I Solemnly Swear That I’m Up To No Good.

“So either get with it or get out of the fucking way.”

Amelia Bones is a fucking force to be reckoned with.

James is a little convinced he's in love with her.

She stands tall, the picture of seventh year, head-girl, quidditch-playing, all-woman perfection. Maybe it's the fact that he's actually there, at their first quidditch lesson with Hooch, aiming to hold an air of confidence she's clearly overflowing with. The quidditch pitch is Amelia's turf, and he's not about to try to get in her way in the first place, but that doesn't mean the warning doesn't send a chill up his spine. He wants to believe she's actually paying attention to him, but her list of warnings is crucial, and fair.

All well-deserved, considering half the students who had shown up look bloody well terrified.

She's just there to observe, Hooch had reassured them. Even though she was playing for the Hufflepuff team, - one third their rivals, he had to remind himself, - James still feels a need to impress her. Especially when she seems entirely unconvinced that any of them will actually be good enough to beat her legacy.

Amelia glances at him as she says it, and James flushes pink, trying not to grin.

He loves quidditch.

By a unanimous vote, we’ve decided to do a soft opening, and take this weekend to plot and reply to memes.

What that means:

All of our members should follow Memento Memes, where I will be reblogging memes throughout the weekend for us to use. To keep them all in one place and from getting lost on the dash, send any memes you’d like to be reblogged to me and I’ll reblog them there.

I will still be accepting Applications all weekend. Friday Night, Saturday Night, and Sunday Night, all at 9pm EST. That way people can easily join in and get right into the plotting and memes.

On Monday at 6 pm EST, we will open officially. This will be started with everyone posting their Self-Paras of their characters waking up. This can either be a Solo Para if your character is alone, or a Para with your characters significant other if they woke up with them. That is completely up to you if you’ve plotted that.

Self Para || The Dawn of an Old Day

TAGGING → James Potter TIMELINE→ January 1st, 1979 SETTING → Godric's Hollow, West Country, England SUMMARY → James wakes up at home, alone. The last thing he remembers is telling Lily to run with Harry, and turning to face Voldemort alone, on Halloween night of 1981 NOTES → Warning for injury mention, description of death/dying.

-

For a moment, he feels like he's floating.

Weightless.

A flash of green, the pressure easing from his shoulders. Numbness creeping up his legs, into his chest. He can imagine falling, meeting the bottom of the little staircase in their home, what was once a safe haven now desecrated by the worst betrayal.

There's nothing in his mind, however. No thoughts, no fears, no hesitations. No anger, no remorse. He's done all he can, lived his life as wholly as he could, and now, this is what's left. Snippets of memories, fond and fleeting, drifting by wherever he is.

Harry's laughter. Lily's smile. The smell of Sirius' tobacco. His dad's old pipe.

Remus' blood. Peter's yell. Marlene's tears.

Raindrops on her face. On his hand. The sky, clouds gaping wide, the heavens pouring down on him.

Weightless. Weightless.

Death is a quiet thing. There's no screech of car breaks, or healers rushing around him. There's no screaming, no sound other than his own breath, in and out, in and out, in and..

Quiet.

Maybe his parents had felt the same way. His mother had been found in her bed, his father in the chair beside her, their hands joined between them. Part of him wants to believe that they had died within moments of each other, simply because the thought of living without the other was impossible to bear. He knows that's true love, being unable to go on without the one you chose, the one you cared for, by your side.

He had told Lily to run. To take Harry, and go. The culmination of their love, wrapped up entirely in a soft, woven blanket, a gift from Sirius' cousin. In their last few moments, despite all of his belief about love dying side-by-side, standing together, he had made her go.

Perhaps it would give them a fighting chance. Lily was strong. If she had to face a world without him, with their son, she could do it. Brave, and bold, and every bit the woman he knew. The woman he loved.

Loves.

