The Adventures of the J.F.L.
Chapter 1
When James, Fred and Louis were all eight years of age, James decided that the three of them should create a secret club. As with most things James decides, nobody disagreed.
"We'll be called J.F.L. so none of us can quit and nobody else can ever ever join," he said, and all three of them sharpened a brand new pencil to a pointy tip and signed on the line.
Of course, they needed a way to make sure nobody else was trying to sneak into their club, so they asked James' dad to help them get three special wooden emblems with the club name engraved on it. They explained it to him of course, so that he'd do as they asked.
Now adults being adults, James' dad couldn't keep it a secret. He told James' mum first, then Fred overheard them telling all the rest one night when all the family was over and the kids went to bed.
"They called us cute," Fred informed the boys, scandalised. James didn't speak to his dad for the whole of the next morning.
Obviously, that started off a whole new thing in the family. Lily wanted her own J.F.L. and wanted Louis to leave so she could join.
Dominique, with her new pretty purple highlights stuck her tongue out at them and called them "Just Fucking Losers". She wasn't Louis' favourite sister anymore.
Molly made them nancy little pretty club cupcakes they had to pretend to pretend to like, because they weren't supposed to like such pretty things because they were boys, but they were supposed to like them because Molly was the bestest gran ever, and they did like them because they were tasty.
J.F.L. didn't have as much family support as they ought to have. In addition, they ran into their own problems.
They were only supposed to communicate secret club stuff by secret notes written with the special club pencils they sharpened on the very first day their club was created. But Fred lived in a mess, and his pencil didn't last a week. He sat about in misery for about two days because James booted him out of the club for that, because what was the use of having a secret club member you couldn't communicate with? James and Louis were sad about this for a while, then James lost his own pencil and they both decided that Fred should be allowed to join back.
J.F.L. planned for Hogwarts almost from the moment the club was formed. James had known all his life that he was a Gryffindor and nothing but Gryffindor would do for him, though Hufflepuff sounded like a lively house with lovely people. Fred wanted to bunk with James so he was lucky his surname came later. Louis never knew, because he wanted everyone to know he was smart but he wanted to be sneaky and loyal and brave.
"There isn't a house for greedy people you know?" Fred says. Louis fumes a little and refuses to talk to anyone who isn't Grandma Weasley for thirty minutes, until chocolate icing helps him forget to be angry.
J.F.L. suffers again when Fred calls a girl pretty. Louis was probably born to be gay, with all that girly veela DNA composing every cell of his body. Louis doesn't think girls are pretty at all - or if they are, it isn't anything worth noticing. James doesn't care if he likes girls or boys because he's too young to wonder. But girls are girly and whiny and icky and Fred shouldn't be allowed to think they're pretty.
This rift had the potential to tear the boys apart forever, but fortunately, Dominique overheard the boys' comments about girls and threatened to beat all three of them up which naturally sent them back to being allies again.
The boys' club survived all minor hardships along the way and by the time they were old enough for Hogwarts, they knew that they would be club mates forever.