#alrightanakin

The next summer, Peter brings along Lily Evans, who brings along Marlene McKinnon, who brings along someone who James thinks is named Fenwick. And of course, Snape, because he follows Evans around like a lost puppy at school, so why wouldn’t he follow her here? It makes James’ skin crawl to have Snape inside his house. Why’s his mum got to be so nice to everyone, whether they’re his friend or not?

How did he get to a stage in his life where Snape is in his kitchen, drinking his orange juice out of his designated cup at his favourite spot at the counter?

James spends the afternoon aiming for Snape with extreme prejudice.

(Evans spends the same afternoon aiming for James with the same prejudice).

(James abandons Snape and directs his fury towards Evans).

(It’s a disaster).

The next summer, there’s so many kids at the Potter house that they need teams, and Evans decides it should be boys against girls. Sirius, the traitor, pipes up to agree with her, but he doesn’t realise that this means that Snivellus will be on their team, and by the time James has smacked him on the ear in anger, Lily’s already herded Mary, Marlene, and three girls James doesn’t know (people he doesn’t know! at his house!) to a spot under the tree to discuss tactics.

James surveys his own team: Sirius, Remus, Peter, Benjy Fenwick, the weird boy from down the road who James doesn’t really like but doesn’t really dislike either (Diggle?). And Snape. God, it’d be perfect without Snape. He’d be happy to put up with Diggle, if it wasn’t for Snape.

At least Snape looks about as keen about it as he feels.

He’s been practicing his aim, and every balloon he throws lands on its mark.

“Friendly fire is one thing,” Evans is saying, and her hair is limp around her shoulders, plastered to her neck, “but you’re taking it too far! What’s Sev ever done to you?”

He just brings a balloon down on her head and runs away. She shouts something after him, and then she throws something after him. The balloon bursts on his calves and he almost trips over.

He does trip over. He hates having to sit out while his lip stops bleeding, but he supposes the fact that his mum is gonna let him go back out at all is a miracle.

Of course, his absence means he’s been exiled from his own team, and now he’s a freelancer. Which means he can go wild, but which also means that when he steps back onto the grass with only a handful of balloons, he’s a target for everyone.

Evans grimaces an apology, and he waves her off. Well, he throws a water balloon at her. It’s the first shot he misses, the balloon splitting harmlessly on the ground.

He ducks to miss one from Peter, and Remus gets him from behind. Typical. He throws his last balloon at Peter, and then he has to scramble to find more before they can bombard him in full.

(He doesn’t).

(It’s a disaster).

The next summer, James says, “Alright, Evans,” and hands her a stack of bright red sashes that his mum sewed for him last week. “You and me, team captains.”

She takes them with a scowl, and says, “Thank you,” like it pains her. It strikes him that she comes to his house an awful lot for someone who apparently can’t stand him.

“And because I’m feeling extra especially nice, you can pick first.”

Evans nods thoughtfully, then there’s this vicious look in her eyes and, “Black.”

James feels as though she’s been shot. Sirius looks at him in panic, but what can he do?

“Um,” says James. “Remus?”

Evans is fast, though. “Peter.”

Snape spits on the ground. On James’ ground. Where he sits sometimes.

“Sev,” Lily says, softly, but Snape storms off.

Good, thinks James. “Mary.”

Really, by the end of it, everyone’s sitting out except for him and Evans. It’s just them in the middle of his garden with a bucket of balloons each (his mum had taken away the guns after Sirius wouldn’t stop shooting water directly into Peter’s eye), yelling nonsense and hitting each other.

(It’s a disaster).

The next summer is the one after Sirius discovers Gasolina. He spends the day before the Battle Royale (and in hindsight, this is the first one that really, truly deserves the title Battle Royale) figuring out how to get Fleamont’s hi-fi system to play it and play it loud. He enlists Euphemia’s help in starting it playing right as the battle begins. It’s the call to arms they’ve been waiting for.

Peter takes first blood, a hot and immediate reaction to hearing the first notes of a song that, over the last eight months, has become the bane of his existence. Sirius splutters, and James wants to be on Peter’s side, he really does. But this is Gasolina, and it feels so stupidly right. Even Evans is biting back a smile. Or, he thinks she is. Maybe she’s biting back a scowl, but that seems unlikely. Evans is known for letting her scowls run freely.

