Chapter Text
Chapter One
-
James Potter awoke with a start one morning the first month into his sixth year in the Gryffindor dormitory on a Tuesday morning. Rubbing his bleary eyes, he peeked out from the curtains of his four-poster bed and ran a hand through his already mussed up black hair. With a sigh, he saw the light of the sun creeping up over the landscape, and realized, he had once again, woken up way too early.
“For Merlin’s sake,” James muttered, leaning back down into his pillow.
He had two options now. He could close his eyes and try to go back to sleep, as he had been doing a lot these days, or he could put on his glasses and get ready for the day. He closed his eyes and decided that waking up this early was a thing that had GOT to stop happening. It was, frankly, getting quite ridiculous.
He lied there for a good hour or so, listening to each of his dorm mates in turn. Peter was lightly snoring off and on, Remus would occasionally mumble something lightly in his sleep, and Sirius, even though James was sure he was asleep, was tossing and turning in his bed.
Sirius.
This was all actually Sirius’s fault. Why he couldn’t seem to sleep well at all these days. He almost wished he could transfer this sleeplessness over to his best mate in the next bed, but decided Sirius had enough trouble sleeping as it was, and thought better of it.
-
The first bombshell had been dropped on him the over winter break when they were back at his parents’ house, enjoying the Christmas holidays.
“Prongs, can I tell you something that you absolutely cannot tell anyone else, even Wormtail and Moony,” Sirius had asked him one night, when they were both down in the living room after Mr. and Mrs. Potter had gone to bed.
James had looked at his friend with laughter in his eyes, as though the thought of Sirius thinking James would tell anyone his secrets was hilarious. He had stopped when he saw how clouded and dark Sirius’s normally laughing grey eyes were, and how guarded he suddenly looked, which was rare between the two boys.
“Uh, yeah, sure, mate. You know you can tell me anything,” James had answered back.
Sirius had taken a deep breath and had held it in for a long time before exhaling. James had begun to wonder what could be so monumental to his friend, but kept the silence for Sirius to think.
“I think,” Sirius had begun, choosing his words carefully in a rare case of self-reflection. “No, at this point I know… So you know how you feel about Evans?”
“Yeah…” James had nodded, wondering where this was going.
“I don’t feel that way. And I’m never gonna feel that way.”
“Well I would bloody hope not,” James began, wondering why his best friend would be telling him he wasn’t interested in the girl James had been pining after for years now. “That would be pretty fucked up if you went and decided to try and steal my future girlfriend.”
“You can’t just decide someone’s going to be your girlfriend, Prongs,” Sirius had looked at him in exasperation, momentarily forgetting his worry. “And I don’t mean about Evans – I mean about any girl.”
James had paused for a second. “What exactly do you mean by,” he had started slowly, trying to piece the information together.
“I’m gay, James,” Sirius had put the puzzle together for him.
James remembered that at that moment, a lot had started to make sense. Lots of girls were always throwing themselves at Sirius – and he had never once paid any of them any attention. If James weren’t so concerned with one particular redhead, it would have made him a bit jealous at times that girls were always more interested in Sirius. Of course it made sense that Sirius was gay. He also, with a lot of shame, remembered thinking at that time how weird it would be that his best friend was gay. They lived together. They changed in front of each other all the time. Now he realized how ridiculous that thought was, but the thought had existed at that time and was unlearned later.
-
The second bombshell had come over summer holidays, when he and Sirius were at his home again, about to go to sleep after a long day of playing Quidditch in the Potters’ backyard.
“James,” Sirius had started, turning on his side to look over at James.
James had immediately known something was up. Sirius very rarely called him James, usually only when talking about something serious.
“Yeah?” James had responded, turning over himself to look at the other boy.
“How fucked up do you think it would make our friend group if I had a crush on someone in it?”
James’s mind had been racing. He had gotten over his initial ignorance and was now completely fine on the matter – but was Sirius trying to confess to him?
“Uh, Pads, I know we talked about your sexuality before and I am still completely fine with whoever you’re interested in, but I don’t – I’m not…”
Sirius at that moment had sat completely upright, making a general gesture of confusion, black curls bouncing around his face.
“You absolute prat – I have much better taste than that.”
