Welcome to the story! Be warned that this is a wee bit mysterious, so bear with us (the story and me) until the end.
There was once a little person who sat day in and day out at his work desk. He was something of a goblin, something of a dwarf, and something of a man. This gentleman could be counted on to be found only in one place; he never left his position in the swivel chair behind the large desk piled with memos of all sorts.
The conditions of the job he had would be considered tedious by the optimistic and dead awful by everyone else. No union, no water cooler, no chance of advancement, no pensions. No lateral moves were available to this man in his firm. Since a certain amount of sturdiness and honesty had been ingrained in him from birth, however, he could be counted on never to quit. Besides, no one ever came to visit him, so who would he hand his quit slip to?
His office was simple. Two large windows on one wall looked out over the landscape before him. Scenes could range from the majestic to the ludicrous depending on the business he was conducting, and the curtains were sometimes drawn so that he could see nothing at all. The desk at which he sat had gathered many important messages over the years (in fact, he had arrived to a crowded desk on his first day) but he never dealt with them all. There simply was not enough time. He would lose productivity if he did, and the entire corporation would go down the crapshoot. That was why he usually handled only the messages that zoomed directly onto his desk from the chutes behind and around him.
Oh yes, there were chutes. Two large, yawning holes opened up directly to either side of his desk, and they shot memos onto the desk as fast and as constantly as you could imagine. In large lettering over the left one was spelled "BRAIN"; and the word "HEART" lorded over the right outlet. Over the time this little man had spent at his job, numerous new chutes had developed as well. Some were labeled things like "STOMACH" or "ENDORPHINS", and some were named things considerably farther down south. No matter, though, because many of these sent messages that were gibberish and the little man simply delegated them to another pile on his desk. Or positioned the chute opening straight over the garbage bin so as to save time. It was a shame that the Heart and Brain Chutes were bolted to the wall, however. He could never just angle them over and pour them into the trash.
Worthwhile messages were a different story. Those he would load into the slot in his desktop that led straight to the mouth. His PR position was critical to Corporate. That was his job, really; he was just a filter for an over-developed conglomerate.
Now, if you ever made as many mistakes at your job as this man did at his, well, you'd be fired. You'd be fired ten times over. You're never make Employee of the Month, but then he didn't have that incentive because of his monopoly on his job position. He was—technically—always Employee of the Month. That's why he felt like he maybe did not need to worry about everything so very much. Of course it was important, yes, yes, of course it was. But sometimes (just sometimes, mind you) he would slip one of the minor chutes over the golden slot on his desk and then take a bit of a nap. Or he would let the slot go for a while until the insistent papers from the brain or heart pecked him out of indifference. He could usually amuse himself these times by peering out of his windows and watching the mayhem unfold.
The little man at the desk had, as previously stated, been very mistaken at many key moments during his career. Almost as much as the bloke in the office under his who directed memos not to the mouth but to the limbs. He admired that fellow very much because neither of them was supposed to have an attitude that differed from Corporate's. Sometimes, however, they both liked to stick it to the man (namely, that pompous blighter, the brain) and just go with whatever the heart or the hormones said. That was how very dangerous business started his eleventh year on the job, when something had caught his eye outside his window.
The man had been put out of sorts by the brain earlier on because of all the thinking that was required to remember the rules that the McGonagall woman had said, and the consequent effort to spit all the answers right back out at her. Sure, the heart had been overdoing itself too. Tearful goodbyes and laughter and nervousness and generally emotional junk had been cluttering up his desk since the night before, finishing just ahead of his nightly break and starting up the moment it was done. That was the only perk of his entire job, the nightly break; and the man controlling the limbs sometimes put him into overtime even then. Simple jealousy in all likelihood, but isn't it always?
Anyway, both the heart and the brain were incessant but the brain was just being preposterous. That was why the little man had been particularly rebellious the following evening, when that red-headed girl had waltzed by his windows. The limb fellow had the lenses outside the windows polished twice in two minutes, effectively blurring the view and generally fouling up things. In a fit of bad temper, the little man had read over some of what the heart was sending and decided to use it to screw over the limb guy (who was trying to instigate a bloody annoying drum roll on the dinner table down at the fingers area).
