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“What are you guys going to do this weekend?” James asks Remus and Sirius, taking a sip of his tea, “I know you told me that you were going to be busy.”
Remus is quiet for a couple seconds before he shrugs, “We’re just trying to catch up on some sleep and relaxation time. You know how stressed we’ve been.”
James hums, “Good thing, you’ve got massive bags under your eyes.”
Sirius dramatically rolls his eyes from next to Remus, “You know how it is, he’s always overworking himself.”
James just offers him a small, challenging smile, “What about you? Sirius, you look paler than usual.” The statement makes Sirius sputter and almost spit his tea all over. Remus’ eyes temporarily widen but he is able to recover. “Are you alright, Pads?”
Sirius coughs for a couple seconds before he takes another drink of his tea, “Yeah, yeah, fine. I just… I’ve been cooped up inside for a while, it’s been hard for me to be able to get some sun and I haven’t been drinking much water recently.”
“Oh, then make sure that you two take care of yourselves.” James’ smile shifts to something more genuine, though why the shift had to be made is lost on Remus and Sirius. James starts patting around himself for a couple seconds, eyebrows furrowed.
“Are you alright, James?” Remus asks.
“Yeah, I just- my glasses are dirty and I think I’ve left my glasses rag in my room. I’ll be right back.” He places his tea down and stands up, turning to walk up the stairs to his bedroom.
As soon as he’s out of earshot, Sirius turns to his boyfriend, “That was close. I didn’t think he’d pick up on how pale I’ve gotten.”
“You recovered well. I’m glad he bought the excuse.” Remus sighs, “Sometimes I forget that his obliviousness is just an act with him. I don’t know what we’re going to do if we need longer than the weekend to get this sorted out.”
“We’ll figure it out.” Sirius smiles, placing a comforting hand on his boyfriend’s arm.
Remus smiles at him, “Sometimes I think it would just be easier for us to tell him.” For as long as Remus, James, and Sirius have known each other, Remus and Sirius have been working hard to hide the fact that they’re very much so not human from James. Originally it was their own individual secret, but one day Remus walked in on Sirius having a hard time due to not feeding enough and revealed his own secret so as to calm the vampire down. From then on, it’s become a game of them hiding their in-human features from their best friend. It just gets hard sometimes.
Because James is so painfully human. Had he not been, it’s likely that he would’ve picked up on the fact that they’re not but he hasn’t said anything and other than the occasional comment, he seems none the wiser. It’s also part of the reason that Sirius and Remus refused to let James live with them; they love him so dearly but they most definitely couldn’t hide their issues while living with him--they were lucky enough to get roomed together while James got roomed with their other friend Pete while they were in school.
“He’s human, Remus.” Sirius sighs, “They’re taught to fear people like us, taught that we’re dangerous.” As he says this, his fingers drift up to the puncture mark on Remus’ neck from Sirius’ feeding. “I don’t want to mess up our friendship with him. “
“But do you really think that James buys that stuff?”
“What stuff do I buy?” James asks, strolling back into the living room. His glasses are in his hands being wiped down with a soft cloth. He stops cleaning them, puts them up to the light to check that they’re clean, and sits down while slipping them back on his face.
Remus shakes his head, “Nothing, don’t worry about it.” James watches him for a couple minutes before he finally shrugs and picks up his tea again. Remus relaxes in his seat and gestures towards him, “What about you? What are you planning to do for this weekend?”
James sighs and drops his head against the back of his couch, “Probably a lot of gardening with Lily. Some of my herbs have started coming in and we want them while they’re fresh.”
“I thought you like gardening, why are you acting like you’re dreading it.”
“Because I like the gardening part of it, but Lily is so specific with the way that she collects herbs and it becomes really annoying to do.” James sighs once again, “I love her, and I’m thrilled to have all of these crops growing in but god I hate the collecting thing of harvesting.”
“It’s the best time to do it, though.” Remus hums, pausing to take another drink of his tea, “The rest of the week is going to be rainy.”
“I know, which is why she’s pushing me to do it so much.” James shrugs, “She’s also been talking about going foraging with me this weekend, and maybe Monday for some fresh mushrooms.”
