APP;; James Potter [stagginurparty]
Name: Sammo
Journal: fribbled
Email: liberalkitten@gmail.com
AIM: recumbence
Character Name: James Potter AKA Prongs
Fandom: Harry Potter
Age: 18
Timeline: Shortly after graduating his seventh year at Hogwarts, circa summer of 1978. He's been with the Order of the Phoenix over a year now, but hasn't quite married Lily yet. He's already defied the Dark Lord once, with another two to go. More immediately, he's coming right on the heels of a successful Order mission, which was celebrated with liberal amounts of Ogden's.
Other Characters: Peter Burke, Bruce Banner, Miho
Don't ask us why we're going nuts. It's just the sanest thing to do.
It's half-past time to lose our minds. It's just the sanest thing to do.
Let's grit our teeth and go insane. It's just the sanest thing to do.
...and if you had to deal with this, I bet that you would go nuts, too.
Appearance:
He's tall, lanky, bony. A noodle, if you will. He can usually be found wearing glasses with medium-thick black frames, but will often whip them off for dramatic effect to show off his hazel eyes. As for his hair, it's... Well, it's a mess. No matter what the hell he tries, James' hair is always sticking out at odd angles - some have put forth the notion that its actually aware. ...But that's just nonsense.
...Right?
PB: Kristopher Turner
History:
James Potter was born March 27, 1960, and to say his parents were pleased as punch with the event would be a massive understatement. Both his mother and father were rather advanced in age to start having kidlets, even by wizarding standards, but that didn't stop them from adoring their one and only son. Add into that the fact that the Potters were rather advanced in wealth by wizarding standards as well, and James pretty much came into the world with a silver spoon shoved up his arse and got anything and everything he could have possibly wanted growing up without having to do more than smile winningly at his mum and da.
Coming from such a very, very, very long line of purebloods and having had no small share of "magical mishaps" growing up, no one was surprised when the owl arrived informing them that James had been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in July of 1971. He spent the next two months bouncing off the walls until finally boarding the train at Platform 9 and 3/4 on September 1 of that year, fully decked out with the finest supplies money could buy. As literary device fate would have it, James met most of the major players in his life on that first train ride: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Severus Snape, and Lily Evans. He immediately bonded with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, attracted the admiration of Peter Pettigrew, and earned the animosity of both Lily Evans and Severus Snape. In fact, the seeds of a long and bitter rivalry with Snape were sown before any of them got into the boats to cross the Lake.
The annual Sorting of new students into the four Houses (Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin) started off relatively routinely - right up until Sirius, who'd come from a damnably long line of pureblood Slytherins, ended up shuffled into Gryffindor. Soon after, Lily, Remus, Peter, and James all joined him at the table of red and gold while Snape was shunted off to the silver and green of Slytherin (adding another nail in the coffin of the lifelong rivalry between him and James). Although Lily was relatively sure that the boys now in her House were complete and utter idiots, the four of them quickly became inseparable - most especially James and Sirius.
The only hiccup in the fearsome foursome was the fact that for a few days every month, Remus would go and disappear without a word, and then would spend another few days in the infirmary before returning to classes with his buddies. Since Remus refused to spill the beans on the mystery, James and Sirius started investigating. It's a measure of how stubborn Remus was in keeping his secret and how persistent James and Sirius were in their being nosy gits that it (only) took until their second year to find out the truth: that Remus was in fact a werewolf. Now, in the wizarding world, those afflicted with lycanthropy are considered to be at the bottom of the social heap. They're labeled as dangerous and unreliable and freakish, and as all three of the rest - Sirius, James, and Peter - came from old, respected pureblood families, it wouldn't have been out of the norm for them to then ditch Remus by the wayside and shun him.
Of course, James saw all that nonsense as nothing more than a steaming pile of bollocks. He immediately brushed off Remus' "furry little problem" as nothing more than a minor affliction, with the biggest problem being how to help their friend get by a little easier. It was then decided that since none of them could keep Remus company as humans without risking severe injury and contracting lycanthropy themselves, the only solution was to become illegal Animaguses to transform with Remus. It took three years of sneaking out advanced transfiguration texts and hard work, but by fifth year each of the three of them were able to transform into an animal form. With this accomplishment, the four of them formed the Marauders with each taking a nickname relevant to his transformed state. Thus Remus, Peter, Sirius and James became Mssrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, and every full moon, they would sneak out under the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack and chill with Remus until the night was over.
In the course of all this highly illegal magic activity, James managed to become Hogwarts' Golden Boy without hardly trying. He achieved high marks in the few classes he actually paid attention, earned himself a spot on Gryffindor's Quidditch team in second year as Chaser, eventually becoming Captain of said team and leading said team to multiple championships, and was basically the Big Man on Campus. He also managed to torment and hex the hell out of younger students, broke every rule in the book (and inspired a few new ones to be added in), served ridiculous amounts of detention when caught breaking those rules (though he got away with much much more), invented myriad new spells (mostly in the course of several pranking wars), and along with his Marauders pranked just about everyone without discrimination. The exception to that last was Severus Snape, but really, he had his extra servings of Jelly Legs Jinxes coming, and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.
For the most part, James simply skated along on his genius and popularity at school and wouldn't have seen any reason to change his behavior if not for the fact that sometime around third year the mutual annoyance between James and Lily Evans changed into a most definitive one-sided crush on James' end. Lily's end remained rather unchanged as James kept acting like the overblown, arrogant toerag and he kept hexing Snape, who happened to be Lily's best friend despite them being Sorted into different Houses. Things eventually came to a head at the end of their fifth year. Shortly after taking their Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. (Ordinary Wizarding Level) exam, the Marauders, Lily, and Snape were all relaxing by the Lake when James decided to have a bit of fun with Severus. Hexing him to hang in the air and making his robes fall down, Lily tore into him for being a complete and utter jackass and ordered him to let Snape down. When he did, Snape turned on Lily and called her a "mudblood" - the dirtiest, foulest name for a witch/wizard from a Muggle family. James demanded he apologize to her, but Lily smacked them both down - she said that they were both as bad as the other, and stalked off, effectively ending her friendship with Snape right then and there.
That whole encounter stuck with James, and so during the course of his sixth year, began to slowly mellow out some with the being a twat. Of course, that didn't mean that the Marauders hung up their spurs and stopped having their fun, pfft, what are you, mental? Now, ever since James and Co. had started breaking rules, Snape had followed them around, looking for any reason at all to get them kicked out of Hogwarts. With all that stalking about, Snape had also noticed Remus' monthly disappearances, and was sure the key to their expulsion lay in finding out what was going on, but was never able to figure it out; the closest he ever got was seeing the Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, leading Remus through a secret passage under the Whomping Willow. Sirius, full aware of all this, decided it'd be a great bloody laugh to give Snape a helping hand and told him the trick to getting past the Willow - just poke the knot at the bottom and head on through. So of course the very next full moon, Snape went to find out the big secret while Sirius let James in on the "joke". James, for his part, didn't think it all too hilarious to let a completely unprepared man come face to face with a fully transformed werewolf and ran to the Willow to stop Snape from getting completely fucking mauled. Snape was practically at the Shack when James yanked him back and effectively saved his life. This act, however, didn't earn him any points with the Slytherin, who in fact resented James for doing so. He thought it'd all been one big joke that they'd all been in on and James only backed out at the last minute in order to save his own arse; moreover, now he owed his life to the person he despised most. I guess you just can't please some people.
That same year, Sirius' thoroughly un-pureblood behavior proved too much for his parents to tolerate. They kicked him out of the house, disowned him, and blasted him off the Black family tree. Faced with the choice of letting his best friend live on the street or helping out, James figured it wasn't much of a choice at all and let Sirius move in with him and his parents.