"There are a load of girls in Gryffindor this year, aren't there?"
"So?"
"Just saying. I'm James Potter. I like your hair a lot. And your eyes are amazing. I've never seem that color before."
"I'm Lily Evans. I suppose I like your hair too, and your glasses are—"
Then, because the little man had been too busy burying his nose in the heart's other messages, something from the stomach had slipped by too fast to catch.
"Pass me the roast beef, then, Evans?"
When she was interrupted in the middle of trying to be nice to someone who might be a new friend, Lily Evans raised one auburn eyebrow. Her pink lips pinched in brilliant eleven-year-old fury.
"Well, excuse me."
From there on out, it was bedlam every time the Evans girl entered the picture. Even the limbs acted badly, and the heart got quirkier and quirkier. The brain was affected too (unfortunately, at times) and the little man was never again totally able to balance things in her presence.
"Hey, Evans," began a message during fourth year that was send from the brain. "You need any help with that spell McGonagall taught us today?"
"Er, I think I'm okay, Potter. Why, are you really good at it or something?"
"Oh yeah, I'm great at it. Want to see my wand?"
That, though, reasoned the little man, might have gone over better if the snickering message hadn't slipped in slot with it. Mistakes continued to occur often—too often—with Lily Evans. A sort of spam mail from the brain and heart together that kept asking Lily on a date constantly stuck to other messages and snuck down to the mouth. Things hit an all-time low at the end of fifth year with Lily Evans, and the little man totally blamed that fiasco on the brain. After the man at the limbs was through thrashing Severus Snape, there were no good choices to be used as a reply to Lily's furious accusations. The little man nearly (on the verge of hysterics) put through a message from the stomach commenting on the roast lamb from last night's dinner that wasn't sitting well. Luckily that had been avoided, although the heart mailed up a litany of depression all summer long.
The little man, however, had big dreams. He wanted that feisty redhead outside his windows more often, and not with her turned and ready to run away. He admired whoever sat behind her switches (and the messages from the subconscious seemed to agree, cheekily enough) because that man (or was he a she?) never let up and made an error. Hardly ever. It took a lot of tricky work from the limbs to finally get an all-too-honest (meaning all-too-incorrectly-filed) message from Lily Evans. And it only happened after years of trying.
"James," she had blurted out, standing in the clutches of the arms, "we've been dating for about a year and I really need to know something. Why did you keep at it with me for so long at Hogwarts? Why are you even still with me now?"
Her magnificent eyes had lowered and then she had whispered something else.
"Why are we so perfect together?"
This was it. This is what the little man up in James' head had been waiting for since a long time ago. Since the memo had first landed on his desk, actually, sent from both the brain and the heart. He had carefully filed it in his top drawer and he pulled it out now, only hoping that the limbs didn't foul up his moment of glory. Taking it by his thumb and his forefinger on each hand, he plucked it from its diamond portfolio and its dust slip cover and he dropped it down the slot.
"Because I love you, Lily," answered James. "Because I love you so much."
It was the finest moment of his career. Congratulations were sent in from every corner and the little man basked in the glow of his success forever on. Deep down, the little man was prouder than anyone would ever know. He had done something right for a change; and that was all he had needed to get all of the limbs and the entire body under his control for that instant. All he could say was that working at James Potter could have been worse, really. Could have been much worse. Could have been like working at Vincent Crabbe or something, where they didn't even have a Brain Chute. Now he'd get to match wits—or match witty messages—with Lily's feisty little brain filter every day.
Not long after his success, the little man took a break. It was mostly up to the limbs now anyway. He stopped and considered that one moment in his eleventh year of business when he had first let that message from the heart go through during Lily and James' first dinner at Hogwarts. But then again, all of Corporate should be thanking him for that. It was damn lucky for James Potter that the little man's favorite color was red.
So hello everyone. I needed to post this totally random one shot that I did in one sitting. Why? I don't know. But tell me if you like it because it's much like an idea for a future story. And—speaking of reading my stories—try my long Lily and James one if you'd like. This isn't based on it or anything; this one is just because. Thanks for reading!