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All James Potter wanted to do was make his friends happy.
He had grown up surrounded by happiness and by love, he had always been well fed and cared for. He had a stable, and a safe home.
When he came to Hogwarts, he became friends with his classmates, with Peter, Remus, and Sirius Black.
Now, he knew immediately that Black had to be cracked open. He was obviously rich, but in a different way than he himself was. He had all the strange manners, and the high perched eyebrows. Still, there was something about him that drew James in, like a force inside of him that the other boy was keeping hidden.
Their first night in the dorm together, James would always remember as very awkward. Sirius clearly didn’t want to be there with him, and pulled close his curtains almost immediately upon arriving.
Remus also seemed to be comfortable with a good distance between them, but at least he smiled a little, and as he looked around unpacking James saw that he seemed to be extremely astounded. Maybe he was a Muggle-born, he would have to ask him soon.
The only one that had given him undivided attention had been Peter, which he hadn’t complained about. They had talked about his summer in great detail.
With Sirius, their friendship had come somewhat suddenly. One day, Sirius was sticking his nose in the air and ignoring them, and the next he was talking to him about class.
James maybe would’ve questioned his motives, but he didn’t. He was too intrigued. And so, they started talking, and with every day that passed, they talked more. They talked louder, and James was trying his hardest to put his best jokes out there to warm the other boy up.
When Sirius laughed for the first time, they stared at each other like neither of them had expected it. James had said something incredibly stupid, maybe something about Professor Binns farting, it had just slipped out of him in an almost bored manner. They had been sitting on his bed, History of Magic notes between them, and he had looked down when it had just burst out of Sirius.
It was a strange, unknown sound, almost a little raspy. Like he didn’t laugh too often. Or at all. Not just not here.
After the short laugh, and them staring at each other, James had grinned widely, nodding, and Sirius had added something even stupider to the joke, and James had laughed loudly. Sirius was joining in, and then they were heaving, grabbing the blankets and almost rolling around.
James caught a look at Remus on the opposite wall sitting in his bed reading. He caught him looking at them, and Remus only raised his brow slightly, going back to his book.
James didn’t miss the way the corners of his mouth were twitching though.
Only a few weeks before Christmas, as everyone was getting in the cheer, him and Sirius were planning hiding a dung bomb in the front of the Slytherins common room.
“It’s perfect”, Sirius grinned into his fist, holding it in front of his mouth.
“What are you doing?”, Peter asked, coming over.
James explained their plan to him proudly, and Peter smiled excitedly.
“That’s cool.”
“Yeah, our plan is faultless”, Sirius nodded, solemnly.
“It’s really not.”
Surprised, they all looked up to Remus’ bed, where he was standing and folding his laundry. Seriously, James didn’t understand how this eleven-year-old could fold his laundry every day. Didn’t he have more exciting things to do?
Remus looked back to them, head slightly tilted, while Sirius spluttered.
“What do you mean, it’s not?? It’s a great plan!”, he said, bewildered, and Remus smiled a little.
“But you did nothing thinking about people possibly coming out of the common room. You only thought about how to monitor everything outside of it. That’s all.”
A moment of silence followed, and James just wanted to thank Remus for the tip, when Sirius perched himself up more and raised his chin.
“Then show us your much better plan, Remus, and I might believe you.”
“I really don’t have time. Sorry”, Remus responded, frowning slightly and suddenly very busy with his laundry again.
“Yeah, I knew it”, Sirius shrugged, turning back to the plan. James saw his little anticipated smile, Remus didn’t. Instead, he huffed out a breath.
“No.”
“I didn’t say you had to prove yourself, Remus. But I’m thinking maybe you can’t?”, Sirius continued easily, flipping through the parchment.
After another long moment of silence, Remus dropped the socks he was holding and came over in only a few steps, taking the parchment out of Sirius’ hands and neatly folding it before stashing it away.
“Fine. We start over completely, fast, if we want to do this today still.”
Sirius had grinned, widely, and given James a proud nod. And that was how Remus became the mastermind of their little pranks, in the beginning quite harmless. That was how he finally joined in on their conversations, because there was no way out anymore.
It was how they started spending their Saturday mornings, all huddled together on one bed sketching out plans with some record playing that Peter insisted on putting on.
“Do you have Muggle music?”, Remus asked once, during early summer their first year, when it was a more chilly day, wind breezing in through an opened window. He was lying on his back, looking very tired. It was more of a murmur than anything else.
“You sure have Muggle music Pete, don’t you?”, Sirius asked, nudging Peter off the bed and to the record player. James gave him a look, but didn’t say anything. Whenever Remus got sick, Sirius got a little weird, and slightly jumpy, like he was nervous. But then again, all of them were pretty weird sometimes, and he never asked him about it because Sirius didn’t like talking about his feelings.
It was something James didn’t understand. He loved talking about his feelings.
“I have some Beatles, but only one song”, Peter said, rubbing his neck, but Remus hummed, smiling a little and closing his eyes.
“I like the Beatles.”
James liked the song they listened to, and noted to buy Muggle music records in the summer. If it made Remus happy, he wanted them to have more than one song.
