In their apparatus, a kaleidoscopic myriad of frothing potions were bubbling away merrily. With his glasses perched on the end of his nose, James Potter bent low over the table, watching the Bunsen flame as he carefully adjusted the dial with a little twist of his fingers. Satisfied, he reached out and with his pencil James noted down his findings. Lifting his glasses off, he lowered himself down into his chair, sitting back to collect himself for a moment as he combed his fingers through his hair. Clearing his throat, James dropped his glasses onto the low table top and reached his hand into the packet of Doritos that were open beside his notebook. After dropping a broken piece of one of the cheesy crisps into his mouth, he leaned forward again and picked up his pencil, his inaccurate eyes flicking across the apparatus, watching as the potions began to alter in colour. After replacing his glasses back onto his face, James looked up, casting his gaze across the open-plan room, his breath catching in his throat as he caught sight of two plain-clothes Aurors making their way towards him.
“Can I help you gentlemen?” James inquired airily, moving his chair from side to side a little as he twisted his pencil between his fingers. His eyebrows arched and all of a sudden he found himself reliving a memory as though it was something he had experienced that very day. Images flashed past his mind and familiar voices tumbled around his ears, the smell of sulphur filling his nose. He could hear his father, his mother. Kingsley Shacklebot. All had told him that he’d make a fine Auror, for that had been his aspiration when he was very young. However, immediately thereafter he was plunged onto a Diagon Alley backstreet with a gaggle of camera-toting reporters following after him. The shouts he could hear as vividly as he could the sound of the boiling potions. It must have just been after he’d joined the Falcons. You’d never have made a good Auror anyway, Potter! How true. How ironic.
“James Sirius Potter?” The taller of the two Aurors grunted, shoving his hands into the pockets of his long, dark robe. James swallowed, his eyebrows furrowing over his deep hazel gaze. James inclined his head, nodding shortly. The taller Auror exchanged a look with his partner, a man with sandy-blonde hair and small, squinting eyes. Something within James stirred and he realised with sharp clarity that it was adrenaline thundering through him, trying to determine whether this new version of himself was going to fight like the old one or fly like the newer model seemed more inclined to do. However, despite the fear that seemed to be running parallel like a skittish fawn, James stood – or rather, sat – his ground and his eyebrows quirked upwards again, his jaw setting in resolute defiance.
“Do you know your rights?” The squinty Auror asked, his voice a few decibels higher than the scruff on his jaw and the throbbing Adam’s apple would have suggested. James’ lips curled into an involuntary smirk. “Mr Potter?” Squinty-Auror pressed. “Are you listening?”
“Oh, I’m listening,” James returned, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “But it’s not really sinking in. I am very aware of my rights and I can see that you fully intend to put those nice handcuffs around my wrists but I ask you this: on what charges, eh?”
James felt a little stab of pride shiver through him as something gave him a pat on the back for keeping his voice so level. The slight twinge of mocking in his tone seemed to have gotten through to the Aurors, too, and James watched as they squared their shoulders back, irritation registering on their faces. James tipped his head to the side a bit and drew his hand along his thigh absently, feeling for his wand. He brought his hand up, then, covering the action by itching just behind his ear and he threw it up after, palm open, expressing mock-exasperation and total innocence. The larger of the two Aurors took a small post-it note out of his pocket and, clearing his throat, began to read out what ultimately left James Sirius Potter stunned: a litany of charges, many of which he’d not ever been notified of but most interestingly:
“…inciting civil disobedience and dissent, failure to adhere to the laws set down by Article 203 and a number of drug related charges that wouldn’t fit on one sticky note.”
“You are joking,” James admonished, discretely removing his wand from his pocket, poking it up the cuff and into the sleeve of his shirt. “I’m clean – and what in the name of Salazar Slytherin’s hairy old arse do you mean by ‘inciting civil disobedience?’ How can I do that if I’m sat in a basement doing research for the Ministry?”
“Mr Potter,” Squinty-Auror growled, “please come peacefully.” He looked pleadingly at James – or, well, as pleadingly as you could if you had eyes the size of half a Knut. James’ upper lip curled at the side as disbelief registered on his features.
“Potter,” the tall Auror grunted, “we’re not playing with you. Now get up,” he removed his wand from an inner pocket of his robe, “or-”
“Or what?” A smirk drifted provokingly across James’ mouth, his lips lifting up over his teeth, allowing the gold fitting to glint a little in the low light of the room, “You’ll hex me, will you?”
The Auror shifted, a few beads of sweat forming around his hairline. This clearly wasn’t an eventuality that he had been prepared for. James Potter, or so they had all been told, was nothing like the man that had fought so valiantly for the Order of the Phoenix, who had taken to butchering Death Eaters like a duck to water. They had expected and found a lab rat with coiffed hair and a cashmere sweater over his meticulously ironed, pinstripe shirt. What they hadn’t expected to come with that was the Gryffindor temper; or rather, the Potter-Weasley temper. They hadn’t expected to find a Potter, just a shadow bearing the same appearance and the same name. At least in the littler Auror, a little proverb rattled through his head: wake not a sleeping lion – and sleeping lion James Potter most certainly was. No more.
“We’ll have to take you in on charges of resisting arrest, also,” the larger Auror cleared his throat awkwardly.
“I’m just sat here,” James returned silkily. “I would hardly call it resisting arrest.”
“James Sirius Potter, I am arresting you-” the Auror leaned forward, his hand curling around James’ bicep. The feel of cool, pointed wood under his chin gave him pause, however, and he released his grip, his mind vaguely registering that there was strength there. It seemed as though no amount of misuse could relieve this man’s body of its boisterous physicality. He turned his eyes onto James and licked his lips nervously, his gaze flicking down to his own wand, his periphery taking into account the fact that his partner had removed his wand, also.
