hear me out on religious trauma james.
tw for religious trauma (obv) and like abuse
james whos been born into a strict muslim family. hes from pakistan, not india (yes i know indian muslims exist but this post is me projecting so let me have this).
hes been showered with love, kindness, anything a child needs to nourish during childhood. at first, he went along with islam. because islam was all about spreading love, right? there was nothing to question at all. he prayed five times a day, read quran on the weekends, did everything a good muslim needed to.
he got busier as a teenager with hogwarts and all, so whenever he missed one prayer, whenever he forgot to read quran, whenever he broke his fast during ramadan, guilt consumed him whole.
guilt was all he felt, actually. whenever he defended lily against snape, he felt guilty for it because why was he using swear words? what a bad muslim. in fact, once he tried to distance himself from remus when he came out as gay. in islam, being gay was bad. it was a sin.
thats when he started to question all of it. during his fifth year. why was love such an unholy thing? just because someone wanted to be a girl instead of a boy doesnt mean that theyre going to hell. just because james swore every once in a while, listened to rap music, doesnt mean hes going to be burnt at the stake.
and why was his mum forced to give up on her dream of being a singer just because of a religion? just because the quran said you couldnt engage in the arts as a woman? that was wholly misogynistic.
every time he had these thoughts, more and more guilt grew. he cried every time he prayed, because he didnt want to fucking pray any more. he begged god to lead him to the right path, begged to be forgave.
then, james realized, religion was meant to bring you peace. not such agony. religion wasnt for him. if god was really great, he wouldnt punish james for leaving islam, right?
james went home that summer (sixth year-ish) and voiced this to his parents, utterly confident they would understand him. spoiler alert, they didnt. euphemia yelled and yelled and yelled. fleamont hit and hit and hit and hit until james was bruised. all james thought during this was, "does religion really control people that severely?"
when he came back, he wasnt the same. he no longer felt that all consuming guilt, because if religion drove people to hit their own children it wasnt real. after all, there was no evidence it existed anyways. that was when he met barty.
now you can imagine this as romantic or platonic, idgaf. james was walking the halls alone at night, unable to sleep. he caught barty crying in an alcove. chanting, over and over. "please god, forgive me. pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease-" the same way james did, every night last year.
barty was forced into catholicism, just like how james was into islam. from then on, an unlikely friendship (or relationship) bloomed between them
by the end of hogwarts, none of them felt guilt ever again for religion. the end.