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Happy Birthday, Potter


Maryrose’s hair was deep violet and she’d changed her eyes to match. She laughed as she led James through corridors, holding his hand with hooked knuckles rather than intertwined fingers. They were down by the library in the far end of the castle from the Great Hall, where most everyone else was at dinner. The corridors down this end of the castle were dark, already thought to be empty for the night, and James’s wand was illuminated and he held it high for them both to see by. They reached the corner of the corridor and she backed against the wall rather than turning and whispered, “Turn off your wand, Potter.”

“Nox,” he said and he pocketed the wand quickly, leaning so one of his palms were splayed against the wall, the other still hooked ‘round her hand. “When is your birthday, Maryrose?” he asked lowly.

“In June,” she answered.

“So I’m older than you,” he said.

“Yes, you are,” she said.

“I’m dating a younger woman,” he laughed.

“Cradle-robbing, practically.”

He kissed her nose.

Maryrose giggled.

James moved their hands so they were pressing them against one another, palm-to-palm. Her fingers were almost as tall as his was - she had rather large hands. He wasn’t sure why this sort of disappointed him that their hands didn’t fit together quite like he’d wanted them to, but he twisted his palm away and went back to their hooked-knuckle hand holding.

“Do you like the lavender hair?” she asked.

“I like all your hairs,” he said. She changed it frequently.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Red,” he answered without really thinking about it.

“Like Gryffindor red or like… Lily Evans’s ginger?” Maryrose questioned.

James swallowed back the burn of blush that was threatening to run up his neck to his face and he shook his head.

Maryrose laughed, “Can’t decide?” Maryrose screwed up her face and turned her hair Gryffindor red, the color melting from her hairline, and with it came gold eyes the color of a slightly tarnished Gryffindor crest, “Here’s the Gryffindor,” she murmured, and then - before James could stop her - Maryrose crunched her nose up once more and her hair turned exactly the color of Lily Evans’s, her eyes green - though not quite the right shade…

James stared at her and for a moment he forgot himself and he leaned forward and kissed her, pressing her against the wall with his torso, tilting his head to get good access to her mouth, his hand running up to her hair, fingers moving through the ginger locks… She hadn’t expected such an impassioned reaction to the shade, but it was clear that James Potter was into gingers and Maryrose went with it. She ran her hands over his arms and up the back of his neck into that messy mop of hair on his head that every girl in the school wanted so desperately to touch. James Potter’s hair was a celebrity all it’s own about Hogwarts, always looking as though he’d just stepped off the Quidditch pitch, whether he had or not.

After a few minutes, James came up for air, his eyes closed… He couldn’t open them yet. Not yet. He’d had this moment, while their lips were locked and he’d been moving his mouth against hers, that he’d realized that with his eyes only part-way opened in the dark, all he could see was the ginger hair… and he’d caught himself imagining… for just a moment… pretending… He felt guilty for it. What sort of horrible person tells a girl to change the color of her hair to look like another girl and then kisses her, imagining it to be that other girl? It was as though he were cheating on her… in a weird way… and he felt horrible. But for those moments he’d been pretending… Merlin.

She stared up at him, at his lips, which were full in size, and now covered a bit with the light pink shade that Maryrose was wearing on her mouth, breathing a bit heavier than usual, having not been able to breathe very well around all the kissing. She was still running her fingers through his hair, and he had his hands up on the wall, bracing himself as though doing a push-up around her there.

When he finally opened his eyes, he stared at her a moment, then he whispered, “You know, actually, I think it looks better teal.”

Maryrose laughed, “Well that was quite a… lovely kiss… for someone who likes it better a different shade…”

“You look too much like Evans this way,” he said point blank.

Maryrose giggled, “I thought you were friends with Lily?”

James nodded, “Doesn’t mean I want to snog her, does it?” he asked. “I mean to be snogging you right now… not Evans.”

Maryrose scrunched up her face and the teal color washed over her hair, sweeping away the ginger, her eyes returning to what he thought might possibly be the natural shade of brown. “Better?” she asked.

“Much,” he answered, and he leaned in to continue on snogging her.




