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2023-05-28
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2023-09-16
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Operation Walburga's Arbitrary No Kissing Ever Rule

Summary:

“Excuse me, you what?”

“I want you to take Regulus out on a date,” Sirius repeats casually as if he hasn’t just said the most absurd thing ever, watching the Snitch that had escaped James’ hand the second Sirius had made the ridiculous request the first time.

James stares at his best friend in disbelief, because what?

“Look, if you go on a date with Regulus, I can go out on my Moony date. My parents will realise that their stupid idea of cursing me with only getting to date once Regulus does didn’t work out because look at that, Regulus also dates! They reverse the magic, Regulus can happily go back to refusing to date anyone, I can go back happily dating Remus, and you can happily go back doing whatever you had planned to do this summer. Quidditch, I assume.”

_

or: A 10 Things I Hate About You AU where James fake dates Regulus so Sirius can date Remus again

Notes:

(See the end of the work for other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Notes:

This fic is honestly more an AU of the Les Mis fic Let Me Count the Ways by zimriya which I haven't re-read in about 10 years, but key moments stuck with me for the entire time.
So really this fic is based on a Les Mis fic which is based on 10 things i hate about you which is based on the taming of the shrew. go figure.

to start, here is a little movie poster fanart i made for this fic :) you can look at it on tumblr or instagram

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The first thing James sees when he comes back home after his Quidditch training is Sirius lying on his bed, which in and of itself is not an unusual thing at all, seeing as Sirius has spent the better part of every single summer holiday so far at Potter Manor. What is very unusual, however, are the words with which Sirius greets him.

“Hey Prongs, have you ever considered taking my brother out on a date?”

James, who just dropped his sports bag, promptly trips over it, too busy gaping at Sirius and the question he just asked, so absurd and out of the blue it nearly forms into a visible, huge red question mark above Sirius’ head, to pay any attention to where he is going.

“Uhm,” he says, trying to regain his balance and also figure out what exactly it is he is supposed to answer here. “I don’t think I have?” he says carefully. He takes the Snitch he stole in his fifth year out of his pocket to fiddle with it, to give his hands something to do, to help him focus on whatever the fuck is happening right now, entirely not sure what to make of this situation. He waits for a sign that his answer was the one Sirius wanted to hear, a lot more nervous than he feels is just for the situation. Then again, this is Sirius talking about his brother, and one could never know exactly what to expect from a conversation like that.

To James’ relief, Sirius nods with satisfaction. The relief, however, dies quickly when Sirius opens his mouth again and says the last thing James could have ever anticipated from a conversation like this. “Start considering it now, please. I want you to take Regulus out on a date.”

“Excuse me, you what?”

“I want you to take my brother out on a date,” Sirius repeats casually as if he hasn’t just said the most absurd thing ever, lying on his back on James’ bed and watching the Snitch that had escaped James’ hand the second Sirius had made the ridiculous request the first time.

James stares at his best friend in disbelief, because what?

“If you ask me to repeat myself another time I will, but my request won’t change at all,” Sirius says before James can even open his mouth. He’s good at that, expecting James’ every move. They both are. Peter always says it’s because they share one single brain cell and he’s probably right.

“You want me to date Regulus?” James asks slowly.

Sirius sighs dramatically, throwing his hands up into the air. The Snitch flies around his fingers but he doesn’t reach for it, which drives James a little bonkers. It’s right there. Just take it. “No, Prongs. I don’t want you to date my brother. I want you to take him out on a date.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

Sirius sits up and gives James a very stern look. “Don’t date my brother, Prongs.”

And now he is totally lost.

“Sirius for the love of everything I’ve ever known to be good please explain yourself. Pretend I’m really dumb and go about it slowly.”

Sirius grins and James prematurely rolls his eyes at him, full well expecting the “No need for pretending, then,” that Sirius gives him a second later. “Okay. So,” he continues. “I need you to take Regulus out on a date. Which is not the same as dating him, because dating requires continued taking out on dates and I think one should be more than enough. Also dating kind of includes feelings and I’d rather you stay away from feelings in regard to my brother.”

James nods along. So far it makes sense, only, “Why the heck do you want me to take Regulus out on a date?”