-
In October of second year, Sirius pulled him aside after History of Magic. He looked weird, James thought. Ever since Regulus had come to Hogwarts and got sorted into Slytherin, he was way more grumpy, and also closed off again. Not necessarily to him, but in general. Of course, he wouldn’t talk about it. He would always read his letters behind closed curtains.
“We have to find out what is wrong with Remus”, he said, and James laughed.
“What do you mean? That he still folds his laundry? I think he’s just a bit odd in some ways, not that there’s something wrong with him.”
But from the look on Sirius’ face, he knew he wasn’t joking.
“Oh, you mean that he’s-”
“Sick so often. Yeah”, Sirius added, still frowning, but huffed out a little laugh after. “That he folds his laundry really is odd, though.”
James smiled. He wasn’t oblivious, he had noticed that Remus was sick quite often for guys their age, and that he never wanted to talk about it. But he never liked to push himself onto others if he realised that they needed space. Just like with the boy standing in front of him.
“Maybe he doesn’t want us to spy on him or something”, he said carefully.
“Well. Maybe we can help him if we know what’s wrong. He doesn’t know what he needs.”
James raised a brow, and they looked at each other for a moment before Sirius flipped him off and started walking away. Of course, he followed him.
“Okay, we’ll help him. No matter what, right?”
“Of course”, Sirius scoffed, bumping their shoulders and making their robes swing.
-
When they told Remus that they knew he was a Werewolf, he did not appreciate it.
Instead, he started fighting with Sirius. James and Peter just sat there, dumbfounded, when they started suddenly yelling at each other.
Remus told them they couldn’t be friends with each other anymore if they knew, because he was dangerous. He didn’t say that he was scared they would tell anyone, but he didn’t have to. They saw it.
Sirius told him that was bullshit, and that they were friends. That he should stop exaggerating. Which was the wrong thing to say. James knew he didn’t mean it, that he just didn’t want Remus to stop being their friend, but it was still a bad thing to say.
Remus left the dormitory and slammed the door for the first time since they lived there.
For days, they wouldn’t talk to each other. The full moon was approaching, and Remus was getting more tired by the day, and while Sirius tried to talk to him, it would always end in useless fights.
James just wanted them to be happy.
He came into the dormitory and saw Remus sitting on his bed reading quietly. Peter was in the Common Room doing homework, and Sirius was pretending to do his homework also.
“Hi”, he said, coming to sit on the edge of Remus’ bed. The other boy flipped a page and breathed out slowly. Then he sighed.
“Hi”, he murmured, still not looking up. James bit his lower lip, thinking. Then he stood up, going over to the records and choosing the one he had bought in the summer.
Outside, it was snowing. Around this time last year, they had worked on their first little prank.
He put it in the player, and stood up again, going to stand next to Remus’ bed and taking the book out of his hands.
“What-”
Their eyes met, and he saw the dark circles under Remus’.
“Let’s dance”, he said firmly, reaching out his hand, and Remus laughed shortly. When he realised James wasn’t joking, he frowned.
“Why?”
“Don’t you like dancing? I chose that Beatle song you like. Yesterday.”
Growing up, his parents had danced all the time. Not that he had a crush on Remus, but they had danced with him when he was sad. Or angry. There was something about it that made him feel warm inside. He wanted Remus to feel that, because he got the feeling that he never let himself feel warm.
“I’m pretty tired”, Remus said quietly, shuffling around, and James smiled.
“It’s a slow song. C’mon, Re. You can’t ignore me forever.”
Reluctantly, Remus let himself be pulled up, stumbling a little on his feet. James dragged him into the middle of the room, the song playing quietly.
“Sirius-”, Remus started to say, but James shook his head.
“Left to right, Lupin. No talking now. You and Sirius have to talk to each other, not me. After we’ve finished dancing. Then we can all be happy again.”
He slowly twirled them around, and Remus bit his lip around a little grin. His cheeks were red. “This feels a little silly”, he said quietly, and James grinned. “I hope it does. You better be embarassed, I never want you to forget this moment.”
Remus slightly hit his shoulder, shaking his head.
He twirled them again, slowly and careful not to make Remus dizzy.
“You know we can’t just always be happy, James, right”, Remus said quietly, as the song ended and the next one came on.
“What, why not?”, he asked. Of course, he knew that, but he could try not to let it happen, right?
“Because. It’s life. It’s hard. For some more than for others.”
James looked at their feet, and when he looked up again, Remus was looking at the door. As if his thoughts were somewhere else. With someone else.
“But we also have to try to make the best out of it. Pitying yourself won’t make your life easier, Remus.”
Remus stared at him for a moment, but he just stared back, gaze not moving away. He knew he might have been privileged, but he was also not naïve.
He lifted his arm, letting Remus make a little turn.
“You will talk to him?”
Remus smiled a little, hugging him and pulling him closer, while planting his cheek on James’ shoulder. He radiated exhaustion. “I will.”
Lifting his head and looking into his eyes, he smiled.
“Thank you for the dance, Mr Potter.”
“My pleasure.”