Living With Their Legacy - James Sirius Potter's story

Summer of 2014

Potter Manor

James Sirius Potter had grown up in the beautiful cottage-y manor which once belonged to his grand-grandparents, Euphemia and Fleamont Potter. It was located in the countryside of the nice town of Chagford, in Southwest England. Here he grew up with his father Harry Potter, an Auror, his mother Ginny Potter (née Weasley), an ex-professional Quidditch player now Daily Prophet's sports journalist, and his two younger siblings, Albus Ignotus Potter and Lily Luna Potter. Plus his adoptive big-brother Teddy Lupin. He was a mix of everyone he was named after, who more who less. He looked exactly like Harry, whom looked exactly like James as well, with Ginny's eyes. But besides being as messy as apparently every Potter man, his hair looked more like his father's late godfather's. James Sirius always loved his name but also hated that it was too long and just the first name was the exact same name as his late grandfather, the hero of WizWar1, so he usually would have gone by Jay or JS. The latter later became JayS which at some point ended up becoming Jayson, but only people in the town, where he went to muggle Primary school, who wanted to make fun of him called him that.

Today was the thirteenth of August of the year 2014. Exactly a month before his eleventh birthday. He got up slightly early compared to his usual schedule: 4:50 AM instead of 5:00 AM. His room was as perfect as could be, in his opinion: The wooden walls were painted white and were covered with Quidditch magical posters of the Chudley Cannons, his favorite team — mainly because of the close distance from his house —, and muggle posters of his favorite football team: the Newton Abbot Spurs. The wooden floors are painted orange and the rest of his furniture was dark oak. Like his canopy bed: golden curtains, dark grey sheets and white pillowcases. Or his desk: it had a laptop enchanted to work with magic instead of electricity left right in the middle. At its left a good amount of fiction books and notebooks filled with music lyrics and chords. Mostly not his own creation but there were a couple of tries on that. At the right of the laptop instead, there was his wood wax. At the sides of the desk itself, there was his guitar — a Maxwell Sipe Classical Guitar 2014 Spruce EIRW — on its stand at the left; while at the right, there was another type of stand holding his Nimbus 3000. A big trunk decorated with stickers of the Cannons and others with literature quotes was at the end of his bed.

The young wizard woke up. His hair was as messy as always, a feature he inherited from his father and grandfather. Jay jumped out of the bunk. He put on his stereo speaker his American Idiot album and started showering in his white-and-gold-themed private bathroom. When he got out he got near his wardrobe, next to the bed. He put on a light-grey t-shirt and basketball shorts. He put on sneakers and checked the time: 5:10 AM. Everyone else would have wakened up only in three hours. Very quietly he went downstairs to the kitchen. Dobby II, their house-elf, was as always still sleeping on the couch in the living room. James liked how everything got routine in that house in the last couple of years. Since his mother became a journalist and Lily started school everything had fitted into place. But for the older kid, this absolutely didn't mean relax. It meant: do better, always do better. Prove your worth. Which is the motto he started living by every single day. He always woke up early. Just like today, after the morning shower, he would go downstairs, eat an energy bar and drink a glass of water then go for a run in the fields, tracking his distance and trying to run every day 500 meters more than the day before. And today was no different. He got back home by 6:00 AM after having run 10.5K. As he got back in the kitchen for water, he expected as always to find it empty. Instead, his mother was right there today.

"Hi mom" he said. He went to the fridge and took a glass of water and drank it fast. "I gotta go, I have to exercise with my catch, and then I have to..." he starts saying walking towards the kitchen's door. But Ginny stops him: "Why are you doing this, Jamie?" She was the only one who would call him that. He stopped right in his tracks and looked at her. "I want to" he says firmly. "I want to always overcome myself." The kid explains. The ginger-haired woman sighed. She got near her son and looked at him with the warmest of smiles: "Is it really that? Or is it that you feel like you have to do this. I don't-" James stops her right away: "No, mom. Nobody's forcing me to do this. No one's- Nothing is pushing me. It's all me, okay? I want to be as best as I can be. That's it". The mother nods, though she doesn't seem sure. And she was right in not doing so. Because James was partially lying. He was thinking about it all the way up to his room. It was all him. But because he was the one putting all that pressure on himself. He had to live up to everyone before him. Being the firstborn of the Chosen One was what worst could have happened to him.