imagine an au where the potters and the blacks have been bringing their children to summer cottages in the very same holiday village since they were little.
sirius and james become friends in the most chaotic, headlong way possible, despite all of walburga’s prohibitions, and every year they count down the days until the holidays so they can return and see each other again.
but sirius’s younger brother seems completely antisocial to james. he rarely leaves the house, pointedly ignores every attempt at conversation, and spends most of his time reading impossibly complicated books while perched on a windowsill with his pale legs hanging out the window. either he simply doesn’t tan, or years of self-imposed isolation have something to do with it.
and maybe, just maybe, james is a little curious.
so every summer he tries again and again to earn the attention of this boy who appears indifferent to absolutely everything. he hangs over the fence separating the black property from the neighboring lots. one time he even falls straight into a flowerbed beneath walburga’s windows, crushing a patch of barely-blooming flowers.
when the gardener grabs james by the ear and drags him off the property, james catches the first hint of a smug little smile on regulus’s lips and feels almost blessed.
many more scorching summers will pass. dozens more painfully pathetic attempts to get regulus’s attention, each making james look like a complete idiot while reliably earning that same smile in return. until one day, at long last, james manages to convince him to escape his mother’s watchful supervision.
they ride their bicycles for miles along forest trails, talking and exchanging slightly awkward laughs. then, exhausted, they abandon the bikes at the edge of a clearing, collapse into the grass, and stare up at the clear blue sky, counting the scattered clouds and squinting against the sun.
