Chapter 2
Sirius was growing increasingly annoyed with his new neighbor. He had meant to close up and go home hours ago, but he was finishing up a grant proposal that was due at midnight and he needed access to paperwork that was in the shop. He understood that this was the first night the tattoo parlor was open, but their music was so obnoxiously loud, it took almost all of Sirius’ willpower not to go over there and yell at them.
James showed up just in time, right as Sirius’ patience was about to snap.
“Weren’t you supposed to close at 7? It’s almost 10.”
“Yes, James, I can tell time. Thank you for pointing out the obvious.”
James rolled his eyes and sat down next to Sirius, looking at the laptop, 3/4ths of a grant application filled out. “No wonder you’re grumpy. Have you been staring at this screen, in the dark, for over three hours?”
“Yes, but I need to finish this-”
James shook his head and shut Sirius’ laptop, ignoring his protests. “You need to take a break. You can finish it at home. If you need anything from here, I’ll run back and get it myself, okay?”
Sirius sighed, but nodded in agreement. He really shouldn’t have procrastinated because now he really did need a break before he murdered the people across the street.
“Why don’t you go over and greet the new business owner? The tattoo parlor guy?”
Sirius gritted his teeth. “The one with the incredibly loud music that makes me wanna rip my ears out?”
“That’s the one,” James replied with a grin. “Come on, you gotta at least say congratulations. Bring him a bouquet of peonies or something.”
Sirius rolled his eyes so hard James worried they might fall out of his head. “Those represent love, dumbass.” Sirius thought for a moment before getting up and putting a bouquet together. “Yellow roses on the other hand, are a great way to say congratulations on the new job.”
“You’re such a fucking nerd,” James laughed.
“You’ll regret saying that when you don’t know what flowers to get your nonexistent girlfriend.”
“You’re not getting a coffee tomorrow.”
~~~~~
Sirius wasn’t sure what they were doing here. He could see through the window that the owner was having a small celebration and he felt incredibly awkward intruding. When he refused to be the first one to go in, James sighed and relented, walking inside with Sirius trailing behind.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt, we just wanted to stop by and say congratulations-”
“Oh my god, shut up. James fucking Potter,” Lily Evans stopped him mid-sentence, eyes wide as she stared at James. The charming smile on James’s face wavered as Lily seemed to go through the five stages of grief in five seconds flat. Green eyes flashed to calm before turning angry again. Then, she was yelling. She talked so fast James could barely understand a word she said and he certainly had no time to reply. He just stared, mouth hanging open slightly.
Sirius recognized Lily from high school. She had been Snivellus's best friend, which he had always found weird. Lily was generally nice to everyone (except for him and James) and Snivellus was particularly terrible. He acted like he was above everyone and threw a fit if anyone dared to try to be friends with Lily. It reminded Sirius of his relationship with his parents, who had controlled his social life for the most part.
James and Sirius had always disliked Snape. He was a strange kid and in all fairness, he was really mean.
When they had first met, the first thing Snape pointed out was a scar on Sirius’s neck, which Sirius had gotten from his mother. It immediately put both James and Sirius off, but they weren’t particularly nasty to him until their second year of high school.
Snape brought up Sirius’s home life in school and started pointing out the scars he’d received from his parents. James threw the first punch.
Sirius was sure Snape would tell a completely different story, but their rivalry only grew more intense over the years. Lily always defended Snape, unable to see that he had ever done anything wrong.
Sirius had never really talked to her. James and Lily would insult and tease one another all the time, but Sirius just watched. He had more fun messing with Snivellus while they were distracted anyway.
Senior year, after Lily and Snape had stopped being friends, James and Sirius had attempted to apologize to them. Snape had yelled at them about how awful they’d treated him and how they were terrible people. Snape had been looking for a fight, but James and Sirius just felt guilty. They weren’t exactly sure what had caused Lily to stop being friends with Snape, but they thought it had something to do with them and it had clearly hurt her a lot. They had already felt bad about being mean to Snape, but seeing Lily so depressed made them go out of their way to make things right.
James had attempted to apologize to her on several occasions, but Lily had become incredibly good at avoiding him.
Everyone else in the parlor stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do. Lily’s face grew progressively more red as her voice got louder, the only noise ringing through the tiny space.
When she finally paused to catch her breath, James said softly, still trying to gather his thoughts, “Are you talking about high school?” He stared at her incredulously when she nodded. “You do realize that we haven’t talked in like...” he paused, counting on his fingers. Sirius wondered how this boy was doing better than him in school. “...like three years, right?”