By seventh year, James had made enough of a turnaround that he was made Head Boy (even though he hadn't been a Prefect) and, perhaps even more impressively, impressed Lily enough to get her agreeing to a date with him. By the time they all graduated, James had stopped hexing random bystanders (except for Snape) and he and Lily were going more than steady and moved into a flat together. Shortly after graduating, both his parents died (of natural causes, because seriously, they were both ridiculous old) and left James with everything. And everything? Turned out to be a whole hell of a lot.
Now, usually the story would end there: spoiled rich boy learns error of his ways, gets the girl, lives happily ever after. But all those school shenanigans were set against a rather unsettling backdrop. A certain wizard was rising in prominence, power, and popularity since the late 1960s - a Dark wizard who was calling himself Voldemort. Voldemort made no bones about his goals - a new, pureblooded wizarding world with himself ruling over it, while the non-magical Muggles would be brought and crushed under heel. To do so, he'd been raising an army of wizards and witches (calling themselves Death Eaters) as well as recruiting various Dark magical creatures such as werewolves, giants, Dementors, and the like since 1970. The Ministry of Magic, the governing body of Britain's wizarding community, did its best to combat the threat while maintaining their secrecy from the non-magical world, but it was still being infiltrated and destabilized by the Death Eaters' efforts. In order to more directly confront Voldemort's followers, Albus Dumbledore - the Headmaster of Hogwarts at the time - formed the Order of the Phoenix, a group of witches and wizards sworn to fight against the rising darkness.
With every war, children are forced to grow up much more quickly than they usually would, and this was no exception. By 1977, all the Marauders had joined the Order of the Phoenix, with Lily joining sometime later. That same year saw James and Sirius giving no small amount of guff to a couple of Muggle policemen in the midst of an encounter with three Death Eaters. It ended well enough when Pads and Prongs levitated the cops' car so the Death Eaters crashed into it while flying on their broomsticks and no one got arrested or anything. After graduating, James' inheritance allowed him and Lily to do Order work full-time, as well as making him more than able of covering Remus' expenses due to his unemployability factor (the werewolf bias again - it sucks). Oh, and somewhere in all that, one of Sirius' crazily rich great-uncles kicked the bucket and left everything he had to his great-nephew - probably because the great-uncle had been likewise disowned and disinherited. But whatever.
It made for a hectic, crazy kind of life - being one half of a madly in love couple fighting for their lives and their way of living against incredible odds. But even with the daily very-likely possibility of dying hanging over them, someone still has to clean the loo and James would much rather it not be him ever again please.
Personality/Psychology:
As the only child of two very wealthy and doting parents, James was spoiled rotten from before he could walk. Growing up he had the best of the best of everything and didn't have to do much to earn it besides flash a winning grin. So sadly, most of the time? He kind of acts like an entitled, arrogant jackass. And not only does he have all that money in Gringotts, but he's smart, good-looking, talented, brilliant, charming, witty, and (quite possibly worst of all) very much aware of all that. He's been the center of whatever room he's walked into since he started walking, and he's used to it. He's used to being top of his class, Head Boy, Quidditch Captain, the star of the school - basically being instantly recognized as A Person of Impressive Interest. And if he's not recognized as such right away, he'll quickly go out of his way in order to prove his status of Someone, usually by showing off and bragging and... Being an arrogant toerag.
Now, reading that paragraph over, you'd think that this guy would be one of the most unpleasant and unbearable people that you'd ever have the misfortune of encountering. But he's not! Sure, he can be a little grating and get on your nerves, but even as you want to give him a good kick in the pants, you're grinning along with him. Because for all his twattishness, James is a good guy with a good heart who legitimately means well. Does he think he's better than most people? ...Well, yeah, of course he does. However, his pride and arrogance - unlike the vast majority of his pureblood peers - doesn't come from his lineage. It's not racially or magically motivated, it's James-motivated. He's James bloody Potter, who wouldn't want to be him?
...Yeah, and there's that urge to kick him in the pants again.
(As a quick note, re: James' feelings on Muggles. He thinks they're fantastically adorable and amazing. He adores Muggle movies - especially the sci-fi and horror ones - as well as their music. Nothing compares to Stubby Boardman of course, but Led Zepplin and the Who are pretty freaking awesome. He's also endlessly fascinated by their appliances. ...Basically he's a less mental version of Arthur Weasley. Minus the ginger factor.)
But when you really stop and think about it, it's kind of a miracle he didn't turn out so much worse than he actually did (...yes, he could most definitely be worse). This is probably because that while he was practically choking on silver Sickles, his parents also raised him with love more than equal to the amount of money they spent on him, making him pretty easy-going and good-natured. They also instilled in him many of the traits and ideals that would later cause the Sorting Hat to practically scream out Gryffindor the minute its brim touched James' unmanageable mop of hair. Bravery, loyalty, steadfastness, strength of heart, courage, daring - James has all of these in spades and is thus practically a walking stereotype of his House, and he's damned proud of it.
Another point of pride? Is his intelligence. People forget it while talking to him, but James Potter, all boasting and puffery aside, is quite possibly one of the best and brightest minds to ever pass through Hogwarts. For the majority of his scholastic career, he pretty much skated by - not putting in that much of an effort and relying a great deal on Remus' studious nature in order to avoid any actual work. However, his skill is best demonstrated by his... Shall we say "extracurricular" achievements. The fact that by age fifteen he had managed to become an Animagus in his spare hours without any professional direction whatsoever? Says volumes. The process is painstaking, long, and extraordinarily difficult for fully trained wizards who've spent years researching things before they even begin to attempt the change - according to canon, there have only been seven registered Animaguses in the whole of the twentieth century (with four unregistered, but still, that's only eleven people over the span of a hundred years in the whole of Britain). Then there's the Marauders' Map, which was most likely created before the Marauders achieved their Animagus status. Suffice to say... James is a smart cookie, and as stated earlier? Is very much aware of it. However, he doesn't rub it in people's faces. Will he attempt to show off? Yeah, but he doesn't go all Brainy Smurf at people.
Yet another thing James is proud of is his sense of humor. He's got a mischievous streak a mile wide, and is always one for a quick joke or a (relatively) harmless prank or three. When first starting school, it was quite a bit more mean-spirited than it is now, in that he'd cast spells of various effect on random bystanders and hapless students just for shits and giggles. But even then, he's never intentionally gone into those sorts of thing meaning to do harm. He'll charm your hair to change colors, he'll hex you to do a tarantella for a good couple hours, he'll curse you to have custard dropping out of your ears which have been relocated to your elbows for the duration, sure. But actual, lasting, physical harm? No. Even before he mellowed out with regards to all that, he refused to cross that line and will immediately get up in the face of anyone who thinks otherwise. Yuks aside, it's just seriously not fucking cool. This is why when Sirius told him about the "prank" he'd played on Snape, it took all James had not to sock him in his pretty boy mouth. Yeah, Snape was an intolerable mangy git who most definitely had his coming, and James was never ever above hexing him, that didn't mean that he wanted to be party to a MURDER which is most definitely what would have happened if he hadn't rushed to stop it.
However, it'd be exceedingly stupid to write James off as your typical class clown with a heart of gold. Just because he prefers to get a few laughs in and to see the lighter side of things, just because he's used to being the resident golden boy who can do no wrong, James has grown up in a time of war. He's grown up seeing the damage, destruction, disappearances, and death that Voldemort and his supporters are responsible for every single day. And he's also grown up knowing that some day, he'd be standing with those people against Voldemort and knowing that the minute he made his stand, he'd become a target - either for coercion, torture, or a well-aimed Killing Curse. Every day James is out there doing work for the Order of the Phoenix, he is completely and fully aware that it's a life and death deal, and he could very easily end up on the latter end of it. Of course, that doesn't mean he's just going to passively wait to see which way the coin falls with that choice. Hell no. James is a fighter, and he believes with every single fiber of his being that the good fight is one worth fighting, and he's more than prepared to do said fighting until the other side is dealt with.
