chdarling-tle: The start of spring term was always an exciting time as far as James was concerned. F

chdarling-tle: The start of spring term was always an exciting time as far as James was concerned. Fresh new year and all that. Nineteen seventy-seven. “That’s a lucky number,” he’d told Sirius on New Year’s Eve. The boys had stayed up to watch the clock hand tick past twelve, making quick work of the bottle of Ogden’s Old that James had nicked from his parents’ stash, pretending for one evening out of what was undeniably the worst holiday of his life that everything was normal. Everything was fine. “Seventy-seven. I’ve got a good feeling about this one.” If he said it out loud, maybe he could make it true. But try as he might to uphold the enthusiasm he typically provided for their return to Hogwarts and all the excitement that entailed — the post-holiday reunion with his friends on the train, the fast-approaching Quidditch season, the promise of spring blooms just a breeze away — James couldn’t quite maintain the facade. For instance, more than once on the train ride back to the castle, conversation in their compartment momentarily fizzled, and James, who historically had always been ready with a clever quip, an interesting change of subject, a thousand-and-one things he never had enough time to say…well, the James of nineteen seventy-seven didn’t even notice the lull, for he’d been staring out the window throughout the whole chat, eyes locked on the gray, winter-struck landscape while his mind drifted far away to a hospital bed in a city he’d just left behind. The problem with all this was that James Potter was not particularly adept at gloom. As a matter of fact, he considered himself quite unskilled in the department of despair. He was familiar with its symptoms, of course, having studied with scholarly rigor for years its manifestation in the form of his friends. Sirius and Remus both had different flavors of depression, and James was well-trained in how to circumvent their emotional walls — or if all else failed, to simply bulldoze on through — but the presence of a lasting sorrow under his  own  skin was alien and unpleasant. It itched. Read on AO3. @chdarling EXCUSE YOU, I was NOT ready for Sad James! It really hit me. I love how he’s maturing and getting closer to being the James Lily falls in love with. And that paragraph about what being in love with Lily Evans is like was simply one of the best things I’ve ever read. Such tenderness goes a long way. But… Flormes… FLORMES is now happening. I need to be strong. Another fantastic chapter. I feel so lucky to read this story tbh. -- source link

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