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Personality Traits


Two notices went up that week on the board in the Common Room. One was announcing the Gryffindor Quidditch team try outs would be held two weeks from that Friday. The second was the date for the first Hogsmeade Weekend of the term - the Saturday following the try-outs. James was ecstatic. “QUIDDITCH! IS! COMING!” he shouted, running about the common room, “Quidditch and me with a brand new broom! I’m going to SLAY THE SLYTHERINS! I’m going to HALT THE HUFFLEPUFFS! I’m going to RUIN THE RAVENCLAWS!” He jumped and punched at the air, then turned, prepared to give Sirius a high-five, only to find Sirius didn’t have his palm in the air. “Oi, what’s with you not getting into Quidditch. You do remember you’re on the team, yeah?” James demanded, punching Sirius’s arm.

Sirius looked at Remus and Remus looked down at his trainers. “James, I haven’t got my broom,” Sirius said.

“Wait, what? What happened to it?” James asked, stopping his celebrations.

“I - I had to sell some of my things to get the tent this summer,” Sirius explained, “The tent and Remus and I needed school supplies and his wand… My dad broke his wand, remember? He needed a new one…”

James looked devastated. “You sold your broom?”

Sirius nodded, “Yeah. I didn’t have a choice! We needed the money.”

“You idiots, why didn’t you floo me? I would’ve got you the money you needed!” James admonished them. “Blimey, we need to get you a broom - and fast - before the season starts. You can’t be using one of those cruddy old school brooms, that’s for sure.”

Sirius cringed, “I know, but -- I - I feel bad, you can’t go getting me a broom, I - Maybe it’ll be better if I just don’t play the team this term.”

James looked shellshocked at Sirius. “Not play the team? That’s … that’s absurd…” Lily was walking by and James quickly caught her arm. “Evans. Tell Sirius here that he can’t quit the Quidditch team.”

Lily looked surprised, “Why are you quitting the Quidditch team?” she asked.

“Because I --”

“He sold his broom!” James interrupted.

Lily shrugged, “Well, easily solved, you can use my broom - I already did quit the team.”

“WHAT?” James demanded and he spun her ‘round to look at him, “Whaddayameanyaquittheteam?” he said all in one panicked word.

Lily pulled her arm away from James’s grasp, “Exactly what I said. I quit the team.”

Sirius was gaping at her. “Why would you do that for? You’re brilliant.”

Lily shrugged, “I just… I dunno, I’m getting older now and… it just… doesn’t sound like fun anymore, getting all dirty and the knots in my hair were just awful to work out, even when I braided it and -- don’t look at me like that, Potter, I’m a girl, these are legitimate reasons to quit a sport for a girl.”

James looked gutted. “But… but Evans…”

“Me not playing affects you in no way, Potter,” she said. “In fact, it helps you because, as I said, Sirius is welcome to use my broom for Quidditch, as I won’t be needing it.”

“Doesn’t affect me? Evans, it dampens the quality of the view quite a lot, actually. Whatever will I stare at when I’m bored?”

“Evans in the stands, obviously,” Sirius muttered.

Lily shrugged, “Already done, Potter, you’ll be needing to deal with it.” She walked off.

James stared after her, then turned about, “Bloody hell, she’s broken my heart. Shoved a stake in there and just…” he mimed twisting the stake about against his chest, then threw himself to the floor and fake writhed to death.

Sirius laughed and grabbed him, pulling him back up.


James squirreled himself away to be alone that Tuesday night, having put off his assignment from McGonagall to the last moment. He was carrying Releasing the Animagus Within and snuck out of the dormitory, through the common room with all it’s commotion, and into the corridor. He found himself an empty stairwell and sat down in a pool of moonlight filtering through the high window. Lighting his wand, he opened the book up to the first chapter and ran his hands over the crease of the book to make the pages lay flat across his lap, and started reading.

You’ve begun a journey unlike any other. Becoming an animagus is a terrifying and rewarding experience that will forever change you and help you to discover who you are and who it is that you wish to be. Discovering the form of your animagus is a deeply personal and spiritual journey. You cannot choose your animal form - your animal form chooses you. You already carry the form of your animagus within you - all we are doing is releasing the animagus within…

“Blah, blah, blah…” muttered James. He sighed and ran his finger over the next couple paragraphs, skimming the text, looking for the part where it got to the meat of the assignment he’d been given - the personality traits.

Every person is made up of a billion blocks of personality that, when lumped together, is the soul of that being. For example, a person with a block of impatience may have skipped portions of the reading to get to the part they needed for an assignment...

James blushed. On his parchment he scribbled out the word impatience, apparently.

