Some Sort of Brute
FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 3, 1971.
Puffy cotton clouds drift endlessly in the bright blue sky. The sun casts warm rays down on the castle grounds, intermingling with the breeze from the north to create one of the last truly warm days expected this September. In short, it’s a beautiful day for flying.
Not that the weather matters a lick to James. It could be freezing and rainy and dreadful and the boy would still be itching to get back on a broom. His broom, preferably.
It’s nothing less than a major bummer that first-years aren’t allowed to bring their personal brooms to school. James is certain that his Cleansweep Six is a much better ride than whatever old tree branch they’ll be working with here.
“What if I’m sick?” Peter frets on the way down to Flying Class. “You know I get sick. What if I try to fly a lap and I spew?”
Peter worries too much. James knocks their shoulders together in an attempt to transfer some of his excited energy over to his friend.
“Aim for the Slytherins.” James grins.
He hears a distinct harrumph behind them. A split second later, a head of fiery red hair barrels past him. His grin falls.
James is starting to think Lily Evans might not like him all that much.
It’s only been a day– two if you count the day on the train– but she seems to seethe anytime he so much as opens his mouth! Which, James doesn’t understand in the slightest. He’s a delight! Ask anybody!
Well... not anybody. Not the Slytherins, obviously. And clearly not Severus. But that’s fine. The dislike there is mutual.
The thing is: James doesn’t dislike Lily. He doesn’t even know her enough to dislike her! She’s an uptight little witch with terrible taste in friends and a knack for Potions. That’s simply not enough to base an opinion on. And James simply can’t fathom what information Lily thinks she’s gathered in just two days of knowing him to make her dislike him so.
Not that it matters. He won’t dwell on it. He’s already got his hands full trying to get his roommates to open up.
Sirius hasn’t budged. Honestly, he’s been a tougher nut to crack than expected. On the train, he seemed rather willing to be mates. He’d even insulted Severus on the boat when the beetle-eyed prick had gotten rude about Gryffindor. But ever since the sorting hat left Sirius’ head, he’d been sulky and strange.
That’s not nearly enough to deter James, of course, but it appears Sirius picked up on that fact yesterday. So, today, he’d made himself scarce.
Remus– for all the reading the boy does– had not been smart enough to follow Sirius’ lead. So, James will just focus on him for now.
Unlike Sirius, Remus doesn’t seem easily agitated. He’s quiet and ill at ease. A bit snippy on occasion, sure. But that’s nothing James Potter can’t handle.
Remus really does seem just a touch shy. James can fix shy. Just look at Peter!
“Have you ever flown before, Remus?” James asks. He’s found that Remus answers direct questions.
Remus shakes his head. “No.”
Like pulling teeth, talk with this one is.
“Why not?” James prods, squinting in the sunlight as they step out of the castle.
“Too many muggles about.” Remus shrugs. “Da’s never been a Quidditch man anyhow.”
“You live around muggles?” Peter asks wide-eyed.
Remus nods, setting his mouth into a thin line.
“Brilliant!” James says. He’s never actually met a muggle, but they’ve got plenty of muggle artifacts back home. His parents say it’s very impressive what the muggles manage to do without magic. James thinks the tellyvision is probably the most impressive, even though Papa won’t let him touch it without supervision.
Now he’s got a mate who’s lived so close to muggles that he couldn’t ride a broom. Thrilling!
The corner of Remus’ mouth twitches. It's the ghost of a smile. James smiles right back.
When the trio reaches the spot on the grounds where class will be held, his smile falters.
Shooting Stars? We’re meant to be flying on Shooting Stars? Might as well stay on the bloody ground.
The baby-brooms are lined up neatly in two rows. Nineteen in all.
They’re early for class– as James insisted they be– but they’re not the first group to arrive. No, that honor belongs to two Gryffindor girls standing on opposite sides of the field.
One of them is Lily Evans. She eyes them suspiciously as they approach. James makes a face at her. She doesn’t laugh.
He didn’t want to stand near her anyways. The wind is coming from the north, making the spot next to the other girl ideal.
That’s exactly where he goes. Peter files in beside him. Remus follows.
“You can just ask me if you’ve got any questions, Remus.” James grins.
Remus fixes him with a strange look. “Thanks.”
“You can!” James insists.
“Right.”
“What’s that look for?”
“No offense, James, but I think if I really need to ask a question, I’ll speak to the professor… rather than another first-year.”