Lily huffed angrily. “I don’t give a shit. You’re a bully and a fucking asshole. You remember Severus Snape? The kid you were so fucking awful to? I lost my best friend because of you- you fucking-” She stumbled over her words, enough that the rest of her sentence was incomprehensible. “Get out. I don’t know what you came here to do, but no one wants you here.” She turned to Sirius, glaring at him sharply. “You, too.”
James didn’t argue with her. He left the parlor without another word, looking dejected, the argument clearly already troubling him.
Sirius grimaced at the memories of high school popping up in his mind. He gave the flowers to the girl next to him, offered a small smile, and said congratulations before running out after James.
Talk about a good first impression.
~~~~
Remus sighed, sitting back down as he watched James and Sirius leave. “You alright, Lils?”
“‘Course ‘m alright,” she sniffled.
Remus remembered what James and Sirius were like in high school. They were the loud and obnoxious bullies who everyone seemed to like. Even though Remus had never been friends with them and agreed they were awful, he thought that Lily completely blowing up on them like that was a bit much. They had only come in to say congratulations.
He hadn’t expected them to stop by, but he was fairly certain they didn’t remember him from high school. He didn’t know why they were there or how they even knew about the opening. Lily obviously hadn’t told them. He looked between Marlene, Dorcas, and Mary.
“Did one of you tell them I was opening today?"
Mary shook her head while Dorcas looked at Marlene.
“Okay, I didn’t know you didn’t want them here. I,” Marlene paused, a guilty sigh escaping her lips, “might have invited the boy Lily was yelling at. He owns a coffee shop nearby and his friend runs the shop across the street. I just thought it might be good for you to know some business owners in the area or something.” She gave Lily an apologetic smile.
Lily had been picking the petals off of the roses Sirius had brought in, but looked up with wide eyes at Marlene. “They’re business owners? Oh, god, why didn’t you say something before I screamed at them!” Lily hid her face in her hands. “No, fuck, he should be talking to people in the area and I just fucked up a possible business relationship, damn it, ‘m sorry, Re, I didn’t-”
Remus cut her off, “It’s fine. I don’t really care. It might’ve been nice to establish that connection, but it doesn’t really matter. I know how much they sucked in high school. They aren’t really the type of people I want to have any relationship with, professional or otherwise.”
Lily looked up again with teary eyes. “Really? You’re sure?”
“Really. Don’t worry about it, Lils.”
~~~~
“Wow, that was a great idea. I think we really made their night there,” Sirius said in an attempt to lighten the mood. James was staring at the ground, eyebrows furrowed, his frown only growing deeper every passing minute.
They hadn’t been the worst people in high school, but they certainly hadn’t been the best. James always looked pained at memories of their first two years there.
Sirius had always made a point to always be loud in school, mostly because he never could be at home. He did everything he could to get people’s attention to make up for the lack of it from his family. It made him act like an asshole sometimes and he knew it, but it felt better than being ignored. James always joined him in his antics, mostly just so Sirius wouldn’t feel alone.
While they still very much disliked Snape, James and Sirius had grown up enough to realize that they had been shitty to him. They had changed for the better since then, but Sirius still saw the regret in James’s eyes whenever he was reminded of it.
Sirius felt incredibly guilty about all of it. He had never been a good influence on his best friend and their treatment of Snape was a testament to that. Severus had been mean back to them, but they shouldn’t have acted that way in the first place. It was James who had made him realize that.
Sirius had run away from home their second year of high school and was disowned the next year. At 15, James had tried to make him feel better with more pranks, but when Sirius was abandoned by his family, James changed tactics completely. He started being more responsible and slowly stopped picking on Snape. Sirius naturally followed his lead without even realizing it. By senior year, they had agreed that they should apologize to anyone they might’ve hurt.
“I didn’t think we hurt anyone that much,” James said quietly, still staring at the ground.
“Me either. I’m sorry, mate.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s both of our faults. Nothing we can do about it now besides try to be better though, right?”
~~~~
James didn’t sleep that night. He couldn’t stop thinking about high school. Back then, he had barely even realized he was doing something wrong. He knew that making fun of others wasn't good, but was it really all that bad if he was doing it to help Sirius?
When Sirius was disowned, James’s parents sat him down and had a long talk with him. He realized that Sirius had never had anyone to teach him how to act properly. Sirius’s parents responded to misbehavior with violence. Regulus was younger than him and never got in trouble for anything, or at least if he did, he never got caught. The Black family was also not known for being nice to others. They were bigoted and traditional. Sirius clearly wanted to be the opposite, but he needed someone to help him figure out how to do that.
James had thought acting stupid and playing pranks on people to make Sirius laugh was the solution. It seemed like a good way to give Sirius back a part of his childhood he had missed out on.