“Well. That’s not a very good one to start off on,” he muttered, and he decided to go back and start from the beginning. “Maybe I better do this right… Remus Lupin style…”

Over an hour later, after reading lists of personality traits, matched with famous wizards that held them, James had narrowed himself down to a list and he looked it over, trying to decide if he was satisfied with it. Somewhere in the castle, a clock chimed and James realized it was after midnight, so he decided that whatever it was he had would be fine and he shoved it into the book and ran back to the Gryffindor Common Room.


It was the next night and that same list was in the hands of Professor McGonagall, who held it up, looking through glasses at the end of her nose at the list. James sat in the chair opposite her desk, the book open to the chapter on the edge of his knees, his feet crossed over so that his trainers were stacked heel-to-toe as he waited for her to assess the words he’d chosen. After a long moment, she lowered the parchment and stared at him, peering over the glasses.

“James Potter,” she said at last, “Do you truly feel that you have correctly evaluated yourself with this list?”

James licked his lips and said, “Sure, Professor.”

She looked at the list again, then looked back up at him. “Humble.”

“Okay, that one may have been a wee bit of a stretch,” James admitted.

“Mhm…” McGongall looked back down at the parchment. “Most of these are traits you have, but whether they are the most important traits you possess…” she paused. “For example, I don’t see brave on this list.”

“It seemed egotistical to call myself brave,” James explained. “And I didn’t want to put egotistical on there… Which is why I put humble on, since I left brave off and all. It seemed I’d earned it.”

“Perhaps proud would be a better way of wording it, rather than egotistical. You’ve a good deal of pride, Mr. Potter.”

James nodded, “Okay.”

“You’ve also placed immaturity on the list. Immaturity is a very unappealing word, why did you choose it?” she looked him over.

“Everyone says that about me and Sirius - I mean, I’d call it having a bloody good time but -- I mean, if everyone says it…”

“What about playful?”

“Seems a little short of the truth, Professor,” he said, “After all… I’m the same James Potter who set a dragon bomb off on the Hogwarts Express, don’t forget.” He grinned.

She stared at him, her mouth set in a straight line. “How could I ever forget that?”

James grinned.

“And where is loyal? Protective?”

James asked, “You’d put those on a list about me?”

McGonagall handed him back the list he’d made. “Yes. Far before I’d put humble that’s for bloody well sure.”

James laughed.

“I couldn’t help but notice, Mr. Potter, a lot of the traits you listed… were of negative nature, or at least the negative connotation of a positive trait you have. Such as defensive instead of protective. Why is that?”

James shrugged, “Dunno, Professor. Just trying to be honest.”

Professor McGonagall studied him a moment, then got up and went over to one of the shelves of books. She lifted a small jewelry box and returned to the desk, opening the box up. It was a plain cedar box, nothing special, and she pulled from within it a yellowed parchment with ragged edges. She sat down. “My list, when Albus Dumbledore made me do this same exercise. After three revisions and a good deal of insight from him…” he held it out to James.

He hesitated, feeling a bit nervous about looking at it. He took it gingerly between two fingers and held it in his palm, staring down at the list.

Responsible
Loyal
Honest
Sassy
Brave
Giving
Strong

James looked up. “That’s a good list,” he said. “And… it fits you.” He paused, “I especially like the sassy.” He grinned.

“Good; just for that, it should be on your list as well,” McGonagall said with a clipped tone. She put the list back in the cedar box and closed the top. “Let’s revisit yours, shall we? Read what you’ve got back.”

James cleared his throat, “Impatient. Defensive. Immature. Stubborn. Impulsive. Sarcastic. Athletic. Humble.”

“May I suggest, as I said, protective for defensive? And perhaps determined for stubborn?”

James scrawled those words out.

“Did you ask your friends what they thought of your list?” McGonagall asked.

“No…” James shook his head.

“Perhaps you should.”

“Alright.”

McGonagall said, “I’d like to see you work a bit harder on this list this week. Bring back a finished copy. And read chapter two.”

James got up, surprised by how quick the lesson was over. “Professor?”

“Yes, Mr. Potter?”

“When do we get to the good stuff? Like how to turn into a -- whatever I’m gonna be?”

“Soon enough, Mr. Potter. But first, the theory.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And Potter?”

James looked at her, his hand already on the handle for the door of her office. She’d put her glasses back on and was looking at him over the tops of the glass, pulling over a new pile of papers. “Yes, Professor?” he asked.

“Do try and work on this before the night before our lesson this time. Unless you’d like to add procrastinator to your list, that is?”

“Yes, Professor.”