Right. Remus has never seen James in action.
“Not just any first-year!” James reminds him. “Me!”
Peter giggles, the twat.
“Oi! Don’t laugh. You’ll give him the wrong idea.”
Peter giggles harder.
“I’m bloody brilliant on a broom, Peter, and you know it.” James thwacks his friend on the shoulder.
Remus shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“Tell him!” James implores.
“James is quite good at flying,” Peter says dutifully.
“See?” James folds his arms over his chest.
Remus just shrugs again, the corners of his mouth twitching once more.
“What do you mean?!”
“Well, now you’ve coerced him,” Remus replies.
“I did not coerce him,” James says, affronted. “Pete, tell him I didn’t coerce you!”
“I’m not sure you understand how that works.” Remus shakes his head, bemused.
This is the longest conversation James has managed to rope Remus into. The other boy is this close to smiling; James can tell. He almost doesn’t even mind that it’s at his own expense.
He’s distracted from this small victory by Lily’s voice.
“Sev!” The girl calls, waving excitedly at the spindly boy. “This is Mary, my roommate.”
“Pleasure.” The two shake hands.
James recognizes the girl next to Lily from History of Magic the day prior. She’d been the only one to ask Professor Binns about his… ghostliness.
Peter nudges James. He’s fervently not looking back toward the castle. James gets the memo and turns in that direction.
Sirius is heading out to the field.
James smiles. It’s been a good day for him so far on the roommate front, and Sirius likes Quidditch!
But Sirius walks right by James. And right by Peter. And right by Remus.
He settles in next to some Slytherin girl on the opposite side of the field. The girl smiles at Sirius and says something to him that James can’t hear from so far away. Sirius nods.
Beside James, Peter sags in relief. James can feel himself deflating for rather different reasons.
He doesn’t have long to dwell on this rejection. Madam Hooch has arrived.
The second James sees her, his skin starts to itch with anticipation.
Madam Hooch is the Quidditch referee. Everybody knows referees play favorites. James Potter intends to be one of those favorites.
She surveys the students with sharp, hawkish, yellow eyes. “How many of you have ever flown a broom?”
James’ hand flies into the air, along with the hands of the girl to his left, two of the boys in the other Gryffindor bedroom, and Sirius. Peter reluctantly lifts his hand too, eyes downcast.
“An experienced group, I see,” Hooch says, “Good. Then today’s class ought to be easy for most of you.”
Each and every Slytherin raised a hand. Every Slytherin except Severus Snape, that is. He, too, is looking down, attempting to hide his blush behind a curtain of black hair.
“Stick out your right hand over your broom, and say ‘Up!’”
The class complies.
James’ broom jumps into his hand at once. He cringes at the feel of it in his palm. It desperately needs a waxing. These things are going to give somebody a splinter.
The girl next to him weighs her broom in her palm, her lips curling unhappily.
“Pretty shite, huh?” James leans towards her, doing his best to keep his voice hushed so as not to be heard over all the shouting.
Peter’s shouting is the loudest. He’s all red in the face, eyes bulging in a laughable glare. He looks like he’s trying to intimidate the broom into following orders. Poor Pete. Someone ought to tell him he’s not very intimidating. His broom just flops about on the ground.
Remus’ broom is giving him a hard time too, hopping up halfway to his hand before falling lifelessly to the floor again.
“When’s the last time this thing was polished?” The girl agrees.
“Probably when Hooch was in this class.”
She smiles. James recognizes her. He knows from class, obviously... but there’s something else as well. He can’t put his finger on it any more than he can remember the girl’s name.
She’s a lithe little bird. Fair and glowy. Her dark blonde hair is tied up in plaits.
“James Potter.” He introduces himself.
“I know who you are.” She replies, rather than returning the favor. “You’re the baby on the shampoo bottles.”
James snorts. “That’s me."
“What’s your friend doing?”
James looks back at the boys. Peter laughs breathlessly, his broom finally in his hand. But James quickly realizes that she wasn’t talking about Peter. She was talking about Remus.
Remus appears to have taken a pause, He’s standing there with his hands on his hips, just studying his broom.
“Dunno,” James admits.
His roommate frowns severely at the broom, eyes narrowed in deep contemplation.
“Up.” He commands, firmly.
The broom doesn’t jump, per se. Rather, it levitates vaguely upwards in slow motion. Remus plucks it out of the air.