Though he does recognize and deal with the current political situation with the severity it calls for, he doesn't let this bring him down one bit. The adrenaline rush from those previously mentioned life-and-death situations aside (and James would be lying like a rug if he said he didn't enjoy that little thrill), the fact that he might not see the next day makes him cherish and relish life all the more today. That's why it's so important to laugh and enjoy yourself - you might not get another chance. He wears his heart on his sleeve, letting people know exactly how he feels lest something happen. He doesn't want to leave any unfinished business behind should the worst happen. He's determined to live without regrets, which is how he's still able to joke around and mess with Muggle policemen even as he's being chased by Death Eaters who will most definitely kill him if given half a chance.
Does this mean that James isn't afraid of dying? FUCK. NO. He's not completely batshit insane, thank you very much. He's young, he's got a hell of a love story going on with Lily who's finally decided to give him the makeouts he's been after since he was thirteen years old, he's got the best mates a bloke could ask for, and while he's more than willing to lay his life on the line for the cause, he'd much rather, you know. Hang on to it for as long as wizardly possibly. He knows the war can't last forever, and once it's over? He's dreaming of that happily ever after. In the mean time, though, he's definitely got a healthy dose of fear going on. In fact, the only thing he's more scared of than just himself dying is someone else dying on his watch, especially his friends and Lily. He's doesn't know what he'd do if something happened to Sirius or Remus or Peter, and he can't even begin to think about Lily getting hurt without his heart jumping into his throat and his stomach dropping into his shoes. Just... He can't.
Although he does do his best to live without regrets, James does wish some things had turned out differently. Given his obscene skill at playing Quidditch, it's my headcanon that James had gotten offers to play from several pro teams before and after he'd graduated. So while he knows working for the Order is to save lives and stop the bad guys... Well. Who wouldn't prefer being a celebrity and making ridiculous amounts of money playing a sport you've been in love with since you got your first toy broomstick?
But right. Speaking of those best mates. When it comes to his friends, James is fiercely, incredibly, eternally loyal to them, and considering how easily he can make a friend out of a perfect stranger? Yeah. He'll do anything and everything in order to help a bud in need and he will spare no expense (not that he has to, the boy's more loaded than a Vegas card game). Sometimes he won't exactly notice a friend's dilemma right away as he's too busy messing around or getting distracted by something shiny (he can be pretty oblivious sometimes, not gonna lie), but the minute he knows something's wrong, he won't give up until he's done whatever he can to make it better.
Now, although he will consider pretty much all his friends equal, there are a few that transcend mere "friend" and into what James considers in his heart to be family - namely his fellow Marauders and Lily. (We'll also discuss Severus Snape here, but he most definitely doesn't count as a friend.)
First, there's Sirius. If ever there was a soul that could be James' long-lost twin that was separated at birth, it'd be Sirius. They're not so much yin and yang as yin and yin. Nigh inseparable (unless one has a date and then it's just bad form to stick around - that's blatant and undeserved sabotage, you berk) they egg each other on, daring each other to outdo each other in a kind of friendly and harmless rivalry. And although they might tussle and punch and mock and basically bicker like old maids, there's a definite brotherly love there. It persists through and underneath all the jabs Sirius might make about James being a limp noodle with shite hair who'll die alone and unloved as soon as he seduces Lily away, as well as all the pokes James might make about Sirius being an inbred attention-grubbing whore with nasty split ends and fleas who keeps fucking pissing on the carpets, damn it, do you know how that stains? Theirs is quite possibly the most epic bromance of the seventies, and James doesn't doubt that no matter what kind of trouble he might get into, Sirius will be right there next to him, watching his back and saying how this seemed like such a good idea five minutes ago.
But on a more serious note (if you didn't see that pun coming, then shame on you), Sirius was the first person to make James truly appreciate his own family. Before seeing how Pads' parents treated him, he'd taken his own for granted, and assumed that although Sirius griped about his family that things weren't really all that bad. Blood simply doesn't turn its back on each other, and it was a shock for James when Sirius was disowned in sixth year. Since then, James has sort of taken it upon himself to make up for Pads' previously unhappy home by providing a better family for him - before that meant him and his parents making Sirius feel welcome. Now, that means the Marauders sticking together, no matter what. He loves his brosef as he does himself.
Now, if Sirius is James' long-lost twin, Remus is simultaneously equal parts little brother and big brother. Remus is the calming influence on the group, the voice of reason - basically, he's the Chuckie hanging back and saying GUYS I DON'T THINK THIS IS SUCH A GOOD IDEA before going along with the group anyway. He tries so hard to get the others to be responsible and mature, or at least not as batshit insane as they could be - and in lieu of that actually working, he does his best to be the responsible mature one. And although he might call Moony a girl's blouse and wet blanket and all that other nonsense, James really does appreciate the fact that he has Moony there acting as the anchor, making sure they don't fly too high or fall too far.
At the same time, James is ridiculously protective of Remus. Where as Sirius brought him to appreciate his family, Remus made him realize and appreciate being born with money - it took seeing Remus' shabby second-hand robes and books bound with Spell-o-tape to break through that inherent EVERYONE'S FINE mentality he'd accidentally grown up to have. The protectiveness only increased once he discovered Remus' lycanthropy. As I mentioned earlier in the history section, werewolves in wizarding society are pariahs - but James said "forget that shite", threw it aside, and did his absolute level best in order to make Remus' life as easy as he possibly could. He couldn't cure him, but he could keep him company. He couldn't make people give Remus a job (though he certainly considered Confunding a few shopkeeps into doing so - Remus wouldn't let him), but he could make sure that Remus always had a roof over his head and food on his table. He couldn't make people stop being the self-righteous, bigoted, prejudicial arses that they were to him (again, he knew a few curses that might change their minds, but stupid reasonable Remus again), but he would always be there for his friend when he needed support.
And may God freaking help you if James hears you randomly bashing werewolves. There's very little that he gets up in arms about civics- or politics-wise (the war notwithstanding, obviously), but werewolf rights? Definitely a button for him. You're not going to fucking smear his brother if he has something to say about it.
The last member of the Marauders (and most probably the least if we're to be perfectly honest about it) is Peter. ...What's there to be said about Wormtail? From the very beginning James knew that Peter wasn't even close to being in any of their leagues in any respect - not brains, not talent, and definitely not looks. In fact, Pete is pretty much exactly the kind of kid he and Sirius would go and hex for fun. The one thing that prevented that from being how it was was the fact that Peter was James and Sirius' first fan - and as one was far too used to doting attention to go without and the other was so very unused to positive attention in the first place... Well. Peter's spot as the Marauders' personal cheerleader was cemented. Even after the boys got popular at school, Peter had the distinction of being the first, and of actually being allowed to tag along and participate in the fun.
If James had to describe his relationship to Pete, he'd describe him as a kind of bumbling, chubster, idiot baby brother that you're forced to let tag along even if you'd much rather he'd stay at home. Other than that. Oh, well. IT'S NOT LIKE THIS LACK OF ATTENTION COULD POSSIBLY BACKFIRE IN A HORRIBLE AND DEADLY FASHION, RIGHT. I mean. Ahem. Moving on.
