James loves loudly because it is the only way he can do it. But also, he firmly believes that this is the best way to do it.
For him, love needs to be yell, to be noisy. Love should be like an orchestra, a perfect melody where trombone, violin, saxophone, trumpet or flute synchronized. Love needs to be a constant show, not fake and full of artifice but a combination of amusement, laughter, kisses, smiles and dances. A splendid performance arranged in a song where only the lover and the love one knows the real meaning.
Love needs to be clumsy and messy; it needs to be perfectly imperfect. James is a loud person and so is his love. Because that is how he is, how he was raised. His parents love him loudly too. Always calling, always here, always proud of him. They never hide their love, because what is the meaning of loving in silence? Why should it be private? Hidden from the world’s vision? No, if James loves someone, then he wants to be loud. He wants to scream how he loves them, how they filled his heart with too many emotions that make his head dizzy. He wants to scream how full his heart is. And if that makes him a loud person, then he is proud of it. Because being loud doesn’t mean being violent or oppressing people.
He perfectly knows when to shut up, when to be quiet. When to swap loud words for loud actions. His hugs and gifts can be loud for him when he can’t speak. Somedays when words aren’t enough or too overwhelming, James continue to be loud. To show his love through actions despite having words. He consoled Sirius for hours and hours when he ran away from home. It was during their sixth year. That day when his best friend arrived, sobbing of interminable tears on his porch, he knew words wouldn’t be enough. So he made that trade again, he stayed silent and hug him as loud as he could because, right now, Sirius won’t believe or listen any of his words, so he wants his hug to do it for him, telling that he will be ok, that he is safe, he is love and appreciated here and that this house can love him as loud as he wants. And it always works.
If to be loved is to be seen, then he wishes to be the narrator on everyone’s story, he wants to observe everyone and everything for loving them correctly. He wants to be as loud as the sun, to illuminate every face he sees, and if that means staying silent then he will. Then he will learn how to love like a dog, he will give love to anyone who wants to, distributing pieces of his heart like billionaires with their money, both believing that they are infinite. But at the end one of them will die due to that. The dog is loyal, full of unconditional love and affection. It could kill for being loved too, but it won’t, it doesn’t bite, it is good like it been taught to. So, James continues to love and love and love repeatedly as loudly as he can. James is good, because that is how he was raised.
So, he gently loves, teaching how to cherish, how to treasure, how to adore but never how to lust, how to desire. His love was maybe loud, but it was pure. He makes the loner addicted to his presence and the popular craving for only his hands. In his eyes, you feel protected, you feel seen, and you feel warm. It is not intentional. He does not play with other people’s feelings. He just wants to show them love; he just wants people to see themselves like he sees them. He just wants to explain to them that they deserved love, and if his eyes, his hands, and his words can show them that, then he will continue to do so. He wants to make people happy, he wants to be their Sun, their source of happiness. He wants to be needed. He wants them to be craving him like resources they need to survive. He wants to be their water or their food. He wants them to stay, he wants to love them, the loner or the popular, the friend or the stranger, the smart one or the fool.
James loves like a dog, which is a contradictory thing since his patronus is a deer. But he doesn’t love like a deer. Deer’s love is beautiful, poetic and innocent but it’s physically impossible for him to do it like that. Deer are quiet, pretty and soft. His love is the contrary. He loves like a dog. It’s messy and desperate. He loves patiently, always waiting for something, but he does not know what. Loving so much like James hurts. It’s painful and heartbreaking. Always expecting but never receiving. But James is going great, he is good, he would never ask for something in return. He was taught to love unconditionally and loudly. To please everyone, to make people happy. Furthermore, he doesn’t know how to love like a deer.