“You like foraging.” Sirius says, more a question than anything.
“Once again, not with how meticulous Lily is.” James informs him with a shrug, “But she promised that we could make some lavender lemonade and some chicken tenders from Chicken of the Woods if we find any.”
“Sounds like an interesting weekend plan.” Sirius says, voice sarcastic.
“As interesting as it can get.” James shrugs. As much as he complains, he does love going out with Lily and collecting and harvesting their ingredients; it just makes all their spells and potions stronger.
As much as Sirius and Remus may think he’s human, James comes from a rich line of witches. He’s been working on witchcraft and curating his spells and recipes since he was a young boy, though it’s easy enough for him to keep it under wraps--after all, he doesn’t have to prepare for a once-a-month event like the full moon or feeding on blood. However, just like Remus and Sirius, James was all the more willing to get his own place so he can lock certain doors when people are over, doors that he disappears into for hours at a time to work on his next potion or spell. However, after a while of living separately from his friends, he didn’t have to work on those things in said hidden rooms alone.
James has never explained how he met Lily to his friends, but he met her in one of the underground witch shops in London. It’s disguised as a mere hippie, metaphysical store but there is a secret room that only those that know how to get in are allowed in. This is where all the truly good ingredients are, usually the freshest--though they are more expensive than the stuff for the hippie side of the store. Lily was looking at a couple books on spirit guides and was debating on which one was better for her to pick up and read and James swooped in and--as the extroverted person he is--told her that the book in her left hand was better; that it was a book that had been passed down in his family for a long time to help the children get in contact with their spirit guides.
Lily then talked with him for a while about said spirit guides and asked about his family’s roots in witchcraft. James was all the more willing to talk about his heritage while picking out some herbs and crystals--to which Lily was willing to help him with when she realized he was a bit confused on which one would be better for his current potion.
From there, the two of them continued to meet up for lunch and eventually they’d go over to each other’s place and work on their projects together--sometimes even working on the same project so as to have double the power or if it was a particularly hard thing they were doing. Their feelings were natural and they fell into an easy-going and relaxed relationship.
James just told his friends that he and Lily met at her workplace--a flower shop she owns with her now-girlfriend Mary--when he was getting some seeds for his newest flowers and herbs.
“I see why you guys broke up.” Sirius laughs, “She’s so passionate about that stuff and you can’t handle it.”
Remus snorts next to him, “And Lily can’t handle the way that James loves.”
“No,” James starts, rolling his eyes, “Lily can’t handle the way that men love.”
Now, James and Lily broke up amicably. Lily began to realize that she wasn’t feeling for James what she was feeling for Mary and James was starting to look at his best-friends little brother a little more romantically than he would like. They sat down and had a talk about it, ending things mutually, and continued doing their witchcraft together, their relationship now shifting to best friends who would tease each other relentlessly for their respective crushes--James thought it was cute the way that Lily would get flustered at the smallest thing that Mary would do and Lily endlessly teased James for his awkward situation with Regulus.
That one was easier to explain to his best friends- well, minus the Regulus part of things.
It wasn’t until Lily and Mary brought James to a gay bar specifically for non-humans did he finally get to really know Regulus. Apparently Regulus works there part time for his friends Barty and Evan--Barty is the co-owner of the bar--and they got to talking a lot more without Sirius being there. It was an endless charade of flirting before James finally asked Regulus why he was working there and got out of him that he and the entire Black line were vampires, though James did have a feeling after knowing Sirius for so long. Regulus also learned of James’ abilities himself.
It wasn’t long before they were in a relationship, hidden behind closed doors outside of what Lily and Mary knew about them.
Remus huffs a laugh and rolls his eyes, “Well, other than harvesting your herbs and going foraging with Lily, what other plans do you have for the weekend? Unfortunately, we’re turning off all contact so you won’t be able to talk to us.”
“Oh what a tragedy.” James teases, “I’ll probably just laze around my house. Maybe go out with Lily and Mary.”
“Don’t you think it’s sad sometimes that a significant part of your life is going around with your ex.”
