HP Character Aesthetics (8/?)

“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.

“Can any single person shut the fuck up about any single thing for an hour?”

"Would that include you?"

He asks it dryly, far too hungover to be anyway amused by Sirius' ramblings. The light peeking through the curtains of the bedroom is far too bright, the sound of someone pottering around downstairs is far too loud, - which, actually, is probably what Sirius is talking about in the first place, - and his head is pounding. For the most part, he can tolerate everything his brother says, greets his words with a warm grin and a wicked sense of humor, -

But his wedding is in two hours, he's lost his glasses and his left shoe, and all he can remember about the night before is the roar of Sirius' motorbike.

And firewhiskey. Lots of firewhiskey.

James turns over on the bed, hand reaching out blindly for his wand. It's not on the bedside table, and for a moment, he's confused, frowning as he tries to see through the blur of his shitty vision.

"Have you seen my wand?" he croaks out, rolling over to actually attempt to sit up, stomach lurching in the process. "Where the bloody hell are my glasses?"

"I would answer both of those questions and more," Sirius retorts, voice coming from somewhere on the floor, in a pile of blankets, "however, since you so rudely suggested I shut up, I intend to do just that."

His wand isn't there, but there's a book on the nightstand.

James throws it at him.

“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.

“Can any single person shut the fuck up about any single thing for an hour?”

"That would actually involve people being competent and considerate, and you and I both know that's pretty hard to come by."

He answers before he thinks, only glancing up when Amelia comes to a stop beside him. As vast and all-encompassing as it is, the Ministry is surprisingly small, and James finds himself bumping into the same people on the regular. It's not an uncommon thing; most people working within it's walls are on a tight, routine schedule, and end of following the same pattern, day in, day out. James feels like an outlier sometimes, floating in and out to collect missions, to attend training and debriefs, most of which can already be done on the field.

It has been nice, however, to see Amelia again. He's known her almost ten years, now, and known her for about a year. They get on, and he's always appreciative of a familiar face. The little coffee shop across from the telephone box is where they usually cross paths, and today is no different.

She's frowning like she's sick of the world, leveling him with an unamused glare, and James turns back to the boy behind the counter with a grin, asking politely for another cup of tea for Amelia.

He's got a feeling she needs a minute to relax.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ bo burnham: inside sentence meme

part 1/3

“Interesting, now leave me alone.”

“Sorry that I look like a mess”

“____’s been a little depressed.”

“I’m sorry I was gone.”

“Daddy made you your favorite, open wide.”

“It’s a beautiful day to stay inside!”

“The world is changing.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Should I leave you alone?”

“Should I be joking at a time like this?”

“I wanna help to leave this world better than I found it.”

“And the fear is not unfounded.”

“The world is so fucked up.”

“There’s only one thing I can do about it.”

“Making a literal difference metaphorically.”

“So maybe I should just shut the fuck up.”

“I don’t wanna do that.”

“There’s gotta be another way.”

“Lord help me channel sandra bullock in the blind side.”

“I said I’d never be back.”

“But now I’m back on my feet.”

“Pour me a drink and clear my schedule.”

“I’mma FaceTime with my mom tonight.”

“These forty minutes are essential.”

“How’d you guess?”

“And that’s the deepest talk we’ve ever had.”

“It must be complicated.”

“That’s how the world works.”

“It’s similar to a constant state of sleep paralysis.”

“Don’t you know the world is built with blood?”

“That’s pretty intense.”

“No shit.”

“What can I do to help?”

“This isn’t about you.”

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

“Watch your mouth, buddy.”

“Have you not been fucking listening?”

“I can’t go… I can’t go back.”

“Look at me.”

“Are you going to be on the right side of history?”

“Who are you?”

“Or you can roll up your sleeves and get to work.”

“Is this heaven?”

“Or is it just a white woman’s Instagram?”

“It’s been a decade since you’ve been gone.”

“ Is it necessary that every single person on this planet um, expresses every single opinion that they have on every single thing that occurs all at the same time?”

“Can any single person shut the fuck up about any single thing for an hour?”

“Is that… Is that necessary?”

“ Who needs a coffee? Cause I’m doing a run?”

“The coffee is free, just like me.”

“I’m an unpaid intern.”

“You just torrent a porn.”

“I’m being a little pretentious.”

“It’s a defense mechanism.”

“ I’m so worried that criticism will be levied against me that I levy it against myself before anyone else can.”

“Oh, if I’m self-aware about being a douchebag, it’ll somehow make me less of a douchebag.”

“Self-awareness does not absolve anybody of anything.”

“I want this to stop.”

nighttimestorrm​:

who: @jamiespxtter​ when: 1st january 1959 where: potters home

Despite how quickly Sirius had rushed to Godrics Hollow he couldn’t bring himself to go up the door. Instead he paced up and down the street, trying to control his shaking hands and his beating heart. Still none of this felt real. It must be a dream or some sort of hallucination. But there Godrics Hollow was, just how he remembered it before he came here on Halloween to find destroyed. He could still remember that night. The images would forever be in his memory, never to go away and instead would haunt his dreams. He could still hear the sound of Harry crying. He could remember begging Hagrid to give him to him. He was his Godfather. It was up to him to take care of him. But, no. That had been taken away from him. Just like everything else.

Shaking his head he forced himself to come to a stop and stared at the front door. What if they weren’t there? If it were only him that had been brought back to this time then it would feel as though he had lost them all over again. And he wasn’t strong enough to suffer that. If he walked in there and the place was empty. Or worse…the same as he last time he had saw it. That would break him beyond repair. So he just stood there. It was still early enough that the street was still quiet. Yet he knew he couldn’t stand there forever. So, not being brave enough to go up to the front door he tried to quietly make his way around the back. He would look in the window and see if there was any sign of life. And if not…then he didn’t know what he was going to do.

