Chapter Text
“This year feels different, doesn’t it?” James said into the compartment's silence. For six years the compartment had been filled with laughter and pranks and exploding snap. Now it was silent. Sirius, the loudest of them all, stared listlessly out the window. Remus was trying to read but he hadn’t turned the page in ten minutes. Peter was stuffing his face with chocolate frogs, ignorant to the fact something had changed.
“Yeah, it does. Three more bodies were found,” Remus said, his eyes fixating on the Daily Profit sitting innocently next to James. On the front page was a picture of Dumbledore standing next to the minister, their hands shaking and the minister laughing. It looked innocent enough. But he’d known if he opened it, there would be a column of names. All of them belong to people who are currently missing. More than likely, they were dead. And if they weren’t, it may have been better if they were. Every day this summer he’d scanned the list, hoping his friends and family hadn’t been added to the list.
“Why did you go to Prong’s house?” Peter suddenly spoke up. James snapped his gaze to look at him. He was still chewing chocolate with his mouth open. Nobody had mentioned the fact that Sirius had appeared one night, bloody and silent on James’s doorstep. Nobody had mentioned that he had barely spoken since.
“Why don’t we play another round of exploding snap, Wormtail?” Remus jumped in. James let out a breath of air. He’d been on edge for weeks, worried about Sirius’s silence. He couldn’t lie; it scared him when Sirius looked at him. His normally bright, mercurial eyes were dull. They looked dead.
Even now, he didn’t react to Wormtail’s question. He just kept looking out the window. His left hand clenched tightly. A silver chain spilling over his knuckles. James knew it was a locket. He didn’t know what was inside of it, but Sirius had refused to put it down since he’d appeared on his doorstep. When he didn’t have it in his hand, his thumb rubbing over the locket's ridges, it was hidden under his robes, hanging around his neck.
He looked down, his eye catching the head boy badge pinned to his chest. He’d been as surprised as his parents when he’d opened his Hogwarts letter and the badge had fallen out. He didn’t think he deserved it. He was just the jokester. He wasn’t a leader. He wasn’t someone to look up to. Morwenna knew how many rules he’d broken in the past six years. He knew he was supposed to be patrolling the aisle between compartments, but he’d wanted to spend time with the rest of the lads. But the silence was suffocating him. He stood up abruptly. Everyone’s eyes snapping to him, even Sirius, though his hand had also clenched around his wand.
“Right, well. I’m going to go patrol. Maybe dock some points from the Slytherins,” James said, forcing a smile on his face. He got a laugh out of Wormtail. Moony scoffed and looked at him disapprovingly. Padfoot didn’t do anything except go back to staring out the window, his head resting against the glass.
He walked out into the hallway, letting out a breath of air as he slid the door shut behind him. He spared a look at his friends. He mourned what they should have been this year. If the war hadn’t come so fast. If they hadn’t been forced to watch as more and more people disappeared. Or were found. His parents had tried to shelter him, but it was impossible. The war was everywhere.
“Don’t think too hard Potter, you may hurt yourself,” a voice quipped behind him. He turned to see Lily standing behind him. Her fiery red hair was pulled back in a loose French braid, her robes as impeccable as always. It bothered him. What she’d called him. He’d always been Potter when it came to her. But he didn’t want to be.
“It’s James,” he said. His crush on her had faded over the past year, his eye drifting towards someone else. But it seemed wrong somehow for him to still be known as only his last name.
“What?” Lily asked, emerald eyes widening. He ran a hand through his unruly hair.
“It seems stupid. We may die tomorrow, but I’d only be known by my last name to you. I know I haven’t been the best person around you, but I like to think we at least know each other better than just our last names,” James said. Her gaze softened.
“Oddly morbid, but I agree, let’s start over. Hi, my name is Lily Evans and I’m a seventh year Gryffindor,” she said, sticking her hand out for him to shake. He smiled at her determined expression.
“I’m James Potter, and I’m also a seventh year Gryffindor,” he said, shaking her hand. His hand easily dwarfed hers.
“In that case, James,” she said as though testing the name out, “shall we continue our rounds?”
“We shall,” he said, moving aside so she could walk beside him. It was weird. The train felt empty somehow. Compartments were half full, faces that he’d seen in the castle gone. Silence filled the air where laughter had once been. Kids staring blank faced at each other instead of catching up about their summers.
The only compartments that had any cheer were the ones with the first years. It was easy to see which ones were muggleborn. Dressed in jeans and t-shirts, excitedly babbling to one another about what they hoped to learn.
“They're so young. They don’t know what’s waiting for them,” Lily whispered, her voice cracking. Staring into a compartment where two girls were excitedly talking and laughing.
He didn’t know what he was thinking, but he put his arm around her. She would have hexed him. A year ago, she would have. But she didn’t resist, even leaning into him as they looked back on the other compartments, each carrying children too young to have the burden of war on their shoulders.