Blood runs wherever his fingertips graze me | Jegulus

Chapter 3

Wednesday 28th November 1979

Winter in Godric's Hollow was unbearable.

James had lived in Godric's Hollow for as long as he could remember, and winter was definitely the worst part of that ugly, boring little town. Everything about that place repulsed him; the houses, the people, the bars, the little shops run by ladies with one foot in the grave, and the little cemetery near his house.

The cemetery repelled him especially, and every day that he went to visit it and left flowers that ended up wilting in the snow on the graves of his parents, it repelled him a little more.

It had been just six months since Euphemia and Fleamont Potter had passed away at St Mungo's Hospital, losing the fight against Dragon Pox. His father, 'the fighter par excellence', who had taught James that giving up was never an option and that bravery, courage and love always beat any adversary, defeated and sentenced to death by a miserable, tiny and stupid virus. Of course.

Old and useless people were better off dead; they wouldn't have lasted a day in that hell.

They always told James stupid battles, tales of hope and compassion; Merlin, the one-eyed witch, and all that class of inept who had faced evils that they could beat. Cowards, all of them. They should try and fight a maniac who took pleasure in destroying other people's lives, see how that went.

His parents had always taken everything very lightly, saw everything with great hope, thinking of beatable enemies, of death as something distant, abstract, a mere concept that didn't take shape. James had seen death up close, had felt it, touched it, heard it, and provoked it, playing with it as if it were a ball to hit as he pleased, like a Snitch that he threw and caught at the last second. James had been in contact with death, and he could swear it was anything but abstract.

But his parents had never wanted to admit it, they refused to lose hope, trusting that things were won little by little and never bowing their heads to any enemy. Silly little people, thinking about fights and battles. Him? He had a war on his mind.

His parents were better off dead. They had nothing else to do in that world.

As he gazed out of the kitchen window, where his father used to make breakfast for him and his mother every morning, as the snowflakes fell, he sipped his first cup of coffee of the day. Beside him, on the counter, lay a bouquet of purple carnations —his mum's favourites— waiting to be taken to the cemetery and rotting in the open, resting on a grave. 'What a cruel destiny,' James couldn't help but sneer.

He was tempted for a mere second to burn those stupid, ugly and smelly flowers and forget about his parents' memory; there was no use in mourning, people died every day; a couple of useless, old people were nothing to write home about. He ended up deciding against it, as he did every morning, lading his cup on the table with a thud and grabbing the flowers, squeezing them, killing a couple of purplish petals which fell into the kitchen floor.

Before leaving the kitchen, he glanced at the old wooden door.

Things with Black were going bad, very bad. Moody was growing impatient. James would have to be a little tough on him if he wanted to make him talk.

Since what had happened with Alecto Carrow, James had found himself a bit intimidated when it came to using more dangerous curses and noted that he was being a bit soft on the young Black, but he really couldn't kill that one. They needed him.

Furthermore, James didn't know what might happen regarding his position in the Order if he killed —again— a Death Eater he was interrogating. It had taken a lot of convincing from Remus and Sirius to Dumbledore last time, and he didn't think a sorry and a bit of arse licking to that wacky old man would work a second time.