Remus loves like a deer. Who could know that the beast could love so gently? Remus loves quietly and softly. The entire friendship between Remus and James is an antithesis. James was loud, Remus was quiet. Remus would appease someone just by a look or a touch. But it was never loud like James. He will breathe and will fade everyone problems with a simple movement of hand. He loves so easily and effortlessly while James always struggles, always tries. He wants to love like Remus, he wants to have his words, his gentle touch. He is sick of always being loud. So fucking sick of it. He wants love to be easy. He wants his brain to shut up, to calm down, and stop working for once. He wants to be Remus, to crawl into his skin, that both become one. But he also wants to love him. To console him, wipe his tears, care after his scars who increase at each flutter of lashes. He wants to be him and cherish him. “Are you not tired?” Remus said to him one day. It was another of those days when James and Remus stayed up at night and both couldn’t sleep. It was not rare for them to jump into one of their beds and talk for the rest of the night or until one of them fell asleep. “Remus it’s 4am of course I’m tired” “no, not that” “then what?” “I don’t know, you always pursue approvals from everyone. It must be exhausting.” He said in one breath while he casually brings the blanket near him, covering half of his face. He falls asleep a couple of seconds after that. Exhausting? If trying to please everyone was exhausting? Of course it is, but what could he do? Stop? How could he stop the only thing that comes naturally to him? The only thing that makes him feel human, full. The only thing that makes him useful.
James loves loudly because that is how his parents love. He loves deeply like his mother, he took her strength, her sensibility, her way to read minds and heals souls. He loves passionately like his father, he took his positivity, his empathy, his way of fixing things that would be considered broken. He is his parents’ child; he took what made them the sweetest and strongest people he ever met. However, it never feels right for him. He has always this overwhelming sensation, a weight along his throat. Like someone grabbed his neck and pushed him into the ground. A sensation like a hand holds aggressively his heart and plays with it. A hand who amuses itself by giving his heart to whoever wants it. His heart doesn’t belong to him anymore and maybe it has never been his since the day he understands that people appreciate him a lot more when they have it in their hands. It makes him want to throw up when he sees them playing with it, yet he never stops them, letting them squeeze and wring his heart as long as they wanted. How could he end up here? How could he let this happen this far? How can someone who is created by so much love be so demanding of affection? He just wants to love them.
No. It’s not true. He wants them to love him. He’s craving it. He wants them to see him, appreciate him, desire him, adore him, worship him, cherish him. Anyone, he would let anyone enter just to be loved. Just to feel warm and for once in peace. Just for his head to be empty, without words who tangle and detangle. He doesn’t want to be loud anymore; he just wants silence.
That is why he loves her so deeply.
Because she shuts his brain with a smile, appeases his headache with a laugh and sorts the words in his minds by simply asking a question. James was not such a believer, but he firmly believes that she came from heaven.
Lily Evans is the name of an angel, he knows that. And as an idiot he will tell her, he will try to love her loudly. But Lily does not like noisy things. She likes to read and study with Remus in the library. She likes to silently walk into town. Lily likes to observe, to soak with whatever surrounding her. She hates loud things.
She hates loud things.
She hates loud things.
How can she hate loud things when James only knows how to love loudly? She needs to love James because James needs to be loved by her. It is now a necessity for him, because he feels like he is about dying. He wants her to save him. He desperately wants her love. He wants her to tell him he is ok, that nothing is wrong with him. He yearns her touch, not impure thoughts, just a hand in his hair, just a hand skimming his cheek. Because he is convinced that this hand would never hurt him, would never play with his heart like the others. Her hand will be gentle, soft, full of the best intentions. He is already loyal to her even if she is not his yet.
At this moment, when his eyes catch hers, James tries for the first time to love quietly, to love like a deer like Remus, to be soft, to be attentive. He tries to read poems and books, but words do not make sense for a brain as full and loud as his. He is now hopeless. What can he do ? He feels like he is stuck. He profoundly wants her to notice him. But he only addresses her with loud words and loud actions, and she rejects him every time. It amuses Sirius and Peter a lot though. They probably think that it is only a crush, a phase or he intentionally acts like a fool around her to make everyone laugh. And he can’t be mad at them for believing this because he is always loud.
