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miriammctroi · 2 days ago

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How James made friends

This is a snippet of a fic / One Shot I started months ago and probably won't finish, (about James being obsessed with his parents' love story and determined to find a wife on his first day of hogwarts, he then spends years trying to woo Lily, while Regulus tries to get his attention in turn. Ending: Jegulus or Jegulily) but I really love the characterization of Sirius and Regulus in this, so I thought I'd share.

A few weeks later, James started Hogwarts. He was shaking with nerves and excitement when he got on the train. He wandered through the narrow way between compartments until he found an almost empty one. One boy around his age sat in there. He was scowling out of the window, arms crossed in front of his chest. He wore very fine clothing, not fit for a long train ride but for a family portrait or a Christmas party.

“Hey, can I sit here?” James asked, popping his head into the compartment.

The boy looked up, still scowling. He looked him up and down and shrugged. “Sure.” Then he turned back to the window.

“I’m James Potter,” James announced and held his hand out to him.

The boy peeled his eyes away from the people outside and looked at him and his hand. “Sirius Black,” he said and shakes his hand. Well, that explained it then. James has heard of the Black family. They were a very proud and old family, of course their son was dressed like that.

“What are you looking at out there?”

“My brother.” Sirius pointed outside to a group of similarly overdressed people, a tall, thin woman, a heavy-set man whose only memorable feature was his large moustache, and a small boy with black hair, looking much like Sirius, but thinner and timid. He was holding on to a book, pressing it to his chest with all his might.

“Are you sad to go without him? You look unhappy.”

Sirus shrugged, eyes still on his brother. The boy was looking right back. James wasn’t sure what emotion either of them was displaying.

Finally, a loud whistling noise signalled the departure of the Hogwarts Express. The boy outside raised his hand to a shy wave. Sirius waved back. The tall woman next to his brother reached out, grabbed the young boy’s wrist and pushed it down. Then she seized the book he was holding, ripping it from his little fingers. Sirius stood. The boy looked up at his mother, James couldn’t tell whether he was saying something, but for a moment, he was sure either of the brothers was about to cry.

The train set into motion. The family shifted out of view. Sirius sat down again. He took a deep breath and then looked at James.

He was rather handsome without the scowl on his face.

“James Potter, you said?” he asked, “That’s a pureblood family, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Sirius nodded. “Well, that means I am allowed to be friends with you. It also means, I don’t want to be your friend.”

“Oh,” James chewed on his lip, “What’s so bad about me being pureblood?”

“Nothing. It’s very good. It’s the elite, actually. Pureblood and Slytherins are the only people I’m allowed to converse with, my mother said. Well, she isn’t here. So, I have no desire to follow her instructions.”

This boy used a lot of big words. What a fascinating child. James didn’t understand him and his thinking at all. And suddenly, James realised he needed to be his friend.

“My family are all Gryffindor, not Slytherin.”

Sirius’ face lit up. “Oh, that’s bad! Absolutely horrific even! It’s settled: We shall be friends. I will be a Gryffindor, too, I presume. All my family are Slytherin. Not me, though. I will be a terrible disappointment to my parents.”

James frowned. Sirius didn’t make any sense at all. He was so happy they were friends now. He may be the first person James met, but he was already the most interesting person at this school, he knew it. “Why would you want to disappoint your parents?”

Sirius bit down on his lip, then let go of it and licked over it, squinting, as if he remembered a rule placed on him. Like when James wanted to touch his mum’s favourite vase but then remembered he wasn’t allowed and she put an alarm spell on it.

“As long as my mother loses her head about me, she won’t pay attention to the little one,” he said and then made that same face again.

“Your brother, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“When will he come to Hogwarts?”

“Next year. Now, stop. We are friends now, we shall talk about us not our families.”

James nodded. He thought of something to say, when the door to the compartment opened. A tall, thin boy with scars all over his face stood in front of them.

“Uhm, sorry, is there still space here?”

“Of course,” James said in a heartbeat. “I’m James Potter, this is Sirius Black.”

“Remus,” he said and sat down, “Lupin, if we need to introduce ourselves with our full names.”

“Lupin?” Sirius perked up, “That name is unfamiliar to me. You’re not a pureblood.”

“Uhm, no?”

“Brilliant! We’re friends now.”

Remus looked at him confused, then looked at James, who simply smiled at him. Remus must be as confused by Sirius as James, but he seemed to lack the fascination – for now.

Soon they were joined by a fourth boy, a nervous looking blond named Peter Pettigrew. Sirius quickly accepted him as a friend, too. Peter looked almost frightened by Sirius’ approach.

James had friends now. What a great achievement – all that before even reaching the school! Now that he had friends, he could concentrate on his next big goal: Finding his wife!

They reached Hogwarts castle. James could finally cast a look around the other students. He saw her when they were sorted.

Lily Evans.

She was definitely the prettiest girl among them. Though Marlene McKinnon with her long blond hair she kept pushing out of her face with increasing annoyance, was a close second.

Lily was sorted into Gryffindor after him. They were all together – James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Lily in one house! His luck was unfathomable! Marlene joined them too, happily accepting a hairtie from Lily. Then there was Mary MacDonald joining them, a quiet, black girl with colourful clips in her coily hair. She was also very pretty, prettier than Marlene, probably.

