Soul Love
The third time it happened, James was fucking clueless (and honestly a bit unnerved) at whatever the hell was going on around him.
The facts were as following:
First and foremost, Peter Pettigrew had, at some point on the month and a half they’d been back at Hogwarts, gotten a whole fucking girlfriend and kept it from The Marauders so well, James had only found out when he had accidentally (and quite literally) ran into him snogging Clarisse Walsham in a crevice of a secluded third floor hallway. He was still trying to decide whether not being able to see their tongues from where had been standing was a good thing, or a really disgusting one. Don’t get him wrong though, James didn’t think one of his best mates incapable of pulling a bird, not at all, but, well- Peter was the first one of them all to get a girlfriend and he was shy, he had clammy, sickly pale skin and he never failed to stutter when trying to flirt. He’d always thought Remus would beat them all to it, he lacked Sirius’ finesse when talking to people , sure, but the golden locks, and the golden skin, and the golden eyes, and his golden everything could’ve made the sodding Sorting Hat fall in love with him. Even Sirius would’ve made a likelier candidate of getting hitched before them all, his overbearing confidence allowed him to pull off the sickly-pale look, and surely everyone loved a bad boy with a tragic backstory, he was like a walking cliché. On his part, James was still hopelessly in love with one Lily Evans, and thus accepted the fact that he’d be the last of them all to get a girlfriend, if he ever got one at all, but Peter being the first of them all and, worse of all, not telling them, had rocked his world a little.
Secondly, the aforementioned Lily Evans, fiery-tempered, strikingly eloquent, and surprisingly strong-he learned that one the hard way when he had accidentally spooked her whilst hiding after a prank and, though revealingly sexy, it was not an experience he would like to repeat- Lily Evans, had called him James exactly sixty-eight hours and forty-one minutes ago. The memory still rattled him, repeating itself on loop in his head so much he’d began mixing details and messing up exact word combinations, all that remained untouched was lily’s silent, full-body laugh— twinkling eyes and all— and the “Oh, Shut Up, James” she had let out before getting up from the table at the dining hall and sauntering off to her first class of the afternoon, as if she hadn’t just seized every single preconceived notion James had had of their relationship and tilted the page he had meticulously listed them all on, then made corrections to it in a big read marker signalling that it was all wrong and he was a proper asshat. Since when was James, James to Lily? Was it going to be a recurring thing for them from now on? How many times a week was she going to say it? Why did James feel it was similar to the way air smelled before a storm? How did she look so gorgeous when she said it? (Her bun a messy knot on her head, and her cheeks tainted red from spending their last free period of the morning out in the sun) Had that one freckle that sat close to the beginning of her right eye socket always been there? Was he thinking about this too much?
The third fact, the most disquieting, ominous one, were the looks and touches and quips being shared between one Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, those were nightmare inducing. Ever since the week they’d been at James’ house for the end of summer, he couldn’t help but feel that he was looking at them as if he wasn’t wearing his glasses whenever they were together, he knew they were the same as before for the way they moved and talked and the blurred overall shape of them, but it was all hazy and wrong around the edges. James Potter knew that, when he looked at his best friends in the entire world, there were details about them that he was missing, a clarity he couldn’t help but feel out of reach, when it came to them, his myopia and astigmatism overpowered it all. It was awful, it felt so wrong. Just two weeks ago, he’d woken up to Sirius’ dog form sleeping splayed over Remus’ body, with a freckled arm wrapped loosely around his neck and keeping them close together, James had asked them about it later during breakfast, they had shrugged, muttered a “couldn’t sleep” and continued with the puzzle page they’d nicked from his copy of The Daily Prophet, Sirius tucked a little under Remus’ arm as he took to the Sudoku and gave space for Remus to reach the crossword, their shapes had blurred together then, their edges fuzzy, but it hadn’t been the first time nor the last one; There also been lasting smiles ricocheting off searching gazes, lingering touches on the back of a pale neck, and shitty pick-up lines returned with mirthful eye rolls. James couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was keeping them so out of focus.
As it stood, things in James’ life had become tilted, and he only liked his world tilted when he was hurling a Quaffle through a hoop suspended eight metres in mid-air or when Lily hexed him to pry the reason why he was crouching in the middle of the hallway past curfew off him. He had to fix things, but he had already tried to convince Peter of telling their best friends about his girlfriend, and he had brushed him off saying something along the lines of “too busy with each other, those two” then elbowed him on the side and told him to continue with their Potions assignment, he wasn’t completely certain about wanting to fix whatever was happening with Lily- he was more than fine with it as long as he got to keep all his four limbs, and head- and he had no clue what in the flying fuck was going on on the Black-Lupin front.
