Obsidian & Bronze {Fred Weasley}

48. Red and Jamie

6th September 1975

I'd never understood love. Not properly. I understood the concept, the form of it, but never felt it, or perhaps even seen it in its entirety.

I think many people thought they had seen it, or maybe thought they'd felt it, but I was positive that those people were so attached to what love was, so addicted to the idea that it made you complete, that they tricked themselves into finding it.

I think the best thing about love, the thing people take most for granted, is just how easily it can happen, even against your will. It isn't something we can prevent, or avoid, it grabs you, tightly, fighting the urge to ever let you go.

People view this as a bad thing, people desperate for control, people that hate uncertainty, people that can't cope if the narrative is taken out of their hands, people like Lily Evans.

Watching her fall in love with James Potter was, to date, the best thing I ever saw. It was different for James, because if you knew James Potter, you then also knew three essential facts about him. He was, one, the most popular boy in school, two, the youngest seeker of the century, and three, in love with Lily Evans and had been since age eleven.

Upon meeting young, naive, optimistic James Potter, and upon hearing the first conversation they had, the first words he and Lily ever exchanged, you'd think he were daft for translating any of that conversation into love. And yet if you knew James there was a fourth and essential fact you were aware of. James Potter was a persistent little shit.

~~~~~

1st September 1971

James had sprawled himself out across the carriage, chest puffed out and ankles crossed up against the window, whilst Peter was still adjusting his case on the overhead shelf, no one making any attempt to help him.

Sirius stayed silent and brooding as he flicked about his long black locks, running his slender fingers through his hair as though he was the most beautiful person to ever exist, and despite my brains agreement with this, I stayed silent, it was better that way.

We had said all but the introduction of our names before an awkward silence fell over us like a blanket on a winter's day, and yet somehow in amongst this tension, something noticeable was spreading, a sense of comfort, like I knew in that moment that this was where I belonged.

"Are you guys nervous?" Peter had whispered, disrupting the silence as the train began to pull away from Platform 9 ¾ for the first time.

James simply just scoffed, and that right there was the most James Potter thing he could have ever done, "Nah, I don't get nervous, Pete was it? I'm pretty chill"

Peter nodded.

James was directly opposite me, both of us against to the window, whilst Peter sat beside James and Sirius beside me. Sirius's close proximity making my small eleven year old chest tense up and shudder.

"I'm not nervous, just glad to be away from my mum" Sirius chimed in, bumping his knee with mine and stopping my heart rate.

Peter squeaked slightly at Sirius whilst James simply laughed, a triumphant grin spread across Sirius's face, like he took great pride in being the funniest in every room.

"What about you blondie?" Sirius asked, ruffling my sandy locks, the ones that hadn't quite turnt brown yet, and tilting his head toward me, "What's your story"

I knew he was referring to the scars slashed across my face, and the ones no doubt he could see creeping out from under the neck of my jumper, but I could not satisfy him with a response, not the one he was after anyway.