Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I create.

"Dialogue"

'Thoughts'

-Author notes-

Quidditch Field, Tuesday Afternoon

It was the second match of the Hogwarts League and the first match for their house. Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw.

"Go, Sirius!" Frank Longbottom shouted.

"Yeah, go get them!" Alice added.

"They've just started the game… and Sirius is the keeper. He doesn't have to go anywhere," Lily said.

"Speaking of going somewhere…" Remus gave him a side glance. "Should you be sitting here with us, James?"

"Yeah, aren't you on the team too?" Peter pointed below them. "Don't you have to be down there with the rest of them?"

"Don't worry about it. I'm just a reserve. It's very unlikely I'll have to play," James responded calmly.

"At least you're wearing the team uniform," Remus said.

"I thought you'd be more upset about being left on the reserve team," Lily commented. "I remember last year, you and Sirius were talking nonstop about joining the Quidditch team…" She still didn't understand how someone could change so much in such a short period of time.

"You still like Quidditch, right?" Frank asked James.

"Of course I do. Although I mostly enjoy the sensation of flying around on my broom. I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with Quidditch, but I still like it," James tried to be as honest as he could with his friends. The old James was gone, and he wanted them to know the current him, so he wouldn't need to pretend to be someone else.

At that moment, the audience went crazy and started to cheer. Sirius had stopped one of the Quaffles from entering the ring behind him.

"Yeah!"

"Good job, Sirius!"

His friends joined in the cheers and soon became immersed in the game.

In the end, Gryffindor won the game by a large margin after their Seeker grabbed the Snitch.

James wasn't too familiar with their current main Seeker, a seventh-year boy named Brian Jones, but after seeing him play, James thought he was a solid player, or at least for school-level Quidditch. He was definitely not talented enough to become professional, and from what he had heard, that wasn't his intention either.

His housemates had decided to throw a party in their common room after the game...something James had to politely decline, as he really needed to check on one of his experiments today without fail.

He did, however, have to promise Sirius that he would be back by the time dinner was served, which gave him only three hours to work with.

James moved at a brisk pace through the castle and arrived at the broken painting at the end of the dead-end hall.

He pressed on the correct stone and opened the door to his secret laboratory before stepping inside.

"Let's see…" His eyes moved over the dozen active concoctions he had going on at the same time.

Closing the door behind him, James got to work.

Some potions required attention, others had to be left for longer, and some were ready to be bottled.

Owls rushed in, leaving new raw ingredients or brewing requests for new potions.

He secured the orders on a wooden board he had hanging from the back wall and took out the ones already completed.

James then sent out the finished products, cleaned up his instruments, and began brewing his next batches.

The cauldrons and other utensils were enchanted to move on their own, but they still required his input at several steps of the way. Otherwise, the resulting potions would not meet his high standards.

An hour flew by like that. This was a routine he repeated every day.

It could seem tedious or stressful for others, but James didn't mind it. He always enjoyed the process of creating, even if it was something simple.

Besides, he needed the money.

Several of the projects he had in mind would require extremely rare ingredients, as well as some tools that would need to be tailor-crafted to meet his needs.

Those things always translated to "this will cost a fortune."

Money wasn't something he had to worry about in his previous life after inheriting his family fortune.

And although his family was still the same and still very rich, he couldn't use that money freely while his parents were alive.

If he suddenly requested millions of Galleons, he would need to explain to them in great detail what he needed the money for.

There was zero chance they would even understand what he wanted to do, not to mention where the knowledge to do those things came from in the first place.

No… that was not an option. He would need to earn the money himself.

It might take a few years, but as his reputation grew, he would certainly receive requests for more expensive projects, and his fortune would then grow quickly.

James glanced around his lab one more time to make sure everything was in order.

'Okay, no more materials to store, no more potions ready for completion today. Tomorrow's batch is already going… all that's left is my personal project.'

He glanced into the corner of the room, where his personal alchemy experiment was still ongoing.

James would have preferred to do all of his alchemy inside the dimensional briefcase that contained his main lab, but this one needed too much space for that.

But more importantly, because of the volatile nature of some of the ingredients, there was a decent chance that an explosion could occur, and he'd rather that happen here than inside his magical case while he was carrying it in his pocket.

Just as he was about to approach the large crystal container in the corner, he heard a loud click, and the door to his lab unlocked.

"A secret door…" Someone pushed the door open all the way and walked inside. "You even have a secret lab…" Bellatrix Black was looking at everything inside the room with interest.

"So… you're the other one who's been following me around," James realized his carelessness a bit too late.

Bellatrix gave him a smile of satisfaction that reminded him of the dangerous witch he once knew.

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