He watched them now, sitting in front of him during breakfast, Sirius with his head propped in one arm and his eyes fixed to his left, a cup of tea frozen and freezing in mid-air as he listened intently, with a steadfast attention Mr. Binns could have been jealous of. Remus sat next to him, elbows propped on the table with a piece of toast floating in constant danger of being bitten, rambling about some book or something equally nerdy. James wasn’t much for books- he couldn’t keep still for long enough- so the words kept bumping into each other and not really being processed in his brain, he was entranced by the picture in front of him nonetheless, what was askew about them? For fuck’s sake, he wasn’t much for puzzles either.
“-so then the old lady goes to Miss Marple and she asks if she can look into the murder on the train, and Miss Marple sends…”, Remus gushed, hands swaying a little the way he does only when he’s over excited about something. Sirius’ gaze darted almost unnoticeably from his eyes to his flinging arms, and his playful smirk - the one James knows he has trained relentlessly to be his resting face (Sirius had insisted it made him look like whatever a ‘Tee-bee star’ was) - softened into a slightly downturned smile. Then, he shifted on his seat to have his entire body facing Remus. If you’d asked James, he would swear his ears had stood attentively.
Remus ploughed on, speaking of a weird family and an inheritance and a body hidden inside a sarcophagus, but the only one who seemed to be paying any sort of attention was Sirius, Peter had gone off somewhere James knew all too well he was better off being kept in the dark about, for Clarisse Walsham was nowhere to be seen either, and James was desperate for an Eureka moment of sudden clarity in regards to the vicious tense fog that had settled around his best-friends. Changes rattled him, he had been a single child his entire life, lived in the same house for years and played as a chaser for longer than he had been at Hogwarts. Fluctuation was uncharted territory, he knew it needed fixing, and he also knew of only one person that could fix it all, plus, maybe by talking to her he could figure out the second item in his list of oddities as well.
As if the thought of her had been enough to summon her- which he wished were an actual thing that happened, even if it would be very inconvenient seeing as how he almost constantly thought of her- Lily Evans sauntered down the corridor between tables and made a bee-line for the spot next to his as soon as she spotted it.
“Morning James”, she said, and his heart pumped blood explosively at the sound of his name, as if he’d scored a point on a quidditch game. It hadn't been a one time thing then, their path had branched, change had been etched into a sign labelling it all. He drowned the quaver in his throat with a small sip of coffee.
“Hi, Lily”, he said, mid-swallow.
“This seat taken?”
“Uh- no, not anymore.”
“Great, I’m starving”, she said, then sat next to him. Their legs brushed when she slid onto the seat and James wondered briefly if one could get starstruck by someone you saw on a daily basis, he’d have to take the matter up with Sirius later. Lily nodded at Remus as a greeting, and he returned the acknowledgement without a break on the stream of his words, Sirius glanced at her, winked, then returned his full attention to Remus again, like it was the only place where it belonged. Odd, it was odd, Sirius’ attention had no home, it wasn’t a thing with enough shape to need one.
Lily didn’t pick up on the oddity of it all in the slightest, things were worse than he had thought.
“Where’s the fourth stooge gone off to?,” she asked, instead.
“I don’t want to know, honestly, he and his girlfriend disappeared ten minutes ago, ‘tis too early to think about it,” James said, her presence pulling at his attention magnetically.
“Peter has a girlfriend!?,” she said.
“He didn’t tell you either, huh?”
“I don’t know why he wou-”
“Everything is weird Lily, shite is going down in flames, we’re getting burned, Lily,” he said, much too anxious to share his dispair with someone he knew held all the answers.
“Oookay there, simmer down Potter”, she finished buttering two pieces of toast then sprinkled sugar onto one of them and placed it in front of James, talking soothingly, “Eat”.
He plucked the weird concoction from his plate and bit off a chunk from it without questioning Lily’s methods, the weird salty taste of the butter mixed with the sugar made him feel almost like a child. It was oddly comforting, “‘S good”, he said.
“Swallow before talking James, for fuck’s sake”, She said, her disgusted grimace marred by a plafyul lilt of her lips, “Now, tell me what’s wrong”
James sighed, the warmth of the peculiar toast now sinking down his throat heavily. “Those two” he said, pointing at the seats in front of them with his head, “I don’t know what’s going on with them, they have this- this tension, and they are being so fucking odd, and they are immersed in one another, I hate change, and Peter didn’t even tell me he had a girlfriend and- and then you just- you with the hair and the freckle and you called me James, and I-”
“Okay, hold it, does me calling you James bother you?”, she asked, her no-nonse expression ruined by the way she had her nose scrunched with nervousness. James could kiss it away, he didn’t.
