Are you gonna let me in?
James woke up the next morning due to his alarm loudly blaring through his apartment. Reluctantly he got out of bed and made himself breakfast. While eating he remembered the weird incident last evening, but brushed it away as a weird dream. Just then his phone vibrated with a new message.
Moons
moons: good morning remember its your first day today wouldn’t come across good if you slept in
prongs: yes i know that moony thanks for the reminder but im an adult now remember
moons: not much of a morning person I see, well I was just making sure you were awake you developed kind of strange sleeping habits since yk…
prongs: thank you moony you really dont have to worry about me
moons: im not worried just being a good friend
prongs: sure sure well, see you at work
moons: yeah see you then
James knew Remus was right. He used to be a morning person back in school. He annoyed everyone by waking up at ungodly hours to run some laps around the football pit. Then when he got elected captain he would make his whole team get up with him. That habit had stayed even after school. Getting up early to run. It just cleared his head and he always felt more ready to face another day. But after Regs passing he didn’t really get any sleep anymore. He and Remus took shifts in helping Sirius sleep through his nightmares. When Sirius finally got a bit better and managed to sleep through the night most times, James sleeping habits were already broken. He was unable to fall asleep most nights, which lead to him sleeping til late in the day after he finally managed to find sleep.
But that habit had to change. He had a new job now. Originally he wanted to be a professional football player. He even got accepted into some fancy sport collage with a focus on football and fitness in general, but he needed to drop out to help Sirius. Looking back it was better that way. He just didn’t have as much fun playing football as he used to before it became so serious and professional. Now he was kinda at a loss for what to do with his life. He thought about applying for collage, but he didn’t even know what subjects he was interested in.
But right now he gad a job to get to. So, enough dwelling in the past and questioning his life. Fully ready now, James shrugged on his jacket and grabbed his car keys. He put his motivation playlist on while driving to the small café.
The three broomsticks was a cozy, little coffee shop near King’s Cross. James parked his car on the employees only parking lot and got out. He stepped in the café through the back door and promptly walked into someone.
„Oh my god I‘m so sorry I-I didn‘t see you there-“, James spluttered, but was interrupted by a gruff voice: “Woah chill man, It’s okay just watch where you‘re going next time.“ “Oh, alright“, James replied a bit dumbfounded. Still confused by the walk in he went to find Remus. He smiled brightly when he finally spotted him in his Grandpa sweater, brown cord pants and burgundy apron with the three broomsticks logo imprinted. He was currently hustling with the coffee machine to finish an order. “Hi, Rems”, James approached him. “Oh hi James”, he nodded a bit distractedly, “just grab an apron and name tag from the back and then help me out here in the front it’s a bit busy right now so I’m just going to introduce you to the others when it’s a bit quieter.” “Alright, sir”, James mock saluted.
Remus was right it was a very busy morning in the coffee shop. It wasn’t really how James imagined it would go. Actually it was kinda stressful. He worked the counter together with Remus while the other three went around the coffee shop taking orders and brining orders to the tables. He was happy that he didn’t need to do that job on his first day, but his head was still spinning from keeping track of all the orders, when it had finally calmed down a bit.
“Good job, dude. On my first day I took five mental breakdown toilet breaks, because I got so overwhelmed by the morning rush.”, a black girl that was one of his coworkers patted him on the back. “Uh, thanks…?”, he replied not knowing the others name. “Shit, sorry, man. I’m Dorcas.”, she said after realizing why James stopped. “Well, thanks Dorcas. I’m James and honestly, if I knew that was an option I probably would’ve taken six mental breakdown breaks. This morning rush is really something. Is this like a regular thing here?”, James eased into the conversation. “Oh yeah especially during business days lots of people rush through to grab a coffee or breakfast to survive their boring office jobs”, Dorcas laughed. Just then Remus popped up, coming through the employees only door. “Ah, I see you’ve met Dorcas already.”, Remus analyzed the situation, “Well, I was just about to introduce you to everyone.” James just nodded and Dorcas smiled warmly at him. “Alright! Everyone this is James.”, Remus introduced him, “James these are Evan and Pandora. They’re twins.”, Remus pointed to the two blond coworkers. James didn’t even notice how similar they looked, but now that he saw it, it made perfect sense, that they were related. “Well, hi. I guess we’ll be working together from now on”, James awkwardly added. Evan just growled in reply, while Pandora smiled warmly at him. “Don’t take it too personal. He’s a bit mean right now. We just lost our best friend a year ago and he’s been a bit mean and bitter since.”, Pandora explained to him. At this all of their eyes cast over with a sad shadow. “Oh, I’m so sorry. A friend of mine lost his brother also a year ago and I don’t really know why I’m telling you this, because you probably already know from Remus and-“, James started rambling, but got interrupted by Evan, surprisingly. “It’s alright, man. Could’ve just left it at sorry, but we’re sorry about your friend’s brother too.”, Evan stopped him.
Remus cleared his throat to try and break the awkward silence that erupted. “Okay, um one more thing James. Rosmerta, our boss, is on vacation right now, which makes me in charge right now, which makes me your boss”, Remus looked at him with a serious expression. “Alright, understood, Mr. Lupin.”, James answered with a smug smile. Remus just shook his head in defeat.