James shrugs, “I think it’s a good testament that we were made to be friends before we were made to be lovers.” James gives his friend a smile. Then he hums and pushes himself up, “Oh, speaking of going out with Lily, she gave me the book you asked for over the weekend, Remus. Would you like to come up with me to grab it? I don’t remember where I put it.”
Remus nods and pushes himself up from the couch as well. Together, they walk up to James’ room and James pushes the door open to let him in. There’s a book on his desk but James doesn’t spare a glance at it and he starts looking around his room for where he could’ve put the book.
The book on his desk is one that Remus has seen before. It’s leather bound in a slightly wrinkly way and has what looks like hand-made pages. James keeps it in his bag when they go places and he’ll just set it on the desk but he refuses to let anyone touch it, saying that it’s a diary but Remus doesn’t buy that. By the time that Remus walks all the way over to it, James has huffed and told him that he thinks he knows where he left it and walks out of the room, leaving Remus alone with the book.
And now, Remus would say that he’s an honorable friend. But he’s also known James for years and knows that James can’t keep a secret from him or Sirius to save his life--it’s concerning just how much Sirius and James know about each other minus the little fact of Sirius being a vampire. So Remus decides to quickly open the book.
However, he’s greeted by nothing but blank pages. From the first page and beyond, every single one of the pages is completely blank--a couple have ink stains but other than that, nothing. Remus stares at the book confused for a couple seconds, surely if James carried it all over and if he were so protective over it, it wouldn’t be blank.
As Remus is about to close the book, ink starts to appear on the page.
Jamie? Have Remus and Sirius left yet?
“What?” Remus mutters, watching as the ink turns completely solid, it’s a dark green ink. The handwriting that appears is curly and small, so different from James’--whose is a large, uneven scrawl. A couple seconds after the last ink appeared, another line begins to write itself, though the ink is just as dry as the finished ink.
I thought you said you wouldn’t write unless they left, but they haven’t been there that long.
And that causes Remus to spring into action. He grabs the quill from where it’s haphazardly laid next to the book and dips into the nearest ink pot and he starts to write, doing his best to mimic his friends’ handwriting.
They haven’t left yet, but they’re downstairs. I made an excuse to come up here.
Almost immediately there is a response; Living life on the edge, Jamie? I thought you were trying to be secretive about this? Unless you’re ready to tell them.
Remus’ brows furrow. What is James hiding from them--other than an obviously enchanted book?
Not yet, Remus writes back but I miss you already.
Oh my god you’re needy. Comes the response, You can talk to me all you want this weekend when they’re gone. For now, entertain your friends.
I don’t have much choice, they’re coming up the stairs.
Well then stop talking to me, idiot.
Fine.
Goodbye, mon soleil.
Then, immediately after that, the ink disappears. Remus can hear that James found the book and is walking back into his bedroom so he quickly shuts the book. Just a second or two later, James comes in with a book in his hands. He smiles and hands it to Remus, “Here it is. Sorry it took me so long to find it.”
Remus takes it with a matching smile, “It’s fine. I know how you are.”
“You’re just as forgetful as I am.” James rolls his eyes, beginning to walk out of his room.
Remus laughs, “Yeah, but I created a system so I don’t forget where I put things.” The taller closes James’ bedroom door behind him, and in doing so, closing off the book and whoever Remus had talked to through the enchanted book.
The rest of their hangout is a blur to Remus and it isn’t until Sirius and Remus are out of James’ house and walking towards their own apartment that Remus says something, “Sirius, I think James is hiding something from us?”
“What do you mean?” Sirius asks, furrowing his eyebrows and turning to look at his boyfriend, “What could James manage to hide from us?”
Remus shrugs, “I don’t know. But you know how I went up into his room with him? Well I saw the book that he refuses to let us touch and I…”
“Remus!” Sirius scolds with a laugh, “You didn’t.”
“It’s just… he’s had it with him for months and we still know nothing about it.” Remus says, in half-hearted defense, “So I opened it and… Sirius, it’s a fucking enchanted book.”
“What?”
“I opened it and it was blank.” Remus stresses, “Then, after a couple seconds, writing was appearing. It’s an enchanted book.”
