James panted as he ran down the long corridors, his tie untied and falling down his open robes. He doubled over, out of breath and cursed, running his fingers through his hair, which was sticking up wildly in all directions. Of course, he would be the only one who was late to potions. Fucking hell, he was probably one of the only 5th years who was ever late to their classes at this point in the year, especially when their class was at 10:00 in the morning.
Bloody Sirius and his pranks.
James had woken up at the regular time for their dorm ( 7:00 for him, because it took at LEAST half an hour to get Sirius and Peter out of their beds) only to see the sky was still dark, and Remus, who usually got up at a similar time to him, was was still asleep. Confused, he assumed it was still the middle of the night and he fell back asleep. He realised shortly later when he woke up and it was still dark out that his curtains were spelled to look like they were open when they were in fact, closed, and his wand had been taken. He got up, figured out the counterspell for his curtains, and realised he was twenty minutes late to his first class of the day, Potions.
Halfheartly attempting to retie his tie, James gave up and tucked it into his pocket. James sprinted down the hall to potions, the paintings jeering silently from their fixed positions on the walls. When he made it down the marbled stone steps to potions, he threw open the door and flushed, all eyes jumping to him.
“ I see you have deigned to join us, Mr. Potter,” Professor Slughorn called from his position at the head of the class, hair sparked upwards like he had been struck by lightning because of his close proximity to the boiling potion beside him.
“ Right back at you, Sluggie” James replied as he sauntered over to his seat next to Remus, brushing off his previous embarrassment. Slughorn looked as if he wanted to respond, but then paused and decided not to engage in a foolish fight at that second. James looked behind him to see Sirius smiling at him mockingly from the table behind him to his right.
“ How was your nap Jamsie?” Sirius grinned at James from behind him as James resisted the urge to throttle him. Later, James mouthed at Sirius. Sirius simply blew him a kiss and turned back to Peter, who was concentrating on cutting some type of root-ish vegetable instead of his hands.
James turned towards Remus, who was staring down at his textbook in his lap, the pages standing out starkly against his patterned beige sweater and black trousers. “ So, Moony, what is on the menu for today?” James clapped Remus on the shoulder, and Remus swiped his hand off in return. Sirius and Remus had been partners at first, but Moony said that being partners with Padfoot was detrimental to his studies, and demanded to switch with Peter. Secretly, James thinks, he only wanted to switch because Sirius wouldn't stop flirting with him. But that was a conversation for another time ( and for Remus and Sirius to have alone as soon as they stopped being morons.)
“Use your eyes, why wont you,” Remus replied studiously, pointing to their cauldron and the one at the front of the class before launching himself back towards his textbook, peering over it as if it held the answer key to their quiz next week. James glanced over to their cauldron, which was bubbling and lavender in colour. He sniffed, taking in the scents of the classroom before pausing, befuddled. Where do I know that scent from, James wondered. He reached over, and poked Remus on the shoulder, not letting up until Remus looked up, and backing off when Remus gave him a pointed glare.
“ Is it just me or does it smell… odd in here,” James whispered, scrunching up his nose and taking a deep breath of the air around them. The environment around them was calm, with all the light in the classroom coming from the torches on the walls and a hint of daylight pouring through the big circular windows behind Slughorn's desk.
Remus glanced up towards him again, before stating “What does it smell like James?”. Remus turned to Sirius and Peter and grinned cheekily as James pondered in thought.
“It smells like…. Old parchment… Some type of nature thing I don't know, mint? It smells fresh, and…” His brow furrowed, confused. I know that I have smelled that last thing before… but where?
“It's bloody Amortentia, Prongs,” Peter blurted out, finching when Sirius spun back to him and glared.
“Way to go, Wormtail.” Siris smacked him atop his head with the textbook.
“Hey, I didn't want him to say something he would regret,” Peter mumbled, rubbing the top of his head and turning back to their own potion, which was turning a vomit-like shade of light green.
“You know you can say a lily James, everyone has known about your crush since first year!” Sirius crowed, laughing as he turned back to his cauldron. James glowered at him, before freezing, realising he knew the exact scent of lilies because he had given Lily perfume for her birthday that smelled like her namesake.
But this did not smell like that at all.
