Author's note: Just a sweet little next-generation one-shot. Probably completely predictable, but with any luck it'll make you smile. I'd argue that, with the next-gen kids, JKR left us with basic sketches for O.C.'s. So James and Al come mostly from my imagination. I listed James S. Potter and Lily Luna Potter as the two main characters even though Lily's not physically in this story because it's about the two of them. And James is a good big brother in this. I know he was kind of a jerk to Al on the platform, but I imagine he's a lot like Ron and the twins-he's allowed to be a jerk, he' s the big brother, after all. But if anyone else messes with his siblings, he'll take them to task, even if said person is his best friend. So really, Ron in Deathly Hallows is my inspiration for this. Also, if you're confused about the housing, Hugo and Lily are in Ravenclaw, Rose and James are in Gryffindor, Al's in Slytherin, and Dominique, though I tried to convince her to be Ravenclaw for ease of access to Lily's dorm room, demanded to be a Hufflepuff. I let her win, since Rose volunteered to make the hike to Ravenclaw. Happy reading, dears!
Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to JK Rowling. Heck, even the parents of the characters you don't recognize belong to JK Rowling. Only the idea is mine.
James Sirius Potter loves girls. Women. Whatever. He's not particular in his types. He enjoys watching the skinny, tomboyish Chelsea Thomas fly as much as he likes watching curvy blonde Mary Finnegan walk (or breathe, but Mary is a particular weakness of his.) The way Allie Longbottom twirls her hair when she's studying-there's a lot of pressure, being a professor's daughter- is as attractive as the way Sarah Wood bites her lip and looks at him through her lashes. There's only one trait that excludes a female from being noticed by James, and that is being the sister of a friend, because he's not his father and some things just aren't okay, damn it. James Sirius Potter has a strict rule with his friends-Lily isn't a girl, not when it comes to Things Like That. He shows them the same respect.
Not, mind you, that James is a womanizer. He doesn't kiss and tell, or have "casual encounters of the physical nature," as Al calls them, even if approached, or ever, ever lie about how he feels about them. He has the tact and the respect for women to realize they aren't objects, but equals. Hell, you can't grow up with Ginny Potter for a mum and Harry Potter for a dad and not have an intense respect for certain values, love and honesty among them. Add on to that he has a little sister he'd probably literally kill for, as well as two part-Veela cousins with no older brother to protect them (of course, Victoire had Teddy, but Jamie worried about Dominique, his darling Nikki, his age but so trusting she bordered on naïve, and Louis is a few years younger, he can't exactly beat up sixth-year boys) and James Potter has an almost old-fashioned level of chivalry, even for a Gryffindor. It just so happened that he also has a deepseated appreciation for how the fairer sex looked when they walked. His mum hadn't known how right he'd been when she pronounced him "so like Ron."
So to say that James was happy when the aforementioned curvy blonde Mary asked him to accompany her to Hogsmeade would be an understatement of fact, and to say, as his brother did, that his feet didn't touch the floor for the next week would be only a slight exaggeration. The morning of his date, he woke up when the sun broke through the window of his tower dorm, hours before anyone else. He usually didn't get so worked up over dates, but he'd had a thing for Mary since he was two and she was three and she'd tossed aside her doll to fly around on his toy broomstick. Her affection for flying had waned in the intervening fourteen years; his for her had not.
But when Hugo left the Ravenclaw table to join James for breakfast, Mary stopped being the first thing on his mind, because something was wrong. While he and his siblings often left their house tables to dine together, Hugo tended to stick with his housemates. James's eyes swept the Great Hall. The family was accounted for, seemed happy…except Lily. He hoped the two facts were unrelated.
"Jamie? Have you seen Lils? Something was wrong last night, something major, so I let Rose in and sent her up to the third-years' room to check on her, but she didn't sleep in her bed last night. She didn't go to mine, Al's, Rose's, or Nikki's, Hagrid hasn't seen her, and I don't think she'd go to Roxie, Louis, or Fred. Did she come up to yours to crash?"
It wasn't unheard of for his little sister to go to one of her big brothers' dorms to talk. She'd even spent the night sometimes, particularly whenever something about the Second War, the one that involved their parents so intimately, was discussed in class. The Slytherins would let her in to Al almost no questions asked, and she always had the Gryffindor password, James made sure of that. (So did Al, come to that, but he used it less often than Lily did.) But James had been awake and pacing Gryffindor since dawn, and Lily wasn't there, unless she was out of reach in the girls' dorms… but Rose hadn't seen her, so she wasn't there. If she hadn't gone to anyone, not even him, Al, or Hagrid, something was really wrong with her.
"What was she upset about? Do you know?" James looked, not at Hugo, but at Al, who was sliding in next to Hugo.
"Something with the boy she's been seeing. She ran away from him yesterday, I know that, and after that he was …he was with another girl on the Marauder's Map. Their dots were touching."
"Dots touch all the time, Al."
"Not in the boys' dorms, they don't, Jamie."
"Shite. Does Lily know? Wait…in his DORM? Do you think Lily…do you think he and this girl… I mean, Lily's only fourteen, and barely that, she's just a third year, are they…"
"No, they're not. It was a point of …contention, shall we say, in the relationship, that she wouldn't." James wasn't surprised that Rose had been listening intently, but he was completely gobsmacked at her words. Since when did Lils not tell him everything?
"Why the bloody hell didn't she tell me that?" he and Al demanded in sync.
"Because she was afraid you'd hex him."
"Because I would." Al actually pulled his wand from his pocket. James reached for his wrist.
"We would. Together. That's just not the kind of thing you do to a lady, pressure her do things she's not ready for."
"Well, she was terribly upset about something. And it'll take forever to find her on the Map." Hugo worried his lip between his teeth.
"Don't need the map. She's where she always goes when she doesn't come to us but wants us to find her." Al replied.
"Where's that?"
"Sorry, mate, but if you have to ask, you don't need to know. Al, give me one second, okay? She really liked him, this is probably going to take both of us. And all day."
"But you've got your date with Mary today."
"Why do you think I need a minute? I'm not sending Hugo to reschedule like a bloody owl."
"Okay. Go on, then, I'll get the tea. But Jamie? I can handle her solo. You've wanted this with Mary for a while."
"The next weekend is in less than a month, Al, I'll be fine." James extracted himself from the table and walked down to the other end. "Mary? A word?"
She merely turned around, looking at him with big brown eyes that melted his knees and nearly made him forget why he was there. "Yes?"
"I'm so sorry to have to do this last minute, but I can't make it today… something's come up with my sister, I need to stay here today. Next Hogsmeade visit, though, I'd be delighted to accompany you."
"Oh, but I've already got plans with my girlfriends then. It'll be our very last Hogsmeade weekend, you know. There's not any other time, with graduation coming, that I can see us getting together."
James realized then what she really meant. His shot with her was right then, now or never. It was a trait of Mary's-she hated coming in second. He had a choice to make. He could let Al handle Lily, enjoy this date with the girl he'd been pining for since he called her "Ma-wee" and her dad "Unca Shay." Or he could let her, and all the dreams that he had about long blonde hair and big brown eyes go forever. It was an easy call, really.
As James and Al walked up the stairs to the Astronomy Tower, loaded down with a hot water bottle of tea, three mugs, and a picnic breakfast for Lily, James reflected on his one rule about dating. His sister wasn't a girl, not when it came to Things Like That. She was much, much more important.