“But those can only be made by witches.” Sirius mutters, brows furrowed once again, “Since when does James know a witch. And why is he hiding it from us?”
“I don’t know. But I mean, he’s been hiding the fact that he knows a witch for months from us.”
“Well, did you write back to the person?”
“Of course I did.” Remus rolls his eyes, “It would’ve been suspicious if I just opened the book, saw that someone was writing, and closed it. That’s not how James is.”
“Right, well, what did you say?”
“There wasn’t much of value.” Remus shrugs, “But I think that whoever I was writing to, James is dating.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I mean, first of all, whoever it was called him ‘Jamie’. When have you ever heard anyone call him that? Then they started asking James about him telling us a secret… then they called him clingy when I said that I was writing to them because ‘James’ missed them. It’s just a lot of undertones that felt a bit more than platonic.”
“So James has been dating a witch for months and we just… didn’t know about it?” Sirius clarifies, looking incredibly confused.
“That’s what it seems like.” Remus sighs, “I just hope that the person doesn’t mention our conversation with James. It looks like their conversation goes away when someone closes the book but… if they mention it then James is going to know something is wrong.”
“Hopefully.”
~~~~~
The two of them forget about the book being not a normal book for a while, what with their whole stressful weekend consisting of both the full moon and vampiric feeding season. However, they’ll occasionally see James pulling it out of his bag and putting it down for a couple seconds to grab something then put it back and share a glance.
However, it becomes incredibly hard to forget about when they’re out with James, Regulus, Peter, Barty, and Evan.
Because this time it’s not James that pulls out the oh-so-familiar book from his bag. Instead, it’s Regulus. Except, it’s not that he pulls it out of James’ bag, he pulls it out of his own and sets it on the table for a couple seconds to grab out something or other.
Immediately Remus is shooting his head towards his boyfriend, nudging him. Sirius raises an eyebrow once he turns to him and Remus tries to subtly jerk his chin in the direction of the book--that is almost an exact copy of James’. Sirius turns to it and his eyes widen.
“Is that?” Sirius whispers.
“I think so.” Remus confirms.
“Remus? Sirius?” James asks, making the two of them whip their head towards him like deer caught in headlights. “Are you two alright?”
Remus nods and offers his friend a smile, “Yeah, I just think I forgot something in the car. Would you excuse us?”
“Go ahead.” James smiles and tilts his head a bit, his eyes crinkling in the corners. Remus nods and smiles back, standing and pulling Sirius up with him. The two of them head outside the diner and walk towards their car.
Immediately, Sirius whirls on his boyfriend, “Reggie had the other book.”
Remus nods, not fully comprehending the situation yet, “He had to. What are the odds that they have similar looking books from two different people?”
“Which means that James and Reggie have been dating for this entire time…” Sirius mutters, going a bit spacey, probably thinking about how his best friend is with his brother and he hasn’t noticed at all.
“But that also means…” Remus leans against the car, crossing his arms.
Sirius furrows his brow and turns back towards his boyfriend from where he had started gazing at his shoes, “What do you mean?”
“Regulus is a vampire, Sirius.” Remus starts, stating the painfully obvious, “And they own a book that can only be made by witches. Reggie can’t make the book so that means that they either went to someone to get the book made or-”
“Or James made it.” Sirius finishes, his voice full of slow realization, “Oh shit, so James might be a witch.”
“Which would explain why we’re not allowed in his basement and his weird fascination with little jars and foraging.” Remus says, more to himself than to his boyfriend, “I don’t know how we didn’t pick up on it.”
“Does that also mean that Lily is a witch too? She’s the one that he always goes foraging with and they’re always sharing herbs.”
Remus breathes out, “And she’s the only one allowed in his basement.” He lets his head fall back against the car, “We always thought it would be so easy for James to know we weren’t human if he wasn’t, but not even we could notice when he wasn’t human…”
Sirius sighs and is silent for a couple moments before his eyes go wide, “Does that mean…”
“What?”
“If James is a witch, Regulus likely knows that. Do you think that James knows about Regulus?” Sirius asks, his face paling.
“Oh my god. If he does, then he knows that you’re a vampire.” Then realization dawns on him, “Oh my god…”
“What!? What?” Sirius asks, eyes filled with panic.