Peter blinks at the show. He turns to James, brow furrowed. James shrugs. He’s never seen anyone summon a broom like that, and, not to brag, but James has seen loads of broom-summoning.
“Wicked.” The girl says feelingly.
With Remus’ broom firmly in his hand, that’s left just two students still struggling.
The first of which is Trevor Gillybum. A Gryffindor boy all the way on the other end of James’ row. Gillybum’s broom is stubbornly refusing to move a single centimeter.
The second student who can’t seem to collect his broom is Severus Snape.
Severus is glowering sourly at his broom. The broom, as though taunting its would-be rider, teeters between a horizontal and vertical position. It looks much like a teeter-totter actually. The kind James and Peter used to play on when Papa would take them to the playpark. James suppresses the urge to snicker.
Then Severus stamps his foot, his broom shoots up to smack him in the face as retaliation, and James stops suppressing that urge.
The entire class laughs along with him. Even Gillybum.
The only people not laughing are Severus, Lily, and Madam Hooch. He’s hunched over a bit, holding his nose while Lily mother-hens him.
“Oh! Are you alright?” She’s crowding into the boy’s space. “Let me see.”
James can’t hear what Severus says back; his hands muffle his voice.
Hooch soon blocks James’ view of the carnage, but her wince tells him everything he needs to know.
“Is it broken?” Severus' voice sounds all snotty.
“I can’t be sure.” Comes Hooch’s gruff reply. “Better safe than sorry, though. Come along, dear.”
The woman puts a protective arm around Severus and begins leading him off.
Lily cranes towards the pair until they’re out of her reach.
Hooch turns on the rest of the class. “Your feet are to stay firmly planted on the ground while I am gone.” She instructs. “I’ll not be held responsible if one of you breaks a neck."
A chorus of agreement later, she’s taken Severus back up the steps into the castle.
No sooner than she has, several students break out into laughter again.
Lily Evans looks worried sick. Too worried to even reprimand them for laughing– which seems to be a hobby of hers, ruining fun. She turns to Mary and murmurs something to the other girl that James doesn’t quite catch.
What James does hear perfectly is Bertram Aubrey’s snide comment to one of the Slytherin girls.
“He should have asked his mudblood girlfriend for some tips.”
Time freezes.
James Potter has never heard that word out loud.
He knows the word, of course. Knows what it means. He read it during his schooling at home. He’s been taught about its historical context. Been told it’s a terrible terrible word.
But he’s never heard it out loud. Until now.
Bertram Aubrey just called Lily a mudblood. And Aubrey’s stupid little friends are laughing. Laughing like it was funny. Like they agree.
At that moment, James feels like his bloody skin is on fire.
Because here’s the thing about James Fleamont Potter: he doesn’t feel anything in halves.
And, right now, James Potter is angry.
“What did you just call her?!”
His shout is clearly startling. Aubrey and his friends stop their infuriating giggling. The whole class turns to watch.
The boy raises a brow at James. “This doesn’t concern you, Potter.”
“Apologize.”
“Why should I? I didn’t say anything that isn’t true.”
They’re laughing again. Aubrey’s insufferable friends are laughing again. James steps closer, his hands shaking with barely concealed rage.
“Apologize to her right now!”
“Or what?”
James sees crimson. Blood roars in his ears. He tastes lightning again.
Without thinking, James whips out his wand.
It’s not until a sticky disgusting smile oozes across Aubrey’s face that James remembers he doesn’t know a single offensive spell.
“What exactly do you intend to do with that thing, Potter?” Aubrey sniggers.
The boy has his one, shining moment of superiority before James chucks his wand in the general direction of Peter and socks Bertram Aubrey in the face.
The fight itself is a whirlwind.
James has never done this before. Picked a fight? Sure. Came to blows? Never. He hasn’t a single clue what he’s doing.
But none of that matters. It’s like he’s barely even himself as he grapples with his opponent. He’s all swinging fists and gnashing teeth. He’s the red that’s spilling from Aubrey’s nose. He’s the acid he tastes on his tongue. The fire in his veins. The thunder in his ears.
Bertram, for his part, gets a few good hits in. He shoves the heel of his hand up against James’ jaw in a quick jab, and James bites his tongue so hard it’s like he actually sees the colorful burst of pain swim across his vision. He spits the blood seeping from the bite right back at the boy who caused it.
Someone screams.
Screams?
No.
It’s a whistle.
Before James can even process what that means, Madam Hooch’s strong hands are on his shoulders, ripping him away from the fight.
