summer rain || jegulus + jily ✔️

5 ~ waterlogged

Chapter 5

"Reg, what's going on?" Pandora asked when his electricity had fizzled out. Nobody knew what her surname was, not even her closest friends. Long, whimsical locks of dirty blonde (though Pandora was dirty in no aspect) hair like vines on a trellis fell down her back to match her cornflower blue eyes. Sometimes he went out to the Hogwarts courtyard late at night when nightmares plagued him to pick flower petals and make crowns for her to wear. It was a long-lasting tradition dating back to fourth year, when now they were both sixth years. She was always there.

"Nothing, what do you mean?" he said, not very convincingly, judging by the look she shot him. All his friends surrounded him, encircling him. He felt like he was a creature at a zoo on display while children gawked at him. A toy for Show & Tell. Now the child was holding him upside down and shaking him and—yeah, you understand. This metaphor is going nowhere.

"That's a load of shit and you know it. You've been moping around all day. You're unresponsive, you have bags under your eyes, and you keep staring vengefully at James Potter like he murdered your cat. You haven't showered even though you shower at the same time every day. What happened? Is there a scandal I've missed? Would be unlikely," Dorcas butted in. 

Barty and Evan leaned in expectantly. Their hands stayed locked under the table, and though they never proclaimed a relationship officially, everyone knew they were seeing each other. Regulus didn't know whether they were shagging with no strings attached or if there was something there. Neither of them was big on relationships, more in the one-night stands field, so the possibilities remained infinite. Regulus did not like Barry's fox-ish grin whenever Evan was present. It scared the shit out of him.

"I...you know how I've been pining after James forever?" he asked, anticipating the patronizing responses. No other way to begin the conversation. Sigh.

"Yes! Victory! You finally admit it!" Barty cried, pointing at Regulus and heightening his feeling of being an animal. Pandora, Dorcas, and Evan all gave similar shouts of victory while Regulus facepalmed with such great force he wondered if he could knock himself out.

"Oh, shut up. Yes, so that development went somewhere, can you believe it? I wasn't destined to be forever single. Over the summer, we got together, and I started disastrously falling in love with him, so that was awesome. But it turned out his eyes were still dead-set on Lily Evans, and he might've been cheating on me with her the entire time. I just found out today. She dumped him, of course, since she's my friend. That's why I seem depressed. I think I'm going to fall down that rabbit hole again," he finished.

"We're renaming this the Who Hurt Regulus S.W.A.T team. I mean, at least you got the guy for...a month. Even if he was a horrible person," offered Evan, but Regulus shook his head.

"Your logic needs testing, Evan."

"Dork!" a familiar voice called. Then a head of spiky blonde hair greeted them, followed by Marlene McKinnon, a loyal Gryffindor who was dating Dorcas. She kissed Dorcas softly, and the Slytherin Skittles exchanged smug glances. She had on vibrant red lipstick that transferred to Dorcas like she was kissing color into her girlfriend the way James had. Poison dart frogs looked enticing. That in no way meant they were safe to consume.

Both of them had come out as lesbian in recent years. They were some of the only known out lesbians along with Mary Macdonald, their friend. Dorcas could often be found in the Gryffindor Tower with her girlfriend. She'd become acquainted with people like Sirius, Peter, and James himself. Regulus considered them monumentally courageous for being an out sapphic couple at a school with endless homophobic brats, most of them being, unfortunately, Slytherins.