░ Some Angsty Starter Sentences !!  ❝ It’s Okay — You’re Going To Be Okay! ❞ ❝ No, Please

Katherine McNamara Photo shoot with Joshua Shultz

‘ hold up ‘

He lets out a strangled yelp as the collar of his shirt is roughly tugged from behind, and James tries not to trip over his own feet as he's pulled back into a doorway. He's already on high-alert, heart beating rapidly in his chest, pounding in his ears, and changing their hiding place had been a bad decision. His palms are sweaty, grip loose on his wand as his back is pressed against the cool stone of Hogwarts' ancient walls, and while part of him wants to keep pushing forward, to keep their heads low and their position a Godric-damned secret, it's becoming an increasingly difficult tactic to maintain. Sirius is nowhere to be found, after taking a wrong turn on the fourth floor, Remus and Peter having split off within moments of the team's arrival. James feels decidedly out of place, nose-to-nose with Marlene in the tiny doorway as rushed footsteps hurry by, not stopping to investigate their spot. It's the most intense game of muggle hide-and-seek he's ever played. Not that he's ever played it before. Marlene is staring him down, gaze pinned to his own, and James can't look away. It's years of friendship, over a decade of knowing each other, bottled up into one intense stare-down that he doesn't actually remember agreeing to take part in. There's a storm in her eyes, he notices, something that's always been brewing under the surface, - and not for the first time, James is wondering what's on her mind. She's his favorite type of mystery. She looks like she's about to say something when someone else runs by, again, footfall echoed in the halls around them, and James resists the urge to flinch when they come just a little too close to their hiding spot. "You owe me," she states finally, when the quiet that signals safety and a close call creeps up on them again, and James grins at her.

“You have me. Until ever last star in the galaxy dies. You have me.”

— Amie Kaufman

Send a word and I will write a drabble or headcanon based on it

Sunlight

Alone

Darkness

Streets

Cupboard

Snacks

Doubt

Joy

Peace

Moment

Rain

Hum

Kitchen

Bedroom

Family

Friend

Garden

Relax

Stress

Job

Fury

Betrayed

Absence

Vices

Pets

Absolve

Stars

Scorn 

Praise

Laundry

Papers

Smoke

Wine

Couch

Kiss

Doors

Tree

Dirt

Flowers

Collect

Remove

?+ add your own.

Friend

HEADCANON:

So much of James' personality is based around his ability to have friendships. He considers himself practically everyone's friend, unless they've been a dick to him, or he's got good reason not to like them. For years growing up, he had always seen how his parents were treated, liked, how they had so many people they could rely on and turn to, people they trusted, people who could just pop by the estate and were greeted with a warm welcome. Acquaintances, they would call them, but James always knew better; they were friends, as simple as that.

Marlene had been his first real friend, aside from his parents, and she has a special place in his heart. But something had changed on that first train ride to Hogwarts; when he had met Remus, Peter, and Sirius. There was a shift in his very core understanding of friendship, in the way he saw how it worked. Friendship was so much more than just people you got along with and saw every now and again, especially when those friendships turned into a family.

Family are people you want to stick by. People you want to surround yourself with. They're the people you call home, when you have nowhere else to go, and no-one else you want to go to. People you trust, people you would do anything for, even without asking, no matter what.

James has plenty of friends.

Sirius is his family.

Amelia Bones

Peter Pettigrew

Marlene McKinnon

Ұ How short/tall is your character compared to their peers?

HEADCANON:

In the earlier years of Hogwarts, James would have been considered pretty tall. He'd hit a growth spurt early, which definitely made it easier to get onto the quidditch team sooner, rather than later. He learned how to use it to his advantage, though as the years have gone by, he's settled into a comfortable 'just a little taller than average'.

Tall enough to give Lily a kiss on the forehead, and to hold Harry on his shoulders so he feels like he's flying, and to make fun of Sirius for being a little shorter than him, he'd say. That's all that matters.

“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

James doesn't quite believe her. He believes her with most things. Everything. She knows far more about the world as a whole than he ever has, ever will, and it's one of many things he adores about her. She's shameless about it, too; having held so much pride in her grades, and her differences, and her position as Slughorn's favourite student, and McGonagall's. Everything she had learned from her parents, her sister, from home, a world James knew so little about, she eats up every ounce of information, keeping it stored carefully away from when she needs it most. In the real world, outside the castle walls, Lily blooms, growing into so much more than he could have ever imagined, - because she's smart. And she's always right. James loves her. James knows she wouldn't lie. And still, those six words feel fake, like a knife in his back, like some kind of mockery. It's not her intention, he knows, but the letter sits in his shaking hands, pinched between calloused fingers, and nothing feels real any more. His mother is dying. The inevitability of it looms over his shoulder, haunting, curled around the nape of his neck like a cool breeze, sending a shiver down his spine. His parents are young in heart, and that's something he's always known, but their age has begun to show. Scrawled handwriting in their letters, more visits to the healers, more time needed to rest when they visit. It's little things that add up, brush-strokes that paint a whole picture, but losing his parents before he's even seen twenty is - He doesn't like it. Lily repeats her words, an arm curling around his shoulders from where she had been stood behind him. For a brief moment, her warm embrace replaces the cold clutch of fear that had seized him, and James leans into her hold, looking down at the letter again. It's only a matter of time.

“So either get with it or get out of the fucking way.”

Amelia Bones is a fucking force to be reckoned with.

James is a little convinced he's in love with her.

She stands tall, the picture of seventh year, head-girl, quidditch-playing, all-woman perfection. Maybe it's the fact that he's actually there, at their first quidditch lesson with Hooch, aiming to hold an air of confidence she's clearly overflowing with. The quidditch pitch is Amelia's turf, and he's not about to try to get in her way in the first place, but that doesn't mean the warning doesn't send a chill up his spine. He wants to believe she's actually paying attention to him, but her list of warnings is crucial, and fair.

All well-deserved, considering half the students who had shown up look bloody well terrified.

She's just there to observe, Hooch had reassured them. Even though she was playing for the Hufflepuff team, - one third their rivals, he had to remind himself, - James still feels a need to impress her. Especially when she seems entirely unconvinced that any of them will actually be good enough to beat her legacy.

Amelia glances at him as she says it, and James flushes pink, trying not to grin.

He loves quidditch.