"Hi. I - I, um... My - My name is James Potter and I am inadequate."
The words rang through the room. The room was silent. Every face was riveted to the new-comer on the stage.
Jasper had been about to go up to the podium to move the meeting along to the next portion of the evening when Meg caught his arm and pulled him back down into the chair beside her. He, along with everyone else in the room were paying the fullest attention to the lanky boy behind the microphone in front of them. James Potter had the floor - the floor and a flush to his cheeks that spoke to the shots he'd taken back at the Grindyswallow and the red eyes that spoke to having cried on his walk from the pub to he church, a frumpled look to himself that said something was wrong, and Jasper felt tense with worry.
Which was how Lily knew something was on.
James had taken a moment to start, hesitating on the plinth before he approached the microphone. But when he stepped up to it finally, when he started - it seemed he could not stop.
"I'm inadequate," he repeated the word, as though tasting it for the first time, and he paused and repeated it yet again. "Inadequate." James's face crumpled with it this time and he closed his eyes and leaned against the podium as though the strength had gone out of him. One hand went up to cover his face a moment, then slid down, covering his mouth and he sniffed and shook his head, his fingers splayed over his nose and lips. His eyes roamed upward, meeting a stained glass window at the back of the church - the Good Shepherd holding a sheep - and James stared at the color glass for a long moment.
"I've never had a word for it before," he explained, and his eyes dropped down to the people in the seats, but it was as though he couldn't see anyone besides Jasper, like he was talking one-on-one with Jasper. He stared right into Jasper's eyes as he continued, "I was medically diagnosed as inadequate today, just a couple hours ago. Lily and I - we've been trying to have a kid and we've tried nearly every damn night for --" he shook his head, "For like two and a half months or something like that - and it's still not happened. So Lily, she's impatient, she's worried, she drags me to go and make sure everything's in working order, and I could tell she thought it was something wrong with her so I figure it's too soon to be worried about that, too soon, we just gotta keep --" his voice broke, "-- keep trying... So we go and I figure, you know, we get checked and we're fine and everything's fine and she stops worrying and we just go on like we've gone on and eventually it'll happen and instead - instead this doctor says I'm inadequate and the second the word came off his mouth, I could feel it in my fucking soul."
His hand slammed against his chest, splayed over his heart.
"Inadequate," he laughed. "Yeah, that's right. That's me."
Jasper felt Meg grab his hand, but he didn't look away from James - their eyes were locked.
"I shouldn't feel this way. I shouldn't be here wasting you lot's time. You've all got real things, real stuff to feel and talk about and recover from and here I am, being stupid and spoilt and ridiculous --" he laughed, "Fuck, I'm even inadequate for this, huh?" He licked his lips and shook his head. "I dunno, maybe that's the point. Maybe it's just more of me feeling like I don't stack up, huh?" He paused. "I mean - what have I got to complain about? What have I got to talk about at a place like this? I'm not an addict, I'm not an alcoholic, I'm not a victim of abuse, I've not been through childhood trauma or - or anything."
James looked down, hanging his head, staring at the wood grain of the podium. It seemed to move and writhe just like the wood top of the bar table he and Sirius had been at back at the Grindyswallow. He watched it move for a moment or two, then he looked up again and found Jasper's eyes were exactly where he'd left them and that they held the sincerest expression of a listener, of someone who cared and wasn't judging him a single bit.
"My mum and dad never once did anything but love me. My mum constantly built me up, constantly told me how - how great I was and how much she loved me. My dad, too. I wasn't an only child - I had a sibling. A brother who they lost, who they never got to hold. They were told they couldn't have another, that I wasn't possible. So there I was, their miracle. A miracle following up a sibling who was nothing but potential... I could do anything, anything at all, and they'd be proud of me. I could do anything at all and they'd be amazed and -- and I didn't deserve it. I didn't deserve it because I wasn't - I wasn't fucking doing anything to deserve it. I didn't ever do - do anything that - that was anything more than ordinary. I was ordinary. But I - I should've been more, i should've been better, to deserve all that doting, to fulfill the expectations, to -- be a bloody miracle.... to deserve to be the one who -- the boy who lived."
James wiped his eyes for sometime during that tears had started falling down his face and his breath shook. "I didn't do anything to deserve to be the Potter boy who lived, I didn't earn it, it should've been the other one, he was the real one who could've done anything, he was. But me, what the hell was I? What the hell could I do? I - I walked about a little wanker is what, I got so full of myself because mum and dad always told me how grand I was and I believed it because I didn't know anyone else, I didn't have anyone else to compare myself to. I didn't have friends. Nobody wanted to be friends with the little asshole that strut about Godric's Hollow telling everyone who would listen to him that he was a gods-damned miracle...
"Fuck, what an annoying little prick I was... It's amazing anyone put up with me. I can't even put up with my own self in my memories... If they hadn't had to live in a dormitory with me, I reckon even my mates at school wouldn't have picked me out of the crowd to be mates with." James paused, "They were stuck with me, the poor blokes. Now there's a group of guys who have the right to be standing up here, who have the right to feel hurt and deserve to be supported. They've all three been through hell and back and then there's me - this little bastard always complaining about not being recognized and whining - oh woe is me nobody's patted me on the fucking back today for being grand so I'm going to go about pouting over it..."
This was when the doors opened and Lily Evans stepped into the room... but for once, James didn't notice her. He was still locked in on Jasper and Jasper only, focused because if he let himself be aware of the rest of the room, the words would stop coming out, and he could feel them burbling in him - they had to come out. He'd confessed too much now to stop, like breaking a dam and the water rushing forward.
"I was popular for God knows what reason. Always trying too hard, always loud and obnoxious and attention-seeking and horrible - rude and disrespectful, unruly and conceited and a braggart - an arrogant toerag." His eyes fell to the podium again. "I didn't earn --" He shook his head. "And I'm desperately afraid that everyone's going to realize it. Nothing I do is enough. I'm not enough. I'm inadequate."
He could've gone on for ages, but he felt like he'd said too much already and he backed away from the microphone and trotted off the stage, down the center aisle, passing Jasper, passing the others in the room, until he was nearly back to the seat by the door, the one he'd been occupying for weeks now... He stopped short, finding Lily sitting in that very chair.
James stood in the aisle stupidly a moment, staring at her, looking into her eyes. They were wide and wild and the brightest green, made even greener than usual by the tears that hung in them, just waiting to be spilled. He drew a deep breath and he slid into the seat beside her, falling into the support of the chair, his strength gone for once. He felt bared.
Silence stayed on in the room, then someone to the right clapped quietly and a smattering of applause followed, tentative and weak, nervous as James had felt when he'd approached the podium.
Jasper got up and he walked, shaky-legged to the podium. "Thank you James," he said, "For your honesty."
Lily grabbed his hand, her fingers wove through James's fingers, and held onto him.