“James. James. James”Remus repeated, looking at him concerned. It seems as if he had reached the same conclusion as James himself had, but wanted to make sure it was alright. James shook it off, and turned bright red.
“ Well maybe this isn't accurate. What, am I going to trust our potion making skills?” James retorted, before grinning evilly. “ Well then Sirius, how about you tell us what you smelt in that potion of yours?”
Sirius jumped outwards, not one to ignore a challenge. He walked across the room to the cauldron at the front of the classroom,black hair falling from the small ponytail he used to tie up his long hair.
As Sirius busied himself, James glanced over at Lily, coming to terms with the inaccuracy of his supposed crush. Now that he was truly looking, it seems she wanted something or someone else as well, with how Lily was blushing as red as a tomato and sneaking peeks at Mary Macdonald, one of her dormmates.
But who? James just couldn't wrap his mind around the scent. He decided to take another whiff of his potion when he saw Remus go as white as a ghost out of the corner of his eye. Shit, James thought to himself.
“Bugger off, Prongs,” Remus hissed, staring at the boy at the front of the class, who was strutting back over to his table. Sirius swiped a hand through his hair, and sat down on his chair before turning to James and declaring, “I smelled daisies and vanilla perfume. It's got to be Emmaline.”
Remus hunched over his textbook further, glaring at nothing in particular.
-- -- -- --
James’s stomach growled at the top of its lungs, causing everyone in the classroom to stare at him. It was Charms, the second to last class before lunch. Today they were doing a class on the magical theory of Charms, which is far more boring than their regular, spell-learning classes. This boring class did little to help with his food problems.
Professor Flitwick cleared his throat, before continuing. Blushing, James glanced down at his stomach before glaring at Sirius, who was smirking from across the room. Due to the aforementioned prank, James hadn’t eaten in over 14 hours.
“Psst!” James heard from the table behind him. It was Lily.
He turned to her, wondering what could possibly be the matter. “What’s going on, Lils?” He asked before running a hand through his wild hair. Despite his realisation earlier in the day, the man still had to look presentable to his crush of five years.
Former crush, he meant.
She leaned towards him, her long hair landing on the back of his seat. Her green eyes peered at him in slight annoyance. She looks lovely today, James thought despite himself.
She leaned closer, placing a parcel into his hand. “I saved a biscuit from breakfast this morning,” She whispered.
James looked at her, dumbfounded.
“I just couldn’t stand that racket anymore,” Lily sniffed before picking up her quill and quickly jotting down the notes she had missed during that exchange, her red hair swishing in the wind generated by her movement.
James turned back around, taking a bite of the cold biscuit. Despite his hunger, he had a sharp pain inside of him. It was the pain of loss.
She truly doesn't smell like what I smelt in that cauldron, James thought with a sinking feeling. His hope was gone, along with the feelings he presumably had. Sneaking a final look behind him, he felt almost relieved despite his emotional turmoil.
Something told him it was going to be alright.
James took another bite of his biscuit, before taking a long look around the class. Everyone looked bored as hell, except for two people who were furiously taking notes like their lives depended on it: the redheaded girl behind him, and the young black haired boy two rows ahead to his right.
Ah, Regulus Black. An infamous character in Sirius’s past, who is an ever present mystery to James. They had been as thick as thieves before Sirius was a first year student, but then something changed. Sirius spent months of first year ranting about his younger brother, saving bits of food, notes, and mementos from their room to send to the boy. After he returned to school in January post break, it was like his brother had never even existed. The one time James could remember Sirius talking to or even mentioning that he had a sibling was on the train heading to school in their second year.
Regulus had passed by their train car, and Sirius had leapt up to follow him. Ten minutes later, Sirius returned with puffy red eyes and an expression that screamed “don’t talk to me.”
James had always been curious about what had happened, and about the boy in general. He was expressionless in the Great Hall, and seemed consistently cool and collected. His uniform always looked freshly laundered, and his hair fell perfectly in place. He always drank his tea with a ton of milk but no sugar. He was very intelligent, one of the most diligent students in their course. But James didn’t really know much about him.