Speaking of poor relationships with no thought for future consequences: Severus Snape. Good lord. To say that the two men are polar opposites doesn't even begin to cover it - everything about them is a study in contrasts. James was born to a long, long line of pureblood wizards who loved him dearly and had every advantage growing up; Severus was a halfblood with a Muggle father, had practically no money, and was at the least neglected and at most outright abused. From the very first time each set eyes on the other, they disliked each other intensely. Add in the facts that each is a poster boy for his own House, that Severus almost immediately sought out the blood supremacists among Voldemort's ranks while James was always clear about standing with Dumbledore, and the reasons for friction become oh so very clear. Plus Snape can't stand that James is in fact a golden boy who leads a freaking charmed life - breaking rules and having a ball and skating through life without a care - while he busts his tiny, slimy arse in the dungeon to get where he's trying to go. Of course, it doesn't help matters that Snape goes around just looking for reasons to get James and his friends busted and kicked out of school. And James saving his greasy git self in the process of that didn't win him any points either - as Severus refused to believe that James was doing anything other than watching out for his own skin.
They're oil and water, fire and ice, and it's doubtful that they could ever get over themselves long enough to get past that nonsense, but the reason James and Severus' relationship is so heated? Isn't because of their differences so much as the thing they have in common - a deep-seated, passionate love for Lily Evans.
Ah, Lily. Ever since that first train ride there was always that spark between them, making James... Well, not obsessed. There's another word for that he simply can't think of right now, but most definitely not obsessed, pfft, what are you on about. At first, it was mostly based on the fact that Lily was apparently immune to all his charms and his obviously magnetic personality, which just led him to try and demonstrate how very awesome he is, which in turn fueled Lily's suspicion that he was nothing but an arrogant toerag. As the years went by, it only got worse as James realized that not only was she more than willing to butt heads with him, but she was legitimately brilliant, stunningly pretty, incredibly talented, and scathingly witty. It was just... "ALL THESE AMAZING QUALITIES, AND YOU'D RATHER HANG OUT WITH A SLIMY GIT WHO'S RUNNING AROUND WITH ANTI-MUGGLEBORN CIRCLES INSTEAD OF ME? WH- H- WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THIS WAY. :("
She's one of the very few people who refuses to casually indulge him which is something James needs, seeing as pretty much everyone else either lets him skate by or spoils him rotten. However, unlike the other teachers and various authority-type people whom James summarily grins at and ignores, he actually tries to be better for her. He pushes himself to be more than just the popular guy for her, and she's the main reason that he came out of Hogwarts better than when he came in. That day in fifth year particularly stuck with him and made him move towards changing. It was a hell of a wake-up call being labeled as nothing better than Severus Snape, who was lower than all the slime of the earth. It made James stop and examine himself and... Well, he wasn't as happy with what he saw as he usually was, and so he decided to make it obvious that he was better than that - not through his usual boasting and showing off, but by becoming so much better that Lily would have no choice but to see and amend her earlier opinion of him.
Because all teasing and lewd jokes and eyebrow waggling at counting her freckles aside, James adores Lily. She means more to him than life itself and he'll do anything, anything, and I mean anything for her. She's his soulmate, everything he never knew he always needed, and he's more than willing to lay his body and life and dignity on the line for her.
Abilities:
◦ average strength and endurance of a man his age who doesn't exercise at all
◦ above average speed, reflexes, and hand-eye coordination
◦ inherently magical, able to direct channel said magic through his wand
◦ adept at both verbal and nonverbal spells, especially gifted in the field of transfiguration
◦ skilled magical duelist
◦ can create new charms/hexes after long periods of trial and error
◦ illegal Animagus - mature Red Deer stag (marked by an unruly tuft of fur between antlers and spectacle markings around eyes)
◦ apparition, either silently or with the usual crack
◦ absurdly talented flier on his broomstick
Weaknesses:
◦ normal human frailties
◦ has a tendency to short out various electronic things (assuming he doesn't blow 'em up on purpose first)
Power Limitations:
◦ Since the Wood is so inherently magical, every now and again its magic will conflict with James' own particular brand of wizardry, thus leading to fantastic magical backfires. Figure this will happen for roughly one spell in fifteen.
◦ Apparition won't get him out of the Wood. If he tries to apparate somewhere he's not familiar with, he'll end up in a random bit of map alone.
◦ As conjuring spells aren't really literal conjurings so much as making one already-existing thing disappear from one place and appear somewhere else (such as the meals at Hogwarts simply being poofed from the house-elf kitchens to the Great Hall), James can only work this sort of stuff on stuff already in the Wood. No randomly being able to whip up a couch out of thin air.
Inventory:
◦ one short-sleeved, button-up shirt, white
◦ one pair bell-bottom jeans, blue
◦ one hooded Quidditch Chaser cloak, Gryffindor colors (...Yeah, he still wears it. He likes it. >:)
◦ one pair briefs underwear, white
◦ one pair socks, mostly white
◦ one pair trainers, white
◦ one pair glasses, medium-thick black frames
◦ one wand, mahogany, 11", unicorn hair core
◦ one Golden Snitch
◦ one massive fucking hangover x|
First Person Sample:
Har, har, har. There we go, laughs out of the way, Sirius, so you can come and pop on out here where I can see your oh-so-shiny locks and hex your nose to the back of your head. We've been over this several times already - BEST MATES DO NOT DOPE EACH OTHER'S FIREWHISKEY AND DITCH THEM IN A WOOD. Or at least they don't have a very specific truce following the third time this happened.
We swore an oath, you massive, utter, berky git. Course you realize this means war, and you know I can get Wormy on my side with this with a singular batting of my eyes, and mayhaps even Evans since she's been looking to repay you for setting fire to our kitchen again. ...Though we've still got to figure out a way to make those Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Pancakes. Just have to remember to use that, oh, wossfuck was it called again... Oh. Right. Ecky-stinger-sher, or whatever it was she was threatening to bean me with.
[Aaaaaand this is about where James realizes that no one's answered him yet.] Pads? Moony? Hallooooooooooo. [Audible gulp.] ...Lily? If this is some kind of message you're trying to send me, I can tell you right now - I am dreadfully, terribly, and sincerely sorry for whatever it is I might have done to invoke your righteous ginger wrath and am willing to do whatever you might wish of me to merit your lovely, beauteous forgiveness.
...Seriously, I don't remember doing anything to warrant this sort of thing. And I think I would. ...Probably. ...Most likely.
Third Person Sample:
All was quiet on the Hogwarts grounds. The castle stood in silence, its classrooms empty and its hallways quiet. The paintings all hung peacefully, imitating the slumber of the living. The moon shone down on an almost pastoral scene with the stars twinkling above. Yes, this was the very picture of calm.
As long as you just ignored the great amount of splashing, yelping, and garbled cursing coming from the Black Lake. The noises seemed unnaturally loud in the stillness of the night, echoed and amplified. The source of the disturbance was difficult to make out, due to it thrashing and flailing just below the surface of the water. A head of soaked and shaggy black hair broke free with a gasp before swimming as hard as possible for shore. James stumbled onto the lawn leading down to the lake, gasping for breath and shivering in the night air. He caught his breath for a moment before turning back to the water, raising an angry fist at the water. The epitomizing image of rage was, of course, slightly diminished by the skewed glasses practically hanging off his face, but James really didn't give a bloody hell about that at the moment.
"NO MEANS NO, YOU SUCKER COVERED SHE-BEAST WANKER! NO!! DO YOU HEAR ME!?"
He angrily stomped off back toward the school, flushed to the gills and grumbling. It sounded like something about how Sirius thought up the worst dares ever in the history of Marauding and the utmost importance of personal bubbles when it came right down to the wire. He didn't even look back to see the slimy, mottled tentacle that shyly rose above the dissipating ripples, waving a soggy pair of boxers. And if James had been listening closely, he might have heard a bubbling sigh.
Special Notes: James will probably try to stick to the Statute of Secrecy as long as he can - or until he realises everyone's already aware of magicky stuff and then he just won't be arsed. UNTIL THEN THOUGH. Prepare for ultimate stealth-fail.