James returned to the Gryffindor common room over an hour and a half later, his lips swollen from snogging, his hair a mess from Maryrose’s fingers. He was stopped several times along the way up to the tower by people wishing him Happy Birthday - including by Alabastar Jackson, the Slytherin. When he got to Gryffindor Tower, he told the Fat Lady the password - which she’d changed to “Potter’s Birthday” in honor of him - and climbed through to his party, which was already starting. There was a banner strung over the mantel and loads of butterbeer and a big cake on the table and everybody had on pointy cone party hats and there were noisemakers and fizzing whizzbees and chocolate frogs and bowls of popcorn floating about the room. James grinned as the whole of Gryffindor house shouted, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, POTTER!” and then broke into the birthday song as Frank Longbottom used his wand to light fifteen candles on the cake and Peter can over and put a paper crown on James’s head.

“Make a wish, Potter,” said Frank as he and Andy Woodhouse carried the cake over to him and James’s eyes swept the room, taking in all the faces of all his friends - Peter, Frank, Andy, Tobias, Carly, McKenna, Meg, Jackson, Annalee, Lily - and all the other Gryffindors, as well…

James’s eyes met Lily’s and he smiled at her.

She smiled back, “Go on. Make a wish.”

James closed his eyes.

He could still feel Maryrose’s lips on his… could still see the way the ginger hair had reflected what little moonlight made its way through the windows into that dark corner they’d been in…

With a deep breath, James blew out all the candles in one go.

“Hey good job, mate,” Frank said, clapping him on the back as Andy carried the cake back to the table, “That means your wish’ll come true.”

James laughed. “Dunno. I doubt it.”

“Sure. Birthday wishes are a special sort of magic,” he said, “Binding, you know. Even works for the muggles.”

James’s lips curled into a funny little smile, “Frank, I’ve wished the same bloody thing four years running and it’s yet to come true, so I don’t see why this one’ll be any different.”

“You never know,” he replied, “Fifteen’s a milestone number. They say magic is stronger when it’s done with powerful numbers. Like sixes, sevens, twelves… so forth. That’s what they said in numerology anyway.”

“Yeah,” James’s eyes travelled across the room, following Lily Evans as she and Ali were dancing about in front of the fireplace, laughing. He looked back to Frank, “But I doubt it’s strong enough for my wish.”

Frank glanced over his shoulder, then looked back at James. “Oh I see. Well. Keep wishing, mate. Who knows.” He winked and went to join Ali.

“Yeah,” murmured James. And suddenly he wished very much that Maryrose had come back to the common room party with him - he’d offered to walk her back to Hufflepuff after the festivities were over, but she’d refused, afraid of getting caught by Filch and James hadn’t pressed it because at the time he’d still felt guilty about pseudo-cheating on her with his imagination. But now he felt a bit lonely, even though the swirling vortex of party was happening all around him, shifting with his movement through the crowd. He was all at once the center of attention and all alone.

He went over to the table and cut off a piece of cake and grabbed a bottle of butterbeer, wishing fiercely that Sirius was there, for Sirius would’ve been right at his side making jokes and leaning against the wall with his stupid Gryffindor tie knotted up in his hair like he always did, and James would feel less lonely. He looked about for his friends, trying to find one that might not be distracted so that they’d talk with him some, but Frank was with Ali and Peter was distracted talking excitedly to Annalee, who sat feeding him cake in one of the couches across the room.

“So how did your birthday date with Maryrose go?” Lily Evans was suddenly at James’s side, holding a little plate with a bit of cake on it.

James nodded, “It went well.”

Lily nodded, too, “Good.”

“We snogged by the library,” James said because it seemed like a thing to say.

“Well congratulations,” Lily said, only sounding slightly sarcastic.

James laughed, “Yeah it wasn’t bad, either. She’s a good snogger.”

Lily took a bite of her cake.