“What is the meaning of this?” She demands, standing between the two boys, blocking Bertram’s attempt to lunge at James again.
James’ chest heaves. Every fibre of his being is vibrating. His limbs feel heavy. He spits out more blood.
“Madam Hooch,” he starts, “I can explain.”
“Not you.” She glowers. Hooch does an about-face and points a gloved finger at Lily. “You. What happened here?”
James smiles a scarlet smile. Lily Evans. He’d gotten into this skirmish defending her. Surely he’s in the clear now. She’ll tell Madam Hooch the awful things Aubrey had said, and James’ll be home free.
“He attacked him!” Lily says, eyes frantic.
“Who, Miss Evans?”
“James!”
Hooch rounds on James, and his chest stops heaving. The blood stops pounding in his ears. The buzz, the rush, dissipates.
“Is this true, Mister Potter?” Madam Hooch’s voice is cold. Her yellow eyes appear more snakelike than hawkish as James squirms under her angry glare.
Bertram Aubrey smirks.
“Yes, but-”
“Detention, Mister Potter. This afternoon. Right here. You’ll be helping Hagrid tend to the grass.”
James’ mouth refuses to shut. “He called her-”
“There is no excuse for violence, James.” The Instructor says flintily. “Five points from Gryffindor.”
“Madam-”
“I’ll make it ten.” She warns.
James manages to wrangle his lips into submission.
Madam Hooch looks around at the students, weighing the state of things. At last, she sighs heavily.
“Class is Dismissed.”
Nobody moves.
“What are you all waiting for? A formal invitation? You’re dismissed. Go. Find something to occupy yourself with.” She barks. With a wave of her wand, the brooms march themselves back into their case.
Once most of the kids disperse, she marches off.
Aubrey slinks away to lick his wounds, but James remains frozen in place. He rubs at his sore jaw.
Then he’s crushed by an eager embrace. Peter.
“You got us out of class early!” He exclaims.
James groans. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Well, I’m glad for it,” Peter says matter of factly. “Saved me from being sick all over the Slytherins.”
James can’t help but brighten a bit. Pete has that effect.
“I could have used some backup. You should have done it anyway.”
His friend turns pink, but he laughs nonetheless.
“Give me back my wand before we forget, yeah?” James holds out his hand.
Pete goes from pink to pale. “Your wand?”
… James Potter spends his detention searching the soon-to-be cut grass for his wand.
It’s a tedious process that bores James so severely he thinks he would rather pluck out his own leg hair than ever do it again.
At least Hagrid is kind to him. The large man takes James’ side once the tale of his terrible battle is fully recounted.
He finds his wand, too. Thank Merlin. Small blessings.
But the search takes longer than expected– he’s got no clue how it ended up so far away from where he’d thrown it– and he winds up missing dinner. Hagrid offers him a rock-hard sandwich. James politely declines.
The worst part is, James thinks miserably, Hooch never even got to see me fly.
He returns to the Gryffindor common room tired, achy, and starved. So, he’s of the opinion that his sour mood might be excusable. Or understandable at the very least. What isn't understandable is the way Lily Evans marches up to him the moment the portrait swings shut behind him.
She’s got a fire brighter than her hair blazing behind her eyes.
“What on earth did you do that for?!”
“Huh?” James says intelligently.
“Why would you attack that poor boy?” She waves her arms like some sort of flightless bird.
“Poor boy?” James sputters, “You heard what he called you!”
“So he called me a mean name! That doesn’t give you the right to go around walloping people over the head like some sort of brute!”
Brute. Is that what she thinks of him? Some sort of brute?
James Potter is no brute. James Potter is a knight, and Bertram Aubrey was a dragon. James is an auror and Aubrey was a werewolf. James is a beater and that boy had been being a bloody bludger hurtling straight for James’ chaser for crying out loud. Why couldn’t Lily see that?
“But-” James starts.
“And to use my honor as some sort of excuse!” She looks aghast.
“That’s not-”
“Keep away from me, Potter.” Lily’s voice goes icy. “And keep your nose– and your bloody fists– out of my business!”
As James watches her stomp up the stairs to her room, something inside of him settles into place. Like a puzzle piece clicking. A moment where one realizes: this is the way things are.
Only, James finds himself unhappy with the picture it’s created.
He was wrong earlier, about what the worst part of this whole ordeal was. The worst part is, James is now certain that Lily Evans doesn’t like him much.