"How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter," Snape said suddenly, remembering James Potter with little fondness. "He too was exceedingly arrogant. A small amount of talent on the Quidditch field made him think he was a cut above the rest of us too. Strutting around the place with his friends and admirers...”
James Potter had woken up in a particularly good mood. He wasn’t sure why that was exactly, but there were plenty of options.
Perhaps it was because Lily Evans had finally accepted that she and James were meant to be together for all eternity, forever remaining passionately in love like any soul mates should…
Well, technically she’d agreed to go to Hogsmeade with him anyway, and that was basically the same thing.
Perhaps it was the fact that James had led Gryffindor house to victory in the last Quidditch match, in which he and the team had thrashed Slytherin, four hundred and eighty points to ten.
Or perhaps it was simply because James’s life was running, at the moment, just about as well as the life of a teenager could possibly run. He was happy, he was healthy, his N.E.W.T.s were not until next year and he’d just woken up from a most enjoyable dream where there were chocolate frogs hanging from the ceiling and Sirius, Remus and Peter were dancing ballet in the background while James and Lily played a surprisingly romantic game of chess.
Whatever it was, today felt pretty darn special, and the bespectacled Marauder had never been happier or prouder to be James Potter. With a surprising amount of energy, James stretched and yawned.
“Good morning, Padfoot!” he greeted, throwing open the curtains around his best friend, Sirius Black’s bed. Sirius mumbled something, and sleepily hid his head beneath his pillow. “Good morning, Wormtail!” James threw open the curtains of Wormtail’s bed too, and Peter Pettigrew sat up, squinting in the light and looking slightly alarmed.
“Something wrong, Prongs?”
“No,” replied James simply. “Good morning, Moony!” He opened the curtains of Remus Lupin’s bed, too. Remus groaned, slightly annoyed and still half asleep.
“Yeah, just dandy.” Feeling energised, James supposed he ought to include Al da Flor, the final member of their dormitory, in his ‘good morning’ service. Al, however, had apparently found stronger and far more effective sticking and silencing charms for his curtains, so this proved impossible.
“What day is it?” asked Peter, with a yawn.
“Thursday,” replied James. “So you should probably hurry and get up.” He went back to Sirius’s bed, where Padfoot appeared to have fallen back asleep. “Padfoot! Come on, let’s go down to breakfast.” Sirius grumbled.
“Potter, please. Where is your sense of apathy?”
It took nearly fifteen minutes longer for James to drag his three friends out of bed, and they were soon heading down to the common room. There was a certain spring in James’s step this morning. He so peculiarly content that he appeared to “ but no, it simply couldn’t be…
“Prongs,” commented Remus, slightly concerned. “Are you… strutting?”
James thought about that for a moment, and then shrugged.
“Yes,” he agreed, “Yes, I suppose I am.”
And, remarkably enough, James continued to strut all the way down to the Great Hall, and then strutted along the Gryffindor table, before taking a seat at breakfast.
The meal was a relatively normal affair, although James remained remarkably cheerful. He didn’t complain when Sirius poured pumpkin juice into his breakfast, testing the stead-fastedness of the mood, and simply hexed his dear friend calmly. He didn’t swear when Peter snuck a pepper-flavoured Bertie Botts pepper-flavoured bean into his scrambled eggs, but transfigured Wormtail’s fork into a particularly prickly cactus.
James just felt… happy. He wasn’t wallowing in teenage angst, he wasn’t unnecessarily moody and he didn’t feel like cursing the world into oblivion, thank you very much. Why did people have a problem with that?
Eventually (seeing as how the Marauders had been so early to breakfast due to James’s enthusiasm), Lily ended up coming down to the Great Hall with her friend, Amy da Flor.
“Good morning!” James waved to them.
“Good morning, James,” said Lily, clearly having just woken up.
“Erm “ morning,” greeted Amy, looking slightly confused at the tone of the conversation. “Did they serve coffee with breakfast or something?” she added to the other three.