Currently, he was taking notes while the majority of other students seemed to be contemplating death. He was hunched over his parchment, jotting down the information at a breakneck speed. His black hair was artfully tousled, and his green and silver tie was perfectly knotted. He was so perfectly at odds with his brother.
James glanced across the room, to where the older Black was sitting. With the leather jacket worn defiantly over his robes, the untied tie, and the long wild mane, the only similarity lay in their piercing grey-blue of their eyes and the jet black of their hair.
Even their classroom manner was at odds. James snorted to himself as he took in the way Sirius was laying his head down on Moony’s shoulder. His tongue lolled out of his mouth as he slept, and from his position at the back of the class James was pretty sure he could see a speck of drool on Moony’s woollen sweater.
Speaking of Remus in these moments, he was struggling. Despite his efforts to concentrate, Moony’s flushed ears and lovelorn looks were obvious to James. Just two weeks ago, it became clear that Remus has some type of feeling beyond friendship for Sirius. When James confronted him about it, he was sworn to secrecy due to Remus’s doubt in Sirius’s recuperation of romantic feelings.
From James point of view, he thinks that Remus should just kiss the boy. Sirius was such an oblivious idiot, he wouldn’t be able to tell that Remus likes him or that he likes Remus unless it kissed him in the face.
Remus was not pleased with that method of testing James’s hypothesis.
Nevertheless, he was in class right now. James jolted back into himself, realising he had missed a solid 10 minutes of notes. Plunking his quill into the inkwell, he started scribbling.
-- -- --
Despite his haste, it took James quite a while to complete his notes after class had ended. When he sheepishly explained why he had been distracted in class, he blamed his lack of breakfast. James wasn’t quite sure if Flitwick had believed him, but was certain that he wanted James outside of the classroom more than he wanted a truthful answer.
Outside of the charms classroom, James decided to take a small break from the world after his momentous morning. Spotting a broom closet just down the hall, he made a break for it before any other late students saw him.
James took a moment to observe his surroundings. It was not too small, and smelled slightly of mould. It was dark within the closet, and the only light came in from a crack underneath the door behind him. This cast shadows into the gloomy room. James saw a couple of broken brooms, a table that looked like it had been there since the 40s’, a figure in a white button down shirt, an old black tarp-
Wait.
“Hello?” James called to the figure, wondering if it was an actual human or if it was just his imagination.
The figure shifted, revealing jet black hair, piercing greyish blue eyes, and a silver and green striped tie.
“Hello, Potter,” Regulus sniffed, standing from his position crouched next to the table. His displeased reaction almost distracted James from the reddish, purplish bruise that was blooming on Regulus’s cheek.
“Hey, are you alright?” James forgot who he was with for a moment, distracted by the thought of someone being in pain. He reached his hand outward, just millimetres from Regulus’s cheek.
Regulus leaned inwards, before flinching and taking a step backwards. James hadn't even realised how close they had gotten until Regulus took a step backwards. “Just forget about it, Potter. It is none of your concern-”
“Hey, it is plenty of my concern,” James retorted, taking a step closer to Regulus despite himself. “Even if you were not Sirius’s litter brother- which you are- no one deserves to be in pain in a broom closet.”
Before mentioning Sirius, Regulus's eyes were open and filled with light for some reason, but they hardened at the mention of his older sibling. However, before Regulus could respond, James’s hand made contact with Regulus’s cheek, cupping it gently. James murmured a healing spell, feeling the warmth beneath his palm woosh into Regulus's soft, cold skin. The bright colours faded slowly, but despite their absence James remained stroking Regulus’s cheek with his palm.
For some odd reason, James thought he would stay there forever, just looking at Regulus. His eyes were closed, long lashes fluttering onto his pale skin. He smells good, James thought to himself. Regulus took a shaky breath inwards, before realising what was occurring and breaking contact once more.
“What happened, Regulus?”James uttered softly, not wanting to disturb the strange atmosphere of this moment.
“It was nothing, Potter. Just some stupid Griffindors being Griffindors,”Regulus responded in the same tone. “I can protect myself.”
“But should you have to?”James stared into his piercing eyes. Regulus stared back, before breaking eye contact with him.
“Doesn’t matter,”Regulus states, before fleeing the scene. James stood there for a moment.
What an odd day so far.