“There will be no arresting here today, gentlemen,” James murmured dangerously, looking between the two men.
A red light began to burn at the end of Squinty-Auror’s wand and with a burst of particularly violent magic that James didn’t realise he had in him, he tossed the taller Auror into his friend, sending the two flying across the room into one of the tall shelves that crumbled on top of them upon impact. James got to his feet, reaffirming his grip on his wand and in good stead for not a moment later, the shelves were sent flying in his direction. The Potter man dropped himself to the floor, wincing as the shelves took out his potion apparatus with a crash-bang-whollop. Bright pink potion began to run down from the table. He shook his head briefly, his eyes widening as a flash of purple light graze past his ears. Lifting his wand aloft, James threw back every spell measure for measure, beating back the Aurors with a skilled but rusty hand. What he lacked in precision was made up for in speed, his familiarity with duelling returning to him as his blood screamed electrically through his veins. Laughter lit up his face. Magic flooded to every cell, buzzing about him. He felt lightheaded. Giddy. Insatiable. So very, very alive. With relish he tossed spells at them, deflecting the ones they returned. Some he allowed to sail past, his heart sparking inside of him as it realised the danger. Merlin, it had been too long. But as he grew more excitable, he grew more inaccurate yet that did not see him tire. No, somehow, he grew more resolute and more and more out of control.
“Potter! Enough!” The larger Auror bellowed, throwing one last spell at James. This one was on target, however, and the wand held so tightly in the brunette’s hand splintered to pieces, bits of Holly wood digging into his palm. James’ hand opened, his other coming to grip at his wrist as his eyes took in the pieces of wood that had drawn scarlet from his skin. He looked up, a snarl forming on his mouth but before it could be vocalised, binds squeezed around his arms and chest and he was drawn into the grasp of the Aurors. Caught. Shit.
A warm cheek was slammed violently against the icy glass of the Ministry observation deck that overlooked the atrium. James’ eyes widened as he took in the swollen crowds below. He shook himself, trying desperately to dislodge the Aurors but it was to no avail. He pressed his forehead against the glass, knocking his glasses back into place and his face fell as he took sight of the crowd properly. A flash of red in the crowd alerted him to the presence of Jack Dyllan. He thrashed again, desperate to free himself from the Aurors but just as before he achieved little.
“I didn’t know anything about this,” James shouted desperately, turning his head. “I didn’t do anything. I’m a pacifist.”
“Like hell,” Squinty-Auror pulled James back from the window, pointing to his face. A split lip and a rapidly swelling eye was what Squinty-Auror was wearing as well as a nasty looking graze across his cheekbone and a burn on his jaw from one of the potions. The bigger Auror didn’t look much better.
“You assaulted me,” James returned glibly, earning a smack around the back of the head for his trouble. “It’s not my fault if you don’t look pretty for each other anymore.”
“You’re telling us, you didn’t know anything about this?” The bigger Auror asked impatiently, coming to stand beside his friend.
“Did you get potion in your ears?” James ground out. “I didn’t know anything about this. Read my lips. I. Didn’t. Know. I. Did. Nothing. I. Am. Not. Involved. Capish?” Another smack. “Hey, you can cut that out an’ all!”
“When I find the rest of my eyebrow, Potter,” the bigger Auror hissed, “I just might. C’mon. Let’s get rid of him, Vince.”
So Squinty-Auror was called Vince. How interesting. Only, not really.
Before James knew it, He was being tossed into a cell with the rest of the miscreants. Only, they weren’t miscreants at all. They were composed of well-dressed members of Wizarding society including-
"Lily Luna?"
James gaped and lost his footing, slipping to the floor as the cell door closed behind him. The Potter man landed with an audible bump onto the tiles and he turned as the Aurors disappeared, complaining, down through the halls of the Ministry – no doubt to deal with some of the rioters.
“James, mate,” hands found James’ shoulders and he looked up to see none other than Frank Longbottom looking down over him. A crooked smile lifted his friend’s lips and James blearily let Frank haul him to his feet. James leant back against Frank briefly and for a moment he just took the time to breathe a few shuddering breaths of the cold, claggy air of the cell. “You alright?” James felt Frank’s hot breath brush past his ear and he stomached a nod.
“Yeah,” he breathed, dislodging himself from Frank’s grasp. “What’re you in for?” He asked, turning.
“For being too sexy for the Ministry to handle, of course,” Frank returned with a chuckle. James smirked. “You?”
“Same,” James grunted with his own little guffaw. “Worked out how we’re getting out yet?” He inquired.
“Bail money, my friend,” Frank returned with a sigh. “I don’t reckon my dad knows yet.”
James blew out a breath of air and smudged his lips together, casting one last glance in Lily Luna’s direction. He leaned against the cell door opposite Frank, watching idly as the man rubbed at his shoulder. His heart was beginning to slow now. The pain of some of the grazes he had gotten was beginning to kick in. He felt hungry, though. There was something in him that wanted to go back. To do it again. To let them get closer. To let them hit him only to grow complacent, only to bow beneath him, under the weight of his magic. The rush. He wanted it. He wanted in the same way a man lusted after the swaying hips of an attractive woman. He needed it like air. He needed it like he used to need Firewhisky or Spice. Like an addict. Merlin.
“We’re stuck for now,” Frank added grimly, drawing James out of his reverie. “Once the riot subsides we should be in the good. People will start coming down to get us, I reckon.”
“And if they don’t?” James asked, looking up at the slightly taller man, a weary feeling settling into his bones.
Frank raised an eyebrow, optimism fading a little bit. “They will, mate. Don’t you worry. They’ll come.”