One incident can change the entire course of your future… sometimes for the worse.
~*~
It started with what was later known as “The Prank”.
James couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Sirius had told Severus about the willow – Snivellus! He had to do something. He had to stop him…
… Or… maybe he didn’t.
Severus had been a pain in their arse for so. damn. long.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt for Snape to catch a glimpse of what he was up against. It could satisfy some of that insatiable curiosity he seemed to conveniently have only when the marauders were involved… A nice little dose of fear to keep him from sticking his big nose where it didn’t belong – fucking git.
Maybe Sirius was right.
Wait… what was he thinking?
~*~
By the time James’ conscience took over… it was too late. Far too late.
Severus’ death was labeled “an accident”… No one but James, Sirius, Remus and Dumbledore knew what had happened that night.
James walked out of Dumbledore’s office in a daze, dizzy with shock.
It didn’t matter that no one else knew. He knew. He knew what he’d done.
The instant of the realization, James experienced several things, starting with pure shock followed by quick-fire flashbacks. The very slight nostalgia left over from whatever affection he had for Remus was overshadowed immediately with fury; Remus had selfishly taken his anger at them for himself and denied them forgiveness, stomping on the gift they’d given him to trade comfortable adventures for the pack that had given him this curse in the first place. Not only that, but now he had the gall to follow a man endangering the people he came from, and for what? Spite?
He managed to unclench his fists with the realization that Remus would be a valuable ally. Remus never believed in what Fenrir stood for, and there was a good chance he didn’t actually believe in it now. And if Remus were closer to them, maybe James could get him to listen to what they’d done in his absence and understand the good they’d done. Lily would be so happy to have him back, and so proud of James for doing it.
And so James plastered on a smile. Not a big one, just a small lifting of lips in pleased surprise. “Remus?”Sirius jumped at the sound, his entire body tensing as he looked to James with a look that said, What the hell are you doing?
“Trust me,” James whispered.
Remus froze in his tracks as his name reached his ears. He turned slowly, one hand poised at his side, ready to reach for his wand. James and Sirius watched as his expression changed from wary investigation to recognition. James began moving closer, leaving Sirius glued to the ground behind him. Now, as the glare from the moonlight dissipated, he could see Remus clearly.
He had grown, now several inches taller than James. He had left behind the sickly disposition of his school years and had filled out around his thin frame. There were many more scars from the moons since he’d left, and some that weren’t. The skin under them was red and irritated from the closeness of the full moon, crossing exposed skin in angry, bright lines.
His eyes were also lightening with the moon’s phases, closer to an amber orange than his normal brown. Those eyes were darkened with hate and suspicion as James drew closer. The anger sparked in James again. What right did Remus have to be angry with them, after he’d betrayed them? For an instant, he wished he could make Remus pay for his sins, but he kicked himself for the thought. He was doing this for the Order, but more importantly, for Lily. James would be selfless; that’s what heroes did.
Meanwhile, Sirius felt like he’d been punched in the chest. He could see Remus where he stood, but he could see past the anger and suspicion that James saw to the deep hurt behind his hard eyes. There was little recognizable about those eyes. Despite the remnants of the alcohol coursing through his system, he felt the force of the self-loathing he thought he’d drowned and buried long ago came back full force, taking the breath from his lungs and reestablishing the aching hole in his chest that he managed to fill with cigarette smoke and cruelty. One of the last things Remus had ever said to him flooded his mind in an endless loop:
Your family would be so proud of you.
His legs felt unsubstantial under him, and he put a hand against the nearest tree for support.
Remus’s voice came low and dangerous to James’s ears. “What are you doing here?”
James put up his hands. “Remus, it’s James. It’s so good to see you—“
“What are you doing here?” Remus growled.
“We came for you, Moons. We heard you were involved with Greyback and we figured you’d been kidnapped or something—“
Remus laughed. The sound was harsh, and James cut off, stunned.
“You think I was kidnapped?” Remus asked. Suddenly the smile was gone from his face. “Fenrir took me in after you used me. The pack is my family.”