It's a difficult thing to let go of, but he doesn't want to let it go. Not yet, anyway. Despite the numb that comes with passing on, there's still a warmth nestled in his chest, a calm that's settled there, made a home. He doesn't know how the rest of this story will play out - none of them do, but that wouldn't stop him from believing in it. Nothing would. His life has come and gone, passed through the hourglass and left sitting in a pile of sand at the bottom, but his love holds on tight, like the final few grains that cling to the glass.

Is he ready to go? No.

He doesn't think he ever was. He doesn't think he ever will be. There's an invincibility that comes with fighting a war at the age of eighteen, a thrill of life that comes with winning a fight, again and again and again.

But fatherhood has settled him. Being a husband has settled him. They've spent the past few months in isolation, with nothing but owls, and their thoughts, and their little Harry to keep them going. He doesn't need much else.

They had run out of time. Trust. Like the sand in his hourglass, it had fallen through his fingertips, and he had watched it go, staring down the end of Voldemort's wand with a final sense of realisation.

This was a mistake. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. There was no blaze of glory, no final, epic defeat. He had stared death in the eye, in the quiet of his own home, bastardized by his presence in the threshold, and their peace has been violated. There's no chance of him coming out of it alive, and he knows it.

He barely has time to lift his wand before there's green.

Green.

And nothing.

.

.

.

And something.

It pulls him out from the numb. The quiet is still there, clinging to his skin, curling around his neck with no whispers, no words. There's no explanation for where he is or what he's doing, how much time has passed between then and now, between something and nothing.

It's still in him. That warmth. Love, nestled deep in his chest. It burns the way it always has, lights up inside him like a flower, blooming under the sun. He was never numb, not at all - he had been wrapped up in that warmth, in that love, like a blanket, woven by Sirius' cousin, keeping him safe.

Close.

He's always been close.

They've never left.

And then he's there. With him. With her. With them.

There's a forest, cold and blue-green around them, damp under his feet. He can't feel it, but he knows it's there, wrapping him up in dawn - dusk? He isn't sure. Time has passed. Time is passing. Nothing feels real, solid, but somehow he knows he is there, and there's a man in front of him.

Not a man.

A boy.

Barely eighteen, the image of his father, glasses low on his nose and sweat on his brow, dirt and grime over his face and his clothes, his hands. Hours of fighting a long fight evident on his skin, and in his eyes.

Green eyes.

James knows those eyes.

He settles, standing so close but just out of reach, watching. They've been brought here for a reason, he can feel it, a purpose that sits right at home with the love in his chest. It grows, multiplies, becomes an all-encompassing weight that envelopes him so warmly, and even in the cold of the forest, he feels a belonging. He's right where he needs to be. The boy before them needs him, and he's here, more than ready to stay by his side. He's always been there.

"You've been so brave, sweetheart."

Her voice sounds as calm as he feels, and James lets it wash over him. There's a similar expression on her face, like she knows it, too, though she doesn't look at him to reassure what he's thinking. She doesn't need to.

They're entirely in sync, watching the boy before them. Sirius, and Remus stand on the opposite side, an equal distance apart as James and Lily are, and it feels like a full circle. They're surrounding the boy, wrapping him up, keeping him from harm.

They always have been. They always will.

"Until the end."

James finds himself speaking, the words coming more naturally than breathing. The boy meets his gaze, watching, like he's spent a lifetime waiting for this moment. Nothing about it feels strange, or foreign, - it's easier than walking. Laughing. Existing.

He was always meant to be a father.

"You'll stay with me?"

His voice is so familiar. The boy looks to Lily like he's waiting for the reassurance, the invitation to come home, and she's as warm and welcoming as she's ever been. Maybe this is how she had felt, just before he had come to them, still cradled carefully inside her from the war-torn world around them. Maybe she feels it, too, a pull from deep within that keeps them bound to the boy, no matter what tries to tear them apart. He might look like his father, but he has his mother's eyes, bright green and honest, pooled with emotion and hope.

Green.

She doesn't have to think twice when she answers. It's more natural to her than breathing.

Harry opens his palm, and the stone falls.

.

.

.

James opens his eyes.