“James was wearing turtlenecks for a week after feeding season. He just said he was cold…”
“Do you think he was hiding the…”
“The bite?” Remus sighs, “It’s what makes sense.”
“So he just knows and hasn’t mentioned anything to me?” Sirius asks, furrowing his brows once again.
“How would he go about bringing it up?” Remus asks, almost critically, “How would you approach him about being a witch.”
“Touche.” Sirius sighs. He runs his hand through his hair a couple times, trying to gather his thoughts. After a couple seconds he opens his eyes and presses a small kiss to his boyfriend’s cheek, “We should probably go back in before they get worried.”
“Probably.” Remus nods. He pushes himself from the side of the car and grasps his boyfriend’s hand. Together, they walk towards the front door and sit back down with everyone.
“You got what you needed?” James asks, completely innocent. It’s wild to think that he’s been hiding the fact that he’s a fucking witch from them for just as long as they’ve been hiding the fact that they also weren’t human. Not to mention the relationship he’s had for months--with Sirius’ baby brother of all people.
Remus smiles and nods, “Yeah.”
“Good.”
~~~~~
“James, you know I’m a vampire, right?” It sounds more like a statement than a question yet there’s a bit of a lilt at the end of Sirius’ voice that still keeps it a question.
James furrows his brows but doesn’t look up from the chessboard, “Yeah, why?” He picks up his only rook and moves it with a soft tap.
“How long have you known?”
James hums, “Years now. I think I figured it out when we were in fourth or fifth year.”
“That’s when we found out about each other.”
James groans as Remus takes one of his knights but quickly retaliates by taking his last bishop, “I probably wouldn’t have figured it out if you guys hadn’t to be honest. It just got more obvious when you guys were sneaking around with each other than by yourselves.”
“And so you know about Remus…”
“That he’s a werewolf?” James asks, finally looking up at his best friend. However, he does look back down to watch what Remus does with his queen, “Yeah.”
“And you’re a… witch.”
At that, James freezes, mid-moving one of his pawns. He looks at Sirius once again, eyes wide, before he clears his throat and places his pawn at the end of the board, flipping it, making a comment that it’s a queen “Yeah… I didn’t know you knew that.”
“We didn’t.” Remus finally says, groaning at the idea of two opposing queens at the same time, “Not until we found out about the enchanted book.”
James clears his throat again, “You what? When!?”
“You remember a couple months ago when you were looking for the book that Lily lent me, you left your book out and… I may or may not have opened it and figured out what it was.”
James stares him down for a couple seconds before he sighs, “Makes sense why Re-” he clears his throat once again, this time to stop himself mid-word, “he was talking about me talking weird…”
“We know that you’re dating Reggie.” Sirius says, ignoring the way that James has started muttering to himself.
“What? How?” By now, their chess game has been put on pause.
“Because we saw that he had the other book.” Remus offers, a gentle smile on his face, “You’ve carried that book around for almost a year now, it would be impossible for us to not recognize when he pulled out an identical one.”
“And you knew I was a witch because Reggie can’t make enchanted books.” James sighs, defeated.
Remus nods, “And we connected the dots with you and Lily foraging and collecting herbs and only you two being able to go into your basement. Meaning that she’s a witch too.”
James sighs again and nods, “Yeah. She is… That’s how we met, actually. Was through getting things for our practice.” He picks up another piece and starts the game up again. The other two take that as enough information from him for a while and Remus and James go back to fully focusing on their game--James managed to win despite being ambushed with that conversation.
But a couple minutes later, Sirius speaks up, “Why did you tell me you were dating Reggie?”
James sighs, setting out each of his pawns perfectly in the center of their boxes, “Because we were scared of how you would react. It’s kind of… taboo to date your best mate’s little brother.”
“I’m fine with it. I know both of you and I can figure out how you guys would be good for each other.” Sirius shrugs, “I’m not a fan that you hid it from me, but I can’t talk much about secrets.”
“Well, thank you for your blessing.” James says sarcastically, rolling his eyes. He starts his next game with Remus and once again a comfortable silence fills the room.