Title: Advice, Wisdom and Damn Fools (or '3 Times James Ignored Advice He Asked For and The One Time He Listened')
Author: firstflier
Prompt: "Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't." – Erica Jong
Pairing(s): James/Lily
Word Count: 2,400
Rating: T/M for strong language
Summary: There are major moments and decisions in James Potter's life where he feels completely lost. Here are those milestones and who he turned to in order to help him through it all.
Warnings: Strong language
A/N:
Advice, Wisdom and Damn Fools (Or '3 Times James Ignored Advice He Asked For and The One Time He Listened')
It was around 2 o'clock in the morning in the middle of October when James Potter presented Sirius Black with quite the conundrum.
"Hey, Padfoot?" The question was whispered into the darkness of the boys' dormitory.
There was muffled groaning from the bed nearest the window.
"What?" Sirius' response was clipped and sleep clung to his voice.
"Do you think...do you think love is supposed to hurt?"
There was more muffled groaning as Sirius pressed his face into his pillow. The conundrum was thus; roll over, go back to sleep and ignore the whining of a mate in pain or actually wake up enough to formulate answers to such inane questions as 'does love hurt?' A sigh was expelled into the night, a pause of silence and then Sirius shared his enlightening opinion.
"I think you've grown a fucking vagina."
"Cheers. That's just what I wanted to hear. You're a good friend, Padfoot." James' voice practically dripped sarcasm and Sirius swore he could hear his best friend rolling his eyes.
"Well...what the fuck do you want me to say? It's ...bloody hell, Prongs, it's half two in the morning and you want to traverse the mysteries of love? Christ, can't this wait until some sensible hour of the day? Say, when the bleeding sun comes out?"
"Can't you be a normal person for 10 minutes and at least pretend to give a shit about my problems, Sirius?"
"You want me to be a normal person?"
"It would make a nice change."
There was a loud, drawn out huff as Sirius kicked off his bed covers. Sliding out of his bed, Sirius padded across the room and ambled blindly towards James' four poster bed. His knee collided painfully with the trunk at the foot of the bed and, with a hissed expletive, Sirius perched on the edge of his vision impaired friend's bed. James flinched as Sirius' hand came down on his duvet-covered leg. Shaking his limb to remove the offending hand, James frowned as he felt Sirius move even closer.
"What are you doing, you bender?"
And, with that, Sirius punched him hard in the shoulder.
"Shut the fuck up and go to sleep you absolute head case."
"Wha-?"
"You said you wanted a normal person," Sirius explained as he meandered back to his own recently-vacated bed, "and that, my dear Prongs, is what a normal person would say when woken up at 2 in the morning."
"But I just-"
Sirius, with patience already wearing thin, snapped.
"Oh, for Christ's sake! Lily Evans is not worth me being woken up in the middle of the night, she's not worth your sleepless night, that girl is just not worth it. Just let it go. Alright? That what you wanted to hear? Can I go back to the happy place now?"
There was silence in the dormitory and Sirius wondered, belatedly, if he had perhaps gone too far. Had he crossed that unspoken boundary? The one where Lily Evans, and James' seemingly never ending infatuation with the redhead, were off limits? But what did Sirius really know about relationships? What did James expect him to say? There were no 'it'll-be-alright-she'll-come-around-mate' words left within him. Lily Evans, as far as Sirius was concerned, was just another girl in a sea of short skirts and pretty faces. James fancied himself in love with her but could all his moping around really be worth it?
With sudden, uncharacteristic insight, he realised that James might have been actually asking an entirely different question than the one Sirius had inferred; one that should be taken more seriously than a few cruel words shot into the night. He sat up in his bed and turned towards James intent on figuring out the real root of the problem.
But then a pillow smacked him in the face and he figured that everything was probably okay after all.
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"I want to tell Lily."
Remus didn't look up from his Charms essay as he hummed noncommittally to show he was listening but not really paying attention.
"Moony."
