Sunday morning found the two Gryffindor first years trudging solemnly down the grounds towards the groundskeeper's hut, shivering a little in the early breeze. James had never spoken to him, but he knew Remus spoke highly of him - Sirius had assured him as they were getting dressed. It was lucky that he had such a benign review to counter his intimidating presence. As they reached him, James had to crane his neck to get a proper look at his face, which was mostly obscured by a wiry tangle of beard and hair.
"Potten an' Black, is it?" he asked, squinting down at them in the morning light. "McGonagall was tellin' me youse have been causin' plenty o' trouble. I'm Rubeus Hagrid, but everyone jus' calls me Hagrid."
James nodded, but didn't otherwise answer - he could hardly argue. It seemed Sirius was of a similar mindset.
"Muffliato got ye, has it?" He asked them, lightheartedly. "C'mon, bit o' walking around'll get ye talkin'."
They followed behind him, obediently, as he picked up a large leather bag and led them off towards the Quidditch Pitch. It seemed he'd been right, because it was only a few minutes before James cracked.
"What's in the bag, Mr Hagrid?" he asked, jogging a little to keep up. Hagrid glanced down at him, and James thought he saw a hint of a smirk under the beard.
"Tools." He said, vaguely. "Hurry up, there's loads to do."
He picked up the pace and the two boys were pink in the face and huffing by the time they reached the huge stadium. Hagrid dropped the bag down with a clank and turned to them, his smile obvious, this time.
"Sure ye were at the last game, but the back stands're a state. Sutton went too hard with the bludger. Anyway, we'll see what yer made of. Professor McGonagall telt me youse need keepin' out of trouble so I thought this'd keep ye busy."
They shared a bemused glance and watched as he dipped his huge dustbin-lid hands into the bag, pulling out two bags of huge nails, the length of their fingers. Hagrid handed a bag to Sirius, before taking a huge hammer for himself. James thought, a little nervously, that one light tap could crack his skull like an egg.
Hagrid led them over to the back stand, where Hufflepuff would usually sit. He lifted the canvas so that the boys could climb under it and into the wooden structure hidden underneath. It was like a dark lattice of wooden scaffolding. James lit his wand and held it between his teeth. With a better view, the boys were able to climb across the beams that were intact. Hagrid busied himself with removing the nails that secured the yellow canvas so that he exposed them and the broken wood. He sat on the edge of the pitch - perhaps because the wooden beams would not take his weight - and set about pulling nails from the splintered wood.
"Lucky it were just the supports, and not the main pillar that was wrecked," he commended, fiddling with the claw of the hammer in a particularly narrow gap. James extinguished his wand tip now that they were exposed and watched with interest. Once the nails were removed, bent and useless on the grass beside his massive thighs, he removed the splintered support and discarded it behind him.
"Pass me a nail, would ye?" he asked, holding his hand out to Sirius, who placed a single huge nail in his palm. "Ta."
He reached into the bag and pulled out a replacement block of timber, lining it up against the thicker, vertical beam. "Hold that there," he commanded, showing James where he held the nail so he could strike it through the two planks. James looked at Hagrid, nervously. He must have read his expression correctly, and he placed a huge hand on James' shoulder.
"Don' move, and I won' get ye," he assured, smiling. James swallowed and held the nail steady, while Hagrid steadied the wood with one hand and the hammer with the other. Sirius crept closer, like a monkey on the scaffolding, to get a decent look.
As promised, James' fingers escaped the morning unscathed, other than a few splinters which he could hardly blame Hagrid for. He'd even let Sirius and James have a go of his massive hammer, though the weight of it meant they could barely lift it, never mind use it. Not an hour after they'd started, the three of them climbed out from the stands and the boys watched as Hagrid replaced the canvas with more new nails, supplied by Sirius. He asked James to gather the spent ones from the grass and they walked back towards his hut.
"Why not just fix it with magic?" James asked, feeling a little braver now that they'd gotten to know each other a little. Hagrid considered him for a moment before answering.
"Well, I s'pose I could've just asked Professor McGonagall or Professor Dumbledore to give it a go, but it's me job to keep the grounds, and I'm 'ardly capable of that kind of spellwork, so I'd rather do it mesel'."