Journal: fribbled
Email: liberalkitten@gmail.com
AIM: recumbence
Character Name: James Potter AKA Prongs
Fandom: Harry Potter
Age: 18
Timeline: Shortly after graduating his seventh year at Hogwarts, circa summer of 1978. He's been with the Order of the Phoenix over a year now, but hasn't quite married Lily yet. He's already defied the Dark Lord once, with another two to go. More immediately, he's coming right on the heels of a successful Order mission, which was celebrated with liberal amounts of Ogden's.
Other Characters: Peter Burke, Bruce Banner, Miho
Don't ask us why we're going nuts. It's just the sanest thing to do.
It's half-past time to lose our minds. It's just the sanest thing to do.
Let's grit our teeth and go insane. It's just the sanest thing to do.
...and if you had to deal with this, I bet that you would go nuts, too.
Appearance:
He's tall, lanky, bony. A noodle, if you will. He can usually be found wearing glasses with medium-thick black frames, but will often whip them off for dramatic effect to show off his hazel eyes. As for his hair, it's... Well, it's a mess. No matter what the hell he tries, James' hair is always sticking out at odd angles - some have put forth the notion that its actually aware. ...But that's just nonsense.
...Right?
PB: Kristopher Turner
History:
James Potter was born March 27, 1960, and to say his parents were pleased as punch with the event would be a massive understatement. Both his mother and father were rather advanced in age to start having kidlets, even by wizarding standards, but that didn't stop them from adoring their one and only son. Add into that the fact that the Potters were rather advanced in wealth by wizarding standards as well, and James pretty much came into the world with a silver spoon shoved up his arse and got anything and everything he could have possibly wanted growing up without having to do more than smile winningly at his mum and da.
Coming from such a very, very, very long line of purebloods and having had no small share of "magical mishaps" growing up, no one was surprised when the owl arrived informing them that James had been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in July of 1971. He spent the next two months bouncing off the walls until finally boarding the train at Platform 9 and 3/4 on September 1 of that year, fully decked out with the finest supplies money could buy. As literary device fate would have it, James met most of the major players in his life on that first train ride: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Severus Snape, and Lily Evans. He immediately bonded with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, attracted the admiration of Peter Pettigrew, and earned the animosity of both Lily Evans and Severus Snape. In fact, the seeds of a long and bitter rivalry with Snape were sown before any of them got into the boats to cross the Lake.
The annual Sorting of new students into the four Houses (Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin) started off relatively routinely - right up until Sirius, who'd come from a damnably long line of pureblood Slytherins, ended up shuffled into Gryffindor. Soon after, Lily, Remus, Peter, and James all joined him at the table of red and gold while Snape was shunted off to the silver and green of Slytherin (adding another nail in the coffin of the lifelong rivalry between him and James). Although Lily was relatively sure that the boys now in her House were complete and utter idiots, the four of them quickly became inseparable - most especially James and Sirius.
The only hiccup in the fearsome foursome was the fact that for a few days every month, Remus would go and disappear without a word, and then would spend another few days in the infirmary before returning to classes with his buddies. Since Remus refused to spill the beans on the mystery, James and Sirius started investigating. It's a measure of how stubborn Remus was in keeping his secret and how persistent James and Sirius were in their being nosy gits that it (only) took until their second year to find out the truth: that Remus was in fact a werewolf. Now, in the wizarding world, those afflicted with lycanthropy are considered to be at the bottom of the social heap. They're labeled as dangerous and unreliable and freakish, and as all three of the rest - Sirius, James, and Peter - came from old, respected pureblood families, it wouldn't have been out of the norm for them to then ditch Remus by the wayside and shun him.
Of course, James saw all that nonsense as nothing more than a steaming pile of bollocks. He immediately brushed off Remus' "furry little problem" as nothing more than a minor affliction, with the biggest problem being how to help their friend get by a little easier. It was then decided that since none of them could keep Remus company as humans without risking severe injury and contracting lycanthropy themselves, the only solution was to become illegal Animaguses to transform with Remus. It took three years of sneaking out advanced transfiguration texts and hard work, but by fifth year each of the three of them were able to transform into an animal form. With this accomplishment, the four of them formed the Marauders with each taking a nickname relevant to his transformed state. Thus Remus, Peter, Sirius and James became Mssrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, and every full moon, they would sneak out under the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack and chill with Remus until the night was over.
In the course of all this highly illegal magic activity, James managed to become Hogwarts' Golden Boy without hardly trying. He achieved high marks in the few classes he actually paid attention, earned himself a spot on Gryffindor's Quidditch team in second year as Chaser, eventually becoming Captain of said team and leading said team to multiple championships, and was basically the Big Man on Campus. He also managed to torment and hex the hell out of younger students, broke every rule in the book (and inspired a few new ones to be added in), served ridiculous amounts of detention when caught breaking those rules (though he got away with much much more), invented myriad new spells (mostly in the course of several pranking wars), and along with his Marauders pranked just about everyone without discrimination. The exception to that last was Severus Snape, but really, he had his extra servings of Jelly Legs Jinxes coming, and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.
For the most part, James simply skated along on his genius and popularity at school and wouldn't have seen any reason to change his behavior if not for the fact that sometime around third year the mutual annoyance between James and Lily Evans changed into a most definitive one-sided crush on James' end. Lily's end remained rather unchanged as James kept acting like the overblown, arrogant toerag and he kept hexing Snape, who happened to be Lily's best friend despite them being Sorted into different Houses. Things eventually came to a head at the end of their fifth year. Shortly after taking their Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. (Ordinary Wizarding Level) exam, the Marauders, Lily, and Snape were all relaxing by the Lake when James decided to have a bit of fun with Severus. Hexing him to hang in the air and making his robes fall down, Lily tore into him for being a complete and utter jackass and ordered him to let Snape down. When he did, Snape turned on Lily and called her a "mudblood" - the dirtiest, foulest name for a witch/wizard from a Muggle family. James demanded he apologize to her, but Lily smacked them both down - she said that they were both as bad as the other, and stalked off, effectively ending her friendship with Snape right then and there.
That whole encounter stuck with James, and so during the course of his sixth year, began to slowly mellow out some with the being a twat. Of course, that didn't mean that the Marauders hung up their spurs and stopped having their fun, pfft, what are you, mental? Now, ever since James and Co. had started breaking rules, Snape had followed them around, looking for any reason at all to get them kicked out of Hogwarts. With all that stalking about, Snape had also noticed Remus' monthly disappearances, and was sure the key to their expulsion lay in finding out what was going on, but was never able to figure it out; the closest he ever got was seeing the Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, leading Remus through a secret passage under the Whomping Willow. Sirius, full aware of all this, decided it'd be a great bloody laugh to give Snape a helping hand and told him the trick to getting past the Willow - just poke the knot at the bottom and head on through. So of course the very next full moon, Snape went to find out the big secret while Sirius let James in on the "joke". James, for his part, didn't think it all too hilarious to let a completely unprepared man come face to face with a fully transformed werewolf and ran to the Willow to stop Snape from getting completely fucking mauled. Snape was practically at the Shack when James yanked him back and effectively saved his life. This act, however, didn't earn him any points with the Slytherin, who in fact resented James for doing so. He thought it'd all been one big joke that they'd all been in on and James only backed out at the last minute in order to save his own arse; moreover, now he owed his life to the person he despised most. I guess you just can't please some people.
That same year, Sirius' thoroughly un-pureblood behavior proved too much for his parents to tolerate. They kicked him out of the house, disowned him, and blasted him off the Black family tree. Faced with the choice of letting his best friend live on the street or helping out, James figured it wasn't much of a choice at all and let Sirius move in with him and his parents.