It’s dawn. Early morning. Sunlight is just starting to creep through the window in the front room, and he can see it from his position on the stairs, slumped on his side like he had fallen there. There’s a ringing in his ears, a nausea that creeps up the back of his throat and threatens to make him throw up then and there, but he manages to hold it back, focusing on taking a few, deep breaths.

In, and out. In, and out.

He’s exhausted. It’s in his bones, in his head, in his heart. His whole body is aching, physically and emotionally, and he has to sit with it for a moment, trying to remember why he’s doubled over at the bottom of the stairs in the first place. There’s green eyes in his mind, a green flash, a sense of loss, -

And it all comes back.

Thundering, instantaneous, like a nightmare he has to relive in his memories, over and over again. The thud of the door, the panic in Lily’s eyes as she reached for their son. Harry’s cries, the way his heart sank in his chest as James knew their time was up. He can see it all so, so clearly, - Voldemort’s red eyes, his sunken skin, the way his contorted, filthy had had raised his own wand, and James had tried, tried so fucking hard to fight back. He’d barely lifted his arm before it was all over. The fight they had been fighting since they were fifteen had come to an end, and he was dead.

He was supposed to be dead.

His son was only a year old.

James is moving before he can even process it, scrambling to his feet despite the way his stomach lurches. The panic he feels is sudden, urgent, sickening right down to his very core, and all he can think about is Lily, Harry, Lily, Harry, his family, everything he had fought so hard to protect. Nothing about it feels real, - there’s no possible way he had stood there and stared, had watched Voldemort raise his wand and curse his death upon him, and simply came out alive on the other side. Everything in him refuses to believe it, and before he can stop himself, he’s moving.

The living room is empty. There’s no sign of her, of Harry, and James nearly trips over a cardboard box as he searches, frantic in his actions. There’s no logic behind it, - she’s not behind the couch, she’s not curled up in the armchair, she’s not in a heap by the fireplace. Harry’s blanket is nowhere to be found, and James is certain he had left it at the end of the couch, where their son had just been figuring out how to sit upright properly, all by himself. James had been so proud.

She’s not in the kitchen, either. There’s more boxes, and he ignores them, barely stopping to glance at the scribbled handwriting on the sides of the cardboard.

Kitchen 1.

Cupboard 3.

Over the oven.

Do not open before welcome home party, James!!

He had told her to run, but where? There’s nowhere to go, and while he wants to believe she had made it out the back door and apparated away before Voldemort could have reached them, the door is still firmly locked. He gets it open with a spell and a hasty shove, but their back garden is empty, no sign of life, no evidence she had been out there at all. The poppies she had planted in April are missing, too. A bright burst of red that had once made a home just past the step at their back door, there’s no sign of them now, and James frowns in confusion, fixing the glasses on his face to make sure he’s not simply imagining things.

He makes it back into the house, dread seeping in. It’s a difficult sensation to ignore, so all-encompassing that for a moment, he can’t breathe, looking around the kitchen in confusion. It fights with the tiny snippet of hope he feels, nestled carefully in his heart. He wants to believe that Lily is safe, somewhere, with their son, that Dumbledore has kept his promise and kept them safe, has guaranteed their son a fighting chance at life.

Until the end.

The words ache in his chest, deep and sorrowful, like memories of his father. Going back to the empty estate had felt similar, and James has to fight to breathe, lifting a hand to his chest to feel the frantic thud of his heartbeat there.

Fear. He feels fear.

There’s a noise upstairs. Movement.

It catches his attention suddenly, given how quiet Godric’s Hollow is around him, and James reaches for his wand, gripped tight in his aching hand. He’s been on enough missions to know it’s not a good sign, and that the logical thing to do would be to abandon the house, to run himself, and try to find Dumbledore and his family. But James doesn’t run from things, never has, and he steels himself as he approaches the kitchen door, and the little hallway that ends at the bottom of the stairs.

There’s footsteps, light enough to almost be undetectable. His breathing catches in his chest as he edges closer to the door, and James leans to look around it, catching sight of someone coming down the stairs.

