RED - James Potter x OC

twenty eight - a tangible change

Four weeks since the lake...

James Potter was worried.

It was not a natural feeling for him, though it had been becoming more prominent as the war developed, and right now? He was worried all the time.

Mostly about Atla.

She hadn't properly spoken to him since he'd said she was 'overcompensating' (which was not a good choice of words on his part), in fact, she'd barely looked at him. And the worst part was that he couldn't even tell anyone. Atla had wanted to keep it all a secret, so he would, for her. But James thought it'd be nice to have someone to talk to once in a while.

He could tell that Lily was doing her best to get Atla back to normal, but even the redhead's usually effective words weren't working. And he worried about the war too. About his muggleborn friends, about what would happen if Voldemort won. He worried about his parents - they were getting old, and his mum had seemed slightly ill last time they'd spoken. And a world without Euphemia Potter was not a world that James wanted to live in.

So there he was, laying on his back at the top of the Quidditch stadium, worrying. God he felt pathetic.

"Oi! Prongs!" he heard Sirius' familiar yelps from deep in the wooden stands. A few seconds later, a wheezing Sirius Black appeared, red in the face.

"Bloody hell, those stairs get worse and worse every time," Sirius complained, collapsing on the floor a few meters away from James.

"If you went jogging with me..." James trailed off. Sirius had already decided that he didn't like to run, and there was no point trying to convince him now.

"I don't jog," Sirius stated, a look of fake offence on his face, "and you should know that, seeming as you've been my best mate for six years."

"Aren't you worried?" James interjected.

Sirius scrunched up his face in confusion.

"About what?"

"About..." James hadn't thought this far ahead. He couldn't say about Atla. So he went for another option, "about the war. People are dying everyday and the Slytherins are getting worse. I've heard Voldemort's recruiting them young."

Sirius looked slightly crestfallen.

"I suppose my brother's been recruited by now, nasty little so-and-so," he said bitterly. Sirius could insult Regulus as much as he wanted, but James didn't believe one word. You don't just go from brothers to nothing.

"Do you know what you're doing after?" James asked.

"After what?"

"After Hogwarts."

"I've never given much thought to it, really," Sirius replied thoughtfully, "I just assumed I'd live off my family's fortune. Maybe I should get a job."

And then James said something he'd never said aloud before.

"I'm going to fight."

"In the war?"

"Until there isn't one deatheater left,"continued James.

"Well, we all already knew that," Sirius replied with a short laugh.

James sat up.

"What do you mean?"

Sirius chuckled again.

"Mate, you're acting as if this is some big confession," he said, "but it was obvious. I can't imagine you not fighting."

James wasn't sure whether he should smile at that.