“Hey!” James had cried out. “I am a good looking guy and you would be lucky to have me.”
Pillow throwing had ensued for a time after that, and when they were both good and tired, they had lied back down.
“It’s Moony, isn’t it?” James had asked Sirius.
“Why would you say that?”
James had thought back to their whole group dynamic. He and Sirius were very, very close. Practically brothers at this point, as his parents had basically adopted Sirius as their own. They did everything together – Quidditch, pranks, studying… well, pretending to study but mostly just throwing quills and parchment at each other. But there was something different in Sirius and Remus’s friendship. There always had been. And James was fine with it – those two had been dealt some of the worst cards anyone could play with, and they understood each other in that way. There was a gentleness, a kind of understanding James was well aware he would never be able to get, and that was okay. That was their thing.
He had thought about that but had only responded to Sirius with, “Well, I’m pretty sure it’s not Pete.”
“How dare you insult the love of my life like that.”
James had just slanted his eyes at Sirius.
“Yeah, it’s Moony,” Sirius had sighed. “You CANNOT say anything to him – I’ll kill you.”
And with that James had agreed to keep Sirius’s secret. He had thought it would be worth discussing with Remus – he was very level headed and even if he didn’t feel the same way, James was sure they would all still be able to be friends. They were all okay after discovering Remus was a werewolf, after all. Sirius had insisted that the two things were worlds – galaxies even – apart, and thus James had been sworn to silence.
-
This all could have been manageable, and he would have begun his sixth year at Hogwarts well rested and able to laugh and joke with his friends with the same ease he had done all the previous five years. However, a third bombshell had been dropped on him the first week back at school.
On the Hogwarts express he had noticed that Remus looked worse than he usually did. His friend’s green eyes were always rimmed a bit by tiredness, but this was past that. James had done a quick calculation in his head, and the full moon wasn’t for another two weeks. Was it a super moon that was coming? Those had always made Remus feel even worse the weeks leading up.
Remus had done his best to pretend that nothing was wrong, talking with his friends the whole way back to Hogwarts, but James had noticed that the usual sarcasm lacked a bit of bite, and his smile never made it fully to his eyes.
James had approached him the second day back at classes, when they were all planning to go down to the Great Hall for breakfast, but Remus was still in the bathroom, saying that he was getting ready and the other three should go down first. James had shooed the other two down before him, and after a hard glare from Sirius which James took to mean ‘Don't you fucking dare, Potter’ they had exited the dorm.
James had knocked lightly on the bathroom door. They usually took no notice of the others’ privacy, after having lived together for so long, but James had had a feeling that this was a sensitive situation. Call it deer instincts.
He hadn’t gotten a response, so he pushed the door open a bit and saw Remus sitting down by the sink, head in his hands. James had thought maybe Remus hadn’t noticed him, and he should go downstairs to breakfast as well, as he was usually very ill equipped to handle emotional situations. But this was one of his best mates, and he had felt compelled to do something.
“Moony, are you all right?” James had asked him, sitting down next to the tawny haired boy.
Remus usually looked like he was carrying the weight of the world single-handedly, but the look he had given James then was heavier than anything James had seen before.
“I am so fucked, Prongs.”
“Did something happen over vacation?”
“It happened way before vacation, but I was handling it quite well I thought, but then I didn’t have much to do all summer, so I just kept thinking about him and then the dreams started and that was super weird, and then we kept exchanging letters and I just wanted to see him so bad, and I thought once school started things would go back to normal, but they haven’t, and now he’s here all the fucking time and I hate his stupid face and who told him to be that good looking? And also…”
The thing about Remus Lupin was that he was very, very good at keeping things bottled up inside. The other thing about Remus Lupin, which James was one of the few people to be privy to, was that he was so good at keeping things bottled up inside, that eventually when they came out – they all came out. Like a flood. It didn’t stop. It had happened in second year when they had all approached him about being a werewolf. At first he had denied it, but when he finally realized that they all KNEW knew, he had gone into a twenty minute long speech about how he understood why they would all no longer want to be his friends and they should leave him now before any of them got hurt, and how he was the actual worst. And it had broken James’s heart then. But this had been different. He had guessed where this was going, and he had known that this could end well.
