Intro
Contrary to popular belief James Potter can’t remember the first time he saw Lily Evans. All he knows is one day he had a cloudy dream of becoming a quitch star and the next he could clearly see a family of visually impaired red-heads. For James, there was no way around it, Lily Evans was it for him.
When he was younger his parents would tell him he’d fall in love one day and get married and they’d be together until the end of time. James was six years old and remembers feeling like forever was a tedious, looming thing. However, after Lily Evans came into his life he knew he would have forever with this girl, and it would never feel like enough.
James usually remembered the first time he met important people in his life. Sirius for example. James had sat in the first compartment on the Hogwarts Express that had a nervous-looking first-year. He remembers smiling brightly despite being sad to leave his parents. He wanted to comfort his fellow newcomers and knew he couldn’t do that if he was still crying. Sirius had ear length, black hair, a red splotch on his face, and was wearing a sour expression.
“Are you the child of Apollo or something?” Sirius asked in a voice somehow posher then James’s own.
James promptly asked who Apollo was, and no he was Euphemia Potter’s son. Apollo turned out to be the god of the sun, and the boy, Sirius, was named after a star in the sky, like the rest of his family. When they were both sorted into Gryffindor that night it felt like fate. From then on the students at Hogwarts would rarely see one without the other. James had finally found the brother he had begged his mum for.
James grew up with Marlene and Peter, his mother had tutored the three of them until they were old enough for Hogwarts. James has a vague memory of being introduced to a shy Peter and a loud Marlene. They soon became his family as well.
Remus was harder to become friends with, he was quiet and rough around the edges. The first time James had seen him was when he was being sorted into Gryffindor. He was tall and skinny, with sandy hair and a pink scar on his cheek. Remus only really talked to James for the first week, but only to appease James’s onslaught of questions. It wasn’t until Sirius had begun to make an effort that Remus was incorporated into their small group of friends.
From then on out it was him, Sirius, Remus, and Peter against the world. There wasn’t a doubt in James’s mind that these would be the best men in his wedding, the uncles to his children, and that they would grow old knowing each other. They were the Marauders. It was hard to imagine anything could get in the way of that.
James wasn’t worried about the fact that he couldn’t remember meeting Lily. It was more that he couldn’t really remember what it felt like to live without her stubborn and beautiful presence in his life.
Lily was smart, smarter than him, and worked harder than most people he had ever met. James often would force Sirius to trudge down to the library with him just so he could watch her devour book after book. She also had a radiant type of beauty, something about her red hair, green eyes, and pale skin just made her glow around the edges. Every time James looked at her he felt blinded. She was also kind, and when she loved someone, fiercely loyal. Her love seemed so big that sometimes James felt like he could reach out and touch it.
She wasn’t perfect though, she was stubborn to a fault. One time after he had pulled a particularly vicious prank on Snape she refused to talk to him for a month until he apologized to the git. Lily was also quick to judge without a second chance. The first time she had met Sirius he had made fun of her orange hair, calling them carrots, and it took her until fourth year to give him a second chance. James struggled with this, how could she not see that people were both good and bad at the same time, the good just almost always outweighed the bad. However, James came with his own flaws, so he tried not to judge people too harshly.
He thinks she doesn’t take his affection seriously (no pun intended) enough, like she thinks it’s a joke, and granted he was behaving like a right arse for the first five years of their schooling. This year he was going to change that. But ever since he had met Lily Evans, James has genuinely not been able to picture his life with anyone else.
It’s sixth year, and James thinks this will be his year to finally woo Lily Evans as Sirius calls it. After the whole prank incident, James had finally done some reflecting and has determined three things.
One: no one is truly guilty or innocent in the world. For example, Sirius Black, his best friend, was able to disregard the feelings of Remus in favor of his own will. And Severus Snape, someone who idolizes Voldemort and called Lily a mudblood, might not have been a victim in this situation.
Two: because no one is truly guilty or innocent, no one is solely good or bad. Some people might have more good in them but that does not mean they cannot do things that are bad or malintentioned.
And lastly three: you choose who you are, it's not something completely inherent. Now this is something James had always been vaguely aware of being best friends with Sirius Black. He’s watched him struggle to divorce his parent's ideals from his own. But Sirius’s actions following the prank showed James the type of person he strives to be versus the type of person his parents tried to make him.
It had been an interesting summer. Sirius had come to live with the Potters following a nasty beating from his mother. And James had watched Sirius do more chores than James had ever done in his life, grovel at Remus’s feet, call Euphemia and Fleamont Potter Mum and Dad, and commit himself to rid himself of his parent's pure blood ideals.
By the end of the summer, all had been forgiven and Sirius and Remus were closer than ever. All would be well in James Potter’s world, as long as he could get Lily to admit her feelings for him and they could ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after, or whatever the muggles say.