But as soon as he stepped into the back garden he froze. He just stared as there stood James, looking back at him. And he didn’t know what to do. There was a chance that James knew nothing of what was going on. That it was only Sirius that was effect by…whatever this is. So he knew he should at least try to act somewhat normal. But he couldn’t. A lump formed in his throat while he blinked away tears from his blurring eyes, scared that if he couldn’t see James he would disappear. Part of him still believed this was just a dream. But he didn’t care right in this moment. Because there was James just as he remembered him. A little bit younger but…still there. Alive.

He couldn’t move. If he did he knew he would just fall to his knees. All these years of missing his friend, his brother, came crashing over him like a wave threatening to drown him. There were so many things he wanted to say but he didn’t even know where to begin. He just wanted to forget about everything else for just a moment. Right now he just wanted his friend back. Yet he were afraid to reach out in case he were nothing but a ghost. And still, he would take that over nothing.

“J-James.” He finally managed to choke out and before he crumbled and let the sob he had been holding in take over him, a tear escaping down his cheek. “Are you…you’re real…right?” 

--

It’s been a long morning.

It aches in his bones, and over his shoulders. In his eyes, where he’s cried until he simply can’t cry any more, and deep, deep in his chest, an ache of a loss he can’t quite face yet. It’s not a question of where is Harry, because he’s simply not there any more, taken from existence like he meant nothing to the world. To them.

He knows Lily feels it, too. He can see it in the way she avoids going upstairs, the way she lingers around where his high chair used to be by their little kitchen table. So much of their life, their own existence, had been so entirely centered around him. Everything James had known about himself had shifted, geared into something newer, something better; a father, and a husband, a man who made promises, and kept them. And while he had wanted to believe he had done everything right, had put up the best fight he possibly could have to keep his family safe, the odds had been stacked against them. He barely stood a chance. Voldemort had the upper hand, had all the insider information to come to their home, to take what was theirs, to target their son.

He can’t face Peter. He refuses to.

He’d barely lasted two seconds in his own fight against Voldemort. It eats him up inside.

Breathing is hard. Living with that fact, is hard. It clings to his skin like ice, keeping him tense and cold, and for the second time that night, James finds himself out on the back step, the action familiar and foreign all the same. His hand is shaking as he lifts the cigarette to his lips, and he uses the tip of his wand to light it, frowning when he just can’t seem to steady his hand. It’s easier, in front of Lily, when he has to keep a brave face.

Alone? James is close to cracking.

There’s a sound by the side gate, and everything in him freezes up.

It’s too soon. It’s too much. Before he can help it, his heart is pounding in his chest, hard enough to hurt, and he raises his shaking hand, wand trembling in his grasp. They’ve faced too much to deal with this, again. He can’t handle this, again.

- only it’s Sirius, who comes around the side of the house, stopping dead when he spots him.

Time is suspended, for a moment. It hangs in the air, a weight between them he hasn’t experienced in the ten years they’ve been friends, brothers. James can see him, the way he had been, older and tattooed and so tired as they stood beside Harry in the forest, - and when he blinks, Sirius is nineteen again, crying as he looks at James.

“Pads, -” he manages, voice strangled, and James takes a step, and another, wand dropping until they’re barely a distance apart, “- Sirius?”

❝ No, please don’t leave… ❞

"I'm not leaving you." He says it with determination, sweat mixed with rain as it drips down his temple, the pair of them huddled together in an awning. Hogsmeade is eerily quiet, a mist settling in over the moors as winter creeps nearer, and he has one hand on the bloody mess that is Sirius' chest, the other still clutching his wand tight. The fight itself had been a bloody ambush, in every sense of the phrase, Death Eaters poised and waiting for the duo to arrive, after an arranged meeting with 'a trusted source' to gather some intel from London. A trusted source, the little voice in the back of his head echoes, dripping with sarcasm and rage, though the hiss of pain Sirius gives is enough to snap James back into the moment. Apply pressure. Keep him calm. How many times had they sat through wizard and muggle first aid training with Shacklebolt, specifically for moments like this? He can see it in Sirius' face, the delirium of blood loss and the cold creeping in around them, and it takes every ounce of courage he's got right then and there to stay put, keeping a brave face for the both of them. He's got two options, reality setting in with the frost on the grass, and James tries to weigh up the pros and cons, still focusing on the blood pooling between his fingertips. The injuries to his chest aren't pretty. Too deep to be healed with magic, and even still James' hand is shaking a little too much to keep his wand steady. They're supposed to be meeting Lily in an hour, to pass on the information and head back to the Order headquarters, but it's hard to know how long Sirius can stand laying there. Their other option is a flare, lighting the evening sky with a stream of red, - but that in itself is a giant, bloody pin in the map, pointing out their exact location to the people they're trying to keep it from. He's running out of options. "I'm not leaving you," James says again, sure in his voice. His hand steadies, and he keeps the pressure.

“He did not know why it had been such a shock; he had seen pictures of his parents before, after all, and he had met Wormtail but to have them sprung on him like that, when he was least expecting it… no one would like that, he thought angrily… And then, to see them surrounded by all those other happy faces.. Benjy Fenwick, who had been found in bits, and Gideon Prewett, who had died like a hero, and the Longbottoms, who had been tortured into madness… all waving happily out of the photograph forever more, not knowing that they were doomed… well, Moody might find that interesting… he, Harry, found it disturbing…”