Title: Still Fighting It
Character(s): James S. P & Albus S. P
Summary: "Don't you ever think that maybe its people who belittle Slytherins like you who make them hesitant to be the better person?" One-Shot
Notes: So.. uhm.. this is something I've been writing for a few days, and it's part of the 'House Quote Challenge'. The quote I had to use was 'When you stop fighting, you stop living. So find your fight, then fight like hell until the battle is won,' and this is what I got out of it. Hope you like it, Reviews are appriciated and Take care!
Tip toe, tip toe across the creaking stairs as if one little sound will be the difference between life and death...
He didn't believe them – no, his younger brother wasn't an odd child – just because he was the first child to get placed into Slytherin didn't mean that Albus Severus was evil.
James Sirius would remain adamant in that decision for the rest of his life – he even told his best friend Ryan Holmes that it wasn't the house you were sorted in but the prejudice's that were placed against you that caused you to become bad, or evil.
James Sirius Potter had found his fight – something to put all of his time into. Making people understand that his brother was not malevolent.
"Why can't you just admit it James?" His Girlfriend Alyxandra asked him one day, when he had recently come back from talking to his brother, "He's a Slytherin; he's going to go bad someday."
James' smile weakened immediately as he looked at his girlfriend with Hazel eyes – he seemed to be the perfect copy of his grandfather, a clone.
James had never really been much of a frivolous or reckless person, but his eyes seemed to turn into a glare as he spoke back with more bite in his voice than Alyxandra could take,
"Don't you ever think that maybe its people who belittle Slytherins like you who make them hesitant to be the better person? So caught up in discriminating against him for being a Slytherin and thinking that he's bad – you've completely forgotten that you're being bad and mean for your own prejudices!"
Without so much as another word, James had stormed off away from Alyxandra – his insides filled with rage for such an assumption to be made against his brother.
"I'm not being mean or anything James, I was just telling you the facts, Slytherins and Gryffindor's don't usually get along!" James' best friend Ryan had exclaimed one day when James had come back from the Slytherin dungeons.
"I'm sorry, what?" James had growled as he rounded on his best friend, and fellow fourth year, gathering the attention of the other students sat around in the Gryffindor Common Room.
"Did I not say it loud enough James? It's either Gryffindor, your own house that you stay with! Or it's you brother and all the other slime balls in Slytherin! You can't ever expect that you can be accepted by both houses James!" Ryan snarled in response, neither of the two realising when first year Lily Luna stepped down the stairs sitting on the fourth step.
"You're seriously telling me to choose between my friends and my brother?" James asked his voice suddenly forlorn and slightly sad, as if he didn't know whether he could actually choose.
Lily Luna looked between James and his best friend, she, like the rest of the common room was probably debating whether James would actually choose between the two.
"I've been waiting for you to do something for three years James! Obviously I have, I just can't wait any longer for him to mess up. So yeah, I guess I am telling you to choose between your friends and your Slytherin brother." Ryan spoke harshly, stressing each of his words out.
James looked back at Ryan with a sharp look, biting his lip before nodding at his best friend with a broken look.
"Fine... you want me to choose?" He spoke, his voice portraying nothing, no emotion at all, "You want me to pick who I'm going to keep in my life?"
Ryan nodded, and Lily Luna took a deep breath as she, along with all of the other Gryffindor's waited in anticipation for James' answer...
"Fighting a fellow student, a student who also so happens to be in your house Mr Potter is preposterous!" McGonagall seemed to screech, as James and his parents stood in the Headmistress's office.
The headmistress herself had never really ever been so angry at James before in his life, irritated yes, but she had never become red in the face from fury. It seemed that even McGonagall was through with James now, and though he didn't want to – James felt slightly disappointed that he didn't feel as if he had just fought an everlasting battle against his ex-friends' prejudice.
"Look, Professor, It's not as if I didn't have reason!" James protested from the seat in the middle of his parents, "I was in my rights to knock a few of his teeth out!"
James didn't know who to be more scared of after he had spoken, his parents or McGonagall, but immediately he felt the tension explode all across the room,
"It was in your rights?" He heard his mother scream in a rage similar to the McGonagall's, "It was in your rights to attack another student!"
"You think you have permission to assault other students!" McGonagall shouted, "It is not within anybody's rights to hurt someone and if you think that is so then you should be expelled right this instant!"
James' father Harry's reaction was probably the worst as it was full to the brim of disappointment, anger and sadness.
"If you think that we're going to accept this James, then you've got yourself mistaken..."
James, who had previously been full of anger and the need to just lash out at the next person to insult his brother, suddenly grew very cold inside, as all he could feel was despair.
He hated being upset...
"It was for Al," James muttered, before slumping in his seat, and adding, "It was all for Al..."
"Why do you keep on trying on keeping your little truce with the Slytherins Potter?" Ryan asked one night in their fifth year; when he saw the person in question enter the fifth year dormitories, "You know it's not going to keep up forever, so why do you try?"
James ignored him, still full of the despair he had felt ever since his father had spoken that one sentence. As he leaned back on his bed, looking up at the ceiling, James contemplated on why he still hadn't felt happy since.
He wished he could cheer himself up, but James had always been one to hold on to a certain feeling and just... bottle it up inside.
When Ryan repeated himself, James only replied with a half-hearted reply,
"Why wouldn't I?"
In the last few days of his seventh year, after he had finished all of his N.E.W.T's James walked down to where Albus was sat, writing out the answers of his potions essay, beneath the old oak tree where generations of Potter's had sat before them.
When he finally looked up from his essay, Albus gave James a look that was easily recognised as bewildered, or confused.
"Why did you always choose me, over everyone in Gryffindor?" He asked finally, after they had been sitting in silence for over ten minutes,
Smiling for what seemed to be the first time in years, James looked at his brother, as he spoke,
"There's a quote, 'When you stop fighting, you stop living. So find your fight, then fight like hell until the battle is won,"
James stopped for a moment, not only building suspense as he looked down at the lake, but also making Albus slightly impatient, "Well guess what Al, no one messes with us Potters. I found my fight, and I'm fighting until I win."