“No.” Remus shrugged, “but I suppose he’s entitled to a particularly cocky morning every now and then.” Sirius nodded.
“That’s right,” he agreed. “I know I sure am.”
The first class for the morning was Potions, with Professor Slughorn. Even this didn’t put a stop to James’s mood. After all, it was not a double lesson, after that he had a spare, and there was Quidditch training this afternoon. On the way to the Dungeons, James noted several strange looks he got from several strange people, probably due to his continued strutting.
When they reached the classroom, James strutted inside, then strutted to his seat.
“So, what’s on the menu today?” he asked, sitting down casually.
From across the classroom, James soon noticed Snape sneering at him. He waved sarcastically, assuming that the Slytherin wouldn’t try anything with Professor Slughorn in front of the class, and therefore seeing no reason to get worked up.
“Good morning, Snivelus!” he simpered. “Your hair is positively thriving today!”
Severus apparently chose to ignore him.
The remainder of the Potions lesson flew past as quickly as a Potions lesson could be expected to fly past. It was a complex potion with many ingredients, so James ended up just strutting around the whole time, collecting potions ingredients from the cabinet and chopping them up, which was perfectly alright by him. Slughorn also didn’t seem to have much of a problem with this unusually overconfident behaviour. Apparently, the Professor found the whole thing quite amusing.
When his spare lesson came, James decided he wanted to go flying.
“I want to go flying,” he told Remus, Sirius, Peter, Lily and Amy, who were all in the vicinity. Sirius shrugged.
“Alright then,” he agreed, and since the two ringleaders had made their decisions, the matter was settled.
“We’ll be in the library,” Lily informed, but before the two girls split away from the group, Snape emerged from somewhere, as only, in James’s not so humble opinion, a slimy Slytherin like him could. Of course, it was unlikely Snape had actually meant to cross paths with the Marauders, but that didn’t really matter.
“Sni“” began James, but caught himself this time, “Err “ Snape,” he greeted. “A pleasant surprise.” Sirius’s wand was out immediately, due to either precaution or aggravation. Snape scowled.
“You think you’re so fantastic, Potter,” he said quietly, although not giving Sirius an excuse to use his wand.
“You’ve just noticed that, have you?” asked Remus, and James wasn’t sure who exactly he had meant to jeer.
“Strutting around all day,” went on Snape, “but“” James laughed.
“Snivelus,” he addressed seriously, “I really don’t see what you greasy Slytherin gits should have against me having a good day. So what if I’ve decided that today I’m going to play around with my style, and try strutting around the place surrounded by my dear friends,” he indicated Remus, Peter, Lily and Amy, “and, of course, my much valued admirers,” he indicated Sirius, who pulled a sarcastic face.
Snape didn’t answer, obviously waiting for a good time to draw his wand, unnoticed. James didn’t have time for that, though.
“How about this,” he proposed. “Next time you decide you’d like to strut around with all your little friends and“” he coughed, “admirers, I’ll stand back and let you get on with it. But for now,” he added in a mock-friendly voice, “I’m going flying. Good bye, Snivelus.”
And James Potter, accompanied by his small group of acclaimed ‘friends and admirers’, turned around snobbily and strutted away, nose in the air.
Yeah, it was a good day.
“The resemblance between you is uncanny," Snape was telling Harry.
"My dad didn't strut," said Harry, obviously less than pleased. "And neither do I…"
Severus was not sure whether to use one of his trademark sneers, or try something a little different and laugh icily.
//the end
So, what do you think? A bit of fun? A bit of old tosh? If you'd like to leave a review, I will be grateful.
In other news, if you liked this story at all, I can almost guarantee you would like my chaptered humour story and baby, 'The Harry Potter Literary Storm' about a million times more...
Have a nice day!
... And he Turned Around Snobbily and Strutted Away by Mind_Over_Matter
Chapter Notes: This is a small ficlet which I wrote on a whim. I do so hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or any of the characters surrounding him. I also did not write the dialogue in italics at the beginning and end; this is from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.