Harry writes in the diary like he talks to his Sirius; all about James, constantly, with much enthusiasm.

Tom hates it – he tries to change the subject but that reminds Harry of another one of James' stunts and it spirals until Tom just straight up stops responding at times because he's so sick of James and seethes with resentment, spilling ink all over Harry's words in frustration.

Harry is interrupted in his writing when he sees James come bounding back up the walkway, arms loaded up with groceries, Fleamont following behind at a calmer pace. Harry quickly drops the quill back down and shoves the diary into one of his drawers.

Not that Harry uses the bedroom because he sleeps with James.

Admittedly, James is also conditioned from Hogwarts because his bed is three steps away but he still sleeps in Remus or Sirius' beds instead, so without them he doesn't fall asleep as easily. Good thing he has a Harry now.

Euphemia looks up from feeding the owl a treat when all three cluster into the kitchen. "Perfect timing. Sweetie, you have a letter."

"Which sweetie?" Fleamont asks.

"The newest sweetie," Euphemia clarifies and holds it out to Harry as the owl takes off.

Harry sees the Hogwarts crest and opens it up while the others unpack groceries. "It's Dumbledore, he's replying about my seventh year." Harry looks up and smiles at James. "We're going to Hogwarts together."

James yeets the carrots at his mum and tackles Harry into the wall with a delighted squeal.

James is bouncing in his seat, five minutes into the train ride to Hogwarts. "Kinda sucks we're not in the same year but that's fine, I can recycle your homework next year! And we can probably sneak into each other's classes – no, you can play me and I can play you! Ahh, it's going to be so fun!"

Harry winces a bit. "You'll probably have to help me with homework actually, it's been a while since I was in school."

"We've got you covered," Sirius announces and pointedly puts a hand on Remus' shoulder.

"No," Remus says. "I'm not helping Harry cheat."

"It's not cheating. It's helping out your little nephew," Sirius argues.

"He's a whole year ahead of us, I don't even know if I can help," Remus denies.

James laughs and leans sideways into Harry. "It's fine. Any problems, at all, we've got your back. We'll spend a week straight in the library if we have to."

Harry smiles back because James' laugh is infectious. "Um, and…if I don't get into Gryffindor…"

"It's okay if you're a Hufflepuff," Remus says soothingly.

"Hufflepuff!?" James cries. "No son of mine is a bloody Hufflepuff. You take that back, Remus!"

Sirius is cracking up, hunches forward so far it looks like he's going to fall out of his seat into James' lap.

"Well I meant Slytherin but okay," Harry laughs.

"Slytherin is fine, I'll disown you if you get Hufflepuff," James retorts.

"Obviously he's getting Hufflepuff with the way he acts around you," Remus argues but he's smiling too. "In fact, if we were sorted again, we'd all get Hufflepuff with how co-dependant we are."

"How dare you?!" James snaps, hand to his heart in shock. "You disgust me!"

Sirius wheezes. "Okay but we would be the most terrifying Hufflepuffs."

James breaks character to smirk but gets his expression under control again. "I would throw myself into the Black Lake if I got Hufflepuff."

The compartment door slams open, Lily standing there with red hair whipping around her from the sudden motion and a newspaper in hand. "Potter."

"I was joking," James says quickly, hands up. "It was a joke, everyone loves dissing the 'Puffs."

Lily holds out the newspaper in her hand, James in the picture with glowing antlers and an even bright smile, another picture off to the side with Voldemort and all his sharp edges, breathtakingly handsome and even in a picture you can't meet his eyes for long.

"I look good in that photo, huh?" James laughs.

"You went to that party with the Dark Lord," Lily says between gritted teeth.

Remus shares a look with Sirius but James speaks up first. "Hey, can you guys take Harry to tour the train?" he asks casually because he's not letting Harry listen to his parents yell at each other and Lily is definitely building up to something.

Lily steps aside to let the three file out slowly and then enters the compartment, shoving the door closed. "Is this where you were, when you disappeared? You never said."

James never told anyone but the whole school knew he'd been kidnapped. The whole Voldemort thing was kept under wraps unless you already had an in with the Death Eater crowd, so no one knew it was Voldemort that took him, and James honestly forgot it was a 'secret'.

"Is it about the Heir thing?" Lily demands, crossing her arms.

"I lied about that to make everyone shut up," James admits easily. "I got grabbed by…a family friend."

"So you took a holiday while everyone was worried about you?" Lily snaps. "Lupin and Black were out of their minds while you were gone."

"Now, when I say 'family friend'..." James begins.

"I had to hear about you being a Death Eater from the bloody newspaper!" Lily cuts in.

