Wishing I Had Jamie And Barty Rn - Tumblr Posts

The Hazards of Hiccoughs

poly!darksun x fem!reader who falls for one of James' pranks by accident

prompts: "anything with dark sun" & "reader gets caught in the crossfire of one of their pranks", scenario by @unstablereader

CW: Barty threatening murder (the usual), descriptions of asthma and asthma attack, reader panics because she can't breathe, hurt/comfort but mostly fluff and humour

One word to describe James Potter would be, without a doubt, brave.

If you asked his friends to find words to describe him, he may get the odd “clever”, “mischievous”, “troublesome”, “annoying git” etcetera; but at the end of the day, no one could deny that James Potter was, in fact, brave.

He was a Gryffindor, afterall. 

He spent his spare time flying on an enchanted piece of bark as high as the tallest towers in Hogwarts (and oftentimes then some), and finding many new and creative ways to give his mother a few more grey hairs by performing tricks and stunts  at said heights. 

He spent an evening every month with the likes of a werewolf, and didn’t even quiver at the prospect of being sent to Azkaban when he became an unregistered animagus. 

He’s battled racist gits on the school grounds, found himself facing grounds for detention, suspension, and expulsion all in the name of mischief, and he has made both enemies and the greatest of friendships with the likes of Slytherin’s.

In fact, one of James’ bravest ventures was getting the likes of one Barty Crouch Junior into his bed. 

So, yeah….James Potter was brave.

So brave.

Except, maybe not right now.

Except maybe, right now, he was very much decidedly not brave and actually very much afraid. 

What was James so afraid of, one might wonder?

Oh, well, you remember that very brave venture James made once upon a brave moment where he won over the affections of one such Barty Crouch Junior?

Yeah, that.

James was afraid of that.

Or, more specifically, James was very much afraid of what Barty was going to do when he found out what James had done (inadvertently!!!) to you. 

You see, one of those things James was so well known for? You know? His mischief. Well, he’d had a brilliant pranking idea.

He and Sirius knew that Regulus bought caramel sugar quills every Hogsmeade trip for the Slytherin common room, as it was a crowd favourite. 

During one of James and Sirius’ (many) recent detentions, they had the (quite brilliant, if you asked either of them) idea of using the same charm used in hiccough lollies sold at Zonko's on the sugar quills, thus sending the Slytherin gits (affectionate, since one of them was James’ adopted little brother and the other was his boyfriend, and, you know, all of their closest friends) into a hiccoughing fit!

It was hilarious, and James wasn’t ashamed to admit that he and Sirius laughed so hard at the vision of them hiccoughing their way through the castle that they were given another detention for their behaviour during detention. 

And it had gone oh so smoothly. 

James was often in the Slytherin common room either with or without you on account of both of your relationship with Barty, and was able to place them in their usual spot on a dark stained wooden cabinet beside the fireplace without rousing much suspicion. 

It had gone perfectly.

So perfectly, that is, until his poor sweet angel came running to him choking and coughing and wheezing with tear tracks down your pretty face because you had fallen for his (now very obviously) stupid and idiodic prank.

James had been present for a few of your asthma attacks before, but none of them seemed quite as bad as this one. He always had one of your inhalers in his room for emergencies, and you had convinced yourself that the one you had on your person was either faulty or expired, but no sooner would the medication begin to soothe your air-thirsty lungs would you begin hiccoughing again and the cycle would continue. 

It didn’t help that you were clearly panicked, and James didn’t think that was completely unreasonable seeing as you couldn’t breathe, so James had worked hard to remain as calm as he possibly could for the both of you.

He’d nicked one of Moony’s calming draught’s for you and brought you and your inhalers up to the top of the astronomy tower for some quiet and fresh air; rubbing circles along your back, taking deep, methodical breaths with you, helping you take another puff when the hiccoughing began to take over, and washed, rinsed, and repeated until the hiccoughing had finally subsided. 

You were undoubtedly exhausted after the emotional ordeal, and James opted to bring you down to his dorm so you could sleep it off (and so that he could keep an eye on you). 

He watched your form almost obsessively where you were curled up in his bed in one of his quidditch jumpers from his desk chair; watching your chest rise and fall evenly, without restriction as he fought to bring his own panic down. 

“Merlin that could have been bad.” Sirius let out with a breath from his own bed, joining James in watching you breathe as if he too needed convincing that you still were.

“Don’t.” James bit out sharply. “Don’t even go there.” 

“How’d she even get to them before anyone else did?” He continued, agreeing with James that wondering what might have happened if you hadn’t found James was too scary. 

“Because we had the brilliant idea of going during Slytherin's quidditch practice.” James sneered, still never removing his gaze from your chest. 

“What are you going to tell Junior?” He asked then, causing James’ stomach to lurch not at all pleasantly. 

One of the things James loved so much about Barty was how much he loved. Barty loved everything with all the intensity of a fiendfyre explosion; he dedicated himself mind, body, and soul 110% to those he cherished.

