Last Time I Wanted to Sing
– - – - – - – - – - – - –
“James?” Barty asked.
“Yeah?”
“Will we still be friends when you, Peter, and Marlene get new friends this year?”
It was two days before the older three were going to go off to Hogwarts and Barty was sleeping over at James’ house, trying to get used to the fact that his best friend would be leaving soon.
“Of course Bar!” James said, “We’ll never stop being friends!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. We’ll be back for the holidays before you know it and we will tell you all about Hogwarts. Besides, you will make your own friends too when you join us next year, that doesn’t mean that you will forget about us, does it?”
Barty was feeling a little bit better after James reassured him but he still had a pout on his face. “What if everybody there is cooler than I am?” he murmured.
“Nobody is cooler than you,” James replied, moving from the bean bag he was sitting on to go and sit next to Barty. He pulled the other boy into a side hug. “I promise.”
“And- will we still be friends when we are all grown up? Y’know, when you’re working at your parents’ bakery and I have taken over my dad's office.”
“Yes. And we’ll go on adventures together,” James confidently said.
“Really?” Barty asked, wide-eyed at the idea of adventures.
“Mhm. Since we’ll be adults, no one can stop us.”
“Not even our parents?”
“Especially not our parents.”
“Then I want to grow up as soon as I can! So that we can go to totally awesome places together!”
“Me too!” James said, a huge smile on his face. “Imagine the fun we’ll have! I can’t wait!”
– - – - – - – - – - – - –
James hated growing up. He realized this again with every passing birthday. He didn’t want to get old. He wanted to stay the little naive kid he used to be, but it was far too late for that now. Growing up only brought sadness, he had noticed. He had lost half of his friends as everyone grew up. He had watched his parents’ health deteriorate. He had witnessed his brother in everything but blood get hurt by his own ‘parents’. Or people who were supposed to be his parents, anyways. The main idea was; growing up sucked.
That didn’t mean that James didn’t enjoy his birthdays and look forward to them, of course. For a sentimental guy like him, birthdays were the best. His friends would come to visit and his phone would never stop ringing.
Today was no different. Sirius insisted on closing the bakery early so that they could spend time with Mary and Lily who had gone to visit James’ parents while waiting for the store to close, and James agreed for once, surprising both Sirius and himself. He just didn’t want the girls to have come all that way for his birthday and then not be able to spend time with him at all.
So they closed the bakery and headed home around 12 pm. They were pulled into the kitchen by an excited Effie the second they entered. She had waited long enough for the present-giving to begin and she wasn’t about to waste one more minute.
“James! Happy birthday,” Remus said, giving the birthday boy a hug.
“Remus! I thought you had work today.” The surprise was evident in James’ voice.
Remus gave him a pointed look. “You thought I’d miss your birthday? Ridiculous.”
James chuckled. He didn’t have time to respond as Sirius pushed him into a chair and plopped a gift onto his lap.
“Enough talking, open the presents,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
James smiled at his best friend's impatience. “Okay okay,” he agreed. “I’m guessing this is from you?”
“Yep.”
James started to carefully unwrap the bow around the box, ignoring everyone’s sighs. He didn’t like tearing into packages and he’d much rather spend time unveiling them attentively. His friends made fun of him for that but he didn’t care. He enjoyed paying special attention to each person’s gift.
He finally got the box open and peered in. Inside sat a scrapbook that had a picture of James and Sirius in the second year with smiles on their faces that almost reached their ears plastered on its cover. James flipped through the notebook and realized that each page contained 2-3 photos of them and a few lines written by Sirius about whatever the pictures were. The more he looked at the book the more his eyes filled with tears and eventually, he flew from the chair he was sitting on to tightly hug Sirius.
“Siri,” he said, choked.
Sirius hugged him back with as much force and started rubbing his back. “Don’t cry, you sap.”
Remus, who was watching them with a gentle smile on his face, chimed in; “I don’t think you have the right to call him a sap after you hand-crafted a memory book for him.”
The raven-haired boy blushed at that and attempted to hide his face in James’ shoulder, who was paying no attention to the conversation and still hugging him.
“Don’t be mean Remus,” Lily scolded, smiling. “It is such a sweet present.”
“M’not sweet,” Sirius grumbled as he let go of James.
“Sure…” Lily, Remus, Effie, and Monty chorused. Mary muttered “Softy,” disguising it as a cough.
As the two hugging boys sat back down James pulled Sirius’ chair close and swung an arm over his shoulder, not wanting to be far away from the boy after the emotional gift he had given him.
The gift-giving process carried on with no other unusual presents. Remus had gotten him a small moon figurine referencing an inside joke they had about Remus being a werewolf. Lily had handmade him some clay rings alongside a bouquet from her shop and Mary had gifted him a new bag and some pins for said bag. James was so happy with all of his presents, but again he would have also been happy even if they had given him a trash bag. He just was glad he had loving friends.
After an hour of opening packages -thanks to James’ persistence in neatly opening each one- it was time for Effie and Monty’s. Monty handed his son a small rectangular box without saying anything and opted to slightly smirk when the boy looked at him in confusion.
“Open it,” he said.
James peeled the lid open and once again looked up at his parents in confusion.
“What is it?” Mary and Sirius said at the same time, eager to find out.
“It’s- a key?”
“A key? A key to where?”
“How should I know Sirius, I am as confused as you are.”
Effie smiled at her boys. She then reached out to take James’ hands into hers.
“My baby, it is the key to the old toy shop in the main street of the town,” she gently said, waiting for one of the kids to get what she was saying. It was no surprise to her when Remus and Lily’s faces lit up with understanding and excitement.
“To the old toy shop?” James asked, “Why?”
The reply came from Monty. “So that you can open another branch of the bakery like we always dreamed of.”
It was true, James had grown up with his parents' dream of opening up another branch of the bakery in a more bust location and it had also been a dream of his ever since. He had been saving up for it for the last two years but he had nowhere the amount necessary.
“What- how? How did you… How?” he asked, stuttering over the words.
“We’re getting old Jamie. We wanted to see you achieve this goal before we…” Monty started, not finishing the sentence when he felt James and Sirius’ panicked stares on him. “N-not that we are sick or something. Just… We wanted to do this for you son.”
James dashed towards Effie and Monty, almost knocking them down. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he repeated, choosing to ignore the last part of his dad's speech.
“You’re welcome, my baby. Always. Anything for you. Never forget how much we love you.”
“Don’t talk like that,” James sniffed, “Like-like you’re about to…” His lower lip was wobbling now.
His friends watched the scene before them with sad eyes and melancholic smiles. The overall mood in the room had changed in an instant. They could all see that James’ parents had gotten weaker and weaker with time and were nose-to-nose with their unforgiving demise. Yet, they didn’t want to think about it. It was impossible to imagine James without the unwavering pillar of support his parents were. On top of that, it was so so hard to envision Sirius losing another chance of happiness.
The heaviness in the air slightly lifted as Effie jumped from her seat, slightly coughing to hide her sniff, and clapped; “Time for cake!”
She quickly started getting out plates and cutting the cake as Lily swiftly got up from her own seat to help her. Meanwhile, Remus and Mary began chatting about something irrelevant just to distract Sirius and James from the solemn conversation earlier.
James wiped his eyes and leaned on Sirius’ shoulder as he tried to focus on the soft chatter in the room. It was his birthday, he was surrounded by people who he cherished, and he wasn’t going to allow himself to spend it grieving his alive parents. Everything would be fine.
Everything would be just fine.