forty-five - sin
The first time James catches sight Lily, before he even knows her name, the only thing he registers is that her hair is really rather orange. Then his gaze has moved on, scanning over the bustling crowds of excited pupils and tearful parents and hooting owls and clunking luggage trolleys. Platform 9¾ is really something to behold.
He's listened to his father's regaled tales of the magnificent castle his whole life; his mother talks of the teachers, her friends, how she knows they'll do him proud.
"Mum, get off," he says, pushing at her hand as she paws at his cheek with a handkerchief. "I'm eleven years old. I'm not a baby."
He misses the amused look his parents share; he's anxiously searching around the platform for a familiar face. James notices a couple of older girls who are daughters of his parents friends, and standing not far from them is a chubby blonde boy his age he knows.
Grinning, he calls, "Peter!"
The boy in question turns without letting go of his mother's hand, searching for whoever shouted his name. Standing on tip-toes and peering over the people milling about, he finally catches sight of a head of messy black hair and the glint of light off glasses.
"James!" he exclaims, watery eyes lighting up in recognition.
James untangles himself from his Mum's embrace, impatient to get on his way to Hogwarts for the first time, and pushes his way through the crowds to Peter, with Henry Potter loading his son's trunk onto a rack by the nearest door.
"Alright, Pete?" asks James as he reaches his friend, and Peter smiles anxiously.
"Yeah."
"C'mon," James says, pulling Peter's arm, and with a hand from his father he climbs up onto the train.
"Bye Dad," he calls, grinning, waving as the train begins to pull out of the station. "See you at Christmas!"
With Peter in tow he turns to move down the corridor and find an empty compartment when he crashes into the orange-haired girl he'd seen for a moment earlier. "Oh, sorry," James says over his shoulder as he continues past her, and she gives him a small shrug, tears in her eyes.
She slips into a compartment as he glances at Peter and they shrug at each other. With a ruffle of his hair, James follows her, and the both he and Peter casually peer in past the glass in the door when they're outside.
Peter says he reckons it would be alright for them to sit there, because she's just curled up against the window with her breath huffing against the glass, so they push open the door.
"Can we sit here?" the boys ask, but she makes no response so they sigh and sit down anyway. Peter's launched into a story about his summer and James is drumming his fingers on his thighs as he watches Muggle London whizzing past when a long-haired boy sticks his head around the door. James thinks it's hideously unfair that he's always being told to have his haircut when this kid's obviously never been to a barber in his life - although his hair falls somewhat more elegantly than James' ever could.
"D'you mind if I sit here?" the boy says, sitting down next to Lily but ignoring both her and Peter. His grey eyes search only James' for refusal.
"Nope," says James cheerfully. "We were getting bored anyway." And ignoring Peter's annoyed nudge, he says, "I'm James."
"Sirius," says the other, and James raises his eyebrows.
"Seriously?" asks Peter.
"Yes," says Sirius, glowering at him as if a mortal sin had been committed, "and if you ever make that stupid joke again, then so help me Merlin. I will set your trousers on fire."
James' eyes widen behind his glasses for a moment before he bursts out laughing, and Peter frowns and turns to look out the window.
Sirius grins at James, and James grins back, and although neither of them truly understand the significance of the moment, it is the beginning of a friendship that will change the course of history.
a/n: so it's my head canon that James and Peter knew each other before Hogwarts. And it's a little pet peeve of mine when in fics James falls in love with Lily as soon as he sees her on the platform. He's 11, and in my experience, boys don't:
- fall in love at that age
- particularly notice girls, and if they do
- have anything more to say than "Ew. Girls."