There was a pause before Remus dragged his eyes away from his homework when it became clear that James wasn't going to elaborate until he had Remus' complete attention. Amber eyes quickly noted the shimmering cloak under James arm and the rolled up, scrappy piece of parchment that was clutched in his left palm and, instantly, he knew exactly what James was intending to do.
Alarm rolled through him as his heart seemed to drop into his stomach. It felt like he'd been punched and he blinked rapidly but there were no words in his mind that made any kind of coherent sense.
"I wanted to ask you how you felt about me telling her about the four of us. I'm going to tell her about me being an Animagus and I don't want secrets from her but if you don't want her to know about you then I won't say a word."
Remus, being the intuitive chap that he was, knew what James was really asking; please don't make me keep this from her. He also knew that, if it came down to it, James really would keep his word and keep his mouth shut about his 'furry little problem' even from the woman he loved. Was Remus really the type of person to demand that kind of loyalty from his friends? The cruel, wicked part of him whispered that yes, yes he was that cruel. After all, wasn't it the four Marauders long before it was James and Lily, the attached at the hip, we're so in love couple?
Remus scrubbed a hand over his face as he leant back in his chair and knew what his answer would be.
"James, I won't ask you to keep this a secret from Lily, you know me better than that, but I will say this; think carefully before you tell her. Once you say it you can't take it back and I just...I don't know if she's ready for this. I don't know if she'll understand."
Released from his vow of silence, James frowned pensively.
"You don't know her like I do, Moony. She'll...shit." James' frown deepened; the unpredictability of Lily Evans' temperament was one of the things that had first attracted him to the little spit fire. "So you...you don't think I should tell her?"
Remus fought the wave of relief that washed over his body and hated himself for his vast capacity for selfishness.
"I'm just saying think about it, that's all."
James sunk into an armchair and clicked his tongue against his teeth. One hour later, with a resolved nod of the head, James disappeared out of the dormitory still wielding both the invisibility cloak and the Marauders' Map.
Moony's essay remained undone for the rest of the night as he attempted not to hyperventilate.
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Peter stared at James, a frown creasing his brow line as he tried to formulate a sentence that actually made some semblance of sense. His thought process was interrupted when James sighed and blinked rapidly.
"Er..sorry, mate. Is it my go?" Prongs gestured to the chess board resting between them and Wormtail nodded absently, noting James' bishops irately tapping their feet as they waited impatiently for instructions. It was clear that Peter wasn't the only one noticing James' lack of attention.
"James is there..." Peter paused, wringing his hands as the frown across James' brow deepened. "Is there something wrong? I've beat you the last three games and you're normally so good at Wizard's Chess and if there's something the matter you know you can talk to me about it right? I mean just because I'm not-"
"Do you think I have a real shot with Evans?"
The abruptness of the question startled Peter more than the content. Lily Evans was not a particularly rare subject of any conversation that James Potter was involved in.
"Erm...aren't you, I mean...aren't you already dating?" Peter asked, completely baffled and feeling more than a little out of the loop. As far as Peter had known the two of them had been dating for well over 5 months and, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be blissfully happy. He wondered, vaguely, if that had all been one crazy dream or if was losing his marbles. He watched as James dragged another hand through his hair and uttered for his disgruntled knight to move. Peter's eyes returned to the chess board but flickered back up to James in time to see him pulling something from his trouser pocket. His eyes remained glued to the object as James rolled it between his fingers.
"The thing is Wormtail...I don't just want to be dating anymore. I mean a real shot with Lily... forever." James, also seemingly entranced by the velvet box now resting in his palm, flicked it open with the skill of someone who had plenty of practice at that particular motion. "Do you think she'd marry me?"
Peter stared; slack jawed, at the ring that glittered up at him.
"Holy mother of Merlin."
James laughed but it sounded strained and Peter tried to activate his brain to mouth filter before he said something that he couldn't take back.
"Are you insane?"
