James potter carried his trunk through the front door of the potter house. It was a very nice house, and each room was full of furnishing just as nice as the house itself, but it was also very big. Four stories, to be exact. James was never a fan of big houses. They always seemed a bit dead. A house should be full of a family, hustling around. It should be full of laughter and loud voices, not empty and quiet.
"James, sweetheart, i'm so sorry but i have to go back to work now." said his mother said from behind him. "With another death eater emerging every time we turn around i've barely been home in weeks. I love you and i'll try to get home as soon as i can." She closed the front door and walked over to the ornate fireplace across the room, her shoes clacking as she went "Oh," she said, grabbing a handful of floo powder off the mantle "and james, dear, please don't scuff up the floor with your trunk. Ministry of magic." and with that she disappeared in a large puff of smoke. James shook his head. He hadn't been home since christmas and the last thing his mother said to him was don't scuff the floor. He knew his parents couldn't help that they were never home, but it was still annoying. The war was growing larger around them every day and with his parents being aurors and all they were always at work. James didn't blame them for their chosen profession. Not at all. Quite the opposite, actually, James intended to become an auror as soon as he graduated hogwarts, just like his parents. And there was no time better than now to do it.
Voldemort and his followers were killing dozens of muggles and muggleborns every day, hardly batting an eye, while simultaneously being impossible to catch. He had heard about a secret organization that was also trying to put a stop to the death eaters, that was supposedly run by dumbledore himself. The order of the phoenix. Personally, it didn't matter to james what he did to stop voldemort, just so long as he did something. He couldn't legally do anything yet, considering he couldn't use magic outside of school and it would be highly unwise to track down and fight a bunch of death eaters, magic free. Even so, all the sitting around and waiting was maddening.
James shook his head and lifted his trunk once more, struggling with taking it to the second floor by himself. If he hit the walls his mother would kill him. He accidently did once, when he was helping his father get the trunk upstairs when he was twelve. There was the tiniest of spots missing a chip of paint on the wall at the top of the stairs. Boy, did he get yelled at that day.
James set his trunk down next to his bed, after taking extra care when getting it through the doorway. He looked around his room. It hadn't changed very much in his lifetime. The bed was against the wall to his right, where it had always been. There was a bookcase on the back wall filled with novels and genealogies he had never read. Dark red curtains with golden tassels hung around the window on the left wall and his dresser was next to the bookcase. The same quidditch posters he'd hung up when he was ten still hugged the walls, the players moving around in a lively motion on the field. Those posters were pretty much the only thing lively in this house. Not even the house elves made many appearances, unless he called for them and he really prefered to prepare meals and wash his clothes himself. It gave him something to do.
Already feeling the usual boredom beginning to seep in, james opened his trunk and began to unpack. He sat down in front of it, following his usual method. Clothes go to his right. Pants in one stack, shirts in another, robes in a third, and undergarments and socks in the last. School supplies went to his left, in whatever stack and order they pleased. James wouldn't be looking at those again until seventh term started anyway. Items he actually deemed as important went in different piles behind him. He pulled items out of his trunk, one after the next, after the next. He stopped and smiled when he came across the firewhiskey bottle. He wasn't in the habit of keeping alcohol containers, but this was the one he had shared with lily evans that night in the shrieking shack the night she had finally kissed him.
