James' POV
“Be safe, won’t you?” Sirius had murmured earlier that morning, wrapping an arm around James, who had welcomed the familiar sensation to drown out his unsteady breathing, ignoring the tight coil in his chest.
“Of course I will.” he promised Sirius, grinning at the way his best friend seemed to be watching him board the chariot rather anxiously. “Relax, Pads. You look like you’re seeing your husband off to war or something.”
Sirius’ bark of laughter was infectious, and James had found himself laughing with him, feeling relieved that he was like himself enough to crack a joke again, despite having felt like someone different entirely throughout the whole morning. His old trick of counting knucklebones hadn’t worked like it usually did at calming him down, and did almost nothing to steady his trembling hands.
“Prongs!” Sirius had yelled when the chariot was almost out of sight, and James turned to find him standing in the middle of the road, arms raised aloft. “Come back to me in one piece, yeah?”
Looking back at it now, James really, really wished he’d brought Sirius with him, just like how so many other princes had brought companions, too. Both of his parents were here, and he loves them, truly, and yet even they couldn’t make James laugh away the tremor in his chest the same way Sirius could.
It wasn’t that James was afraid of death, or getting hurt - in fact, he’d accepted that those two things were essential parts of life quite some time ago. It was the fact that James was absolutely fucking terrified of watching the death and pain of others, and even more so to be the one who causes it. Because, well, the thing that the so-called ‘golden boy’ did best was making others happy; nothing lightened James’ heart more than seeing someone smile, and knowing that he was the one who caused it. Killing people certainly did not make them happy.
He wasn’t quite sure why he’d agreed to attend this tournament in the first place, apart from the fact that he had run out of things to do back at home (him and Sirius seemed to have climbed every tree there was to climb), and was growing increasingly restless.
Okay, well, he did know the reason. He just wasn’t entirely proud of it.
He wanted to prove a point - to earn glory, essentially. Not for himself, seeing as he couldn’t really see the point, but rather for his parents, for his people. Did that make him sound like a complete martyr? Gods, he hoped not. Seriously, though, James could think of nobody else he loved as much as he loves his parents (Sirius being an exception), and both them and his people had given him so, so much. It was time he gave something back, and winning the tournament seemed like a good start.
As James entered the amphitheatre, dressed in light armour and helmet hanging loosely in his arms, he swallowed the thick bile piling in his throat. Everything would be fine - he couldn’t remember the last time someone had bested him in a duel throughout the whole of Athens, and as long as he scrubs away the mental images that are sure to haunt him post-fight, he’ll be okay. Won’t he?
The first thing James learns about Horace Slughorn was that he possessed a very throaty, very loud and very infuriating voice. The second thing he learns is that he likes to say the words ‘my word’ and ‘oho’ a lot. So much that James was quite sure half the stands became quite convinced that they were no longer words.
Approaching his first fight, James found it increasingly difficult to ignore the way his lungs seem to tighten until it was almost impossible to breathe, and was so focused on trying to force himself to calm down that he misses every single thing Slughorn says, apart from the part where he bellows out James’ title, earning them several ear-splitting cheers from the crowd. And there, James could feel his muscles relaxing, all of the tension escaping as he loses himself in the blurs of chaos and splashes of colour throughout the stands. This, he reminded himself, this was why he was doing this.
The smile he flashes to his competitor (the Prince of what again??) probably did much more to steady himself than the armoured gladiator standing before him; James couldn’t decipher the other man’s emotions with his helmet firmly over his head. A win is a win, though.
The fight was probably the closest to losing James Potter had ever come, with the other prince being precise and calculated with his hits, and quick and nimble at dodging James’ - there was also a strangely sly air about him, like he was watching James’ every move, watching for weaknesses, for his tactics that could be used against him. However, despite all his efforts and cleverness, James could tell that the other prince was tiring out - inevitable, given the amount of fights he seemed to have participated in prior.