Snape isn’t a bad shot, which pisses James off, because he won’t let Remus alone for even a second. He hates Evans for keeping on inviting him, and he lobs a balloon at her to let her know how pissed off he is. Maybe she gets it, or maybe she’s just in a water fight. Either way, she gets him right in the face.

“That’s it, run away!” spits Snape.

James spins, and there’s Remus, scrambling up the tree, and there’s Snape, throwing balloons and - stones from the flower bed?

He watches Remus fall out of the tree in slow motion.

They’ve climbed that tree a thousand times, they know that tree. Remus knows that tree. How can this happen, how can this be happening? He can’t look away.

The look on Snape’s face is victory, and it doesn’t slip when the crunch of Remus’ arm breaking rings out across the garden. That’s what really riles James. There’s not any remorse, he doesn’t look sorry.

James is on him before anyone can react to any of it.

There’s blood on the grass, but he doesn’t know where it came from. Is Snape bleeding? Is he bleeding? Yeah, it must be him. Snape’s got his grubby fingernails in James’ skin.

Someone grabs him around the waist. He elbows them in the chest. He needs another hit on Snape. Just one more, that’s all he needs.

Peter grabs his arm. Evans grabs the other.

“Get him!” Sirius shouts from far away. Too far away.

“That’s enough, Potter,” Evans spits at him.

“He broke Remus’ arm!” James shouts, and she flinches.

“I don’t need help,” Snape hisses, poisonous. “Not from a little slut like you.”

James gets his hit.

Euphemia drives him and Remus to A&E. She tries to make Snape come too, but he scarpers the minute her back is turned. Remus gets a cast, and James gets six stitches in his eyebrow, and they both promise to pretend the other didn’t cry.

James ends up with a scar, and when they go back to school, Evans touches it softly.

(Maybe it isn’t a disaster after all).

The next summer, James learns what it’s like to have Evans fight by his side, and he doesn’t ever want to go back to how it was before.

This is what happens:

They stand with their sashes, and go through the ceremony of pretending to choose teammates, because Evans will always have her girls, and James always have his boys. They glance at each other uneasily when they have to acknowledge Snape’s absence, and then Evans just barrells on like usual.

It starts like normal. Well, this whole event has been so ridiculous over the course of the last six years that starts like normal could mean practically anything. It starts with the teams in parallel lines, a bucket of balloons each. Then his mum shouts, “Ready?” from the balcony, and then she presses play on the hi-fi, and Sirius times his first hit to the first duro! and it devolves from there.

Evans is shaking like a leaf when she corners him under the balcony and he acknowledges somewhere in the back of his head that he must be cold, too.

“James!” calls Remus, but he doesn’t drop a balloon on Evans’ head like they planned. James shimmies past her until he can see up to where Remus is leaning over the railing, empty handed.

“What?” he shouts back.

Remus just points, out towards the driveway and the winding road that connects the hill to the town. If James had a Spidey Sense, it’d be tingling right about now. He sprints to the tree, and climbs as far as he can, until he can see what the matter is. He’s surprised to find Evans pushing her way up beside him.

“Is that-”

James grimaces. “Mulciber’s car.”

It’s a desperately ugly monstrosity of a Beamer-cross-Buick-cross-Behemoth, and it spent the better part of last term impounded, though that period of bliss seems to be over. They watch is crawl up the road as Mulciber struggles to find the right gears for the climb, and James is still frozen.

“Come on!” Evans shouts at him from the ground. “Christ, you’re useless. Black! Start filling up balloons. Mary, make sure all the guns are topped up. Peter, you get Potter out of the tree.”

They’re not ready when the car pulls up in front of the house. Why don’t they have a gate?

“Ready!” shouts Evans. James picks up a balloon. Pink. He tosses it up and catches it, feels the weight of the water. Sirius catches his eye and blows him a kiss, and that makes him feel a little better. “Fire!”

At least James’ muscle memory makes it look like he knows what he’s doing. God, this is so embarrassing. It’s just Slytherins, ugly, pathetic Slytherins, so why is he so fucking afraid?

Avery gets hit with 3 separate balloons at once, and then he raises a gun. Like, a gun.

What. The. Fuck.

James kind of wants to do a heroic jump in front of Evans to save her from a bullet, but he also kind of doesn’t want to die.

