Jily one shots

ice baby

disclaimer: written by elixirs for life

a/n: i'm gonna try reach 200 chapters tonight x

In his defence, James never expected to meet his soulmate at thirteen minutes past eleven on a Sunday morning when he's aiming a puck at Sirius' balls.

At three years old, James hurtles into nursery on short, chubby legs, hair wild and eyes manic as he struggles to drink in the room in all its splash-dash, Balamory-esque glory. It rises and falls with noise – messy tears, carefree laughter, helpless parents reluctantly prying their children off them a finger at a time – and for an only child, it's quite possibly the most exquisite thing he has ever seen. He can't even remember to say goodbye to his mother before he dives right in.

Nursery is a mess of sticky fingers dipped in paint, furrowed eyebrows as shaky hands balance stacks of Lego, and smiling sweetly at teachers who wrestle crayons away from him before he can gleefully unleash them on mostly pristine walls. It's sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce on the floor, raking his nails along the grooves of the uncomfortable carpet as they chant songs in Circle Time; it's curiously smashing Pritt sticks of glue against the low tables; it's racing across the playground, stumbling and scraping his knees so that the red inside him creeps out to peek at the world, and then shrugging it off because there are more important things to do.

It's being put in the Naughty Corner when he pours his milk into the sandpit so he can build himself a castle and then turning to the boy sulking beside him with a toothy beam.

"Hello!" he exclaims happily despite the stern look being levelled his way by the teacher. "My name is James Fleamont Potter and I'm three years old, but I'm going to be four soon, and I like painting and singing and riding on the bikes."

The boy eyes him distastefully. "Fleamont is a stupid name."

"Sirius!" comes their teacher's immediate reprimand. "We don't say things like that to our friends, do we?"

"He's not my friend," the boy mumbles, folding his arms petulantly. "His name is stupid."

James, however, is far from put off. He shrugs and says earnestly, "It is a bit stupid, but it's okay. Sirius is a lot more stupid than mine."

The boy narrows his eyes suspiciously. "Did you call my name stupid?"

"Yeah." He cocks his head to the side. "Do you want to play cars with me?"

He considers it for a moment before nodding with a careless, "Yep," and just like that their friendship is cemented for life.

Sirius is the first person he shows his words to, sticking out a podgy left arm with pride, paint-splattered school jumper pushed up to his elbows. The boy tilts his head to the side, pokes a pink tongue out between two cherry-red lips, hums contemplatively. They're still rusty when it comes to reading, their mouths clumsy around the vowels and consonants, sounding out each word syllable by syllable before hastily stitching them together with inexpert tongues.

Nevertheless, there's something significant about this moment in the playground, the weak February sun filtering through clouds of grey. Kids scream all around them, but for a moment, these two wild boys are still, pressing their bare arms against each other, snow white against tawny brown, eyes glued to the faint looping script embedded into their skins.