"Death Eater?!" James blurts out. "Like hell I am."

"The Dark Lord took you to a party and you sure as hell don't look upset about it," Lily argues. "Sev even confirmed-"

"You trust him then?" James bites out, the faint thought of play nice being thrown out of his mind. "You trust Snivellus, who heard from another Slytherin, who heard from a Death Eater, who heard from Voldemort. Why don't you just ask me?!"

"I am asking you," Lily says, fists clenched. "Why are you always jumping at everything I say?"

"Why does everything you say have to be right?" James argues. "You always need to have the last word, you never apologise, because apparently you're just never wrong."

Lily takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment and her voice becomes steadier. "I'm not trying to come across like that. I don't mean to upset you, or insult you, that's not what I want."

James crosses his arms and sits back.

Lily sighs and sits down next to James. "Is your family siding with that man? You know what he thinks of muggleborns-"

"Get out!" James yells, surging to his feet. "Get. Out. I tell you no and you don't fucking believe me! I'm done with you, Lily! You're really starting to get boring!"

Lily jumps to her feet as well. "It's a simple question, James - boring? Boring?!""

"Get out!"

"You're dramatic about everything!"

James shoves past her and storms out instead because clearly she's not leaving. He almost runs straight into Harry, who's wide eyed and standing just outside the compartment after having ditched the other two.

James bites his lip, eyes tearing up because that's so pathetic, showing this side of himself to his son. Harry's expression firms up and he grabs James's hand, pulls him away down the train until they scare a Ravenclaw couple out of their train carriage and take it instead.

"Sorry," James says quietly. "She's...normally nice. Just a bad day I guess."

"It's okay," Harry reassures. "Parents don't have to be perfect."

"I would have liked to show you something nice the first time at least," James grumbles.

The door slides open to reveal the snack trolley.

James straightens and puts on a smile. "What do you like? I love treacle tart."

"I love treacle tart too," Harry says happily.

James screams and hugs Harry. "We're so alike!"

"Are you buying anything?" the trolley lady deadpans.

Sirius and Remus join them soon after, panting and ruffled because Harry really threw them off.

The first night in school, the Marauders and Harry spend the night partying to the wizarding wireless radio on an open tower top, charming the roof tiles red and gold, and enchanting the gargoyles to shake it with them.

Because yes, Harry got into Gryffindor.

Harry was worried at first about the newspaper, he knows how changeable the student population can be, which is why he sprints through the secret passageways just to meet James in the spare moments even when he knows James will be with Remus and Sirius.

James is friendly with everyone no matter the house or age because when he's in the mood for it he just drags people into his orbit, bright and intense, but he's never close. He barely even interacts with the other Gryffindor boys in his room - far too tangled up in the other Marauders to spare a glance for the boring ones who can't keep his attention.

After this many years people notice that kind of thing, when James' cursory focus fades and that becomes an uncrossable distance where he doesn't even bother to look at other people in the halls, and with the newspaper people have started whispering well did we really know him at all.

But James, well, the stares wash over him without passing through. James knows everyone adores him, they can't stop themselves. All it takes a smile and joke and they're tripping over their own feet to get closer because isn't James so funny and clever and isn't everything just so much more exciting around him. If he put some effort in they'd be back to loving him by the end of the day but James doesn't care enough.

People don't say no to James. Not really, not when he doesn't want them to.

And this is just reinforced by Black coming to protect him, the Dark Lord himself seeing something special in James, a future child appearing with so much love. James is having fun.

"I've been thinking about what kind of animal you could be," James muses in a quiet moment between classes, ignoring the way people walk quickly past, side-eyeing James. "Hopefully something small, Prongs can already barely stand up without my antlers scraping the ceiling. Oh, you know about the shack right?"

"I do," Harry admits. "It did seem really small."

Sirius sighs theatrically. "It was fine when we were younger but Moony got his growth spurt recently and it's so cramped. Like you've seen how tall Remus is now," Sirius nudges an elbow into Remus' side. "That times three. It'll be a nightmare when Prongs actually manages to grow."

"I'm getting there," James snaps, defensive because his mum is so short, there's no way he'll beat Sirius and reaching Remus is a pipe dream, just look at how short Harry is at nineteen. "Either way, we try to stay outside most of the time but we can't do it all night every month."

Harry hesitates. "I...know a place."

"The Room of Requirement?" Remus asks. "Because we tried that."

"Think dungeons."

Remus furrows his brow. "It needs to be a room we can seal off properly, and silencing charms don't last the whole night so people will hear Moony if it's too close to hallways."

Harry opens his mouth, closes it. "Do you know the Chamber of Secrets?"