Red hair. A shaking hand. She stops at the bottom of the stairs, reaching for a picture in a frame, the glass shining and new. She almost looks hesitant to touch it, like she can’t quite believe it’s there.

He can’t quite believe she’s there.

Nothing stops him from moving out into the hallway behind her, his own steps quiet. For a moment, all he can do is look, because it can’t possibly be real. That she’s here, she’s alive, with him. There’s every possibility she’s a ghost, but she’s touching the picture frame, fingertips pressed against the glass so lightly, and she’s really with him. James can see a picture of their wedding day, their friends, a monumental, happy moment in their lives.

They had broken that frame when they had moved Harry’s crib upstairs. He still had to get it fixed.

“.. Lils?”

The fond petname comes out broken, almost like a plea. It’s the first word he’s spoken in.. he doesn’t quite know how long. He doesn’t want to think about it. She turns, then, meeting his gaze with tear-filled eyes, and everything James fears comes crashing down around him, all at once.

Something is terribly, terribly wrong.

He reaches for her, hands shaking, wand dropping to the floor. He knows his wife, knows who she is, knows without a single ounce of doubt that it’s really Lily standing before him, alive. She stares at him like she doesn’t know what to do, like she’s as broken as he feels, - and all at once, she falls forward, collapsing in his arms with a sob.

It breaks him.

Harry isn’t with her.

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐃 /  𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠.

❛ What happened? ❜

❛ How are your injuries? ❜

❛ Just promise me you’ll stay here. ❜

❛ You can’t blame yourself. ❜

❛ You know I’m here for you, right? ❜

❛ I’ve never seen you like this before. ❜

❛ When I wake up, you won’t be there. ❜

❛ Okay. You get to leave now. ❜

❛ No. I don’t believe you. ❜

❛ Just.. put down the very sharp knife… ❜

❛ It wasn’t your fault. It hurts. ❜

❛ This isn’t you. ❜

❛ Stop it. ❜

❛ You should be resting. ❜

❛ Are you okay? Did they hurt you? ❜

❛ How can you act like that? ❜

❛ Then why are you still here? ❜

❛ Are you okay? ❜

❛ You can’t live in the past. You gotta move on. Let it go. ❜

❛ And when were you planning on telling me? ❜

❛ What are you, trying to give me a heart attack? ❜

❛ What’s wrong? What happened? ❜

❛ I thought we agreed that secrets are bad! ❜

❛ Sorry. Didn’t want to push any sore spots. ❜

❛ Everything okay? ❜

❛ Do you even know where you’re headed? ❜

❛ I can’t help you unless you talk to me. ❜

❛ Promise me you’re not gonna over-react. ❜

❛ It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay. ❜

❛ Whoa, what are you doing? ❜

❛ Why do you run from me? ❜

❛ You’re changing the subject. ❜

❛ It’s four o'clock in the morning, what are you doing? ❜

❛ You’re bleeding. ❜

❛ You gotta be more careful. ❜

❛ I meant… How are you holding up? ❜

❛ You’re avoiding my question. ❜

❛ I think the worst of it’s over now. ❜

❛ Don’t let fear keep you quiet. You have a voice so use it. ❜

ofmollyweasley​:

Who:​​​ @jamiespxtter Where: order meeting

it didn’t matter how old molly got, her brothers knew how to piss her off. and they had a way of perfectly timing it so her anger could boil over after them leaving. this time, it was giving her oldest son a bunch of candy right before she got home only for her to come home to a sugar rushed child. then they left, sighting an order meeting, before her realizing how bad it truly was. 

if they were going to act like children, she will absolutely stoop to their level. she will go to them and absolutely destroy them. she knew it was childish, but she needed the rare occasion to let her inner child come out, especially with everything going on and what was to come.

molly probably knew too much about the order meetings than she should considering she wasn’t an official member, but she also had her brothers to protect and if it meant keeping a close eye on them, she would do it. she had grown up with fabian and gideon and she raised seven children after all. she was good at detective work (maybe she should join if only for her nosiness). 

with her children safely in bed and her mother-in-law watching them, she flooed to the order meeting and peeped her head into they room they were in, only to see harry’s face looking at her. she scanned the room for her brothers before looking back at the face she thought was harry’s. her face fell. it wasn’t harry’s. it james potter.

