Post by James Potter on Feb 18, 2014 20:59:44 GMT -5
[presto]
NINETEEN
MALE
HERBOLOGIST
PUREBLOOD
STRAIGHT
KEVIN FLAMME
JAMES SIRIUS POTTER
 As the first born child of the legendary Harry Potter, it was inevitable that James would be in the public eye from the day he was born, and this has indeed been the case. He's borne it relatively well - minus a tendency to use any means possible to deflect people - and, so far at least, hasn't turned into a screwed-up, drugged-up mess. He has learnt to adopt an attitude of easy-going nonchalance and appears apparently unfazed by most things, whether that be newspaper gossip or a failed job interview. His childhood was pretty idyllic - his parents did their best to keep press intrusion to a minimum, and whilst they weren't always successful, James was good-natured enough not to mind. He was ecstatic when Albus was born, and as a toddler could often be seen trying to sneak the baby out of the cot to play with. This fondness has never left him - he still loves (blee, love) Albus a great deal, and would do anything to stick up for him, should he need it - but the two brothers have grown up and into very individual human beings somewhat in the intervening time period. Whereas Albus learnt to be angry and unapologetic about who he was, James has never quite lost his innocence and trust, and has instead extroverted himself to cope. Almost an inverse of his baby sister, Lily, James gets quieter as he gets to know people better. He only truly relaxes his guard and drops his 'life and soul of any party going' persona when he feels comfortable with a person. Therefore, whilst to those who properly know him, James is a surprisingly tactful and sensitive boy with a love of Herbology and a gift for Quidditch, to the population at large he seems loud, teasing, and the ever-hilarious centre of attention. When Lily was born, the novelty of a baby in the house had worn off somewhat, and so was allowed to remain in peace for longer than fifteen minutes at a time. Although out of the two of his younger siblings, Albus was physically the more sickly one, Lily always seemed almost otherworldly, and whilst growing up, James did a great deal to try to protect her from the harshness of reality - it always seemed a little bit too sharp and pointy for fairy-like Lily. He's insanely proud of how Lily's grown up - not that he'd ever tell her that out of the blue - and he gets her frustrations with people treating her based on how they expect her to be rather than how she is. In very different ways, it's something all three Potter siblings have had to deal with. Out of his cousins, although he idolised Teddy - particularly his magic hair! - Rose is probably the one whom he is closest to. The two identify, being the eldest of the 'Golden Trio''s children, and therefore completely au fait with all the related pressures and expected conformities. They have been fast friends since childhood, and are likely to remain this way, although James might disapprove of a boyfriend or two of Rose's (and vice versa). Rose is James' go-to girl for any matters on, well, anything really, and in return James acts as a translator for 'boy language'. It perhaps helps in a way that Rose's current boyfriend is Seth Wishart, Jamie's best mate, former room-mate and now flatmate. When James entered his first year at Hogwarts, Teddy had just left and Victoire was too grown-up to tag along with - he was, essentially, alone in comparison. It was a huge culture shock. Not only did he have to contend with the fact that his father was horrifically famous, it was also the first time he'd been anywhere without family close to, extended or otherwise. He didn't settle well at first, and wrote to his mum and dad every week for the first year. Gradually finding his feet, he blossomed, becoming confident and having made true friends by the end of his first year, something that gave him the gumption to tease Albus just a little bit before he started the following year. James' school reports mostly tended to contain the phrase 'Shows talent and aptitude, lacks focus. Could be brilliant if he only applied himself more.' And it's true - he didn't quite try hard enough to be outstanding in class. He's wasn't as diligent in his studies as Roxanne, and he's not as naturally brilliant as Rose, he's just average. He's okay with this- he has other talents, and he didn't find school interesting enough to captivate his attention for extended periods of time. Consequently, he pretty much partied his way through school, somehow just about finding a balance between sociability and solitude, work and play. He got together with Cassie Lewis in his sixth year at Hogwarts, and he really quite liked her. They'd been on the Quidditch team together forever, and with her infectious laugh and quirky sense of humour, he'd never really considered her anything more than a pretty fab friend of Rose's. That changed, however, somewhere around the start of his sixth year. He began to notice that she was a girl, and he's not sure what changed from her perspective, but evidently something did, because fast-forward a couple of months and throw in Bianca Hanafiah, and they're suddenly snogging in the Great Hall. They've broken up now, but they're still great friends, and James is perfectly happy with that being for the best. He's happy, she's happy: why should he fuss over anything? James graduated with decent enough NEWTs not to be stuck for a career path, but was particularly outstanding in Herbology. He thinks he might quite like to be a travelling Herbologist, discovering weird and wonderful plants in exotic places, possibly exploring the jungle via broomstick and the like, but he's unsure. He knows he doesn't want to follow in either of his parents footsteps - though he inherited Harry's talent for Defence Against the Dark Arts, he's never had any inclination to become an Auror, and although at one point he would have loved to become a professional Beater, he shelved that dream when it became clear that Fred and Dom wanted to be a professional Quidditch players - partly because he felt they deserved it more than he did, and partly because he couldn't bear the idea of actual familial competition, as opposed to the happy, joke-y, only-slightly-serious rivalry that's the bread-and-butter of many a Weasley-Potter household. Upon graduating from Hogwarts, it seemed entirely logical that he carry on living with the people he'd spent the last seven years with, so James rented a flat with Fred and Seth. It's worked out well, so far, although Fred's crush is frankly pathetic, and James thinks that the sight of Rose appearing unexpectedly in the kitchen one morning wearing little more than Seth's t-shirt might genuinely have scarred him for life. To put it bluntly, Jamie's love life is currently non-existent. He's attractive (please, just look at that face) and genuinely nice (even if he spent quite a while at school trying to pretend to everyone that he wasn't), but sometimes things just don't work out. He's pretty okay with that: what will be, will be; and he's not really into casual hook-ups. Being James Potter is a bit too high profile to guarantee that people fancy him and not the name. James' first girlfriend only went out with him because of who his parents were, something that became horribly, hurtfully apparent over the Christmas holidays when she visited; and as a fundamentally trusting soul, it's rather unnervingly made him wary for life. Currently, James is working as a herbologist for a potions shop, growing and preparing plants for use in their potions. It's a good job and he enjoys it, but there's definitely a part of him that wants to go off exploring rainforests and finding new and amazing specimens. In the meantime, he's growing - much to the puzzlement of Seth and Fred - a rather fantastic array of plants on the windowsills of their small flat. This pragmatism is a common attitude towards all events in his life currently: he doesn't know what the future holds, but it had better be beware, because he is James Potter, and he's here to stay, ladies and gentlemen! cASsie ninetEen gmt |
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