It wasn’t too long before the other boy slipped up. It was barely there, barely visible if his competitor had been anyone but James, but this was the boy who had been brought up and trained around the best warriors throughout Greece, and so he noticed. He also managed to hook his leg through the prince’s, and press down hard behind the joints of his knees, forcing him to drop to the ground, knocking his helmet down next to him in the process.
And so there was the other boy, on his knees on the sandy ground of the arena, James' sword to his throat.
The first thing that James processed was that the boy had pretty eyes. Like, really pretty. Without his helmet on, James could see that the green in his eyes were like pools of water on a bright, hot summer’s day, and part of James really, really wished he could drown in them and never resurface. The second thing James realised was that the stands seemed to have fallen dead silent, and looking around, he found that almost every single person was focused on the pair of them, there in the arena. What were they waiting for? This was it, wasn’t it? The en-
Oh. Right.
He blinked, registering the fact that he still had the sword pinned to the other boy’s throat, and yet didn’t seem to have moved an inch. James was meant to press hard enough to suck the life out of the prince, to pause the beating of his heart until there was no pulse left in his chest. Maybe if he just closed his eyes, he could…
No, he couldn’t.
James was no murderer, no matter how much life and fate required him to be. He couldn’t take this boy’s life, whoever he was, couldn’t slit his throat the way he’d watched so many other warriors do.
“What are you doing?” the boy kneeling before him hissed, blood dripping from his cheek where James had cut him earlier.
James was too weak, wasn’t he? What was he doing in this tournament in the first place, if he couldn’t even finish off his victory in one duel? His parents were watching in the stands, they must be so so confused, just like he was, oh gods, what was he doing? The boy was right to ask, because James didn’t even know the answer himself.
James gritted his teeth. He couldn’t panic - not now, not in front of thousands of bated breaths and watching eyes. He returned to his habit of counting knucklebones, wishing really, really hard that it would work like it usually does.
One.
Two.
Three.
It was on the fifth count that James had calmed down enough to realise that the other prince could’ve easily taken advantage of his hesitation, considering James hadn’t hurt him nearly enough to the point where he couldn’t get up. Staring back at him, the other boy’s pink lips were pressed into one thin line, but James found some form of confusion (and was that curiosity?) written in his eyes. Looking at him now, there was something oddly familiar about him, although vague enough that James couldn’t quite place what.
“Do it, then!” the green-eyes boy murmured, glaring up at James.
“What?” He hoped he sounded as confused as he felt.
“This is no time to be chivalrous. Finish me off, the way you’re supposed to. I’m sure your fan club wouldn’t think any less of you.”
Huh?
“What fan club?” James frowned.
The boy’s pretty lips turned upwards into a mocking sneer, making James freeze at the spite written across his face. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“I really, really don’t-”
Everything else fell out of his mind as James was overtaken by panic by the way the other boy grabbed the tip of James’ sword, seeming to cut his palm in the process, and lurch it toward his throat. His reflexes kicked it, and James automatically veered the sword further back towards the green-eyed man, taking a deep stab at the prince’s left arm instead. Deep, painful, and rather bloody, but not enough to kill him. The boy’s lips parted into a single word:
‘Fuck.' before he collapsed onto his back, his hand gripping James’ sword, which was still stuck into his arm.
James stood up, and was surprised that his legs still seemed to work despite how numb he felt. The crowds exploded into noise, although the whole world seemed fuzzy to James, whose ears didn’t seem to function the way they used to. He stepped back, far, far away from the heap of a boy with pretty green eyes in the arena, surrounded by medics who had rushed in to help him. Vaguely, he could hear Slughorn’s protests in the background, and feel a gentle touch on his arm - was that his mother?
“I shouldn’t have come.” he could hear himself saying. “I shouldn’t have come. Why did I come?”
“Shh. Shh, it’s okay, agapi̱méni̱.” Yep, that was his mother, then. “No one will blame you for sparing a Prince of Crete.”
Wait. The prince of what?