By seventh year, James had made enough of a turnaround that he was made Head Boy (even though he hadn't been a Prefect) and, perhaps even more impressively, impressed Lily enough to get her agreeing to a date with him. By the time they all graduated, James had stopped hexing random bystanders (except for Snape) and he and Lily were going more than steady and moved into a flat together. Shortly after graduating, both his parents died (of natural causes, because seriously, they were both ridiculous old) and left James with everything. And everything? Turned out to be a whole hell of a lot.
Now, usually the story would end there: spoiled rich boy learns error of his ways, gets the girl, lives happily ever after. But all those school shenanigans were set against a rather unsettling backdrop. A certain wizard was rising in prominence, power, and popularity since the late 1960s - a Dark wizard who was calling himself Voldemort. Voldemort made no bones about his goals - a new, pureblooded wizarding world with himself ruling over it, while the non-magical Muggles would be brought and crushed under heel. To do so, he'd been raising an army of wizards and witches (calling themselves Death Eaters) as well as recruiting various Dark magical creatures such as werewolves, giants, Dementors, and the like since 1970. The Ministry of Magic, the governing body of Britain's wizarding community, did its best to combat the threat while maintaining their secrecy from the non-magical world, but it was still being infiltrated and destabilized by the Death Eaters' efforts. In order to more directly confront Voldemort's followers, Albus Dumbledore - the Headmaster of Hogwarts at the time - formed the Order of the Phoenix, a group of witches and wizards sworn to fight against the rising darkness.
With every war, children are forced to grow up much more quickly than they usually would, and this was no exception. By 1977, all the Marauders had joined the Order of the Phoenix, with Lily joining sometime later. That same year saw James and Sirius giving no small amount of guff to a couple of Muggle policemen in the midst of an encounter with three Death Eaters. It ended well enough when Pads and Prongs levitated the cops' car so the Death Eaters crashed into it while flying on their broomsticks and no one got arrested or anything. After graduating, James' inheritance allowed him and Lily to do Order work full-time, as well as making him more than able of covering Remus' expenses due to his unemployability factor (the werewolf bias again - it sucks). Oh, and somewhere in all that, one of Sirius' crazily rich great-uncles kicked the bucket and left everything he had to his great-nephew - probably because the great-uncle had been likewise disowned and disinherited. But whatever.
It made for a hectic, crazy kind of life - being one half of a madly in love couple fighting for their lives and their way of living against incredible odds. But even with the daily very-likely possibility of dying hanging over them, someone still has to clean the loo and James would much rather it not be him ever again please.
Personality/Psychology:
As the only child of two very wealthy and doting parents, James was spoiled rotten from before he could walk. Growing up he had the best of the best of everything and didn't have to do much to earn it besides flash a winning grin. So sadly, most of the time? He kind of acts like an entitled, arrogant jackass. And not only does he have all that money in Gringotts, but he's smart, good-looking, talented, brilliant, charming, witty, and (quite possibly worst of all) very much aware of all that. He's been the center of whatever room he's walked into since he started walking, and he's used to it. He's used to being top of his class, Head Boy, Quidditch Captain, the star of the school - basically being instantly recognized as A Person of Impressive Interest. And if he's not recognized as such right away, he'll quickly go out of his way in order to prove his status of Someone, usually by showing off and bragging and... Being an arrogant toerag.
Now, reading that paragraph over, you'd think that this guy would be one of the most unpleasant and unbearable people that you'd ever have the misfortune of encountering. But he's not! Sure, he can be a little grating and get on your nerves, but even as you want to give him a good kick in the pants, you're grinning along with him. Because for all his twattishness, James is a good guy with a good heart who legitimately means well. Does he think he's better than most people? ...Well, yeah, of course he does. However, his pride and arrogance - unlike the vast majority of his pureblood peers - doesn't come from his lineage. It's not racially or magically motivated, it's James-motivated. He's James bloody Potter, who wouldn't want to be him?
...Yeah, and there's that urge to kick him in the pants again.
(As a quick note, re: James' feelings on Muggles. He thinks they're fantastically adorable and amazing. He adores Muggle movies - especially the sci-fi and horror ones - as well as their music. Nothing compares to Stubby Boardman of course, but Led Zepplin and the Who are pretty freaking awesome. He's also endlessly fascinated by their appliances. ...Basically he's a less mental version of Arthur Weasley. Minus the ginger factor.)
But when you really stop and think about it, it's kind of a miracle he didn't turn out so much worse than he actually did (...yes, he could most definitely be worse). This is probably because that while he was practically choking on silver Sickles, his parents also raised him with love more than equal to the amount of money they spent on him, making him pretty easy-going and good-natured. They also instilled in him many of the traits and ideals that would later cause the Sorting Hat to practically scream out Gryffindor the minute its brim touched James' unmanageable mop of hair. Bravery, loyalty, steadfastness, strength of heart, courage, daring - James has all of these in spades and is thus practically a walking stereotype of his House, and he's damned proud of it.
Another point of pride? Is his intelligence. People forget it while talking to him, but James Potter, all boasting and puffery aside, is quite possibly one of the best and brightest minds to ever pass through Hogwarts. For the majority of his scholastic career, he pretty much skated by - not putting in that much of an effort and relying a great deal on Remus' studious nature in order to avoid any actual work. However, his skill is best demonstrated by his... Shall we say "extracurricular" achievements. The fact that by age fifteen he had managed to become an Animagus in his spare hours without any professional direction whatsoever? Says volumes. The process is painstaking, long, and extraordinarily difficult for fully trained wizards who've spent years researching things before they even begin to attempt the change - according to canon, there have only been seven registered Animaguses in the whole of the twentieth century (with four unregistered, but still, that's only eleven people over the span of a hundred years in the whole of Britain). Then there's the Marauders' Map, which was most likely created before the Marauders achieved their Animagus status. Suffice to say... James is a smart cookie, and as stated earlier? Is very much aware of it. However, he doesn't rub it in people's faces. Will he attempt to show off? Yeah, but he doesn't go all Brainy Smurf at people.
Yet another thing James is proud of is his sense of humor. He's got a mischievous streak a mile wide, and is always one for a quick joke or a (relatively) harmless prank or three. When first starting school, it was quite a bit more mean-spirited than it is now, in that he'd cast spells of various effect on random bystanders and hapless students just for shits and giggles. But even then, he's never intentionally gone into those sorts of thing meaning to do harm. He'll charm your hair to change colors, he'll hex you to do a tarantella for a good couple hours, he'll curse you to have custard dropping out of your ears which have been relocated to your elbows for the duration, sure. But actual, lasting, physical harm? No. Even before he mellowed out with regards to all that, he refused to cross that line and will immediately get up in the face of anyone who thinks otherwise. Yuks aside, it's just seriously not fucking cool. This is why when Sirius told him about the "prank" he'd played on Snape, it took all James had not to sock him in his pretty boy mouth. Yeah, Snape was an intolerable mangy git who most definitely had his coming, and James was never ever above hexing him, that didn't mean that he wanted to be party to a MURDER which is most definitely what would have happened if he hadn't rushed to stop it.
However, it'd be exceedingly stupid to write James off as your typical class clown with a heart of gold. Just because he prefers to get a few laughs in and to see the lighter side of things, just because he's used to being the resident golden boy who can do no wrong, James has grown up in a time of war. He's grown up seeing the damage, destruction, disappearances, and death that Voldemort and his supporters are responsible for every single day. And he's also grown up knowing that some day, he'd be standing with those people against Voldemort and knowing that the minute he made his stand, he'd become a target - either for coercion, torture, or a well-aimed Killing Curse. Every day James is out there doing work for the Order of the Phoenix, he is completely and fully aware that it's a life and death deal, and he could very easily end up on the latter end of it. Of course, that doesn't mean he's just going to passively wait to see which way the coin falls with that choice. Hell no. James is a fighter, and he believes with every single fiber of his being that the good fight is one worth fighting, and he's more than prepared to do said fighting until the other side is dealt with.