“NO,” he blurted, “That’s not- that’s not a problem, it's them”, he said, resorting to pointing at his two best mates with his head again. Remus was still talking, which could only mean the whole conversation was definitely about a book, and that made it all worse, because why was Sirius even listening “I can’t figure them out Lily!”
“Oh! I- You- Erm…”, she said, glancing at the pair and back at him. Lily Evans being rendered speechless by a problem was a terribly bad sign, he took a bite of toast for comfort. “I don’t think they’ve figured it out either, to be honest, but when they do, and when they are ready, they’ll tell you, I’m sure, just…try to pay attention, and be supportive or so help me god James Potter I’ll personally hang you from the Quidditch hoops by the ba-”
An idea crossed his brain instantly.
“OH! Lily that’s it, I’ll pay attention, you’re right, you absolute brilliant woman, I have to go find Pete, thank you and goodbye I’ll see you later”, He said, then scrambled off the bench and almost ran to the exit with his magic toast still in his hand.
He thought he could hear Sirius, amongst the faint chatter of that late Sunday’s lazy breakfast, asking “where’s Pete?” before he crossed the dining hall’s doorway.
{...}
“PETER!”he yelled, standing on the entrance to the third floor corridor that still haunted him.
A tapestry that hung on the left wall, rippled slightly. The terrifying groan of a hungry beast, born from whatever laid underneath it, echoed on the empty space that surrounded him. A shiver ran through James’ spine.
A very dishevelled, one hundred and sixty five centimetres tall figure sprung from the crevice that the tapestry was covering. Peter Pettigrew’s hair stood up in way too many directions for James to be able to count through his uneasiness, his pale white neck was bruised beyond recognition, and the deep setted scowl on his face was more bone chilling than the cold air that surrounded them.
“What?!”, he growled.
“We are going on a mission, darling Pete!”James grinned, as a girl with long dark ringlets of hair stumbled out of the cover of the tapestry with only half of her buttons done up, the blushing in her cheeks visible even through the darkness of the corridor and her black skin. She kissed Peter goodbye noisily then sprinted past James, “Bye Clarisse!”, he said.
“See you later boys!”, she returned, then disappeared down the stairs.
“She’s gorgeous”, James said, trying to suppress the surprise in his tone.
Peter’s scowl turned into a despaired grimace, “Ugh, I know, she’s gonna dump me so bad when she gets bored and I’m not even going to be mad about it, probably”, he sighed.
James nodded glumily, then tried to change the subject, “So… as I was saying, you and I, the only two sane marauders at the moment, have a mission to attend to”, he nodded decisively.
Peter, always a man who could be relied on for marauder-related help— and much too eager to take his mind off the approaching doomsday of his relationship— made his way to James’ side and began walking with his hands in his pocket, in the official stance he always took when marauding, “Alright, what is this about?”.
“Our very best mates, Peter”, James explained “I’m afraid they’ve been behaving rather weird lately but I can’t figure out the reason why, we need some scouring of the territory, we are going on a reconnaissance mission this very night!”
A thoughtful expression took over Peter’s face, his brows furrowed and his eyes narrowed, “You mean to say there’s something going on other than-“ he made a circling motion with his hand, signalling at the air between them “-uh -y’know, the obvious?“
James figured that Peter was referring to Sirius’ rather shitty familiar situation and Remus’ ‘furry little problem’, so he nodded vigorously, with the air of a man who needed to prove a point.
“Oh, okay then…what’s our course of action?”
“So, y’know how they both like to smoke on the astronomy tower when there’s a new moon? well, then, guess what tonight’s lunar phase is?”, James said.
“Uh… ermm, a new moon?”, Peter replied.
“EXACTLY! we need to pay attention to what they do tonight Pete, I gather it’s gonna help us solve the matter at hand”.
“So you’re saying we should follow them tonight then?” Peter asked, his eyebrows drawn up and his pace slowing.
“Yes!” James replied.
“While they are alone?”
“Yes!”
“On their midnight trips to the astronomy tower?”
“Yes! Exactly, were you even listening to me?”
“Are you sure this is a good idea James?” Peter asked, he had stopped walking completely and stood still in the middle of the deserted hallway, he was looking at James as if he’d grown a second head— an expression that James recognized all too well from that one prank in third year that involved Polyjuice Potion and had gone horribly wrong.
