Selene - Would You Rather The Sky Had No Moon Or No Stars?

“Oh, if I’m self-aware about being a douchebag, it’ll somehow make me less of a douchebag.”

"Those two things don't cancel each other out."

They're sprawled out on the common room floor, arms spread wide, gazing up at the towering ceiling above them. Sometimes he looks up at the very top, and James feels like the room goes on for miles, swallowing him whole. It's spinning, swirling right where it reaches the apex, held together with supportive beams, and decades of magic and hope.

Sirius is beside him, toes warmed by the fireplace, and James can almost reach his hand with his own. Peter and Remus had long since gone to bed, retiring a little after midnight, and he and Padfoot had been left alone.

It's never a bad thing.

He doesn't believe Sirius is a douchebag. Or an arsehole, or a twat, or any of those things. But he knows Sirius better than most. Better than anyone. He'd moved into the estate last summer, and James had gained a real brother, someone to truly call family when he was so far away from his parents.

Sirius has always been family. Sirius has always deserved family.

James moves his hand then, knocking his fingers against Sirius' lightly.

"Stop stealing my socks, though. I'm running out."

❝ I don’t think I can make it…❞

"You say that every time." It comes off as a little more of an accusation than he intends, but it's not necessarily untrue. Peter does say it, almost every time he suggests something, and James is reaching his tipping point. There's something going on. The war has taken it's toll on all of them, dragging down their spirits like a fucking vice. It's not fair, not when they're only just graduated, only just on the precipice of becoming adults, and they haven't had a chance to live. And as tolerant as James wants to be, tries to be, none of that can relieved the ache he feels every single time Peter says no, or doesn't show up, or cancels at the last minute. Once upon a time, all he could do was spend every waking moment at James' side, and James misses his best friend. It hurts. It's his fucking birthday. It's a slow descent into losing him. He can see it from a mile away, can tell that Peter's mind is somewhere else, even in Order meetings. Maybe he's planning on becoming a hermit, on running away, on totally disengaging from the wizarding world to keep him safe. James wouldn't blame him, really, - the bigger Lily's bump gets, the more tempting the thought becomes for him, too. "Don't worry about it," James settles on finally, lifting a hand to pat Peter's shoulder. He doesn't smile when he says it, simply shrugs, swallowing down the lump in his throat. "There's always next year."

hope — my writing

Friend

HEADCANON:

So much of James' personality is based around his ability to have friendships. He considers himself practically everyone's friend, unless they've been a dick to him, or he's got good reason not to like them. For years growing up, he had always seen how his parents were treated, liked, how they had so many people they could rely on and turn to, people they trusted, people who could just pop by the estate and were greeted with a warm welcome. Acquaintances, they would call them, but James always knew better; they were friends, as simple as that.

Marlene had been his first real friend, aside from his parents, and she has a special place in his heart. But something had changed on that first train ride to Hogwarts; when he had met Remus, Peter, and Sirius. There was a shift in his very core understanding of friendship, in the way he saw how it worked. Friendship was so much more than just people you got along with and saw every now and again, especially when those friendships turned into a family.

Family are people you want to stick by. People you want to surround yourself with. They're the people you call home, when you have nowhere else to go, and no-one else you want to go to. People you trust, people you would do anything for, even without asking, no matter what.

James has plenty of friends.

Sirius is his family.

Send me   “ What am I to you…? “   for my muse’s reaction

How rare and beautiful it is to even exist.

“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

James doesn't quite believe her. He believes her with most things. Everything. She knows far more about the world as a whole than he ever has, ever will, and it's one of many things he adores about her. She's shameless about it, too; having held so much pride in her grades, and her differences, and her position as Slughorn's favourite student, and McGonagall's. Everything she had learned from her parents, her sister, from home, a world James knew so little about, she eats up every ounce of information, keeping it stored carefully away from when she needs it most. In the real world, outside the castle walls, Lily blooms, growing into so much more than he could have ever imagined, - because she's smart. And she's always right. James loves her. James knows she wouldn't lie. And still, those six words feel fake, like a knife in his back, like some kind of mockery. It's not her intention, he knows, but the letter sits in his shaking hands, pinched between calloused fingers, and nothing feels real any more. His mother is dying. The inevitability of it looms over his shoulder, haunting, curled around the nape of his neck like a cool breeze, sending a shiver down his spine. His parents are young in heart, and that's something he's always known, but their age has begun to show. Scrawled handwriting in their letters, more visits to the healers, more time needed to rest when they visit. It's little things that add up, brush-strokes that paint a whole picture, but losing his parents before he's even seen twenty is - He doesn't like it. Lily repeats her words, an arm curling around his shoulders from where she had been stood behind him. For a brief moment, her warm embrace replaces the cold clutch of fear that had seized him, and James leans into her hold, looking down at the letter again. It's only a matter of time.

mxrlenemckn​:

It had been a long, sleepless night.  Sirius had been a welcome break from the heavy realizations the day had brought.  But once they parted ways and the tequila settled into a heavy ball in her stomach she could no longer ignore the truth she had been avoiding.  It was her fault.  Fully ignoring the fact that she was the only one of her family that was in the Order, the only one with a job that would have created any sort of target upon them, there had been a million opportunities to stop it.  She should have made sure the house was protected before they all gathered there, or demanded they wait to gather until they knew they could do so safely.  When she saw the shadow she should have thrown up a shield.  When Travers removed the immobilization spell she should have fought back.  There were a million things she could have done to save her family.  She had failed them once.  It wouldn’t happen again.