After talking with his parents, James realized Sirius did need someone to have fun with, but he also needed someone to set a good example for him. So that’s what James worked to become. He still wasn’t perfect, but he wanted to be a better person for Sirius. He knew that he had acted like a douche, so he did his best to make it up to everyone.
Snape hadn’t accepted his apology and Lily wouldn’t talk to him at all. There wasn’t very much he could do about that, but it still made him feel awful.
Hearing Lily explain how much he’d hurt her made it impossible for him to think of anything else. He couldn’t think of anything that could make it up to her. She very clearly wanted nothing to do with him, but the guilt was crippling.
Classes started tomorrow and he should’ve gone to sleep hours ago. Once the clock reached 5, he gave up. Starting off the school year by pulling an all nighter was definitely a good idea.
He yawned and got out of bed, making his way to the kitchen to get himself a cup of coffee. Sirius and James had moved into an apartment closer to their shops after high school. It was near their university and made commutes between places convenient. Plus, Sirius liked to play rock music at full volume at 2 a.m. and James’s parents were tired of not being able to sleep.
Sirius was passed out on their living room couch, computer still open and papers strewn about the room. James checked to make sure the grant application had been submitted before closing the computer. He pulled a blanket over his best friend and made his way into the kitchen, groaning quietly at the thought of going to classes exhausted tomorrow.
Sirius was still asleep when James slipped out of the house at 6 to open up the coffee shop. He had three classes to go to that day and was working before, in-between, and after all of them.
During the summer and breaks, James’s shop was open 24 hours. He slept when someone else was working and was there the rest of the time. Even when he did have school, he usually was open at absurd hours of the night, knowing that there was usually one or two students who needed a couple shots of espresso to finish a homework assignment.
After getting no sleep, James regretted his choice of keeping the place open almost all the time. It had been a good business decision, though. The early hours tended to be the busiest.
This morning was no exception and despite being absolutely exhausted, James barely made any mistakes, or at least if he did, no one said anything. He was so sleep deprived he didn’t recognize Remus when he came in.
James held back a yawn and stared at Remus with glazed over eyes, “Hello, how can I help you?” His customer service voice was surprisingly bright and cheery, practiced enough that he sounded fine even when he looked like hell.
“Uh, just a coffee, black.”
James nodded and returned with the coffee, halfway through ringing him up when he paused. “You’re the guy from the tattoo parlor. We went to high school together,” James said, staring at Remus with sudden clarity.
Remus nodded. “Yeah. Sorry about last night. I didn’t know you owned this place.”
“Don’t apologize, it’s my fault. I didn’t realize she’d be there and everything she said was totally right.”
“Yeah, you were pretty awful in high school. You and your friend were really annoying,” Remus said, the corners of his lips twitching up in a smile as he took a sip of his coffee. James rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the counter. “But it was nice of you to stop by. Thanks for the flowers.”
James looked back up at Remus, “Oh, yeah, no problem. Sirius is the one who put them together. He owns the flower shop across the street from you.”
“Tell him I said thanks then, too.” Remus picked up his coffee and turned around, but James spoke up again.
“I will, but uh, could you do me a favor?” He waited for Remus to stop. When Remus glanced back at him he continued, “could you just tell Lily I’m sorry? For everything?”
Remus nodded, a soft smile appearing on his face. “I will.”
~~~~
James’s first class of the day was ceramics. He had been struggling on what to choose for his elective, but it seemed like it would be fun, so he signed up for it. Frank showed up to work 10 minutes late, which consequently, also made James a little late to class. He was panting as he walked through the door, having sprinted the whole way there.
Of course, the class he had to be late to was one of his smallest. Heads snapped towards him as the door creaked open and the teacher stopped her speech.
“Ah, you must be Mr. Potter. Good of you to finally join us. You can sit next to Miss Evans.” The teacher, Mrs. Lionatra, pointed to the only empty seat left in the classroom.
Lily looked up at that, her eyes meeting James’s, a horrified look crossing her face. James didn’t say anything as he took his place next to her. Tense silence sat between them until Mrs. Lionatra continued talking.
Once the lecture ended and they were dismissed, Lily finally looked at James, who’d been shooting her glances the whole class. “Remus told me you were sorry.”
James started talking immediately, “I am. I am so sorry for everything that happened back in high school. I was such an asshole and I shouldn’t have acted like that. I won’t bother you or anything this year, I swear. I can ask Mrs. Lionatra if I can switch seats, if you want me to.”
Lily nodded. “I think that would be best. I’m not just gonna forgive you or anything, but thank you for the apology. ‘M sorry for screaming at you last night. Don’t hold that against Remus or anything.”
“I won’t. I- I’ll go ask to switch seats right now.”
Lily watched him walk up to the teacher, a small sigh escaping her lips. Maybe James Potter really had changed since high school.