(In the end, he doesn’t get a choice).

James has never been in as much fucking pain as he is in this exact moment. Avery has just shot him in the fucking kneecap and what if he can never play cricket again oh god his dad is going to kill him.

He chances a look down to make sure he’s absolutely, definitely going to die and oh god oh god oh god his trousers are stained red, red, red.

“Get up!” Evans hisses, and tugs at his arm. Sirius has his other.

“I can’t,” James sighs, “I’ve been shot.”

“With a paintball gun, you tosser,” Sirius says.

James sits up, takes in the splotch of red on Evans’ collar, the red matting the left side of Sirius’ hair. Paint. “Well, it still fucking hurts, Sirius.”

“Come on, we’re all getting up on the balcony so we have the high ground.”

James pulls himself up and says, “You were my brother An-” and then his knee buckles and he’s back on the ground. “Hey, I’m not fucking around right now, I think my knee’s dislocated, or, like, shattered into a million tiny pieces or whatever.”

“You owe me,” Sirius grunts, as he lifts James up, a little less than gently, and carries him into the house.

“What about-” James starts as Lily closes the glass door behind them.

“Flea’s trying to get rid of them,” Sirius says.

“I heard him say he was gonna phone the police,” Lily supplies from her position pressed up against the glass.

“Yeah, he loves that one,” James says, running a hand through his hair and gritting his teeth as he shifts to find a position on this bar stool that isn’t completely agonising. “‘James, eat your karela or I’ll call the police!’, ‘James, do your homework or I’ll call the police!’, ‘James, go to bed or I’ll call the police!’ I think he just wants to call the police.”

“I hate hiding in here,” Sirius says, pacing.

At least one of you has to be in motion at all times, Evans told James once. As soon as you stop, Sirius starts. It’s kind of spooky to watch. Sirius crosses to the glass door, tugs on the ends of his hair, returns to James. Spins a ring around on his finger. Goes back to the glass door.

Evans gives him a look like see?

She says, “Go find Euphemia, then. James needs to go to A&E.”

James.

His whole body turns towards her without his permission, like she’s some kind of beacon and he needs to be looking at her right now. Of course he manages to smack his arm against his knee in the process.

If he had a higher threshold for pain, maybe he wouldn’t have passed out just then.

He comes to with a brace around his knee, and Evans holding his hand. He pretends to be unconscious for a little while longer, but his mum catches him at it, and Evans takes her hand back.

(It’s the worst disaster yet).

The next summer, unease settles across them as they stand in their lines. Evans stands opposite James, grave until she gets this smirk on her face like she’s Gal Gadot and he’s just told her he reckons he can take her down. Maybe that smirk is how he already knows he’s completely and totally fucked, but he has to try anyway.

She tackles him as soon as the music starts, sends him sprawling on the grass, and pumps the water gun right into his face.

“Foul!” he calls, except he only gets out fou before he accidentally inhales a mouthful of water and has to hack it back up. Sirius hits Evans from behind with a balloon, a perfect distraction for James to scramble to his feet and wrestle the gun from her hands.

She legs it, and she’s so much faster than he’s ever given her credit for, but he’s an athlete, even with one fucked knee, so she only makes it most of the way across the yard before he catches up.

The collision is messy, but he slams into her and they both go flying. It’s a scramble to their feet, and whoever makes it vertical first is going to be the victor. Then he has her pinned up against the wall by the sitting room window, water dripping steadily from her braid, and she gives him that Gal Gadot look again.

(He holds on tight).

“Alright, Evans?” he whispers, and she angles her face up to him. He licks his lips, and she watches him do it. She brings a hand up to touch his cheek, and then–

She smacks the other hand down on his face, hard, and the balloon she’d been cradling bursts open. “Peachy,” she grins, and then she’s kissing him, and he’s kissing her, and it’s uncomfortably wet.

Remus finds them like that, and it takes him, Peter and Mary sixteen balloons to get them to break apart. When they do, he’s bright red, and Sirius gives him that you’re never going to hear the end of this look that he loves so very much.

(It’s a disaster).

(But James reckons he doesn’t mind so much).

The last summer, the summer between sixth form and university, they stand around and pretend they’ll be back next year. Maybe they will. Sirius holds a portable speaker above his head, and Gasolina pumps into the air, and then they go to war.