“Yes Pete for fuck’s sake, Lily gave me the idea” James said.
“Lily?!”
“Yes!”
Peter inclined his head slightly and looked at the ceiling as if searching for the answer of a question he hadn’t poised. He sighed, then stared back at James for a second and shrugged. A small scowl of disappointment marrying his features. “All right, whatever, we are spying on them then”.
“Now that’s the spirit, Mate!”.
{...}
James didn’t say anything when Sirius and Remus stole his invisibility cloak unapologetically that night, something they always did when they took their smoking to the other side of the castle. It didn’t matter, they’d always leave the map, they knew where they were going, so they didn’t get any use out of it. James would have to make do with it alone, he didn’t want to draw any suspicion to his slightly dishonourable plans of the night. His lack of proper marauding material perfectly explained why, as he walked down the stone-lined corridors only a half hour after his friends had left the dorm, the high-pitched squeal of the rat on his shoulder was enough to scare him into hiding almost instinctively.
“Mrs. Norris?” a harsh, high-pitched voice, called from the other side of the classroom door, “Mrs. Norris?”Filch drawled once again.
Wormtail squeaked a second time and began pacing circles on the flat of James’ shoulder, almost tickling him with his tail when he turned back at the crook of his neck.
“Stop it Peter, calm the fuck down, we’re ok”, James said.
Another squeal.
“I know that was close, you prick, you should’ve warned me sooner, you were the one on map watching duty, dipshit.”
Two more squeaks.
“Yeah, yeah, ok shut up now if you’re done wailing like a fucking banshee, we are close, and I can’t hear Filch anymore, we’re leaving.”
Peter’s protest noise was drowned by the faint creak of the heavy wooden door opening. James peaked both ways into the blackened hallway before he stepped out of the classroom cautiously, prowling down the corridor as he brushed the left wall in his way towards the astronomy tower.
The faint breathiness of hushed conversations reached him only when he stepped over the threshold, his body barely guarded by half a column and the lack of lightning a intensely deep blue sky, filled only with far-away stars, provided him with.
“…ve this”, a voice that could only be Sirius’s said, sucking a weighted breath in, like he did when he talked between puffs of smoke. “These nights, they- I don’t know, they feel like we’ve stopped time”.
Remus didn’t reply, but James knew him enough to be certain he was using that face he did whenever he was intrigued and slightly amused— always a recurrent expression whenever he was in Sirius’ immediate vicinity— the small sarcastic smirk with one eyebrow raised.
“Don’t- hey- don’t do that face I’m being ser-, I mean it, see? I didn’t even make the joke, that’s how you know I’m being honest”, Sirius said, chuckling slightly, the faint nervous curve of his words beckoned James closer to them, he wanted to see them, to know what in the world could be flustering The Sirius Orion Black, “I just- and I know you’re going to understand this- don’t you wish time would just stop sometimes? to just lay there, looking at the ceiling and simply breathe? no thinking, no exams, no homework, no people at all, just… breathing and doing nothing at all but existing?”
James tip-toed out of the column at the entryway that was his hiding spot, and shifted closer to the nook of a doorway that probably led to a broom cupboard, with faint warning squeals ringing in his right ear. He was much more unguarded there, only deep darkness and luck keeping him out of sight. Not like Sirius and Remus would’ve noticed him, their bodies were turned to the open balcony, looking over at the vast expansion of the school grounds and the immeasurably profound blue sky peppered in silver above. Neither of them were staring at the view though, Remus' head was turned to his left, gaze locked on Sirius’ face, who, in turn, was trying hard to pretend his companion’s shoes were the ones he was having a conversation with.
Remus hummed, and when he talked it sounded as though he was losing a battle against a pressing smile, “I know, I understand, like you want it all to go still every once in a while?”
Sirius sighed in relax, “Yes, yes that, exactly” he lifted his gaze to Remus’, “I- this, us, here, sometimes it feels like that, like I can breathe and nothing can really get to me, even when we don’t do anything but smoke and probably look a bit depressing”
Remus laughed quietly in response, and James shifted closer to the edge of his hiding spot almost unconsciously. He could feel the answer to them trying to reach him in the way Sirius said ‘this’ and ‘us’ like the words would shatter for all their fragility if he spoke them out loud, or in Remus’ small shift to his left, and the faint downwards tilt of his head.
“I know”, he said, “I feel it too sometimes, I just didn’t know it was something you…liked?”
“What? Why?” Sirius replied.