And one thing Barty cherished perhaps most in the whole wide world was you.

“Do I have to tell him?” James groaned then, finally moving his gaze from you to the face of his thoroughly bemused best friend. 

“Will she not tell him?” 

James responded with a noncommittal sound as Peter walked in the door. 

“Tell who what?” He asked as he let his book bag fall to the ground with a thud, earning him a hasty “shhhh” from James and “Tell Barty we almost killed his Treasure” from Sirius. 

“Oh, well I just let him into the common room.” Peter offered simply as he laid back casually on his four poster bed.

“You what!?” James beseeched, earning him a hasty “sshhh” from Sirius. 

“He said he was coming to find you. Stopped to ask Remus about a book they were talking about last week first.” Peter responded with a shrug.

“No! No. Nonononono.” James began chanting as he took off in a sprint towards the common room. 

James nearly ricocheted off of Barty from how fast he’d been going down the stairs that both of them winced as they took the other in. 

“Salazar, Jamie. I’m happy to see you too but you didn’t have to tackle me like some muggle American footballer.” He groaned as he massaged his ribs.

“Sorry! Sorry. Hi! Hi, bubs. How are you? How was practice!?” James rapid-fired with faux cheer. 

So along with being brave, mischievous, and perhaps more than a little bit afraid of his boyfriend, James was also a terrible liar.

“What’s going on?” Barty asked suspiciously after scanning James’ face for only 0.7 seconds. 

“Nothing! What? What do you mean!? Nothing, of course!”

“What did you do?” He deadpanned; his question poised more like a demand of honesty than it was an inquiry. 

James forced out his most disbelieving scoff. “Wha- what do you mean? Nothing, of course! Why, why would I have done anything?” 

“You’re literally always up to no good which is usually why I like you so much, but this-” Barty paused to wave a hand over James rather generally, “is freaking me out. Spill.”

“Okay, listen, she’s alright, but-”

“Where is she?” Barty demanded - any levity quickly seeping from his face and tone as he stood up straighter.

“I just said she was okay, Barty-”

“Which means she wasn’t okay at some point.” 

“There….may have been an incident.” James offered slowly.

“For fucks sa- get out of my way.” Barty grumbled as he shoved his way past James and took the stairs two at a time to get to James’ dorm room. 

“How’d he know she was up there?” James wondered aloud, surprised when Remus answered him. 

“I told him the two of you were upstairs.” He said as he fell into step with James.

“You told him!?”

Remus rolled his eyes so hard James was actually certain that this would be the time they finally got stuck like that. “Of course I didn’t, you prat. Why would I waste the chance to watch the theatrics.”

James groaned as they rounded the corner to their shared dorm, emotionally (and physically) embracing himself for said theatrics, only to find Barty kneeling on the floor beside James’ bed as he brushed your hair away from your face. 

“That must’ve been really scary.” Barty murmured quietly; a divot between his eyebrows as he scanned your face as if looking to see any lingering signs of distress. 

“M’okay; Jamie took care of me.” You responded quietly; words stretched out by the exhaustion still clearly weighing you down.

Barty hummed noncommittally and continued scanning your face. “Do you still want me to kill him for you though? You know I will, yeah?” He offered, leaning down to press a lingering kiss to your (what James was sure was still overheated) face.

You chuckled and turned your face to him so he could press a kiss to your lips.

“No, I like him too much.” You offered softly as you nuzzled back into James’ pillow. “So do you.”

“Do not.” Barty argued petulantly, causing you to swing your arm out at him.

He caught it quickly and brought your knuckles to his lips. “Don’t exert yourself.”

“Don’t tell lies.” You countered.

Barty groaned dramatically and threw his head back. “Fine; I’m crazy about him. But I’d still kill him, you know?”

“You’re all bark.” 

“He doesn’t need to know that.” Barty hissed back in faux chiding as he locked his now narrowed eyes onto James, and even though James had been privy to the conversation that just took place, he couldn’t help the nervous gulp he took. 

“Seems like we might’ve gone scot-free for this one.” Sirius stage whispered at James, causing Barty’s somewhat dark glare at James to turn into something downright murderous when it moved to Sirius. 

“You might want to run.” Remus stage whispered at Sirius who then took his own nervous gulp. 

“It was nice knowing you, Moons.” Sirius offered solemnly with a head nod. “Pete, take care of our boy, yeah?”

Peter, for his part, offered Sirius nothing more than a thumbs up from his bed as he and James began backing slowly out of the dorm room.

“Barty - my love - I just want you to remember how much you love and care for me, yeah? And also that sweet angel over there, who would definitely not like to have me dead or for you to spend time in prison for murdering my best friend- NOW, PADS!”

And like two characters on a muggle cartoon show, the two Gryffindors went scrambling from the doorway.

And if James had perhaps stuck around even a single moment longer, he would have heard Barty ask you if he could “at least scare them a little?” to which you simply replied “be my guest.”