Sirius halts in his movements. “Ah, yeah, I realise now I should have probably led with that.”

“Probably,” James snorts. “Do tell, I can’t wait for your explanation here.”

Sirius lets out a long breath and James sits up straighter at the stricken expression on his face. “My parents found out Remus is my boyfriend,” Sirius says quietly, none of the nonchalance from before remaining in his voice.

“Oh shit,” James breathes out and immediately moves closer to Sirius, sitting down on the bed right beside him. The Snitch is still flying around above their heads and James wishes he hadn’t let it go earlier, because it is awfully distracting and does not fit the dull mood that has suddenly blanketed itself over the room in the least. “Did it go badly?”

Sirius hesitates for a second. James can’t stand it. It terrifies him, that second of silent suspense, always carrying that moment of the worst possibility with it. “It could have gone a lot worse,” Sirius says, which would be a lot more comforting if it wasn’t coming from Sirius.

“Sirius–” James says but immediately gets interrupted again.

“No, honestly, it was surprisingly okay. I mean obviously they don’t approve of it at all but I made it very clear that I don’t much care about their opinion and will date him no matter what they say.”

“And how did that go?” James asks with a wince.

“Well–” Sirius scrunches up his nose. “They found a way to still somewhat stop me without you know, like, doing illegal stuff.”

“You mean without murdering Remus or imperioing you,” James says dryly. “Honestly I’m surprised they stick to legal hexes. Good for them. I’m so proud of them.”

Sirius barks out a humourless laugh. “Yeah, focus on the positives and all that. Anyway, don’t ask me how they did it exactly but I now physically can’t go on dates with Remus anymore–”

“What?” James shouts.

“–unless Regulus goes on dates,” Sirius finishes. He gives James two thumbs-ups and a grim smile.

“Oh, you’re fucked,” James says, “Regulus will never.”

“Why, thank you, Jamsie, how nice of you to point that out to me,” Sirius says sweetly before punching James in the arm.

“Ow,” James complains and rubs the spot. “Twat.”

“Yes, well, this twat needs your help so please help?” Sirius asks.

“You punching me doesn’t really help in convincing me, you know?”

Sirius groans, then looks at James with huge pleading eyes. “Please? Because I’m your best friend and you love me?”

“Fuck you and your puppy dog eyes, we should have never become Animagi, it just made it so much more effective,” James pouts. “Fine. So tell me the plan here.”

Sirius grins and throws himself at James, hugging him tightly. “I fucking love you, you know that?”

James hugs him back. “I haven’t quite decided yet if the feeling is mutual.”

“Oh fuck off, Prongs.” Sirius pulls back and looks at him, but he grins from ear to ear so his words lose some of their effect. “Okay. So. Plan. You go on a date with Regulus. I go out on my Moony date. My parents will realise that their stupid idea of cursing me with only getting to date once Regulus does didn’t work out because look at that, Regulus also dates! They reverse the magic, Regulus can happily go back to refusing to date anyone, I can go back happily dating Remus, and you can happily go back doing whatever you had planned to do this summer. Quidditch, I assume.”

James nods. “Quidditch indeed,” he says. “Just out of curiosity, what happens when you try to go out with Remus?”

Sirius dramatically throws himself down on the bed again, arms flailing everywhere. James only narrowly avoids getting smacked square in the face. Luckily his continued Bludger-avoidance-manoeuvre-training gives him the foresight to duck just in time. Sirius is by far a better Bludger, though, and manages to swipe James’ glasses straight off his face without even looking. They should really implement a Sirius into Quidditch games in the future.

“I can’t go out with Remus,” Sirius laments, as James tries to relocate his lost glasses. “I thought they were bluffing, because what the fuck kind of magic even is that. But I can’t physically go out with him. Like, I’m basically running against a wall.”

James’ fingers brush against the metal frame of his glasses and he picks them up and pushes them back onto his nose. “So can you still meet up with him when it’s not a date?”

His regained eyesight is rewarded with seeing a pouting Sirius nod.

“So could you just pretend that all your dates are normal friendly meetings?”

Sirius drops his hands from his face and looks at James like he just asked if Hippogriffs can fly. “You really think we haven’t tried that?”

