battle of who could care less--thepotterboys

[James Potter]

James had insisted upon dropping off Zoe at the Hufflepuff Common Room, though it was a bit far out of the way for someone whose next stop was Gryffindor Tower. Well, perhaps 'a bit' was an understatement, but as far as James thought, it sure as hell was worth it. He watched her leave through the tunnel-like entrance to the Common Room, giving a small wave goodbye. He turned so that his back was to the wall, then closed his eyes and sank down to the ground. He was partially exhausted, partially overwhelmed the by the obnoxiously warm and fuzzy feeling that was filling his head and chest. This night had pretty much been perfect, and James sat for a moment in the abandoned hallway, eyes shut as he tried to recall different moments.

After a moment or two, James got up; fearing that if he stayed there for much longer, he’d fall asleep. He was tired, cold, and wet—but more than anything, James Potter realized how damn hungry he was. He struggled to his feet, attempting to pull his damp clothes off of where they stuck to his legs. It was a bit annoying, but his stomach gnawed at his insides, demanding to be fed. Nothing was worse than the demands of a teenage male’s stomach. James grinned at his luck however—he was in the basement, after all. Luckily, the Kitchens were just down the hallway, just beyond the portrait of a bowl of fruit.

James practically jogged there, approaching the portrait and quickly tickling the pear. It immediately shudder as though laughing before transforming into a door knob before his eyes. He slipped through the opening between the portrait and the wall, peering around. Despite it being the dead of night, the house elves still seemed to be working tirelessly. Most didn’t even look at him, consumed by their work, but he was able to flag one down, recognizing the old house elf. “Oi, Peony.” He said quietly, making one female house elf look up, her wide eyes glassy and almost creepy looking.

“Mister James, sir. What are you doing out of bed?”she asked in her high, squeaky voice. James smiled politely, trying his best to be charming. “Simply desired one of you fabulous apple pies. You know how I love those.” He responded, seeing a creeping blush appear on the small elf’s face. She muttered something, then disappeared into the crowd of house elves, reappearing a few minutes later with what seemed to be a freshly baked pie. James grinned broadly, thanking her profusely.

He dug in quickly as the elf left to work a bit more, glancing around the large kitchen, which was already beginning to smell of the next morning’s breakfast. The kitchen had always been a bit of hiding spot for him—the elves were always happy to serve no matter what time of night, and that made it all the more easier on him. He took another bite, glancing up at the tall ceiling thoughtfully. His dad had told him stories about getting food from the kitchens, as well as how Uncle Ron had practically taken anything and everything he could carry in his pockets. He grinned, resting his head in one hand while shoveling another bite of pie into his mouth with another.

[Albus Potter]

Eyelids were drooping over slightly glazed green eyes, and in the split second he noticed his neck bowing, he jolted awake again, groaning and putting a hand to his face. He didn’t rub at his eyes though – there was some ink on his hands, after all – and with an exhalation of breath he turned his head to look at the clock that hung on the library wall.

Five minutes to closing. ‘Great, and I’m not done. Ah, well, save the rest for tomorrow then. This place is an okay break, I guess.’ He had been doing his homework since the evening had been free, working through his free periods, and even skipping dinner. Sixth Year was such a pain; there were hardly any familiar faces in his elective courses, which was pretty upsetting since he had only had one core course today. The only time he had caught up with a few others was during lunch, but even then he hadn’t seen Scorpius since the day before. Not that it really mattered, but it was always nice to honestly take a break from work (on the first day of classes no less) and to hang out with your best friend.

The Sixth Year’s stomach growled, interrupting his train of thought. ‘Right. I skipped dinner. Best head for the kitchens, then.’ He was thankful that he had learned of the kitchens’ entrance early on; briefly, he reminisced the years that had passed, packing away his parchment and books all the while. It had been fun and easy-going back then, but his years at Hogwarts were ending and this was just a really depressing thing to be thinking at this hour.

As his stomach growled at him again, Albus strode past the other students who were still in the library, and gave a polite nod to the librarian before racing down the stairs heading for the dungeons, and ultimately, the kitchens and food. Panting slightly as he stood on the other side of the portrait of the fruit bowl and the pear that needed to be tickled, he questioned his logic of actually skipping dinner to do work on the first day of classes. ‘Well, the material certainly was interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever paid so much attention in that class before…’

Shrugging his shoulders as a stretch, barely jostling the stuff in his bag, Albus reached out and tickled the green-ish pear, and closed his eyes and sighed in contentment as the smell of food reached him, followed by the quiet sounds of the house-elves bustling away at their work, even at this hour. Everything was punctuated by the sight of his older brother munching away at an apple pie, startling the younger Potter out of his stomach’s reverie of food.