July 29, 1981.  She had two and a half years.  Thirty-two months to figure out how to save them.

The headache started setting in as the sun tipped above the horizon – the second night in a row she was up before the sunrise.  She sat on the window sill, watching the sun streak orange and pink across the street.  She sat, listening as the street became alive again.  Muggles stepping out on their way to work, cheerful and energized in that way you became after a short vacation, unaware that for some people everything had changed.

Eventually the hangover induced headache escalated to the point that she was motivated into moving.  Walking barefoot across the worn carpet, she made her way to the medicine cabinet, pulling out one of the hangover potions she kept for moments like these.

She had just unstoppered the vial when a quiet knock came from her front door.  She startled, the cool, glass bottle nearly sliding through her fingers.  Tipping the potion back, she swallowed it in a single gulp and already began to feel the comforting warmth working its way through her.  In another time she may have simply been confused by the door.  Literally no one she knew would be calling on her before noon.  But curiosity go the best of her and she stepped hesitantly forward, loosely holding her wand in her right hand.

But when she opened it and saw James she froze.  It had been a long time.  Maybe not in 1979 – but in 1981 it had been over six months.  And she understood.  She had understood the need for the hiding and for the secrecy without knowing the exact reasons for it.  If they thought it was necessary she supported them; truthfully, she couldn’t think of a circumstance when she wouldn’t have supported the pair of them.  She had always understood, but she missed him and Lily.  And here he was, at her front door as if nothing had changed.

But it had for him – she had seen the look on Lily’s face, heard the glass shatter as she dropped the mugs.  She had seen the way Sirius tensed when she approached him.  She had died, been murdered. They had accepted that and maybe even mourned her a bit – and she was back, some kind of fucking ghost.

With most people she wouldn’t have considered it, but with James it had always been different.  There was something different about someone who had seen you through nearly every stage of life, from an awkward child to an adult.. sort of.   She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace.  She stood there like that for a long moment before letting out a breathy laugh.  “You look like shit, mate,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.  What a fucked up twenty-four hours it had been.  “Come on, let me make some tea.”

--

It wasn’t real.

It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real.

For how messed up the past day had been, how much information he and Lily had been forced to sit with and process, nothing had prepared him for this. Nothing could. Losing Marlene had taken an entire piece of his heart, ripped it right from his chest, and no force on Earth could have brought her back to him. He had tried to accept that, tried to live with it, had mourned every day since Moody had come to them to break the news, and James had to use every ounce of strength he had to keep Lily upright, to cling onto her like it was the only thing keeping him holding on, too. 

And now, she was here. Hugging him. Sane and sober enough to joke about how he looked.

The last time he’d seen her had been in a fucking grave.

She was everything like he remembered. Eighteen years old and bright eyed, even with the hangover that haunted her expression. Blonde hair in waves around her shoulders, wand in hand, still in the same clothes she wore the night before. Sirius had gone to see her, Lily had explained, and James had needed the few hours to reason with the fact that Marlene, his Marlene, had come back to them. As much as he’d wanted to run to her as soon as Lily had told him, James knew it was a reality he couldn’t face.

Hell, it was the exact same thing stopping him from running back to the estate, crying for his parents.

She was warm. Very much real, and very much alive. Her arms were tight around him, voice as choked up as he felt, and James stayed quiet as she suggested tea, the comment so bizarrely normal that some part of him refused to believe it was happening at all. Maybe he was still dead. Maybe this was some kind of purgatory, while Marlin or God or whoever was up there decided what to do with him, after he hadn’t done enough. Maybe this was hell, forcing him to relive the past two years of losing his friends, and his family, and fighting a losing war, and facing Voldemort again, and learning how to fucking handle everything he’d done wrong in this world.

Or. Maybe it wasn’t.

His hand lifted before he could stop it, catching Marlene’s cheek. 

They always could have been something.

“.. you’re really here?” he asked finally, still in the threshold of her home, afraid to take another step forward. James searched her eyes, looking for the truth in them, and felt tears in his own. “You’re -”

greek goddess asks

aphrodite - who do you love most in this world?

hebe - what’s you’re fondest memory from your childhood?

melpomane - what is your favourite song?

nike - what are you most proud of?

thalia - who can always make you laugh when you’re feeling sad?

urania - do you believe in astrology? why/ why not?

selene - would you rather the sky had no moon or no stars?

polyhymnia - do you belong to a religion? which one?

pheme - which celebrity do you find most inspirational?

hecate - if you were a witch, what kind of animal would your familiar be?

clotho - do you want children? what do you want to call them?

artemis - are you a vegetarian/ vegan?

athena - do you have a favourite piece of art? what is it?

enyo - do you get angry easily?

harmonia - if you could learn to play any instrument, what would it be?

hestia - would you rather live in the countryside or the city? why?

hygenia - are you a tidy person?

nyx - when was the last time you stayed out past midnight?