Scenes from the Inside

Pure Imagination

Disclaimer: own nothing, except for the plot and added characters. This applies to all later chapters, so forgive me if you don't see it later on.

A/N: enjoy! And don't forget to review on your way out.

Three guitar solos later, I was done with the masterpiece of my life. I had written down the basic "plot" of the song, and I liked seeing the rows and rows of uneven notes, rising and falling. My song was called, "The Ocean", and the guitar solo was something to be proud of.

I'm James Potter, and I live in a small, gated wizards' community. My parents, extensive travelers, lived for a while on the coast of a small, Central American country. When they were there, a priest took them on a tour (so they could get the "real" flavor of the country) where they happened to stop by a giant landfill. They saw a group of children playing on mountains of trash, small girls and boys of about five ignoring the sickeningly sweet stench of garbage.

The priest then told them that the children lived here at the dump, and that this was their livelihood. Just then, a huge garbage truck backed into a more empty lot, and trash was poured out. The children dashed over to the mounds of discarded plastic, metal, and rotten, moldy food as the priest told them more. "They have memorized which truck comes from the richer part of town, full of American tourists who aren't as saving with their food. They survive on the garbage of others."

My parents were shocked at the absolute thinness of the kids at the dump, who were greedily picking through this fresher load of waste. The absolute poverty was horrible, and it induced them to think about certain foods they had thrown away without a thought of who could eat them. They donated almost a third of their fortune to helping out these children at the landfill, and they even took one boy home to raise as their own. This boy with the untidy hair finally felt loved in his warm bed and with his full stomach.

That boy was me.

I only lived there for the first five years of my life, but I still remember certain flashes vividly. I remember the scent of the waste, and I remember intense pain. When I wasn't sunburn, I had stomach pangs. When my parents-to-be picked me up out of my home, they thought I'd maintain my tan complexion, but within four months, my skin was coming off in chunks.

I was just a pale little boy, with inky black hair, but I seemed to fit right in with England. Most of my Spanish was forgotten in my eagerness to learn English (my parents also knew very little of my native language), and, though I retained my good accent, I forgot most of my extensive vocabulary. I didn't even have a chance to learn it back…they don't teach Spanish at Hogwarts.

I learned to love the people who called themselves my parents, who outfitted me with a new name and a new life—but somehow, my old, poor life lay over it all like a thin veil, which altered all I saw. The ocean was something I could never leave behind; it was my calm, my panacea.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I grew up as the son of Thomas and Agatha Potter, who were witch and wizard, and I spent all my time before the age of eleven hoping I'd become a wizard as well. I didn't want to be thrown aside, cast out again into the Muggle world of which they spoke so poorly. My whole existence was to please these people, and when I received a letter the summer of my eleventh year, I was so excited that I played my guitar the whole night through.

Once I'd ridden the train to Hogwarts, there was a land I'd never dreamed of. There were so many children just like me, who were all scared of the new school and intimidated by all the interesting things that awaited us. My fellow first years and I quickly grew close. With all the classes we had together, and the boys that I lived with, we had an irreplaceable bond, a link, a connection holding us together.

My three best friends were Sirius, Remus, and Peter. Peter wasn't the best of friends, to be truthful, but Sirius, Remus, and I let him hang around with us as long as he wasn't being too annoying.

We were the Marauders, and we were invincible.

One day during the October of my fifth year, I was looping around on my Quidditch broom. People would say I looked as if I belonged on a broomstick, and I have to admit, I did fly well. But there was one secret hiding beneath my composed exterior—I was deathly afraid of heights.

Many people wouldn't have even believed it: the James Potter, Quidditch star, ladies man, scared of going to high on his broom? Impossible. Beyond impossible. There's no way he was the best Beater of the past two decades while being afraid of heights, they'd think. But it was true; I was just afraid of showing any weakness, so I tried to keep anyone from knowing. My adopted parents didn't like weakness, and the chilling fear that originated in my stomach and spread to affect every limb in my body would certainly qualify as a weakness.

That's why I had come out here, and looped and careened to the edges of the field. If I couldn't conquer this irrational fear of heights, there was no way I'd be able to succeed at anything. And who would respect such a wimpy, run-and-hide kind of guy?

Sirius and Remus were in the stands, watching me. They'd come for support, since they didn't play Quidditch. They preferred to spend their talents tutoring, which I found odd until I understood their philosophy. Both were exceptionally smart, though Sirius could bullshit his way through anything and Remus preferred to teach off what he had stored in his memory.

Both had dozens of girls lined up for their "services", and I can't deny that the girls learned nothing from them. The studious ones, the ones who were actually interested in catching up in a weak subject, found their tutorials almost useless. On days I didn't have Quidditch practice, sometimes I went and watched how they did it, exactly. They had everything down to an art.

"Looking good, Prongs!" yelled Sirius from the topmost bleacher. If I'd been in his position, I'd have been looking warily down through the bars below my feet, wondering exactly how far I could fall. But Sirius seemed more than relaxed; a pillow rested behind his neck, and a goblet of stolen pumpkin juice sat comfortably in his hand. Remus showed the same ease, and even though I was flying a little below them, I felt my stomach drop when I looked down.