Though he does recognize and deal with the current political situation with the severity it calls for, he doesn't let this bring him down one bit. The adrenaline rush from those previously mentioned life-and-death situations aside (and James would be lying like a rug if he said he didn't enjoy that little thrill), the fact that he might not see the next day makes him cherish and relish life all the more today. That's why it's so important to laugh and enjoy yourself - you might not get another chance. He wears his heart on his sleeve, letting people know exactly how he feels lest something happen. He doesn't want to leave any unfinished business behind should the worst happen. He's determined to live without regrets, which is how he's still able to joke around and mess with Muggle policemen even as he's being chased by Death Eaters who will most definitely kill him if given half a chance.
Does this mean that James isn't afraid of dying? FUCK. NO. He's not completely batshit insane, thank you very much. He's young, he's got a hell of a love story going on with Lily who's finally decided to give him the makeouts he's been after since he was thirteen years old, he's got the best mates a bloke could ask for, and while he's more than willing to lay his life on the line for the cause, he'd much rather, you know. Hang on to it for as long as wizardly possibly. He knows the war can't last forever, and once it's over? He's dreaming of that happily ever after. In the mean time, though, he's definitely got a healthy dose of fear going on. In fact, the only thing he's more scared of than just himself dying is someone else dying on his watch, especially his friends and Lily. He's doesn't know what he'd do if something happened to Sirius or Remus or Peter, and he can't even begin to think about Lily getting hurt without his heart jumping into his throat and his stomach dropping into his shoes. Just... He can't.
Although he does do his best to live without regrets, James does wish some things had turned out differently. Given his obscene skill at playing Quidditch, it's my headcanon that James had gotten offers to play from several pro teams before and after he'd graduated. So while he knows working for the Order is to save lives and stop the bad guys... Well. Who wouldn't prefer being a celebrity and making ridiculous amounts of money playing a sport you've been in love with since you got your first toy broomstick?
But right. Speaking of those best mates. When it comes to his friends, James is fiercely, incredibly, eternally loyal to them, and considering how easily he can make a friend out of a perfect stranger? Yeah. He'll do anything and everything in order to help a bud in need and he will spare no expense (not that he has to, the boy's more loaded than a Vegas card game). Sometimes he won't exactly notice a friend's dilemma right away as he's too busy messing around or getting distracted by something shiny (he can be pretty oblivious sometimes, not gonna lie), but the minute he knows something's wrong, he won't give up until he's done whatever he can to make it better.
Now, although he will consider pretty much all his friends equal, there are a few that transcend mere "friend" and into what James considers in his heart to be family - namely his fellow Marauders and Lily. (We'll also discuss Severus Snape here, but he most definitely doesn't count as a friend.)
First, there's Sirius. If ever there was a soul that could be James' long-lost twin that was separated at birth, it'd be Sirius. They're not so much yin and yang as yin and yin. Nigh inseparable (unless one has a date and then it's just bad form to stick around - that's blatant and undeserved sabotage, you berk) they egg each other on, daring each other to outdo each other in a kind of friendly and harmless rivalry. And although they might tussle and punch and mock and basically bicker like old maids, there's a definite brotherly love there. It persists through and underneath all the jabs Sirius might make about James being a limp noodle with shite hair who'll die alone and unloved as soon as he seduces Lily away, as well as all the pokes James might make about Sirius being an inbred attention-grubbing whore with nasty split ends and fleas who keeps fucking pissing on the carpets, damn it, do you know how that stains? Theirs is quite possibly the most epic bromance of the seventies, and James doesn't doubt that no matter what kind of trouble he might get into, Sirius will be right there next to him, watching his back and saying how this seemed like such a good idea five minutes ago.
But on a more serious note (if you didn't see that pun coming, then shame on you), Sirius was the first person to make James truly appreciate his own family. Before seeing how Pads' parents treated him, he'd taken his own for granted, and assumed that although Sirius griped about his family that things weren't really all that bad. Blood simply doesn't turn its back on each other, and it was a shock for James when Sirius was disowned in sixth year. Since then, James has sort of taken it upon himself to make up for Pads' previously unhappy home by providing a better family for him - before that meant him and his parents making Sirius feel welcome. Now, that means the Marauders sticking together, no matter what. He loves his brosef as he does himself.
Now, if Sirius is James' long-lost twin, Remus is simultaneously equal parts little brother and big brother. Remus is the calming influence on the group, the voice of reason - basically, he's the Chuckie hanging back and saying GUYS I DON'T THINK THIS IS SUCH A GOOD IDEA before going along with the group anyway. He tries so hard to get the others to be responsible and mature, or at least not as batshit insane as they could be - and in lieu of that actually working, he does his best to be the responsible mature one. And although he might call Moony a girl's blouse and wet blanket and all that other nonsense, James really does appreciate the fact that he has Moony there acting as the anchor, making sure they don't fly too high or fall too far.
At the same time, James is ridiculously protective of Remus. Where as Sirius brought him to appreciate his family, Remus made him realize and appreciate being born with money - it took seeing Remus' shabby second-hand robes and books bound with Spell-o-tape to break through that inherent EVERYONE'S FINE mentality he'd accidentally grown up to have. The protectiveness only increased once he discovered Remus' lycanthropy. As I mentioned earlier in the history section, werewolves in wizarding society are pariahs - but James said "forget that shite", threw it aside, and did his absolute level best in order to make Remus' life as easy as he possibly could. He couldn't cure him, but he could keep him company. He couldn't make people give Remus a job (though he certainly considered Confunding a few shopkeeps into doing so - Remus wouldn't let him), but he could make sure that Remus always had a roof over his head and food on his table. He couldn't make people stop being the self-righteous, bigoted, prejudicial arses that they were to him (again, he knew a few curses that might change their minds, but stupid reasonable Remus again), but he would always be there for his friend when he needed support.
And may God freaking help you if James hears you randomly bashing werewolves. There's very little that he gets up in arms about civics- or politics-wise (the war notwithstanding, obviously), but werewolf rights? Definitely a button for him. You're not going to fucking smear his brother if he has something to say about it.
The last member of the Marauders (and most probably the least if we're to be perfectly honest about it) is Peter. ...What's there to be said about Wormtail? From the very beginning James knew that Peter wasn't even close to being in any of their leagues in any respect - not brains, not talent, and definitely not looks. In fact, Pete is pretty much exactly the kind of kid he and Sirius would go and hex for fun. The one thing that prevented that from being how it was was the fact that Peter was James and Sirius' first fan - and as one was far too used to doting attention to go without and the other was so very unused to positive attention in the first place... Well. Peter's spot as the Marauders' personal cheerleader was cemented. Even after the boys got popular at school, Peter had the distinction of being the first, and of actually being allowed to tag along and participate in the fun.
If James had to describe his relationship to Pete, he'd describe him as a kind of bumbling, chubster, idiot baby brother that you're forced to let tag along even if you'd much rather he'd stay at home. Other than that. Oh, well. IT'S NOT LIKE THIS LACK OF ATTENTION COULD POSSIBLY BACKFIRE IN A HORRIBLE AND DEADLY FASHION, RIGHT. I mean. Ahem. Moving on.