Sirius stares as Harry self-consciously hisses at a tap in the girl's bathroom.

There's a scraping of stone and Remus peers down the hole that appears. "So there's a basilisk down there and we're still going to explore?"

"Moony could take on a basilisk," James says encouragingly.

"No. No, I really could not."

"I'm pretty sure it's sleeping in Salazar Slytherin's face," Harry offers.

"Are you high right now?" Sirius asks.

Harry waves him off. "You'll understand when we get down there."

"So we are going down?" Remus clarifies. "Where there is a basilisk? And no one will find our bodies? Because the basilisk will have eaten us."

James kicks Sirius down the pipe and tries to push Remus but gets grabbed and dragged down too. The three of them scream the whole way down the nasty gross pipe and end up in a small mound of dead skeletons from rats and mice and what might be a cat.

"Are you okay?" Harry calls down.

"This sucks," Sirius declares.

"It's a fixer-uper," James corrects, disentangling himself from the other two and throwing out rapid fire cleaning charms.

"We're going to die," Remus sighs in resignation.

"You're really smart," Harry muses as they walk in a pair down one of the long tunnels of the chamber, Remus and Sirius down another fork, cleaning the place up while James also adds it to the map.

James pauses, looking up from the map. "Yes?"

Harry laughs. "I mean, whenever someone talks about you, it's never about how intelligent you are. I've heard of creative, troublemaker. Mum's always the smart one."

"I'm not book smart like Lily," James admits.

"But your grades are basically all Os," Harry says because he remembers from the Hogwarts letter that came during the summer.

James shrugs, draws a rune on the wall before smoothing it over with transfiguration and a new chunk of pipe is added to the map. "Of course, I'm the Potter Heir." He looks at Harry. "Not that mum and dad care all that much about tradition but it's expected from someone like me. People would pay more attention if I was failing."

"Oh," Harry says and looks away awkwardly as they start walking again. "Okay, so, I'm not the best at school but I'm first in the year at defence-"

James laughs. "Harry! You don't need to. Really, it's not important as long as you get the grades to pick a career you like." James shrugs. "Or just take over one of the many Potter businesses. Or live off the massive vault."

Harry rocks back on his heels and smiles. "What are you thinking of doing?"

James unfolds the map a bit as they get to a corner. "Um, yeah, basically take over the Potter family. Have lots of cute babies."

Harry waits but nothing else is said. "What do you want to do?"

James shrugs and scrawls some runes in the air, flicks them up to stick to the ceiling. "Make things. Make lots of this. Like the map, like a couple silly prank spells I've got."

"An inventor?" Harry urges. "Not just pranks I guess."

"Those are hobbies though," James dismisses.

Harry pauses. "Dad? Is everything okay?"

James purses his lips and holds the map up higher, blocking Harry's view. "Kind of hard to plan for the future when I'll be dead."

Harry's inhale stutters. "You won't be. I'll be here, I'll protect you."

"The more I see of Voldemort, the more certain I am that I don't stand a chance, and I don't know if I can help you," James admits. "Prophecies don't just go away. I shouldn't be thinking of the future when I'm just trying to make it to twenty-two."

"This didn't happen before, none of this did, you're safe," Harry insists.

"I finally-" James cuts himself off, gripping the edges of the paper in his hands. "I finally made myself research it and it's exactly how I thought it was. All the books say time is linear, even time turners-"

"This isn't the same timeline anymore! We've broken off, Sirius says…" Harry trails off and looks away.

"Black said what?" James murmurs, dropping his arms so he can see Harry again.

"Just…this isn't about time anymore," Harry says. "I'm dead, James. My Sirius says he still feels the Veil. This isn't time."

James swallows thickly. "I want to be an auror, with Sirius. And then after I'll be an Unspeakable, with Remus, and we'll make lots of things. And I'll still have lots of babies, but I don't know who with, and Remus and Sirius are definitely living with us – they don't have a choice."

"I think I want to do quidditch," Harry admits. "It's the only nice thing that wasn't complicated in my life."

"I'll add that to the plan," James says and grins. "My son, world's greatest seeker in seventeen centuries!"

"Well, let's not go that far just yet," Harry laughs.

.

A/N: I'm trying to get across James' personality issues of arrogant, hella privileged and surrounded by overprotective and close to overpowered friends. Now there's just an obsessive need to be loved and have attention because how can he be validated without it when that's all he knows?

(If I wanted to get really dark, James would be so affected by Peter's death because he enjoyed it. Imagine, Sirius loved him so much he came back in time just to protect James even if it meant killing Peter. James is so loved, so adored, just a pity Peter had to be sacrificed to prove it.)