my accompanying drabble to @padfootastic's recent piece (also not proofread at all so please excuse the incoherence)
James with adhd and protective Sirius who will fight anyone who hurts his friends, told from Lily’s POV.
Lily does not really start paying attention to James Potter and Sirius Black until fourth year. She says James Potter and Sirius Black because in her head, it goes together, saying one without the other, while physically possible, is not very likely, and always leaves a feeling of something missing, something being out of place, something being not right. Like only having a knife for dinner, without a fork to accompany it.
She does not really pay attention to their antics when James keeps turning around in his seat every ten minutes during class to whisper something at Sirius even after they’ve been separated; does not listen when he talks loudly over breakfast, jumping from story to story, getting distracted in the middle, never properly finishing anything while Sirius just sits there and laughs at it anyway; does not really pay attention when on their very first day of flying class, James Potter surges up into the sky after he’s just explicitly been told not to do that, almost falls, laughs, winks at them from above, then almost falls again, all the while being yelled at by Madam Hooch and cheered on by Sirius Black, who got his own fair share of scolding after that for endorsing him.
She rolls her eyes, clicks her tongue and looks away.
When James shows up to class late yet again, grinning sheepishly with his hair sticking in all directions, apologising to the professor with the same old excuse of mixing up the hours, she rolls her eyes; when he keeps tapping his foot against the floor, twirling the quill between his fingers restlessly as his eyes keep darting around until the ink is spilled all over his robes and desk, she clicks her tongue; when he starts telling something when they’re all gathered in the common room around the fireplace, words an incoherent jumble of excitement that get mixed up so badly as he keeps jumping around from subject to subject that nobody around him is keeping track of anymore, she looks away.
She looks, but she does not see. She sees, but she does not notice. She notices, but she does not understand.
Not until Sirius Black, that is.
“What’s your deal?” The boy snarls angrily, abruptly jolting up to his feet to make his way over to where she and the girls are seated at in the common room.
Lily blinks. Sirius’ cheeks are a little flushed, like they are either when he’s angry, embarrassed or just came back from Quidditch practice (and seeing as it’s neither of the last two, it has to be the first one). His light grey eyes are narrowed, glinting at her dangerously with a promise of trouble in them, and one of his hands is clenched into a fist by his side. He seems upset.
Lily just looks at him. She has no idea where this hostility erupted from all of a sudden - everything seemed perfectly normal to her, up until this point.
James and the boys have been in their corner of the room, as per usual, quiet enough to keep an aura of mystery around them that drew the curious eyes of anybody who did not know better, but loud enough for it to be impossible to remain unnoticed.
They started off with studying, and then it somehow escalated to charmed paper-folded swans flying all around the room, up to the ceiling, bumping into each other, one of them falling between Mary’s spread out legs on the sofa.
“Just focus on your homework!” Lily yelled at them across the room, frustrated, after she just found herself rereading the same paragraph for the third time. “You don’t have to keep drawing attention to yourself all the time. Nobody cares.”
James smiled at her apologetically from a distance, flashed everybody his symbolic, white-toothed grin, saluted the rest of the boys for a good night, and made his way upstairs. Lily did not think twice about it, settling into the blissful silence of the room.
“What’s your deal?” Mary retorts defensively when Lily just keeps looking at him, confused.
“I wasn’t talking to you, MacDonald.” Sirius snaps viciously before turning back to glare at Lily. “Lay off of him.”
“You want me?” Lily sputters, momentarily at a loss of words. “To lay off of him?” She waits for a punchline, but that never comes, Sirius just stands there, looking like she personally offended him somehow.
“He’s loud.” She says at last, because she’s suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to defend herself, even though she feels she has done nothing wrong. “And annoying. It’s hard to focus like that. Just because he doesn’t care about school, doesn’t mean we don’t either.”
Sirius lets out a laugh. It’s not a kind one. “Hard. Oh, is it?” He mocks. “Well, for him it’s hard all the time, Evans. Deal with it.”
And then he’s gone, furiously stomping up the stairs to the boys’ dormitory.
“Ignore them,” Mary tells her, “they’re both missing a few screws, the two of them.”
Mary is right, Lily has never paid much attention to what Sirius Black and James Potter had to say before, why would she now? But the words, echoing over and over in her head, refuse to let go.
Lily does not roll her eyes anymore after that.
She starts paying attention.