James quickly learned the most important things about his new friends:

Sirius loved to test people’s boundaries. The first time he was repremendet for misbehaving he seemed to brace himself for something bad, and then, when his punishment was simply sitting in a classroom for an hour, he laughed. He laughed every time he got a howler from his mum, which happened about once a week. He didn’t laugh when he got a letter from his brother. He didn’t share their content with his friends, but kept all of them tucked away in a journal he was always writing in. It reminded James of the one he saw with the brother at the platform.

Remus was shy. He sought validation from about everybody. A ‘goody-two-shoes’ as his dad would say. All of these things James found out in the first two weeks of knowing Remus and sharing a dorm with him and Sirius, who liked to rile him up. Then he found out, Remus was funny. He was a scheming bastard who loved pranks. His first victim? Sirius, after he pissed him off one too many times.

Then there was Peter. Peter was quiet. People forgot about him easily. But Peter was observant, and the perfect spy because people paid so little attention to him. He always knew all the gossip and had intel on the other houses. He knew a person for everything and was friends with the ghosts. In the comfort of their dorm, he was funny, too.

The girls of his year were nice. James didn’t have a lot to do with them. They were still at that age where boys and girls aren’t friends often. Sirius tried to befriend them right away – two muggleborns and a halfblood? He needed them in his arsenal of mother-annoying-friends! James began to understand Sirius.

Lily was smart. She always did her homework, always knew her stuff in their lessons and was the first one to master new spells. But she wasn’t smug about it! James was very smug about it when he mastered something quickly. He was proud of himself and liked to tell everyone how quickly he did it. Lily wasn’t like that.

Lily was also kind. She had friends across all houses, even that unfriendly bloke no one liked, Severus. She always talked about her sister with a smile, and lamented about how much she missed and loved her parents (to which Sirius always rolled his eyes). She became everyone’s friend in a matter of seconds. She made everyone laugh and she had an infectious smile.

Yes, James was in love with her! And he was sure: She would be his wife.

[...]

***

[...]

Now, he boarded the train to Hogwarts for his second year. There were no nerves this time, he was beaming with excitement at the thought of seeing his friends again.

Remus was already in the compartment when James joined. Peter came as well, he was bringing snacks from his mum for all of them. Mrs Pettigrew was a godsent.

Sirius was late. Remus’ face was glued to the window, looking for him. There was a rather fresh cut on his arm, soaking white bandages in red. James knew not to ask. Remus got cranky when he was asked about the scars and the wounds. In their first year, it had prompted Sirius to ask a lot of questions about Remus’ family – James didn’t understand why. But now, they were all rather sure they knew the truth behind Remus’ injuries. It started as a joke, but then Peter shared his observations about the timing of Remus’ moods, wounds and sicknesses. Remus may be a werewolf.

While James was still contemplating this, the door to the compartment was pushed open.

Sirius smiled widely at them. “Gentlemen,” he nodded, “May I present: my little brother Regulus Black.”

He pushes his brother in front of him. He looked very much like Sirius, just missing the effortless confidence and entitlement that was oozing from the older one. Regulus had eyes too big for his face, thin lips and pale freckles on his milk-white skin. Has he ever seen the sun? He didn’t look it. His hair was a little wavier than Sirius’s, but equally as black. Both of them were severely overdressed, wearing expensive robes that might have been fashionable in the late 19th century. It made Regulus look like an angel of death. A small Victorian child coming to haunt them from the past. The fact that he didn’t say anything but just stared at his brother’s friends, made it worse. He was creepy.

“Say hello, Regulus.”

Regulus scowled – the resemblance between the brothers was uncanny – “Hello.”

Sirius grinned and directed Regulus to sit between him and James. “This will be grand! Regulus could join us in Gryffindor tower and be the fifth marauder! We’ll have so much fun!”

Regulus didn’t say anything for the entire duration of the train ride. He was shy, and stayed in the shadow of his brother. He seemed comfortable there.

“I’m considering getting into less trouble this year,” Sirius announced after Regulus had to leave them to enter the castle with the other first years.

“What?” Remus half-laughed, “Are you even capable of that?”

“I could try. Now that Reggie is here instead of home, there’s no need to keep the attention on me. Although… getting into trouble was so much fun last year. Maybe we could do a few pranks… just a few. I’d rather not agitate my mother too much for when I go back for the holidays.”

By now, James has understood that Sirius’ mother must be rather strict. James’ parents weren’t strict at all. The worst punishment he has ever got was having to stay in the house for an entire weekend. He could imagine, Sirius’ mother doing that all the time. Maybe that was why Sirius and Regulus were so pale.

James didn’t pay attention to the sorting ceremony for the most part until –

“Regulus Black.”

Sirius inhaled sharply.

“Slytherin!”

Eight, nine, ten, eleven – Sirius still hadn’t exhaled. James touched his shoulder. Sirius started and turned, frowning at him.

“Are you alright?” James whispered.

He shrugged and looked back at Regulus, whose eyes were on their group while walking over to the Slytherin table.