As for Remus, he chooses to stay silent, keeping his words and his thoughts for himself like always. But in his mind, he is angry, terribly angry. Why does he keep looking at her ? He loves his loud words. He learned how his brain works, how he acts and every piece of his soul. He knows him by heart and can describe every part of him. Remus loves like a deer but he fell in love with a dog. He learned to appreciate loud sounds and now he is addicted to it. But James loves Lily and Lily fears noise, so James tries to be quiet. But what is a loud thing if it is silenced ? It disappears. So, he is angry. For the first time he deeply wants to be loud, to know how to yell, to be noisy. He wants to play an entire orchestra, and every note of the song would mean I love you. He will play trombone, violin, saxophone, trumpet or flute. He will learn to be loud if James wants to. But Remus loves like a deer. Remus is quiet and reads poetry and books. Remus studies with Lily in the library. Remus is not James and above all Remus is not Lily. So, he stays silent.
As for James, he keeps looking at her, at each corridor, at each class they have together. He sees her everywhere, in the book he took at the library, in the café he went to while walking into town, in his dream, in the trees surrounding Hogwarts or in the paintings hanging along the stairs. Each thing is a reminder of her when he can’t see her. Sirius said to him that he is a hopeless romantic but that is not how he would describe himself. He is not a hopeless romantic, he is just deeply and passionately in love with Lily Evans. Because while he is occupied to be the Sun of others, she is his. The word love is now a euphemism for what he feels for her, because it is so much deeper than just love. It is a dependence but not in a bad way. She is his air when he can’t breathe, she is his light when he can’t see, she is the arms who keep him on earth when he felt like going. Lily is a saint. An angel. She heals his soul by doing nothing such as helping him with his homework.
Lily is sweet, smart and complex. She is a mix of all the most beautiful things in the world. Lily is not boring; she is full of interesting facts about everything and everyone. If she could, she would talk for hours and hours about a book she has just finished. James would gladly let her talk. Lily is quiet but her soul takes all over space, encompassing everyone nearby in a warm hug. Her soul is like fucking hug. She is the definition of home. She is quiet but she makes people safe by protecting anyone and everything, to the first grade student to Severus or to the poor animal to the scariest creature. And it perfectly resumes how she is. Lily has a big heart and has no shame to show it. Indeed, even being little, she is not afraid to fight.
She is courageous, fearing nothing. She is kind and gentle, finding beauty in everything except herself. It was not a secret to any person that knew her, even a little, that Lily despised herself. She hates her body more than anything. Her worst enemy was inside her head and kept telling her horrible things. She hates her curves, too round, too big for her. She hates her thighs, who rub when she walks. She hates her arms, too big, making her arms soft. But James doesn’t understand this hate, her curves, her thighs and her arms, are what makes him fall deeper in love with her. For him, she looks like a goddess. A goddess that would convert him into all kinds of belief. A goddess that he would worship at every moment of the day. Lily is the kind of girl that you can’t let go away. She is too precious, too important.
When, after months of courting, she agreed to go on a date together, he couldn’t be happier, and he knew that it was his only chance. You don’t play with Lily; you don’t make her waste time. And for the first time he didn’t try to be quiet or loud, he only talked, and she gladly listened. When he saw how she looked at him, he knew that it was what he had been craving for all those years. He didn’t care if people loved or liked him now, as long as Lily kept looking at him like that. As long as Lily agrees to be in his life, he knows that he will be ok. He knows that his heart won’t hurt him anymore, that his brain will stay at peace, words will stay organized. James loves loudly; Lily loves quietly. She is not as scared of noisy things now and he does not want to love like a deer anymore. He gladly loves like a dog because now he has someone that loved him in return, he has a Sun.
As for the beast who loves like a deer, the world collapses when he sees them kissing for the first time and it collapses again when he sees them holding hands in the great hall, smiling at each other. But it does not matter anymore. He predicted how it would end a long time ago; it was just too painful to believe it. It was written, a beast who loves like a deer is a paradox. It was writing that the beast would kill and devour the deer. It is the deer’s fault; it was too weak. Now the beast is destined to be lonely. Without knowing that another dog would pray every night that he looks at him and notices him.
Maybe in another life because in this, it would be a sin.