James imitated her, drawn to doing exactly what she was doing, and he pushed a big bite - technically too big a bite- into his mouth. He chewed slowly around it as she stared up at him with amusement, chewing on her normal-sized bite at exactly the same time. She finished first, of course, and she said, “You have frosting…” she tapped her cheek. James brought his hand up to swipe it away, but she shook her head, “Other side…” But he still managed to miss it, so Lily reached up and cupper her hand ‘round his face, sliding her thumb along his cheek, wiping away the blob of red icing. “There you are,” she said, “Good as new.”

Her hand slid away from his face and James took a deep breath. He’d been holding it the whole time her hand had been touching him.

“Lilllyyyy!” cried Ali, “Lily Evans! Get over here!” she waved her wrist from the fireplace, “Come dance, Lily!”

“I’m eating cake,” she said, holding up the plate.

“Lillllyyyy come dance!” Ali persisted. “And you, James, it’s your bloody birthday, come dance.”

James laughed, “I’m not much of a dancer. Two left feet, see. I’m actual rubbish at it.”

“Oh shut up, Potter, you know you’re good at everything,” Lily said, rolling her eyes, and without warning she grabbed his hand and dragged him over to where Frank and Ali were dancing and James felt his heart rate triple.

His eyes met Frank Longbottom’s as Lily yanked him by the wrist. A smirk played across Frank’s face.

“Deep magic in those candles, Potter,” he said.

James felt his face flush.

Lily, luckily, didn’t see to have heard him as she set herself to dancing.

He really was terrible at it. He didn’t know exactly what he was doing. His feet sort of shuffled and Frank laughed and nudged him, trying to demonstrate what it was James should’ve been doing, but James couldn’t seem to coordinate himself. For the first time, he was sort of glad that Sirius Black wasn’t there. Oh the things Sirius would say… he could almost hear him…

Blimey the Giant Squid could do it better than that, Potter.

What in bloody hell was that, Prongsie?

Are you dancing or convulsing? I can’t tell. Should we rush you off to Madam Pomfrey’s?

Then he felt hands grab his hips, “You need to listen for the music. It gives you clues when to move. Look… beat, move… beat beat, move move… see? Find that beat….” James stared down into Lily’s eyes as she guided him. “And you move your feet… like this… look…” He looked at her feet, her mary jane shoes had scuffs about their toes and one of her knee socks had fallen down, revealing quite a lot of leg… and he followed the leg up to her knee… to just above her knee, where her skirt’s hemline rested… and he gulped and then looked back up into her face.

“Evans,” he said, and he reached down, taking her hands and dropping them off his hips, “I’m sorry…”

“What?” She looked surprised - and Frank did, too, actually, looking at him from over her shoulder.

James shrugged, “I’m attached.”

Lily blinked at him, “I’m not hitting on you, Potter,” she laughed, “I’m just showing you how to dance. Really, I’m doing Maryrose a service here. If you go flailing about like that before her, she’s going to run off. The bloody Giant Squid could do it better than that.”

James laughed. It was exactly what he’d pictured Sirius saying.

“What?” she asked.

He shook his head, “Nothing. But -- still, I’ll have to take my chances with Maryrose running off.” And he quickly turned and, pausing to grab a butterbeer on his way, dashed up the stairs to the fourth year dormitory.

Lily stared after him a moment, then turned to look at Ali with confusion.

Ali said, “He is attached, Lil.”

“It wasn’t like that,” she argued.

“Maybe not to you,” Ali replied. “Besides, if I saw someone with their hands on Frank like that -- I’d bloody hex them.”

Lily looked at Frank, who had spun off and was dancing rather flappily a few feet away, looking nearly as horrible at it as Potter had a few moments before. She smirked, “With him dancing like that, I doubt you need to worry much about it.”

Ali looked over at him and laughed, “Oi. That’s my man you’re talking about Evans.”

“He looks more like a flamingo at the moment,” Lily laughed.

Ali smiled, “He’s my flamingo, though, and I wouldn’t trade him in for anything.” Ali’s eyes shone and she hurried over to Frank, jumping at him, and he caught her up so her legs were hooked around his waist. The way Frank Longbottom looked at Ali Prewitt made Lily’s heart ache.

She wished somebody would look at her that way…