Too late.
"What?" James recoiled slightly in his seat, his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to mask the injured look on his face with something that vaguely represented male bravado. The lid of the ring box snapped shut with a flick of James' fingers and Peter glanced up to catch the flush spreading across his friend's cheekbones. Guilt instantly flooded Peter's body as he took in James' defensive posture and hurt expression.
"I just...Prongs, we haven't even finished Hogwarts yet!"
"We graduate in less than a week, Pete, and then it's off to the real world. It's not like I've completely lost it or something. I love Lily and I know I always will. My parents got married before they even left Hogwarts and look how happy they are!" The frantic note in James' voice did not escape Peter's attention and, with the clarity that comes of 7 years of friendship, Wormtail wondered if the bespectacled youth was trying to persuade himself that this proposal was reasonable.
"Look, James, I just...now isn't the right time. You're so young and the war is just getting worse out there in the real world." Peter coloured slightly with shame at what he was about to say. "Besides she's...she's muggleborn." Instantly, he wished he could take it back.
"What's that got to do with anything?" Peter could see the second that the confusion drained from James' eyes to leave them dead with cold fury. "You mean that if I marry her I'll be a target and I won't be safe because of her heritage. You mean that if I marry her I'll be dirtying my pureblood line. You mean that if I marry her I'll be marrying a...marrying a-" He couldn't even finish the sentence as the word felt so dirty on his tongue.
James' temper had always been a thing to behold and fear gripped Peter so hard that he could feel his hands shaking in his lap.
"I'll make myself clear because I'm only going to say this once; I don't give a flying fuck about Lily being muggleborn. Don't ever, ever, spew that dirty blood shite around me ever again or I'll knock you into next week, friend or not." He pocketed the ring box and took a breath. "Thanks for the chat, Pettigrew."
James stood up abruptly, sent the chessboard with all the pieces flying and left the room without so much as a glance back. A red-faced Peter Pettigrew watched the white queen roll around on the floor and tried desperately not to burst into tears.
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Later that year, Lily and James got married.
Remus walked her down the aisle.
Sirius was the best man.
Peter photographed the whole event.
James had never been happier to ignore all the advice his mates had ever given him and follow his gut feeling.
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Epilogue (or 'The Sad Bit')
James Potter was close to tears.
This was the case despite the fact that, at the age of thirteen, he had boasted that Potters didn't cry; they couldn't because they didn't even have tear ducts (so nyeah).
Yet, here he was, in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts at the age of 21 and all he wanted to do was bawl his eyes out.
"I don't...I don't know what to do." He rested his head in his hands and felt truly helpless for the first time in his life.
"James-"
"Sir, with all due respect, please don't try to make this okay. There is nothing you can say that will make this even remotely okay. My son," he choked on a lump that had formed in his throat, "my son and my wife are at the top of Voldemort's hit list and there's not a damned thing I can do about it." His fingers tugged at his messy hair and he felt the wild panic creep in once again, lighting his veins on fire and making his head spin as it did every time he thought about the impossibility of the situation.
James finally looked up to see Albus Dumbledore steepling his fingers and regarding the panicking youth with almost periwinkle eyes that lacked their normal sparkle.
"There is the Fidelius charm to consider."
James balked and stared at his old headmaster with wide eyes.
"You want us to go into hiding? To stop working for the Order and put our lives on hold until this crazed lunatic decides we're no longer important targets?" He asked incredulously of an impassive Dumbledore. James ran a hand through his hair and rose from his chair to pace in front of the large desk Albus sat behind. "You want us shut away from the rest of the world with only one person in existence knowing where we are? We'd be like prisoners in our own home. Tell me; what kind of life is that?" James demanded, coming to a stop as he rested the palms of his hands on the wooden desk.
Dumbledore's soft voice was heartbroken as it cut through the long, silent abyss.
"It's a life and, I'm afraid, that's about the best I can offer."
"...I'll take it."
~Fin