James teetered on the brink for a moment. He could push. He knew he could push. He was damn near certain that a little more prodding at Remus would spill whatever it was he wasn't saying. But their conversation wasn't about James, not really. And so long as Remus was okay, was okay with things, and wanted to move on, James was willing to play along.
Or at least, he thought he was. No-- he was. Fair was fair, he supposed. Remus had talked. Not that James felt the least bit obligated to include every fucking detail. But enough. And it was the sort of thing he reckoned Remus would understand. Remus got things, plenty of things, and he'd get this.
"There was this kid. This... punk, idiot kid, who thought he understood how world fucking worked. And he was young-- and not like us." Few enough people were like the Marauders, were ready and willing and able to brush the blade of the knife and make it out unscathed. James understood that they were special. Not that Regulus hadn't been special, but he hadn't been them. But James's voice started going a bit distant, his gaze absently training on a knot in the wood floor near his right foot, "He was just a kid. And he was in trouble. Real trouble. And I was a prat. Yelled at him. Told him he was going to get himself killed." His eyes were maybe a little too sharply focused when they snapped back to Remus. "You have any idea how much I hate being right sometimes?" And James did. He really did. Part of him wanted to save the whole sodding world. Too many lectures about responsibility, maybe. And when somebody fell through the cracks, it barely even mattered who, he always knew why: because he'd screwed up. Because he was supposed to be smart and clever ahead of the game. Because there had been a better way to do it, and he'd been too stuck on himself to see it in time. "That's the kind of person you're supposed to help, you know? Kids, stuck in the middle of a stupid war, who don't even know what they're doing? And I yelled at him. Told him he was an idiot."
He wanted Remus to say yes, to tell him that yes, those were the sort of people who deserved help: the ones that needed it. Because James's dad wasn't there to say it. And sometimes, some things just had to be heard.
"It's just not what my dad would've done, you know?" he pressed, not entirely sure if he was talking to Remus or himself, but he knew he was reining himself in, trying not too think too closely about what his dad would have thought about James's behaviour. "My dad'd have... done something." And James maybe hated that the most: he known, even then, his dad wouldn't have yelled, wouldn't have berated some seventeen year old kid and then let him go back to a bunch of Death Eaters. "Something better."