Chapter Text
James Potter:
To say that James is drunk, would be an understatement. He lost count of the drinks shoved into his hands by people that he doesn’t know, jabbering on about how good the show was, about twenty minutes ago. He’s high off the performance and high off the praise and drunk, to the point where he’s going to be throwing up in a couple drinks.
For the first time in his life, he is beginning to think that this house is too small. This house that has been passed down through generations of Potters and is a fucking mansion, feels too small with the amount of drunken, dancing, college students.
If you called any of them college students to their faces, they would hurt you. Most of the people in the house were from Hogwarts Conservatory for the Arts, a prestigious and expensive private University that specialised in The Arts. So, calling students of The Arts, mere college students, is signing your own death warrant.
James stumbles into the kitchen, which is surprisingly empty, meaning a couple of people standing around, talking amongst themselves and ignoring James as he shoves his head under the tap. He doesn’t recognise any of them, a common occurrence this evening; though, in his state, he doesn’t think he would recognise one of his own bandmates.
In fact, the boy looks a lot like Sirius but smaller, slighter, prettier.
Grey eyes flick up to meet James’s gaze and he realises that he’s been staring at the boy for, well, he doesn’t know. How long?
To play it off, James winks at the boy and grabs a glass and fills it with water. He turns to leave, sipping the water. As he walks out of the corner, he glances over his shoulder to find those grey eyes following his steps, corner of lips tilted upwards.
“Prongs!” Peter calls over from the staircase, waving like a maniac. Evidently, James isn’t the only Marauder to be drunk off of his ass.
James makes his way over to the blonde, smiling at him. “Heya Pete!” he calls over to his mate. “Enjoying the party?” he asks, leaning against the banister, not feeling like trying to make it up the stairs.
“Affirmative,” Peter nods. “D’you know, Conservatory kids are a bunch of poshos?” he asks, words slurring.
“Ah yeah! We all are,” James agrees. The realisation dawns on Peter’s face that he just called himself and all of his mates ‘poshos’. And the realisation dawns on James that he agreed. The two of them burst into laughter, finding this incredibly hilarious.
“Well, at least we aren’t art students,” Remus, who had appeared from nowhere, points out, handing a glass of water to Peter. “They’re the worst.”
James frowns. “Isn’t Pads an art student as well as a music student though?” he asks, less than coherent thoughts making for even less coherent dialogue.
Remus nods. “Exactly Prongs, exactly,” the more sober boys confirms, grinning at James.
“I vote for the drama students being the post pretentious,” Peter remarks, examining the wood grain on the banister with fascination.
“You are a drama student?” James replies, unsure of that, but also certain.
Peter just smiles as he traces some of the pattern on the wood.
“I like how you’ve all missed out the people who specialise in writing even though it’s not an ‘art’,” a redhead chimes in from where she’s suddenly sitting beside Remus. Lily Evans, a close friend to The Marauders who decidedly mocks James for his second specialisation any chance that she can get.
James makes a face at Lily, having nothing to mock her back with. Normally, soberly, he would have a phenomenal comeback but, he tends to lose that ability after a couple of drinks.
Remus chuckles while Peter looks around, surprised to still be in the same spot that he was in a couple of seconds ago.
Frustratingly, Remus is rather untouchable from being mocked seeing as he only specialises in music, not taking a second, and since both James and Peter both also take music, mocking Remus means mocking themselves as well. And thus, Remus wins, which James is salty about for a second before Grey-Eyes from the kitchen walks past and nods to Lily, in acknowledgment.
“Art student?” James asks Lily.
She frowns before confirming. “Why do you want to know?” she asks.
“He looks a lot like Sirius and I was just wondering who he was,” James answers. He then frowns and turns to Remus. “Where is Pads?”
Remus shrugs in response. “They’ll be around.”
Silence descends upon the group for a second before James decides that he could really do with a smoke and informs his friends of that.
Drunkenly winding your way through a crush of bodies who are all also at varying levels of drunkenness, is not an easy feat but, James Potter has never been one to be dissuaded by a challenge, and succeeds in making his way to the patio and the garden.
Most of the garden, James declared off limits and set up barriers to stop the guests from venturing into the garden. For James, he also hasn’t stepped foot in the garden since his mother passed six months ago, the pain still too fresh and real.
He raises his lighter to his cigarette as he surveys the mess of the small amount of lawn that he let the guests have and thanks sober him for the wise decision of restricting access to the rest of the property. Red solo cups litter the grass along with fragments of a birdbath that James brought on a whim last month, attempting to do something with the garden and failing.
“Got a light?” Grey-eyes asks, causing James to jump slightly.
He blinks for a second before registering the question. “Yeah, sorry,” he mutters handing his lighter to the boy, a smirk quirking up Grey-eyes’ lips.
“You looked lost in thought,” Grey-eyes comments, glancing at James as he takes a drag from his cigarette.
James shrugs. “Memories.”
An inquisitive raise of an eyebrow pushes James to elaborate.
“Not exactly pleasant memories,” he elaborates, glancing down and stubbing out his barely burnt cigarette.
“Those are the worst to get lost in,” Grey-eyes remarks, a slight distant look phasing into his eyes. “You should probably change that habit, exchange it, for getting lost in the good memories.” A wry smirk, voicing that that comment was more than just shitty advice. “Watched you perform tonight, with your band, you’re good. You look like you enjoy performing which is an important trait to have as an entertainer. If you weren’t just acting, that’ll probably be a good memory to get lost in.” Grey-eyes winks at James as he stubs out his cigarette and walks away.
A cryptic conversation and James managed not to get a name from his stranger. His stranger with those distinctive grey eyes and amused smirk and really odd advice.
But, James finds that he doesn’t mind getting lost in thought about Grey-eyes and it takes his mind off of the memories that like surfacing no matter how much James wishes that they wouldn’t.