The rest of his shift went pretty calm. At some point a guy with brown hair with green highlights and lots of piercings walked in to pick Evan up from his shift. Pandora later explained to him, that that was his boyfriend Barty. His midday break came and went. True to his words Sirius came to pick Remus up and they had a quick chat, but he was pretty busy, because he had to go to some guy that wanted to buy a painting for his collection. James didn’t really understood what Sirius job was most of the time. He just got that he was always pretty busy, meeting important people.
Now it was only Pandora, Dorcas and him left in the coffee shop. There weren’t really costumers coming in anymore and the day started to drag itself like to long chewed on bubblegum, until-. “Oi! How’s it going Jamsie? First shift, eh.”, Marlene burst into the coffee shop scaring some of the costumers. Dorcas threw her an annoyed look. “Shh, you’re scaring the costumers”, James told her noticing Dorcas expression. “Naw, you’re no fun Prongsie”, Marlene pouted. “Anyway let’s test your skills. What is the most complicated coffee order you’ve got?”, Marlene asked with a comically fake, over the top thoughtful expression. “A salted caramel, cream latte”, Dorcas helped her out, grinning devilish at him. “Oh, this is not fair. You two are ganging up on me.“, James exclaimed. „We so are“, Marlene smiled a
conspiratorial smile at Dorcas. „I like this one. What‘s her name?“, she asked him with sparkling eyes. „Marlene this is Dorcas. Dorcas this is Marlene“, James sighed. „Well, pleasure to meet you Dorcas“, Marlene said offering her her hand to shake. Dorcas took the offer and shortly answered: „You too, Marlene.“ And was he imagining things or was there a matching blush blooming on the girls faces.
Smiling to himself he made Marlene her ridiculously complicated order, that he knew for a fact she wouldn‘t have chosen if she wasn‘t trying to annoy him. „One salted, caramel latte for 8,50£“, James smirked at Marlene. „8,50£?!“, she exclaimed shocked. „Yeah, well the most complicated one is also the most expensive one“, James grinned. „Oh, I hate you so much, you bastard“, Marlene glared back, reluctantly handing him the money. James heard Dorcas snickering beside her. „Love you,too“, James blowed Marlene a kiss. She just flipped him off and went to claim a table.
Marlene sipped her coffee occasionally throwing curious glances at Dorcas and then she was gone again. Pandora bit her goodbyes some times later and left Dorcas and James to close the shop. „Well, seriously you did a good job, James. The costumers liked you and you didn‘t take any mental breakdown breaks, that‘s a huge achievement“, Dorcas praised him. „Thank you, am I done than?“, James replied a bit awkwardly. „Yeah, you can go now I‘m just gonna turn off the lights, close the door and all that. Bye, James“, Dorcas released him. „Yeah, bye Dorcas“, James said his goodbyes.
If James was honest with himself, he wasn’t ready to go home yet. He wasn’t ready to face this big, lonely apartment again. So he decided to face call Sirius to distract himself. The phone rang three times before Sirius picked up.
“Hey Prongs, miss me already. We’ve just seen each other today. Maybe the people telling us we’re too codependent are right.”, Sirius laughed through the phone.
“You can’t really say we’ve talked much today, with you being so busy.”, James joked back. “Well, you know how it is“, Sirius vaguely replied. James didn‘t know. James didn‘t understand the first thing about Sirius job, but he asked enough times to know he‘ll never understand. Still he answered:“Yeah, I know. Well, anyways how are you? Already regret you decision of kicking me out?“ „Oh you wouldn‘t want to live with Moony and me. You poor ears would find no sleep“, Sirius snickered. „Okay, way too much information. Keep the sex talk to a minimum please. I‘ve heard and sadly seen enough things in our time charing a dorm“, James winced at the rather embarrassing memories of catching his roommates during the act. Sirius just laughed harder at that. „I gotta go, James. So sorry, but our lunch together this Thursday still stands?“, Sirius told him apologetically. „Yeah, sure. I look forward to it. See you then“, James sighed. With that the phone made a beed noise and the call ended.
Everything was quiet again. For the rest of the drive James put on some music. James knew his friends only meant well, but he couldn‘t help but feel like a toddler that the parents forgot in the grocery store. He knew he needed to be able to live for himself and that he couldn‘t just forever stay roommates with his friends or live with his parents. All his friends had a job or studied or had some other plan in life, while he was just lost. He didn‘t know what he wanted to do with his life. The thought that right now was the time to decide what he would do for the rest of forever until he was old enough to go in pension, was just too overwhelming for James. So he just turned the music on louder as he drove the last fifteen minutes to his apartment.
Too exhausted from his first day at his new job, James didn‘t do much that evening. He just turned on his television to a random sit com and ate the left overs from yesterdays dinner. After that he got ready for bed and quickly fell asleep.
As it turned out his sleep wouldn‘t last long as he woke up in the middle of the night. He thought he heard that knocking noise from last night again. This time he pinched himself to make sure it wasn‘t a dream and then turned on his lights. Squinting against the new brightness, he tried to locate the noise. It seemed like it was coming from the door. „Are you gonna let me in?“, a strange, but also somehow familiar voice asked. And James scared shitless, but also too curious for his own good got up and went to open the door.
He let out a gasp when he saw who or what was standing behind it. „R-Re-Regulus?“, he whispered.