Afterlife

The Twins

It was a while until James started to have fun, because it worried him how Voldemort wasn't here! He had vanished, but he didn't seem to be dead, he wasn't dead, so where was he?

But James stopped letting it bother him, and life moved on, or, more appropriately, death moved on, and James focused on other things because watching Harry was just too painful.

He had turned his attention to the other children of his generation, flicking from various families, finally setting on one family he found hilarious.

The Weasley family.

They had 7 children, 6 boys and one girl. Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred and George, Ronald and Ginny.

Bill was already in Hogwarts, as was Charlie but Fred and George were 10, waiting patiently for their turn.

James watched as they made their poor mother go gradually insane as they played multiple pranks. It was clear they were just itching for their turn to shine at Hogwarts, quite literally, it seemed, because each of them poured itching powder down each others' trousers. An experiment, to see what it felt like. Mrs Weasley certainly hadn't approved of them wriggling about on the floor as they moaned and cursed.

"Why did you make us do this, Fred?" George groaned.

"It was your idea!" Fred defended.

"Liar! It was so you!"

"Well, whoever's idea it was, it was stupid and you won't be doing it again!" Molly Weasley had thundered. James had great respect for her already. I mean, she had 7 children. 7! James had only had to deal with one wailing baby, but this woman had endured 7! And if James knew anything about childbirth, it was that it was the most painful thing ever. Well, according to Lily. Lily's word was still law though. Mrs Potter had nearly murdered his hand by way of squeezing when she was giving birth to Harry, so Arthur Weasley's hands must be quite damaged by now.

The year flickered past. Finally, it was Fred and George's turn.

James watched in amazement as they constantly got into trouble with Filch and reminiscing about the good old times with Sirius, Remus and Peter.

He focused on the pair of twins because watching Sirius in Azkaban wasn't his dream position. As the man's eyes gradually grew haunted and gaunt, James began to fear for his life and more importantly- mental sanity. They had all jokes of course about them all going insane, but Sirius, when James had left him, had been sane and he wanted to keep it that way.

It wasn't bloody fair that Sirius was stuck in bloody Azkaban while Peter was roaming around.

What surprised James was when Fred and George went up to pompous Percy and started talking about his rat.

They mocked him about this 'Scabbers' and somehow one of them managed to Accio the poor rat into the table.

Well. James described the rat as poor until he recognised it.

How many times had he watched the man change?

How much had he trusted Peter Pettigrew?

Peter Pettigrew was bloody living with a member of the Weasley family! Granted it was the only one who James didn't really like; but a murderer on the side of the legendary Dark Lord, having integrated himself into one of James' new favourite wizarding families was not okay.

James used multiple choice words to describe Peter as Fred and George continued to mock the owner and his rat. Eventually Perce did stand up for himself, grabbing both the rat and his books and stalking off to the safe retreat of the library, a place his brothers never ventured unless it was to do with pranks.

Time ticked by, James watched in admiration as Fred and George broke into Filch's office and somehow discovered the long-ago confiscated Marauders Map. He had actually fangirled at Lily, shouting that THEY HAD GOT IT AND THEY HAD GOT THE MAP AND THEY HAD ACTUALLY GOT THE MAP!

He observed as they got peeved off when trying to reveal the secrets of the map, they were trying so hard and...well, Young James, Sirius and Remus (because Peter hadn't done any of the work and was now a complete outcast anyway) had been gits -correction, James and Sirius- and had created an intense locking system which involved you having to say a certain phrase. Unfortunately, if you didn't get the exact phrase, Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs would begin to insult you and talk back.

Yes, those twins were an enjoyable distraction from Sirius and the depressed Remus.