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Jegulus is the slash ship between James Potter and Regulus Black from the Harry Potter fandom.
Canon[]
James and Regulus both come from pureblood families, and both attended Hogwarts during the same time period. James entered Hogwarts in 1971, and was sorted into Gryffindor. Regulus entered Hogwarts in 1972, and was sorted into Slytherin. Regulus' older brother, Sirius Black, was a close friend and dormmate of James'. James and Regulus both played for the respective house Quidditch teams. James was a Chaser, and Regulus was a Seeker. Despite never being shown to interact in canon, they would have met either through Quidditch or through their relationships to Sirius. Sirius left the Black family home when he was sixteen, and moved in with the Potters.
James and Regulus both fought against the tyranny of Lord Voldemort in their own ways. While James joined the Order of the Phoenix alongside his wife and his schoolfriends, Regulus joined the Death Eaters. However, upon seeing the lengths to which Voldemort would go (including intending to kill Regulus' beloved house elf), Regulus decided to defect from the Death Eaters. He discovered the location of one of Voldmort's horcruxes, and gave his life to swap it out for a fake. This act of defiance was later used to help Harry Potter, the son of James, defeat Voldemort nearly twenty years later.
Fanon[]
Jegulus is a fairly new ship in the Harry Potter fandom, but has grown exponentially. While the early days of Marauders-era fanfiction tended to focus on Jily and Wolfstar, there has been a push for more queer romance for both James and Lily in the past few years. With Wolfstar being such a mainstay in the fandom, and Peter Pettigrew being a character that is much hated by the fans, Regulus is one of the only remaining options for a canon male character to ship with James.
While there have been Jegulus fics on AO3 as early as 2014, the pairing took off in 2021 thanks to TikTok. Edits typically cast Timothee Chalamet as Regulus and Aaron Taylor Johnson as James Potter, although some fans choose to cast POC such as Dev Patel in the role of James. The ship continued to gain traction through the Marauders fandom on TikTok, before blowing up on AO3. The third most popular fanfiction on AO3, with over 3 million hits, is Crimson River, a Jegulus longfic.
Some fans see Jegulus as the Marauders-era equivalent of Drarry; a kind-hearted, Quidditch star Gryffindor boy paired with a pureblood Slytherin boy dealing with the trauma of his family's expectations. However, others argue that Jegulus is a ship that stands on its own merits, and is nothing like the Drarry dynamic other than their surface level similarities. Fans tend to enjoy the tragedy of the ship when written within the canon of the Harry Potter series. Both characters die young, sacrificing themselves to help put an end to the reign of Voldemort. Others enjoy the dynamic within an AU setting where the characters can share a happy ending. Jegulus is most often shipped in conjunction with Wolfstar, Mary Macdonald/Lily Evans, and Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes.
Jegulus is currently the 8th most popular ship in the Harry Potter tag on AO3. It is the 4th most popular slash ship, the 3rd most popular Marauders-era ship, and the most popular ship for Regulus Black. It is James' second most popular ship, after the canonical Jily. It currently has over 18.0k fics on AO3.
Fandom[]
- FAN FICTION
- Regulus Black/James Potter tag on AO3
- Regulus Black & James Potter tag on AO3
- Jegulus tag on Fanfiction.net
- Jegulus tag on Wattpad
- DEVIANTART
- Jegulus tag on DeviantArt