James still didn't quite understand. "But even if you were going to fix it yourself, why not just repair the wood, and use the same beam again? Surely it's less wasteful?"
They arrived at the hut, and a mad scrabbling at the inside of the door could be heard. James stepped back nervously, and was glad as an enormous dog bounded out the moment the door was opened. The dog jumped at Hagrid, sniffed at James, it's tail wagging madly, before settling against Sirius' hip, huffing loudly.
"Thas my Fang, he won' bother ye," Hagrid assured Sirius, who looked a little wary. The dog's shoulders were nearly up to his elbows.
They were led inside and Hagrid nodded at James, before he tossed the broken beam into his fireplace.
"Thas why," he said, simply. "Now show me those nails ye picked up."
James dug into his pockets and dropped a fistful of wonky nails onto Hagrid's wooden table. He sat, and gestured for the two boys to do the same.
"I won' waste these. Want to test yer skills? I've plenty more, so don' worry if ye mess 'em up!"
James and Sirius obliged happily, pulling out their wands and attempting reparo on the nails until they were straight enough to be somewhat useful again. Hagrid nodded, seemingly satisfied, and returned them to the bag with the new ones.
"To answer yer question, Potter, I like doin' it that way. Ain' no point bein' a wizard if ye can't do it without yer wand."
James was baffled.
"But you wouldn't have to know how to do it, if you can do it with your wand," he countered, confused.
"Yer no' really listenin'. Look, Potter, 'ow many spells do ye know where ye have to imagine the real thing to be able to do it? Like, look a' those nails - ye wouldn' be able t' make em right if ye hadn' seen the proper thing. An' if ye use the proper thing, or ye've held or, or ye love it, it's easier t' transfigure it, or conjure it, or repair it. C'mon, youse are bright boys, ye must know tha'."
They spent the remainder of the morning with Hagrid, who had them repair the posts to a small paddock not far from his hut, dig trenches for him to plant potatoes, onions and turnips, and finally they went with him to the tree-line of the forest to catch some sharp-clawed little pixies in a large net - which Hagrid then caged to be relocated. He punctuated each task with strong mugs of tea to keep up the morale. By the time the sun was overhead, both boys were a little sweaty and dishevelled, in good need of a wash.
Hagrid patted them both on the back, nearly sending them face-first into the mud. "Thanks for the help, lads. Behave yerselves - but ye can come down any time, even when yer not in trouble!" He waved them off as they staggered up the sloped grounds, thinking only of a full plate of food and a warm shower.
They sat, shoulder to shoulder, unusually quiet as they ate, diverting only to return Alice's book back to her in the common room. Since there were so few students, they were able to commandeer the rug in front of the fire to start planning their essay for Professor McGonagall.
"I'm sure I remember saying that I wasn't planning on doing any homework for my birthday week," James griped, fiddling with his quill. He was much more interested in what Hagrid had said, than writing an essay-long letter of regret for McGonagall.
"Reckon Hagrid's right about doing things the hard way?" James asked Sirius thoughtfully. "You did more magic than me before Hogwarts - did you hear anything about that?"
Sirius sat up, abandoning his parchment and seemed to give it some thought.
"Well, they'd never describe it anything like "doing things the muggle way" like Hagrid was getting at, but I suppose there might have been something to it. We did quite a lot of basic alchemy theory and our tutor said it would be useful for the basis of transfiguration, to understand different materials and what they represent metaphorically as well as how they are literally." He drummed his fingers on his knees pensively.
"Say, my mother did insist that we learned to play the piano," he said, realisation dawning on his face. "She said that it was important to learn to make something beautiful from something difficult and frustrating. She had a funny way of getting us into it. She used to just shut one of us in the drawing room with the piano for a few hours with nothing better to do and eventually we'd just go at it. It kind of worked, I ended up enjoying playing, not that I'm terribly good."
James was baffled by this notion. His family would never lock him alone in a room, was his first thought, and then that he would be too busy complaining about how unjust it was to amuse himself with playing the piano. In fact, he might be tempted to never touch the thing out of spite.
"We'll come back to your parents locking you in rooms," he assured Sirius, "but first - so did it help at all?"