--

The Order meetings had been a bad decision.

A good decision, in the beginning. A great one. James knew they were fighting for a good cause, had been so willing to do his part to make things right. When he was eighteen, and Dumbledore had approached them with a request to join forces, with the belief that he had seen great things in them that could save the world, - and they had caved, fallen under his spell, toppled like a house of cards. It was hard not to, when he had been promising a better tomorrow.

The days never got better.

Now, attending the meeting made him feel suffocated. He stayed by the door just in case, all too aware of the clawing feeling that climbed up his throat and threatened to make him sick all over again, but he did his best to will it down, expression stony as he watched the group around them discuss their next steps. Half of them hadn’t even shown up.

Neither had Peter.

Very few people knew about the Order. Knew what they were doing. Those who knew were usually those who were fighting alongside them, - and still, when movement caught his attention out of the corner of his eye, the last person he expected to see standing just outside the door was Molly Weasley. For a brief moment, he had been sure he was imagining it, - though that red a hair was hard to fake.

He waited, only a moment, before taking his leave and slipping out the door, only to find Molly waiting at the end of he hallway.

“Your brothers haven’t shown up, yet,” he started softly, in explanation, a hand reaching out to pull the older woman into a hug. “What are you doing here?”

Severus Snape

Send me  ☆ + a word and my muse will reveal the first thought they have about it regarding your muse. 

who: @mxrlenemckn​ when: january 2nd, 1979 where: marlene’s flat

He hadn’t slept all night.

It was impossible. Not when he knew what he knew. Not when his friends had been hurt, so badly, for so long. Trying to wrap his head around why he and Lily were back in the first place had been a challenging enough venture, but after facing Remus and Sirius, and hearing Lily had gone to Peter’s, all of it was simply.. too much. Too much for any one man. The exhaustion had settled deep into his core, had made a home right alongside his mourning, and James had learned to sit with it, alternating between staying in bed with Lily, holding her as she cried, to sitting out in the back garden, and simply looking up at the stars.

He’d become so accustomed to sleeping with a fussing baby in the night, that having the Hollow be so quiet was simply too unnerving. There was no pattern of feedings, or bedtime stories, or baths to take. Their routine had been entirely wiped clean, replaced by the pair working on autopilot to unpack what boxes they could.

The few moments of sleep he managed to get were plagued by nightmares, and flashes of green, and the haunting sight of his son, in that forest, ready to go. None of it felt right, like they had been nightmares, - more like prophecies. Visions. Memories of what could be.

Harry had been ready to die.

The guilt could swallow him whole.

Finding Lily after lunch had been.. a challenge. Not because she had gone anywhere, but simply because someone had come to her.

A ghost. A memory of what was, from their own past.

Marlene.

It was his final straw. The thing that broke him. Losing Marlene had been devastating, beyond all belief, and hearing that she was back, - how was he supposed to believe that? How was that supposed to help make any sense of what was going on? They may have been brought back from the dead, Remus and Sirius may have lived whole lives, gone on decades without them, but Marlene had died before them.

And now, two years in the past, she was visiting their house to steal their food, like she always had, as if nothing was wrong.

Lily had only just calmed him enough to get him to breathe again, arms tight around him as he choked on air. She had soothed him, healed him, petted through his hair until he could find his balance again, held his face and reassured him that he was alright, that Marlene was alright, and that she would be there, waiting, when he was ready.

Which was where he found himself the next morning, standing at the door to her flat. 

It looked the exact same. Cracking paint, a crooked number. A little imperfect, just like Marlene. 

If she wasn’t behind the door, he wouldn’t know what to do.

James knocked.