“I – … James? What are you doing here?” While he knew of his brother’s habit of going to the kitchen every so often, it was decidedly strange at this moment to see him right then and there. Walking over, Albus dropped his bag next the table and took a seat, inclining his head at the house-elves who greeted him and waving them away at the same time, not wanting to ask them for rations, yet. His stomach disagreed with him with a mild rumble.

[James Potter]

James barely noticed when he heard the tapestry swing open behind him. He was used to coming down to the kitchens for a late night snack, and expected that many other students did the same thing. He simply continued to eat, taking another heaping forkful of delicious apple pie. It wasn’t until his name was said that he even bothered to turn around. He recognized the voice of his younger brother almost immediately, so he turned around quickly, fork still in his mouth. He swallowed first, then removed the fork, smirking broadly. “Hey Al!” he greeted, moving over on his bench to make room next to him.

The other questioned what he was doing, and James stared at him for a moment, obviously confused by the question. “Uhm, eating some pie.” He said, as though it was pretty damn obvious—which it was. He gestured to the pie that he had already partially devoured. James was happy to see his younger brother, and was glad when he came to join him at the table. He held out his fork as an offering, smiling broadly. Normally he wasn’t up to sharing some of his delicious pie, but he was feeling ridiculously cheerful at the moment.

He noticed that the younger boy had his book bag with him, but didn’t bring it up. It was typical that Albus was studying, but James wasn’t really in the mood to talk about schoolwork. His brother and he weren’t what he’d call super close, but they were still brothers, and James liked seeing him every once and a while. It was almost nice being in separate houses—even though James was still a bit sore that his brother, a Potter, had been sorted into Slytherin—since it meant they weren’t forced to see each other all the time like at home.

[Albus Potter]

Albus didn’t bother hiding his smile as James quickly swallowed the bite of pie that was in his mouth in order to greet him. His older brother’s antics were amusing to watch, though his obliviousness was not something to be that proud of. “I know you’re eating, thanks James. You have some filling smeared on your left cheek.” He commented, a smirk dancing its way across his mouth, eyes crinkling a bit at the corners in enjoyment. Merlin, the other boy looked so silly like that, but it was so similar to how the two brothers were often like before they began Hogwarts that it was simply nice to sit down and enjoy some friendly banter in the depths of Hogwarts’ own kitchen.

“Ahh, thanks.” A dark eyebrow was raised, curious at the offering the older Potter made to him, but accepted the fork anyways and took a small chunk of the apple pie. For a short and sweet moment Albus savoured the sugary-tangy taste of the pastry, before reality caught up with him and green eyes narrowed to look at James suspiciously. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, “You don’t usually share your pie; who are you and what have you done to my brother?” The younger boy sounded completely serious as he said this, but eventually he gave into the hilarity of the situation and a bark of laughter escaped his lips. The chuckles eventually died away to slightly embarrassed coughs, and Albus had to look away for a moment before turning back to inspect James with an intense stare.

His older brother’s appearance was slightly more mussed up than usual – had he gone flying earlier? That was most likely, unless he found someone to snog. The chances of that were rather slim ('Sorry.'), considering the incident with Miss Gia Parker the night before, but James’ eyes were slightly squinty (‘Perhaps he’s just tired and the glare of the light is getting to him?’) and there was an unwavering smile on his face. ‘Why was he so happy at this hour?! It cannot be the pie…’ The thought trailed off before a (teasing) horrified look crossed Albus’ face.

“James? Why are you so…deliriously cheerful? I mean, uh,” The Sixth Year didn’t quite know what words to use without sounding like a party-pooper, or a nosy brother. “Aren’t you still a bit confused about what happened with Gia last night? And upset, I guess, since you forgot whatever happened that made your relationship kind of shaky?” It felt like there were rocks in his mouth and he had to pick his words carefully to get through. But he had to be blunt, or maybe his brother would never get the idea.

“You look like you just had a good snog, to be honest.”

[James Potter]

James made a face, raising his sleeve up to his cheek to wipe away the sugary filling that Albus had pointed out. It left a smear on his sleeve, but he figured it would come out when he got around to washing the shirt. He could tell Albus was looking at him funny, but shrugged it off, preferring at the moment to pretend to be blissfully unaware. On most other occasions, he would have said something snide and older brother-like, but he was just in too good a mood. He took another heaping bite of pie before passing over the fork for Albus to dig in.