"Well, sometimes when I try a spell that's hard, I get that same feeling, like working through something frustrating. And you can start to see it make sense and take form, like the notes would, when you're getting it right. And it has that same tingly, magical feeling. I'm not sure how to describe it - maybe you have to try it out."
"I'd have some difficulty getting a piano in here," James mused. Sirius rolled his eyes.
"Did you consider magic?" he pointed out dryly.
"Oh, yeah."
"Suppose you could teach me how to play the piano over summer?" James suggested, smiling up at Sirius. The other boy's face darkened.
"Yeah, you won't be visiting my house, if that's what you're suggesting." The words were very final, and James felt a little stung.
"Oh, sorry." Hearing a rejection in itself wasn't necessarily rare - despite what Snape might think, he had heard the word 'no' before - it was just that he'd rarely had someone he'd been close enough to feel the sting suggest that he wasn't wanted.
His feelings must have been plain on his face, because Sirius immediately began to back-track.
"No, I didn't mean that I didn't want to have you there because I don't like you, or something!" His grey eyes were uncharacteristically pleading. "You're my friend, I like doing stuff with you - it wasn't really about you, more just that, you can't come to my house. When I said my parents would hate you, back last year, I wasn't joking. I don't think they'd even let you in."
James pulled himself up from the rug so that he was sitting eye-level with Sirius.
"They're really bad, aren't they?" he asked. He felt a strange uneasiness, like he was disturbing something that he'd never be able to return to the box. It was a scary thing to do, but Sirius sat before him, unusually frantic, with wide eyes, worried he'd hurt his friend, and James couldn't look away.
"They're not that bad," Sirius whispered, not meeting James' eyes.
"They sound awful. And you never talk about them. Not 'til now. I can't imagine feeling like I'd rather be on my own at Hogwarts over the holidays than go home and see my family…" He wanted to say 'that's sad' but he didn't think Sirius would appreciate it. He thought of his mum and dad, and the friendly, sunny house in Stow-On-The-Wold. He wished he could take Sirius there.
"I meant what I said yesterday. You really can borrow them." James tried to push as much conviction as he could into the statement, he could sense Sirius shying further and further away from the probing light of the conversation. He needn't have worried - it seemed he'd read the message loud and clear.
"I believed you."
James unscrewed his ink bottle and turned his attention back to the blank parchment before him.
"Right, I'll take a leaf out of your book, then."
"What are you talking about?" Sirius leaned over to read what James was writing. He made sure to use his neatest chicken scratch, if Sirius was going to see it.
"My birthday, remember? I haven't asked for anything yet. I mean, what could I really want? I have a broom, and a wand. We have school owls. I was going to ask for sweets, but maybe you're on to something. And they always wanted me to learn the violin."
"Wow, remind me to mail-order some ear plugs, then."
They did manage to bring themselves to start the essays, after much faffing about and a short trip to the Owlery to send James' letter off. Sirius took the time to go down to the library and look up the 'stupify' spell that Snape has tried on him, just out of interest, and complained to James how he would have been better off if Snape had just gotten it right.
James was eager to pull Sirius to their dormitory so that they could celebrate his birthday in style. He had originally been eager to take a midnight trip to the kitchens, but since they'd been caught one too many times, they'd instead stopped by after dinner before curfew and picked up quite the selection.
James would have been lying if he'd said he didn't miss his parents. It was the first birthday he'd spent without them, after all. He missed being woken up early in the morning to his dad singing happy birthday, and his mum letting him eat cake for breakfast. He missed the hugs, and the Spring walks into town, and the promise that he could stay up late. They'd indulge any nonsense from him for that one day. Building forts with him, playing out in the woods, taking him into a nearby muggle city to watch the sights and try out the buses.
But then there was Sirius, who he presumed had never enjoyed any of those things. In light of that, he was sure that he'd made the right decision.
Deer Mum and Dad
Can I please have a birthday party with some magic frends tomorrow? I like the muggle boys in the street, and I like playing with you, but can you find me some magic boys to play with? Maybe one day I will have a brother.
If thats too hard, maybe a cleansweep?
Also one of those muggle balloons shaped like a 7 with the heeleum in? Thanks
Love from James