Then Sirius looked back at Moony, and I could see they were deeply engrossed in some type of more serious conversation. And I could bet that Remus would be the one giving advice to the act that Sirius had done. All Sirius really needed to use was some common sense, instead of acting on impulse. I flew over next to them and swung my leg over my broom to disembark. Remus looked over at me, and muttered, "Hi." It occurred to me for a second that maybe Remus was the one with the problem, but no, it couldn't be.

Sirius glanced up at me, and continued his conversation. "Just break up with her easy-like," he said.

Remus shook his head. "We're not even going out."

"Who is this?" I asked, with puzzlement clouding my features.

"Lily."

"Ah." –and there was a finality to my voice that surprised me.

Lily was the one thing to cloud the cerulean sky at my life of Hogwarts. From day one, her gorgeous hair and porcelain complexion had me bewitched. Sometimes, I'd get caught up in the perfection of her face, the smooth, soft skin, free from almost all blemishes. Her body seemed to be free from the normal hardships of everyday life, from the lack of calluses on her hand to the absolute flawlessness of her physical self, as if it was untouched by Time itself. Her eyes, too. They were the eyes of an enchantress, the eyes that could see into my soul, and who knew me as well as she knew herself in the first couple seconds. They were a peculiar shade of green, the kind spotted with flecks of gold that shimmered in the sun.

She never really liked me…I'd always tried to win her over, but she had no sympathy towards my pranks and me. My efforts always seemed to become so juvenile under her sneer, and she made my pranks feel like a laughingstock. This might have been one of the reasons that I grew out of all of these things before the rest of the Marauders.

But she'd seemed to like Remus well enough, her fellow prefect, the only one serious enough to handle her. But Remus had a sense of humor, too, as Sirius and I only knew too well. I wouldn't know till later than she'd have her own type of humor with barbs of sarcasm, satire and wit. She was above all of us, but she'd have to settle for someone inferior to her—nobody was up to her level.

"Remus doesn't know what to do," Sirius explained as I grabbed the handle of the broom and set it upright, leaning against the seat. I looked over the edge of the bleachers, and swallowed hard. Why did this vertigo always have to come, accompanied by the roaring sound of the ocean? The crash of the waves always seem to be in the background of everything I heard, but it announced itself more when I was nervous, when I'd retreat inside my head to hide from the plague of apprehension taking over.

"Just avoid her," I said simply. I'd tried this method, and sure, it worked.

"That makes enemies," Moony responded.

"Well, avoid her just a little bit, so she can get the point. There's bound to be a little bit of animosity between you guys," Sirius stated.

Remus and I stared at the suddenly insightful Padfoot, our mouths hanging open. "Come on," he whined, accurately interpreting our expressions. "I've had experience too! Girls are crazy like that!"

I shook my head at Sirius's temporary lapse into age seven again. Sirius shook his head right back and rolled his eyes at me to Remus.

I straddled my broom again, and flew away, the dizziness again taking over, the roaring in my head more pronounced. This would really have to stop.

When I was done practicing my flying, I naturally went to the kitchens. What's is a teen to do when he's just finished exercising and has showered? The showering, for me, really puts the boot in the hunger. Once you're done practicing, you're sweaty, hot, and usually not hungry for anything other than water or oranges. The shower always cleanses that, with the water washing away any nausea. The second I, for one, walk out of a shower, the hunger hits fiercer than a kick in the stomach, and I'm off and running towards the portrait with the bowl of fruit in it.

Over the years, the kitchens became my second world. There, I'd sit and soothe my mind and belly, by emptying one and filling the other. The house elves also thought I'd done everything right, and that was always wonderfully relaxing. One time, angry at Peter for being so intolerable, I punched him in the face. This was around 2nd year or so, when I wasn't so reliant on my wand. I ran to the kitchens for solace, and they thought I'd done nothing wrong. They'd have thought I'd done nothing wrong if I'd killed Peter and buried him on the Quidditch field.

In the kitchens this time, I drowned my feelings about heights, the ocean, Lily and Remus in a large chocolate cake. And when I was so full I couldn't move, I sat back while my closest house elf friend told me about how horrible his former home had been. What did I have badly? I wouldn't have to spend my life in bondage, at the call and beck of others. As usual, I walked away from the kitchens quite satisfied. I never dreamed that there would be a time when the kitchens wouldn't be open to me, when I couldn't hide my troubles in the reassurance of my second home.

Music. The only thing I really and truly disliked was the lack of music at Hogwarts. I lived and breathed music. You name it, I listened to it. One of my roommates had a friend with a high, screechy voice that many considered good, and some friends that were excellent with the guitar. This Muggle friend of Jerry's was named Robert, and we all considered him a good sport. Sometimes I'd help them right the chorus for a song, or the guitar solo. I didn't know that Robert would try to get me on the road to stardom, or how much it would screw me in the end. But somehow, looking back, it all seemed inevitable, given my love of music.

Still, sometimes I wish that Robert, and especially his friend Jimmy, hadn't come into my life.

But who was I to try and change fate?