He expected that Albus was hungry—after all, what would he be doing in the kitchen if he wasn’t? It was only fair that he shared a bit of Peony’s delicious pie with his brother, who he was feeling especially brotherly to at the moment. He blinked for a moment at Albus’ question, then smirked as the boy started laughing, replying with, “Fine, I’ll take it all for myself instead then.” He reached across the table, attempting to snatch the fork back from his hand. He was obviously joking around, since he could have clearly gotten it away from his little brother if he had wanted to. He finally sat back, shrugging a bit as if he had given up.

He used his finger to scoop up a bit of pie, then put it in his mouth, popping it back out again in a matter of seconds. He could tell Albus was staring at him, as if he was scrutinizing him. He made a silly face at the younger boy, looking a little childish. He was in too good a mood to let Albus acting weird make him feel weird. “What are you looking at?” he finally asked after a few moments, raising his brow and giving a half smile.

Finally Albus spoke, and James laughed a bit. “Oh, right. That…Well I am damn tired. I was out getting a bit of Quidditch practice in to, uhm, clear my head about that whole Gia situation, you know? And Quidditch always makes me feel better, you know that Al.” he said, smile still intact as he waved his hand as though to dismiss Albus’ suggestions. That was the story that he and Zoe had decided to stick with—just a late night Quidditch practice, as always. James felt pretty confident that he was doing a fine job acting as though nothing in particular had happened that evening.

But then Albus made his final statement, and James’ jaw dropped a bit. He quickly corrected his face to one of suspicion, his eyes glaring at his younger brother. Pointing a finger, he looked sort of shell-shocked. “What do you know?”

[Albus Potter]

He didn’t bother hiding a grimace as he watched his older brother wipe at his mouth using his shirt sleeve. James was really similar to their Uncle Ron, in more ways than one, Albus noted as the older Potter used his fingers to get some more of the, admittedly delicious, apple pie. “James, use the fork. I’ll just ask the house elves for something else; your apple pie doesn’t appeal that much to me anyways.” He said, not really lying as he did want to eat something with more sustenance than the sweet and tangy apple pie. He passed the fork back, and gestured to one of the elves that was standing by wringing his hands. “Goopy, could you get me a chicken pot pie please? Thanks.”

He listened to his brother with half an ear as green orbs tracked the house elf’s movements of preparing his chicken pot pie. But eventually Albus tuned in with interest when James began to talk about his ‘Quidditch practise’ earlier that evening. While the older boy probably did go for a night flight, a short zoom never made James that happy. The Seventh Year’s words sounded rather unconvincing to his younger sibling, but Albus knew better than to contest the other. That is, until James slipped up and got caught in the younger Potter’s last bit of dialogue.

It was amusing to see and hear James so shocked, but suspicion was suspicion. And his accusatory tone of voice only dug himself a deeper hole, Albus supposed. He had to restrain a hearty smirk as he opened his mouth to speak. “Oh, well, I did happen to hear from a few Seventh Years on my way here that you were seen being quite intimate with, oh, what’s her name...Zoe, was it? Miss Thompson, a fellow Quidditch player of yours.” This certainly wasn’t a stab in the dark – quite the contrary, actually, since Albus had learned a lot about the relationships the rest of his family had for the past few years, having found that having some personal information and knowledge of gossip to be particularly useful when it came to getting answers out of others. And plain manipulation, but Al wouldn’t do that to James, not really.

“I’m joking, brother, I’m joking.” Albus eventually had to chuckle, far too amused at the situation, and he turned away from his older brother to accept the bowl-plate of chicken pot pie from Goopy who had just arrived at the table. “Thanks again, Goopy.” Carefully poking the meat pie with his own fork, now, he watched mildly fascinated as the skin of the pie broke and steam rose steadily into the already warm air of the kitchens. He stuck the fork in and swirled, and blew gently on the sauce and contents that stuck to the fork.

Holding the utensil at chest-level, he looked up vaguely in James’ direction before his green eyes focused on the taller figure of his brother. “So, what did you figure out about you and Gia? During your flight, I mean.”

(OOC: The chicken pot pie was random. I couldn’t think of a fast meal thing – not to mention I miss that dish...On the other hand, I think Al spoke too much.)

[James Potter]

James didn’t think much of the actions that his younger brother were examining so intently. He wasn’t here to impress anyone—manners were something reserved for the dinner table and on dates. In his brother’s company, it seemed unnecessary. Besides, he was a teenage boy and he was too damn tired to try. Sleeves doubled as napkins all the time, fingers as eating utensils just as they had in the days of old. James made a childish face at Albus as he took back the fork, the edges of his lips pulling at a smile.

Albus had always been the polite one in the family. He was the quiet middle child, stuck between the admittedly charming and rambunctious older child and the little baby girl. The two brothers were quite different, if you were to ask James. He believed that strongly—why else would the Sorting Hat have put them in such different Houses then? James pursed his lips, watching the house elf scurry away to make Al a chicken pot pie. “You’re sharing that.” James stated, noticing that his remaining pie was dwindling and his stomach still clawed at his innards, still demanding food.

