Brothers were strange creatures.
It had not taken Lily Potter a long time to discover this fact, and even at age thirteen she felt quite within her rights make this judgement; after all, with two older brothers as well as Teddy (her pretend brother) she had plenty of experience. Add that to all Mum’s stories about growing up with Uncle Ron and Uncle George and Uncle Percy and Uncle Charlie and Uncle Bill, and she had all the evidence.
Sometimes Lily thought her brothers were a lot like Uncle Ron and Uncle George. Albus was at times extremely awkward and could be an absolute git, but when it really counted, he was brave and he took care of her. Sometimes too much. But she forgave him for it, because she knew it was just because he cared.
James was the eternal joker but also intelligent (though not at all bookish), which made his jokes all the more funny though sometimes harmful. But when she thought about James, Lily felt like there was something missing. When Mum talked about Uncle George, you could tell that he had cared for her and looked after as much as Uncle Ron had when she was little, though he might have shown it differently. But James... well... it wasn’t that Lily didn’t love James, of course she did, and she did believe that he loved her... but he seemed very distant in the short amount of time she did get to spend with him.
Despite the fact that there were two school years between each of the Potter children, there was a nearly three year gap between Albus and James, and only a year and a half between the former and Lily. Thus, even before James went to Hogwarts, the younger two had tended to stick together while James had kept to himself or Flooed to Shell Cottage to play with Louis. And when Teddy came over, James demanded the older boy’s attention all for himself, explaining that he was the oldest and therefore least likely to bore Teddy. Despite this, they were close as a family and many happy afternoons were spent playing together.
Lily was barely seven when James went to Hogwarts. She was teary when he got on the train, but that was nothing in comparison to Mummy. She was sobbing like he was leaving forever, but when asked why she was so upset, she smiled through her tears and explained that she was crying out of happiness. Unfortunately for Lily, her brother came to farewell her just after he had extricated himself from his mother’s arms (this had been a long and involved process, and one he was keen to forget as soon as possible), and therefore brushed Lily off when she tried to hug him.
Had James known it had affected her he would have looked back on the incident with regret, but as it was he was desperate to get to school and never thought on in it again. For Lily, however, it set the tone of their relationship. When he came home for Christmas, he didn’t want to play with her and Albus at all. He said that ‘Death Eaters and Aurors’ was a silly children’s game, and as for pretending to be Dad and Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, he wouldn’t be seen dead playing that.
“But Jamie... how can we play it without you? Then Al has to be Dad and Uncle Ron, and that doesn’t work,” Lily whined, but James just turned away and went to his room to do ‘more important things’ like write to his friends and his homework.
James had said that Teddy would no longer want to play their silly games, but when their ‘pretend’ brother arrived, he was the first to suggest a game of Fanged Frisbee “ and then James joined in cheerfully, as though he was about to suggest it. And that was what confused Lily. Hadn’t he just said that he thought their games were childish...?
Therefore, due to either her parents’ persuasion or the excitement of doing something with Teddy, there were times when the three Potter children played happily together, but Lily always had the feeling that James only played with her because he had to.
Al was different. For both of them. He would always be willing to play with Lily, and yet there were times when he and James disappeared Merlin knew where “ although often at the end of these times they were fighting.
When Albus left for Hogwarts, she worried that the same thing would happen as with James. That Hogwarts would swallow up her brother and spit someone else out.
She needn’t have worried. Al wrote to her personally all about Hogwarts, she didn’t just find out how he was from letters to Mum and Dad. When he came home for the holidays, although he still wrote letters to his friends and did his homework, he found time every day to play with her until she was too old for children’s games.
James, however, remained as distant as ever. To her, that was. She knew that he and Al were closer and less likely to fight than ever. Something about Hogwarts had brought them both to a point of understanding of each other, which sometimes made Lily feel lonely.
Finally it was Lily’s turn to go to Hogwarts. Mum cried even more than she had when James had gone, and even Dad had a tear in his eye. Having watched her older brothers leave, Lily understood at least a little of her parents’ emotion, but Mum’s cry of “What am I going to do?” seemed a little dramatic. After all, this was Lily’s Mum, and she never ran out of things to do.
James was a fifth-year by now (and certainly not a Prefect, therefore not obliged to deign to talk to first-years) and still he hardly talked to her. It wasn’t like Lily was out of company, after all Al would sometime come and check on her, and she had Hugo and Rose and Fred and Lucy to talk to as well, plus she was confident yet eager to please so made friends quickly, but, simply put, she missed James. Like she had missed him since he went to Hogwarts.
In her third year, Lily had her first boyfriend. Al was, predictably, over-protective. He would spy on their dates and loudly interrupt their conversation whenever they looked ‘too close’. It was irritating, and in the end the boy left her for it. She and Al argued about it for a while, but secretly she appreciated his concern, and Daniel had been a prat anyway.
It was later that year things really changed. Lily was relishing the freedom and the increasingly warm weather on a Hogsmeade weekend in late March. She had left her friends briefly and was walking towards the Shrieking Shack. Over the Christmas holidays, she had been talking to Teddy alone while Al and James were doing homework (they were in their OWL and NEWT years, respectively) and he had said that the best place to clear your head was at the Shrieking Shack. Of course, she knew it had special meaning to him because of his parents, but she wanted to try it out anyway.
And she had plenty to think about. Firstly, there were boys. After her brief relationship with Daniel, it seemed all the boys in her year had suddenly taken an interest in her; even Hugo had looked surprised when she walked down that morning in a dress and, in his typical fashion, told her that she was prettier than he thought.
And then there was James... she had asked Al about it one time not that long ago. He had said that James was just like that, he wasn’t very good at showing what he really felt, and that of course he loved her and cared for her. But Lily wasn’t quite so convinced. She knew boys were terrible when it came to expressing their feelings “ it wasn’t like Al was a master at that or anything “ but if at least James would talk to her it would be something.
Being in this place made it hit Lily for the first time that Teddy had no parents. It crushed her the way a bulldozer crushes a forest. Yes, her parents annoyed her sometimes, but a life without them; unimaginable. Impossible. She knew that Teddy had his grandmother, and her Dad and Mum, and she would count him as a brother any day, but it still wasn’t the same. And how selfish was it of her to complain about her family? She had parents, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles “ none of which Teddy had. He should have hated the world for what it had done to him, but he did the opposite. He loved the world.
She looked at the decrepit Shack again, feeling that she would leave it feeling more confused than when she came. With a sigh she turned around to return to her friends and came face to face with a figure dressed in black.
She tried to scream, but before the sound properly escaped her mouth, a piece of fabric was pushed roughly between her teeth.
I Wouldn't Change A Thing by The_Real_Hermione
Story Notes:
This is my first chaptered fic - the rest is written but still needs editing. I'm expecting it to be either 2 or 3 chapters. I hope you enjoy it!
I think I've made some mistakes with the age gaps between the Potter children - so how they are in this fic is just for the purposes of this story.
Chapter Endnotes: Please review and let me know what you thought. I hope to update the next chapter soon :).