There were still times when, on occasion, you might suddenly spin around – real fast-like, so your body became all blurry for just a second – and give me this awful questioning look, and then not a moment later you'd laugh and ask why I was smiling like that. It was a similar occasion that prompted us to become the lovable pranksters that our generation came to know oh-so-well. To become the Marauders.
Mother always told me that you Potterish folk had "no business going about and mingling with us respectable folk." Babble on for days, she might, if I ever gave her the chance … but this was usually where I would leave the room … or my brother would come in; either way, I would end up I the garden, pondering the meaning of "respectable" in her phrase. I could see when we went out that Father and Mother commanded respect … but I could never quite tell where I came into that picture.
Naturally, it was this want of understanding that spurred a rather childish obsession. If only I could recognize what those "disrespectable folk" were like … then I'd have a comparison. Perhaps I was hoping to find that you and I were completely opposite, so then I wouldn't have come to realize my worst fears were true; I knew I was unlike the rest of my family … but I was hoping that I was still respectable like them.
Where is it that children begin to form their own opinions? I am under the impression that it must be a certain place. In my heart, I think I always knew that I was different from them, but I didn't categorize them as the disrespectable ones until I had lived in the Gryffindor dormitory with you for a week.
You must have believed that I was as good as you from the start – that anyone in Gryffindor must have planned to be there from birth. If you had known from the beginning how disappointed my parents were, would things have been different? I shall imagine not, because you were always a good, genuine person, even if the ancient Gryffindor versus Slytherin showed up in the best of your ideas, and the schoolboy fame did go to your head. Though … I'm glad it did. I'm glad you died in the glory of the fame, before it left you all man, with a dreary path ahead of you.
Why you picked me, of all the boys, to make an acquaintance with on the first day of school, I will certainly never really understand. If you were alive, though, it would be one of those things to be grateful for without having to ask. I still am. I like to think it was fate.
I remember how, growing up in a society of shrewd businessmen and having always to look after yourself, I was thrilled to have someone to trail. Perhaps this is why you suggested laughingly, in later years, that I should become a dog in my animagus form, and why I thought it was a brilliant idea, in all seriousness. Maybe I was more of a dog than you really ever were aware of. But then again … you always understood me incredibly well, so maybe not.
I liked being behind you, James. It was the best part of being your friend, even better than being beside you, as you insisted on so often that I took it up naturally, so as not to have to be scolded. Puppy training, Jamesie. But I will never forget what it was like to be behind you. It was this feeling of power, James; responsibility, trust, loyalty, proving my worth. Heck, I even took it up on occasion, years later, just for the old thrill. And it was easier when you fell in love.
And yet one hundred times harder.
Behind you was like the back cart of a roller coaster. Yes, you and I know of such Muggle things. You were clever, you could watch for oncoming traffic, but I had your back. That's how I liked things. You had my back, too, of course, but I was used to having to watch that for myself. I fell in love with your backside – though please, try not to be too literal with that.
Love ruins everything, have I ever mentioned that? Well, it does. I'm not talking about the way that you gave her the attention I used to get, or the way your eyes sparkled when you saw her like they used to when I would suggest a new prank, or the way that you used me and our pranks and good looks and popularity and friendship to try to get her to notice you. I could live with all of those. I'm talking about how love took you away from me, James.
If you weren't just a little blind before, then love made you completely blind. And suddenly it wasn't my task to watch your back, but now I was watching out for all your sides. I liked it, too, Jamesie. I liked to see you happy, and I liked being trusted so much. It was one of my many unspoken gratitudes. I felt pride in your protection.
But it was a twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week, three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day-a-year job, James, and I couldn't always be there for you. You said you were able to help yourself – you always were independent, and I know you were no baby. But the outside world … Jamesie, it's not like Hogwarts. Not like Hogwarts at all. It wasn't just about falling through a trick stair or getting lost in a labyrinth of moving staircases or playing pranks on the kid you hated or cramming all your work in on the last night before term so you just barely passed, or skivving off on detentions and finding a way to get out of it.
I tried so hard to work long shifts just for you, Jamesie, but it wasn't enough. I won't ever stop blaming myself for letting someone take over my job, if just for a night. The sneak in me could blame it on Lily, or Peter, or your foolish blindness, or even on love itself, but I cannot. Love was always inevitable for someone as pure and as respectable as you. I can only blame myself. I loved watching your back so much that I forgot about my duties to the other sides.
It's entirely desolate here, Jamesie. I need not complain about the lack of food, the concrete floors, walls, beds; the bars with soul-sucking creatures on the other side, keeping me here. What makes it so bad is that it's not like detention at all. You were always there with me, or back in the dorm waiting for me. But here, here you're not with me, and I know that if I ever get out of here, you'll never be just outside waiting for me, ever. What I miss the most is you, Jamesie, and having your back. After all, that's why we became Marauders.