Remus had looked at James, confused, when he had realized James was no longer listening and was smiling like an idiot.
“Prongs…?”
“It’s Sirius, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” was followed by a deep sigh, and Remus’s head was in his hands again. “But you can’t…”
“No! Do not make me promise not to tell him. Let me tell him. It’s in your best interest to LET ME TELL HIM MOONY.”
“You have to promise me none of that leaves this room – er – bathroom.”
“Moony are you sure that’s what you want me to do?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything – don’t tell Wormtail either. Or anyone. This stays between us.”
-
So that’s where James Potter was now. He knew that Sirius liked Remus. And he knew that Remus liked Sirius. But he couldn’t tell the other party what he knew. Some might say that all’s well that ends well, but the thing about James Potter is he takes promises very seriously. And he would never, ever break a promise he made to his best mates. And that's why he kept waking up at ridiculous hours and just thinking. It was all Sirius’s fault. And to an extent – Remus’s – but Remus in general annoyed him way less than Sirius, so James was fine with pinning this one all on Sirius.
“Tempus,” James muttered. Six o’clock. Not a terrible time to get breakfast. He’d certainly have his choice of all the food before it was picked over.
Reaching over and grabbing his glasses off the nightstand, James got up to get ready for the day.
He made it into the Great Hall around six thirty, and found it sparsely populated. Good. Maybe he could think of a plan that wouldn’t involve him breaking his promises.
Sitting down at the Gryffindor table, he noticed a few other students were already down there, but took no notice of who. He grabbed some toast and juice, and half-heartedly set to eating his breakfast. And thinking. This was to be a thinking morning if he couldn't get any damn sleep.
He was deep in his thoughts when he briefly registered someone sitting down across from him. Quite angrily, he thought, judging by the slam of a heavy book on the table. He hadn’t fully been dedicating his whole morning to The Problem, as he had titled it, his thoughts had slightly drifted towards Quidditch, as this was the year he was finally able to be Team Captain.
“You’re getting ridiculous, Potter,” a familiar voice snapped at him. “I can’t even eat breakfast now and you’re already down here stalking me.”
James looked across the table at Lily Evans. Any other day, he would have been elated. Alone time in the morning with Evans. But he had bigger problems now.
“I wasn't stalking you,” He mumbled, taking a bite out of his toast.
He noticed a slight softening in her green eyes.
“Then why are you down here so early? And without your friends?”
James thought for a moment. Evans was smart. Maybe she could help him.
“Maybe you can help me, Evans.”
“I’d rather drop dead.”
“It has nothing to do with me.”
“…Then what is it?”
“Let’s say – hypothetically – that you’re aware that two of your friends like each other. They’ve both told you as much. But they both also made you swear not to tell anyone – especially not the other person. How would you get them to confess to each other without breaking their trust?”
“Why would you do something so stupid,” Lily was looking at him in absolute confusion. “Just tell them. They’ll forgive you once they’re happy and together.”
“That's out of the question,” James said with an air of finality. “It may work short term, but then when they’re together – what if they need someone to talk to? Someone to vent to? I want to be that person for my best mates, but they might not trust me with such problems anymore. Breaking that promise is out of the question.”
Lily was still looking at him like he was crazy, but there was something else, something softer, in her eyes as well.
“Are these hypothetical friends Remus and Black?”
“Why would you say that?” James had noticed that around last year after they had both become prefects, that Lily would often refer to Remus by his first name. At first it had made him insanely jealous, but he was over it for the most part. And he realized Remus could be his in to put in a good word for him.
“You have like, three friends, Potter. Also I’m not blind.”
“I have more than three friends!” James shot back. “And I can neither confirm nor deny that information.”
Lily rolled her eyes at him. It was insanely maddening and also insanely attractive to him.
“Why do you care so much that they get together?” She asked him.
“Because they’re two of my favorite people in the world, and they both deserve to be happy and get everything they want.”
“That is… unexpectedly very sweet of you. Okay. I’ll help you.”
“You’ll help me do what?”
“I will help you get Remus and Black together without breaking your ridiculously stringent moral code.”
“I didn’t say it was Remus and Sirius!”
“You’re insufferable, Potter.”