Speaking of poor relationships with no thought for future consequences: Severus Snape. Good lord. To say that the two men are polar opposites doesn't even begin to cover it - everything about them is a study in contrasts. James was born to a long, long line of pureblood wizards who loved him dearly and had every advantage growing up; Severus was a halfblood with a Muggle father, had practically no money, and was at the least neglected and at most outright abused. From the very first time each set eyes on the other, they disliked each other intensely. Add in the facts that each is a poster boy for his own House, that Severus almost immediately sought out the blood supremacists among Voldemort's ranks while James was always clear about standing with Dumbledore, and the reasons for friction become oh so very clear. Plus Snape can't stand that James is in fact a golden boy who leads a freaking charmed life - breaking rules and having a ball and skating through life without a care - while he busts his tiny, slimy arse in the dungeon to get where he's trying to go. Of course, it doesn't help matters that Snape goes around just looking for reasons to get James and his friends busted and kicked out of school. And James saving his greasy git self in the process of that didn't win him any points either - as Severus refused to believe that James was doing anything other than watching out for his own skin.
They're oil and water, fire and ice, and it's doubtful that they could ever get over themselves long enough to get past that nonsense, but the reason James and Severus' relationship is so heated? Isn't because of their differences so much as the thing they have in common - a deep-seated, passionate love for Lily Evans.
Ah, Lily. Ever since that first train ride there was always that spark between them, making James... Well, not obsessed. There's another word for that he simply can't think of right now, but most definitely not obsessed, pfft, what are you on about. At first, it was mostly based on the fact that Lily was apparently immune to all his charms and his obviously magnetic personality, which just led him to try and demonstrate how very awesome he is, which in turn fueled Lily's suspicion that he was nothing but an arrogant toerag. As the years went by, it only got worse as James realized that not only was she more than willing to butt heads with him, but she was legitimately brilliant, stunningly pretty, incredibly talented, and scathingly witty. It was just... "ALL THESE AMAZING QUALITIES, AND YOU'D RATHER HANG OUT WITH A SLIMY GIT WHO'S RUNNING AROUND WITH ANTI-MUGGLEBORN CIRCLES INSTEAD OF ME? WH- H- WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THIS WAY. :("
She's one of the very few people who refuses to casually indulge him which is something James needs, seeing as pretty much everyone else either lets him skate by or spoils him rotten. However, unlike the other teachers and various authority-type people whom James summarily grins at and ignores, he actually tries to be better for her. He pushes himself to be more than just the popular guy for her, and she's the main reason that he came out of Hogwarts better than when he came in. That day in fifth year particularly stuck with him and made him move towards changing. It was a hell of a wake-up call being labeled as nothing better than Severus Snape, who was lower than all the slime of the earth. It made James stop and examine himself and... Well, he wasn't as happy with what he saw as he usually was, and so he decided to make it obvious that he was better than that - not through his usual boasting and showing off, but by becoming so much better that Lily would have no choice but to see and amend her earlier opinion of him.
Because all teasing and lewd jokes and eyebrow waggling at counting her freckles aside, James adores Lily. She means more to him than life itself and he'll do anything, anything, and I mean anything for her. She's his soulmate, everything he never knew he always needed, and he's more than willing to lay his body and life and dignity on the line for her.
Abilities:
◦ average strength and endurance of a man his age who doesn't exercise at all
◦ above average speed, reflexes, and hand-eye coordination
◦ inherently magical, able to direct channel said magic through his wand
◦ adept at both verbal and nonverbal spells, especially gifted in the field of transfiguration
◦ skilled magical duelist
◦ can create new charms/hexes after long periods of trial and error
◦ illegal Animagus - mature Red Deer stag (marked by an unruly tuft of fur between antlers and spectacle markings around eyes)
◦ apparition, either silently or with the usual crack
◦ absurdly talented flier on his broomstick
Weaknesses:
◦ normal human frailties
◦ has a tendency to short out various electronic things (assuming he doesn't blow 'em up on purpose first)
Power Limitations:
◦ Since the Wood is so inherently magical, every now and again its magic will conflict with James' own particular brand of wizardry, thus leading to fantastic magical backfires. Figure this will happen for roughly one spell in fifteen.
◦ Apparition won't get him out of the Wood. If he tries to apparate somewhere he's not familiar with, he'll end up in a random bit of map alone.
◦ As conjuring spells aren't really literal conjurings so much as making one already-existing thing disappear from one place and appear somewhere else (such as the meals at Hogwarts simply being poofed from the house-elf kitchens to the Great Hall), James can only work this sort of stuff on stuff already in the Wood. No randomly being able to whip up a couch out of thin air.
Inventory:
◦ one short-sleeved, button-up shirt, white
◦ one pair bell-bottom jeans, blue
◦ one hooded Quidditch Chaser cloak, Gryffindor colors (...Yeah, he still wears it. He likes it. >:)
◦ one pair briefs underwear, white
◦ one pair socks, mostly white
◦ one pair trainers, white
◦ one pair glasses, medium-thick black frames
◦ one wand, mahogany, 11", unicorn hair core
◦ one Golden Snitch
◦ one massive fucking hangover x|
First Person Sample:
Har, har, har. There we go, laughs out of the way, Sirius, so you can come and pop on out here where I can see your oh-so-shiny locks and hex your nose to the back of your head. We've been over this several times already - BEST MATES DO NOT DOPE EACH OTHER'S FIREWHISKEY AND DITCH THEM IN A WOOD. Or at least they don't have a very specific truce following the third time this happened.
We swore an oath, you massive, utter, berky git. Course you realize this means war, and you know I can get Wormy on my side with this with a singular batting of my eyes, and mayhaps even Evans since she's been looking to repay you for setting fire to our kitchen again. ...Though we've still got to figure out a way to make those Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Pancakes. Just have to remember to use that, oh, wossfuck was it called again... Oh. Right. Ecky-stinger-sher, or whatever it was she was threatening to bean me with.
[Aaaaaand this is about where James realizes that no one's answered him yet.] Pads? Moony? Hallooooooooooo. [Audible gulp.] ...Lily? If this is some kind of message you're trying to send me, I can tell you right now - I am dreadfully, terribly, and sincerely sorry for whatever it is I might have done to invoke your righteous ginger wrath and am willing to do whatever you might wish of me to merit your lovely, beauteous forgiveness.
...Seriously, I don't remember doing anything to warrant this sort of thing. And I think I would. ...Probably. ...Most likely.
Third Person Sample:
All was quiet on the Hogwarts grounds. The castle stood in silence, its classrooms empty and its hallways quiet. The paintings all hung peacefully, imitating the slumber of the living. The moon shone down on an almost pastoral scene with the stars twinkling above. Yes, this was the very picture of calm.
As long as you just ignored the great amount of splashing, yelping, and garbled cursing coming from the Black Lake. The noises seemed unnaturally loud in the stillness of the night, echoed and amplified. The source of the disturbance was difficult to make out, due to it thrashing and flailing just below the surface of the water. A head of soaked and shaggy black hair broke free with a gasp before swimming as hard as possible for shore. James stumbled onto the lawn leading down to the lake, gasping for breath and shivering in the night air. He caught his breath for a moment before turning back to the water, raising an angry fist at the water. The epitomizing image of rage was, of course, slightly diminished by the skewed glasses practically hanging off his face, but James really didn't give a bloody hell about that at the moment.
"NO MEANS NO, YOU SUCKER COVERED SHE-BEAST WANKER! NO!! DO YOU HEAR ME!?"
He angrily stomped off back toward the school, flushed to the gills and grumbling. It sounded like something about how Sirius thought up the worst dares ever in the history of Marauding and the utmost importance of personal bubbles when it came right down to the wire. He didn't even look back to see the slimy, mottled tentacle that shyly rose above the dissipating ripples, waving a soggy pair of boxers. And if James had been listening closely, he might have heard a bubbling sigh.
Special Notes: James will probably try to stick to the Statute of Secrecy as long as he can - or until he realises everyone's already aware of magicky stuff and then he just won't be arsed. UNTIL THEN THOUGH. Prepare for ultimate stealth-fail.