“I mean to be fair,” James notes, “It’s you we’re talking about here. You do fail to see the obvious solution half the time.”

Sirius snorts. “True, but I am dating Remus, who carries about half of the Marauders’ combined brains.”

James nods along. “Peter has the other half,” he confirms. “Forgive me my stupid question, it seems there was no brain left for me to have a reasonable thought with.”

Sirius reaches over to pat James’ leg. “You are forgiven, Prongs. You’ll be even more forgiven if you do me this very great favour of taking my brother out on a date and tricking my parents into reversing their curse.”

“You know when you say it like that I really don’t see a reason why I should do this. I’m already forgiven, I don’t need more forgiveness....”

“Jaaaaaaames,” Sirius wails and James laughs.

“Why me, then?” James asks curiously.

“What do you mean, why you?”

“Why do you want me to go out with him? Of all the people we know, am I not kind of a terrible option for this? I mean who in their right mind would even believe we actually want to go out on dates together, there is no way your parents will be fooled by this plan.”

“You just need to be very convincing,” Sirius says with a shrug that gets a little lopsided in his lying position.

“Seriously,” James says, purposefully choosing the word to get his friends attention, which instantly works, Sirius flashing him a wide grin, “don’t you think one of Regulus’ friends would have been a better option? Like very objectively speaking?”

Sirius shakes his head. “I thought about it,” he says and raises his hand to list off names on his fingers. “Pandora would have been my preferred choice, but she’s in Sweden for the entire summer holidays apparently, so that obviously doesn’t work. There is no point in asking Dorcas, considering she only just got together with Marlene. Also she terrifies me and I do not want to even have to broach the subject with her. Evan couldn’t sell the act or keep it a secret and while I have absolutely no doubt that Barty would be all for over dramatically and very convincingly fake dating my brother he’d tell Evan and then the entire world and more importantly my parents would know again.”

“So the only option is me?” James sighs.

Sirius mirrors his sigh. “So the only option is you. Plus I legitimately think if anyone can convince Regulus to do something as fun and casual as going on a date it’s you. You’re like the most annoyingly persistent person I know.”

James grins. “Ah, it’s always nice to hear how wonderful you think I am.”

Sirius sticks his tongue out at him and James’ grin only widens.

“You can look at it as some secretive prank on my parents,” Sirius suggests, immediately jumping back onto the topic at hand.

“I do like pranks,” James states the obvious, considering pranking is all they’ve been doing since their first year at Hogwarts. “I’m also very much interested in getting back at your parents.”

“So are you in?” Sirius asks, which makes James snort. Are you in. As if this is some kind of elaborate scheme to steal Something Important from Somewhere Important, and not a one-off thing, which, on top of everything, is doing some nice activity with a smaller, albeit snappier version of Sirius.

“Sure,” James confirms with a casual shrug and finally reaches up to pluck the Snitch out of the air, stuffing it securely back into his jeans pocket. “I’m in.”

Notes:

this fic is currently fully planned out and about half written. i expect it to have about 75k words once it's done, but that's just a rough estimate for now. i'm not going to have a fixed uploading schedule, every now and then i'll just post another chapter
go tell me your thoughts and if you wanna come by my tumblr i sometimes talk about my fic writing process and post some fanart

now that i've got you here i'm gonna add a serious edit, that i feel is necessary seeing as this fic got quite a lot of attention and i've had several people tell me this was their introduction to this fandom.
i do not support jkr. you should not support jkr. she is a terf who actively plays a role in politics and is harming trans people, especially trans women. not just uk politics btw, tho that the most obviously, but she's for example been quoted in the german bundestag in debates against trans rights before. you cannot monetarily support her in any way. this means you can't buy official merch, you can't stream any of the movies, don't see cursed child, don't go to the studios, do not watch the reboot. any money you give to her she will a) use to fund anti trans organisations, and b) see as you supporting her vile views, as she has stated herself.
i still love hp, i'm still writing my silly little fics, but i'm aware this is also giving her a platform so i think it's important i inform any potentially new people to this fandom about this

sending yall lots of love and i hope youll have fun with this fic <333