She pays attention to James’ hands, that seem to be unable to pause for longer than three seconds at a time at any point throughout the day, like it physically hurts to keep them still. They come up to ruffle his hair, push the glasses up his nose even when there is nothing wrong with their position; they play with his wand, twirling it around between long fingers, dropping it, bending down to pick it up, tucking it behind his belt, getting it out again, spinning it some more; they do the same with a quill when the wand is out of his reach, dangling it between two fingers restlessly whenever he isn’t writing, sticking it in his mouth, behind his ear, taking it out, putting it back again; occasionally he drops it and ink splatters all around, over the table, his skin, his clothes. He just grins sheepishly with that flashing smile of his that is basically a brand of its own at this point, and gladly accepts the distraction of cleaning up the mess he just made.
He moves around a lot when he talks, gesturing with his hands, jumping up and out of his seat, turning the chair over, sitting on it backwards, then abandoning it in favour of coming to sit on top of the table; he tugs on his friends’ sleeves impatiently when he feels like he’s being ignored, raises his voice more, pushes harder, makes sure he is heard loud and clear, always.
Remus and Peter seem to be accustomed to his antics, they nod along, put in encouraging remarks when it’s needed, remind him of the robes slung over the back of a chair when he gets up to leave without them, shove his books at his chest so they aren’t left forgotten on the desk.
Sirius, for as impatient and irritable as he is with virtually anybody else, is extraordinarily patient with him.
Sirius lets him play with his hair, something he is usually willing to bite people’s heads off for when it’s anybody else who attempts to do that. He settles in between James’ legs when they are sitting on the sofa in the common room, and James’ fingers instinctively, without even realising that, reach into Sirius’ hair, picking it apart into smaller groups, twirling the slick black locks around his fingers, braiding them together, then picking them apart again, over and over. When he does that, his voice grows calmer and his speech becomes slower, more focused, he takes his time to pick out the correct words and formulate sentences that are easier to understand.
Sirius lets him mess with the rings on his fingers, another thing he does not allow anybody else to even come close to touching. They are all different, various degrees of width and thickness, some with small stones or words and designs engraved into them, and others completely smooth and bland; each came at a different time and tells a different story, which Lily never cared much for or bothered asking about. He lets James twirl and move them around, take them off and put them back on, fingers brushing over the different shapes and textures.
He lets James draw on his hands arms with moving ink while they are reciting material in the library for an upcoming exam, lets him trace black patterns into his skin - circles, and trails, and shapes, triangles, feathers, roses.
Once Lily starts paying attention, she can’t help but notice.
Can’t help but notice how just before he grins and laughs it off, James’ expression falters for a second, shoulders sagging slightly and the light of excitement in his eyes dimming out when someone rolls their eyes impatiently, or sighs deeply with a tired look on their face, or clicks their tongue at him with annoyance.
She can’t help but notice how he suddenly falls silent after that, completely shutting down, fingers fidgeting even more than usual in his lap as he tries to remain still and quiet in his spot.
She can’t help but notice the way Sirius always tenses at that, eyes narrowing in warning, his grip tightening, knuckles almost white with the effort. He shifts closer to James, and pokes his cheek, ruffles his hair in an amiable gesture and asks him questions, trying to pull him out of his sombre.
Sirius takes off his glasses sometimes. When things are a little overwhelming, and James goes into a sort of stupor, blinking rapidly, trying to make sense of everything going on around him, Sirius just leans over and slides the glasses off his nose casually, with the usual excuse of taking them to run a cleaning spell, or without even saying anything at all. James relaxes a little, some of the tension leaving his body.
James always leans back into Sirius in moments like this, pulls away and retreats into him, the only thing and place that seems to offer true comfort instead of agitating him even further. Sirius places a hand over his head and pushes the other’s head down, to rest on his shoulder, on his chest, caressing his hair slowly and gently as he leans down just the slightest bit to press a tender kiss to his friend’s temple.
James is loud, he takes up a lot of presence in the room, taking and demanding until there’s nothing left. But with Sirius he is quiet, he is calm and serene, and he never has to shout or even speak to get what he needs.
Sirius in turn is brutal, he is all sharp elbows and rough edges, vicious glares and sarcastic smirks. But with James he is soft and gentle, he is caring in the most selfless way possible, opening up so easily without the other even having to ask, showing vulnerabilities that he would never dare expose to anyone else.
They are both a little bit too much, but for each other, they seem to be just the right bit of enough.
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