his parents had gifted him. As he wandered along the seventh floor corridor, he found himself distracted by the yellow light spilling out from under one of the Astronomy classroom's doors. He wasn’t sure what compelled him to, but before he knew what he was doing, James found himself pushing open the heavy door, only to come face to face with none other than one Regulus Black, whose steely eyes fitted across his face quickly before locking in a fierce stare, a sultry look adorning his features.

“Hey,” James smiled at the younger boy, ignoring his icy presence and pushing his way further into the room despite receiving nothing but further narrowed eyes, and folded arms in the absence of a reply from the younger boy.

A minute stretched by, the two locked into a deep stare, neither blinking, neither moving, neither looking away, almost as though it was a fragile thing, not to be dropped or broken for the fear it might not be repaired.

Eventually, Regulus broke their eye contact, tearing his eyes from James quite suddenly. What are you doing here? He signed. James felt his jaw drop open in shock.

You can sign? He asked, eyes alight with dancing delight at this new information.

Answer my question and I will answer yours. What are you doing here? Regulus repeated, movements sharp, gaze sharper.

I don’t know, really. I was just passing by, and I thought I’d investigate the light, I suppose. He shrugged. My turn. You can sign?

Well no shit. We’re having a conversation in British sign language right now, are we not? Seriously Potter, your stupidity rivals my sibling’s sometimes. Regulus smirked, James’s heart pounding in his chest at the sight of the small smile, although he wasn’t sure why such a reaction was evoked, chalking it up to the leftover euphoria from the high of his earlier performance.

Right, right. Of course. Sorry, that was stupid. I just meant, how come you know BSL? James amended, grimacing at his own stupidity.

It’s a secret. Regulus snapped back, a small smile pulling at his lips again, though this time the ghost of something sad danced across his features, and James felt a pang of pain as his stomach flipped over.

Oh, okay. Well, your performance was- James paused, searching for a word, that could possibly describe the magnificence of watching Regulus Black play piano, any phrase to encapsulates the blinding radiance of his confident aura that had washed over James, as he watched that magical show of pure creative expression. Breathtaking.

Regulus looked as though he'd been slapped across the face, and for a moment he stilled, the moment frozen in time. A light blush crept up his pale neck, staining his cheeks a delicate pink with the most colour James had seen on the boy in many years.

 Watch it Potter, you sound like a dud . The younger boy sighed, face returning to its usual stern stare. Then, after a moment he softened again, if only for a fraction of a second. You were alright yourself.

James felt his face light up once more at the praise. Thanks, I- Suddenly he remembered the boy who had been absent from Regulus’ group’s performance, and Dorcas' worried expression as she’d hurried off to find him. James felt his smile fall from his face in place of concern. How’s your friend? Is he okay?

What? Oh, you mean Barty. Yeah, he’ll be alright. Regulus shrugged nonchalantly, but James didn’t miss the way his eyebrows briefly furrowed at the mention of the boy. His own concern evident in that fleeting moment of discomposure.

That’s good. He replied, the two falling into another stale silence. After a minute or two, Regulus' head snapped suddenly upwards, face hardening as he registered the person standing before him at the threshold to the room. James swivelled around too, exclaiming loudly at the person standing there, a mirrored face to Regulus’s cold demeanor staring past him in the form of-

“Sirius!”

We’ve been looking for you for ages, Prongs. I began to think you’d been eaten by the toilet ghost or something. He paused, turning slowly back to his brother, his initially hard expression melting. “Hey Reggie,” he said softly, accompanied by a small wave.

Regulus ignored the attempted conversation entirely, squeezing his eyes close as he resolutely turned his head from Sirius’ general direction. Sirius threw their hands up in defeat, storming from the room and a huffy manor, shoulders hitched up around their ears.

“I better go, too… Nice talking to you?” James moved to follow his friend, hesitating in the doorway, “Sirius is really trying. He cares about you, but he doesn’t know how to show you. I just hope that you know that.”

If Regulus replied, James couldn’t tell, the boy still faced away from the door. But strangely, as he travelled through the school behind Sirius, he found something ached deep in his chest. He pushed the feeling from his mind as a return to the festival, Euphemia bundling James into a hug the moment she saw him.

“Jamie, darling, you were wonderful,” she exclaimed the moment they broke apart. Monty clapped him firmly on the back, a proud smile clearly visible below his walrus moustache.

“Thanks, Mum,” James smiled back, wrapping both his parents in another embrace before Effie moved on to preening over Sirius, who simply melted as her radiant smile fell on him, burying his face in her arms.

“Why don’t you invite your friends to get a meal with us, hmm? Our treat.“ Monty suggested, eyes twinkling.

And so, James spent the evening at a local ramen restaurant, trying his hardest to keep Marlene and Remus from flirting with his parents. Sirius had managed to convince Dorcas to come along too, and everyone immediately took a liking to them. Despite all the chaos and excitement, James felt as though something was missing. Perhaps it was someone who was missing.

This year is going to be fucking great! Peter seemed to decide on the spot, stopping dramatically to announce his epiphany to the group as they made their way back to the school. Despite rolling his eyes as he dragged his friend along, James couldn’t help but to secretly agree with him. Year 11 was going to be the best year, he’d make sure of it. Curiously, he felt that the year would be made even better by easing that aching pain in his chest that arose with the presence of Regulus Black. It seemed as though a second Black sibling rescue may be looming ever closer.