James’s laugh was wrought with disbelief, perfectly covering the indignation he felt. “What? Moony, that’s ridiculous. We’re your family.”
“What kind of family sets a werewolf on someone?” Remus snarled.
“Rem, we apologized. I tried, okay? I just wasn’t fast enough. It was an accident. Besides, it’s been years. You have no idea what we’ve done since then—“
“I know exactly what you’ve done, Potter.” The hate had returned to his eyes and darkened his tone. “You and Sirius are the Order’s executioners. I guess it had to be someone since you don’t have a wolf to do your dirty work anymore, but you two revel in it. Unforgivable curses weren’t enough, so you just had to go and create your own.” Remus shook his head. “You’re worse than Fenrir.”
James scoffed. “You’d really rather have him than us?”
“Yes!” Remus roared. “I make my own decisions! We may not agree on a lot of things, but at least he doesn’t want me dead or caged.” He looked back to Sirius, who had been slowly making his way towards them. “Get out of here, and don’t come back. I don’t want you dead, but my loyalty lies with my pack.”He turned and started towards the den.
James cursed, running his hand through his hair. Well, they had their orders, and Lily never had to know. He took out his wand and murmured the unraveling curse.
Remus screamed and fell. Sirius lurched forward but was restrained by James’s arm. “No!”
James’s concentration broke and the spell dissipated.
Remus turned around, growling, one hand clutching at missing flesh around his right eye, now entirely orange and glowing with devilish delight. “Wolves don’t rip apart that easily, Potter,” he snarled. “You should’ve just killed me.”
some james potter + quidditch headcanons because idk *spins wheel* its a sunday
his quidditch prowess is down to 3 parts talent, 3 parts hard work and 1 part sheer dumb luck
pulls off risky, flashy moves that shouldn’t be possible almost without fail
…almost
there was the time he made a particularly spectacular dive for the quaffle and ended up in the hospital wing with a shattered collar bone, a fractured wrist and an assortment of minor sprains
but gryffindor still won and evans came to visit him on his sick bed and she was probably like, Really Impressed
so, really, he considers it a success anyway
he treats his broom like a child
he sleeps with it in his bed
he only lets two people in the entire world touch it: madam hooch (who he has mad respect for) and his former captain
sirius is like, weirdly jealous about this
though he wouldn’t admit it
sirius: why would I even WANT to touch your broom you fanatical weirdo
james: *waggling eyebrows* i can think of a few reasons
honest-to-god sobbed the first time his team won under his captaincy
sirius offers to hex his opponents for him, like, at least once a week, but james thinks thats just bad form
(and anyway, knowing that he’s beat them good and proper is a way better ego boost)
((though that doesn’t mean he’s opposed to a not-entirely-honourable tackle if the other team are playing dirty))
after he becomes captain he’s in practice so often that he wears his quidditch robes more often that his normal robes
this drives his professors up the wall but they stop trying to enforce uniform rules on him about a month in because they realise if they kick him out every time he turns up in quidditch robes he will literally miss half of his classes
((lily evans thinks that whoever invented quidditch robes was trying to ruin specifically her life like how is she supposed to concentrate on advanced vanishment theorems when james potter is strutting about with his hair and his arms and his quidditch robes))
anyway
his team have a love-hate relationship with him
when its 4:30am and freezing cold and raining and james is disconcertingly chipper, already running drills that make them crave the sweet embrace of death, it errs more on the hate side
as it does when he’s trying to enforce his ungodly 24-hour-spinach-smoothie-lockdown
‘come on, captain, if i don’t eat something solid in the next 30 seconds i think i might actually cry’
‘power through, meadowes, think of the antioxidants’
but after they’ve absolutely smashed a match and james has just come back from a hogsmeade raid and he’s plying them all with butterbeer and chocolate frogs whilst yelling at anyone who will listen how proud he is, they s’pose he’s not so bad
rumour has it he practiced snogging with a quaffle once
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