Wormtail began shifting nervously on James’ right shoulder, pacing its length back and forth and tugging at James’ ear with his small paws. He tried to shoo him away with one hand, but Peter only got more insistent.
“I- You- You just seem so far away sometimes, like you never want to stop, like you’re constantly trying to keep up with a time that’s slipping through your fingers, but you can’t” was Remus’ response.
“No, no, I’m here, right here, in the present, with you” Sirius said “and I don’t want to move at all”
He did shift in his place as he said that, contradicting himself to face the boy at his right, then stopped there, with a half burnt cigarette forgotten a while ago between his fingers. They stared each other down for half a second until Remus mirrored his movements, and went a step further by raising a hand to Sirius’ face, tracing and then tucking a stray lock of black hair behind his ear.
James stared, baffled and completely lost to the event unfolding before him, at least until a soft body wrapping itself around his leg startled his heart out of his body, almost blowing his cover away for the shriek he came close to giving out. When he looked down, Mrs. Norris’ pale green eyes were fixed unwaveringly on his right shoulder, her mouth almost watering to the sight of the rat that was screeching in panic there. James tried to shush Peter and calm him down, he could see through his peripheral vision that Remus and Sirius were moving towards one another again, inching closer, but when he had gathered enough courage to look away from Mrs. Norris for a mere second, he felt her beginning to climb up the fabric of his trousers, nails digging on his leg viciously. He tried to jump silently in one leg to shake her off, but Wormtail crawled up his head in a way that gave James goosebumps and he had to stop to shiver in disgust, and the wretched, restless fucking cat took it as an opportunity to dig her nails in deeper and it was so painful he let out an almost inhuman wail to the feel of it, whilst he stumbled out of the cupboard nook and grasped at air with his arms on his back-first trip towards the balcony railing.
Two hands caught each of his arms when he hit the banister and leaned dangerously over the ledge.
“ Confundo! ”, spelled Remus at his left, aiming for Mrs. Norris and making her step away from James in a head-shaking dazed dance.
The three of them stood frozen, staring at her and trying to gauge her next step, James could barely hear his friends’ agitated breaths over the pounding of his heart taking over his every thought.
After a few seconds, Mrs. Norris simply regarded them like they were but a mild bother— thanks to Peter getting the chance to hide underneath the hem of James’ cloak— let out an ungodly, threatening growl, then turned around looking for her owner. James felt like he’d never been more scared in his young, handsome life.
“The fuck are you doing here, Prongs?”, Sirius said, his tone aimed at nonchalance but unable to fully hide a small, nervous quiver.
“I- uh- shit”, James realized he had no actual ground to stand on if he tried to explain to them why he had just casually decided to almost stalk them. He couldn’t just say out loud that his reasoning for following them around was nothing more than a weird hunch that something about them was different and his anxiety-inducing and probably psychological treatment-worth affliction for change.
Luckily, he had a rat to throw under the bus.
“You won’t believe who got a whole ass girlfriend without telling us a single thing!”, James said, digging under his collar and pulling Peter out with a whole-handed grip around his middle, the rat bit his finger and changed mid air into a human boy when James dropped him.
Peter scowled at him, “That’s not fair James-“ he began his scolding, only to be interrupted by Sirius.
“I can’t believe you’re getting some, Pettigrew!” he laughed. “This is huge, this is amazing, d’you hear this, Remus? Holy shit!”
“It’s truly something”, Remus said, genuine amusement and heavy sarcasm hiding a faint trail of annoyance in his tone, “How could you ever keep this key piece of information from us for…how long?”
“Uh…for almost two months?”, Peter replied, probably deciding he was better off going along with it now.
Even Remus, who couldn’t care less about other people’s dating life, looked surprised at that revelation.
“Two months?!”, Sirius said, almost yelling “I didn’t know you had it in you Wormtail”
“Sirius, keep it down”, Remus warned, elbowing him on the side but looking at him almost affectionately. “We should head back to the dorm, Filch is lurking around”
“Yeah, let’s go, but I’m not done with this, Pettigrew, you’ll have to tell me who the lucky lady is”, Sirius said.
Peter grimaced but said nothing before turning into a rat and climbing up to James’ shoulder.
The four of them huddled together under the cloak and made their way back to the dorm, James was faintly disappointed about not getting any closer to figuring the mystery out, but he could feel he would get there eventually.
He was also a bit troubled about having interrupted whatever had been going on between Remus and Sirius, though he couldn’t really put a finger on why he felt that way. And anyways, they would probably pick their thing up later.