Mentioning Zoe made James heart want to leap out of his chest—both fear and excitement at the name welled in his chest, making it a bit hard to swallow. Excitement, of course, from the memories of what had just happened previously. The night was one massive blob of happy, though confusing feelings. It made a chill run down his spine just thinking about it—But now, as his brother sat before him, stating her name so bluntly, fear mixed in with those emotions as well. Had he been that obvious? Even James Potter couldn’t fuck this up this quickly, right?

If he had been in less of a good mood from the previous events, he would have considered jinxing his brother for his taunts. Albus seemed to think James’ reaction had been funny, but James was not quite amused. He didn’t want to ruin a good thing, and he especially didn’t want his brother adding to the ruining. He raised his fork and pointed it menacingly at his younger brother. “You are sworn to secrecy, Albus Severus Potter.” He growled, the look of suspicion still obvious on his face. It wasn’t until Albus gave a chuckle that he bit his lip, lowering the fork. James had given himself away, he realized that, and it was obvious what he was hiding, so he paused, thinking about what he was going to say as Albus’ chicken pot pie was delivered.

“Okay, well I did want to get the whole Gia thing out of my head. Especially since she’s like totally dating Chambers and it’s all official now.” James said, sounding as though he was ranting. “Plus Zoe wanted to practice, and she probably knew how I was feeling about the whole thing, so we went flying tonight. And so, some stuff happened and we snogged.” He said, pausing for a moment to let the idea sink in, more for his own convenience rather than for Albus. “And we’re sort of like a thing now, but we want to just keep that all quiet now, cause if other people found out, they’d assume she’s my rebound or something. And she’s totally not. But she’s a really good snogger.” The last part was more for himself, and he smiled slightly at the memory.

He glanced up, meeting Albus’ green eyes. The two brothers didn’t really share things like this, but here they were. Albus was the only one who knew besides James and Zoe now, and James wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about this. He waited for a response, expecting some intelligent and annoying indirect answer from his younger brother.

[Albus Potter]

He was briefly annoyed again by James’ childishness, but it didn’t bother him as much as it would have had it been someone else. Albus was fairly used to his older brother’s lack of manners when it was not a formal setting – or when there were adults present. He gave James a smile when the other demanded that the chicken pot pie was to be shared. Well, the pie certainly was big enough. Albus pushed the bowl-plate towards the middle of the table so both boys could reach the dish. “Go right ahead.”

It was amusing to see James getting worked up right now; was his brother purposely trying to make him laugh? Of maybe it was his own fault for provoking him, but it was just brotherly teasing. He nodded again and again with a silly smile on his face – his evening had just been made. “Yes, yes, secrecy. I won’t tell anyone who doesn’t already know and expect this development, though it’s understandable that there aren’t that many people on that list.” Merlin, he wanted to laugh really hard, and his cheek muscles were sort of straining from the effort not to look like a grinning fool. “You know I won’t tell anyone, and who would really listen to me about this bit of gossip…blackmail material.” Albus swallowed a bite of his pot pie with difficulty. The humour was relaxing him quite a lot, to the point where he wanted to laugh out loud, though his brother looked worse for wear from his poking.

“Wait, Gia Parker is dating Chambers?” Green eyes widened and Albus blinked in surprise. Alright, he conceded, too much of his evening had been spent in the library and on studying in general if he missed this bit of news. Maybe he did hear a glimpse and just forgot… But his older brother’s words recounted something that sounded like it came out of a story. “And you went flying together with Thompson, stuff happened and you ended up snogging.” Staring was impolite, but his thoughts were running really fast and he wanted to say something, but later he was glad he hadn’t as James kept talking.

Well, it was to be expected that James was confused about the relationship between him and his Hufflepuff Quidditch friend. Confused in general, perhaps, due to the (disaster of a) party last night, and now the changes from today. “It would be typical for the public to assume you took Miss Thompson as a rebound, but do remember that you and Parker were never together, only very good friends, and that nothing about your snogging was really official, was it? Do you think –” he stopped himself from continuing. There was no need to raise suspicions and fears for his Gryffindor brother; Albus wasn’t that cruel. Not to mention he knew how terrible the feeling of insecurity was.

“Right, um, I don’t need to know the details of my brother snogging someone?” The younger Potter boy shut his eyes and shook his head, trying to go back to the lighter atmosphere they had before. Taking his time, he put another forkful of chicken into his mouth.

(OOC: Sorry for the choppiness and the lateness of this post.)