Who: Anakin and James Potter What: James is helping Anakin look for a new car, so ostensibly, they are at an auto salvage yard (Anakin’s idea) When: Backdated to July Where: An auto salvage yard in the OC Rating/Warnings: Probably low Status: Complete
This was familiar ground for Anakin – a junkyard. This one was for auto salvaging. Whatever he could find, it was ‘as it’, no returns, all purchases final. But Anakin had a secret talent that made this place completely transparent. He knew exactly what he would be getting, no matter how banged up it looked.
He was walking around a shell of a BMW. No wheels, half the contents of under the hood were missing. A few passenger windows were shattered.
“I don’t think I’ve ever asked you – why do you live over here?” it was an idle question, but he did honestly want to know about his friend.
***
When James had agreed to go car shopping with Anakin, trawling through a junk yard had not been what he had been expecting. For one, he’d expected an actual dealership. Not a used dealership, mind, but he would have taken that over this. And he’d definitely expected a whole lot of joy test drives in a lot of expensive sports cars.
Instead, he was wondering if he was up to date on his tetanus shots as he attempted to avoid colliding with a bunch of worthless rust piles.
“Why not?” James asked, looking at the husk of the BMW with bit of a distasteful look. Which really was his reason, but he had the feeling that Anakin was looking for something more. “I came on a lark. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Suffolk, but the place is a bore. I could have moved to one of the larger cities in Britian, I guess, but America seemed exciting, and besides, Lily was already here.” If he was honest, Lily was probably the biggest reason why he’d moved to California.
***
“I haven’t,” Anakin tossed away that answer. In his time in the Airforce he’d not had the chance to go over to England.
“So Lily’s the reason you came out here?” It did not take special powers to put that together.
He moved on to the next metal car frame - almost all the cars out here were husks. Anakin’s goal wasn’t to find a complete car. But one that he thought was worth salvaging.
***
“Lily’s one of the reasons I came out,” James said emphatically, running a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t even sure if she liked me back or not. I mean, sure, who could resist this,” he said, shooting Anakin a bit of a cocky half-smile. “But it wasn’t like it had been a sure thing.”
He cleared his throat sheepishly. “Just don’t tell her, alright?” he added, running another hand through his hair.
***
“Don’t worry,” Anakin said. “She almost never talks about you.”
He moved to back hatch of this car to see how the hinges moved.
“That’s a good thing. If your friend is constantly talking about their partner, either they’re pissed at their partner all the time, and the advice is always break up. Or they’re in that weird, annoying, overly infatuated stage where their every thought is about their partner. And that’s,” he added again for emphasis, “weird and annoying.”
He pulled at the latch and the hatch came up in his hand but when it reached the extent of its hinges, the left one broke free from the frame.
“That’s not good,” he said as he lowered it back down.
***
“Noted,” James said with a bit of a grin. His mind was on Lily more and more often these days, but he’d make a note to keep discussion of her to a minimum around Anakin. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked, but are you seeing anyone?”
“I don’t think anything in this place could be considered ‘good,’” James sniffed, looking over the trunk. “You sure you wouldn’t rather hit up an actual dealership?” It just made more sense than digging through other people’s rubbish in the hopes of finding something that was only half garbage.
***
“Yes, I am,” Anakin said. “Her name’s Padme.”
James was right in that most of the cars here were garbage he wouldn’t even buy for the parts they had. But Anakin could see the potentials in a handful.
He pointed back at the BMW. “To get a new one of those, they start at over seventy-five grand.” He pointed at the car he was testing the hatch. “This Lexus starts at almost a hundred grand. And-”
He crossed to another aisle of the yard to an Audi, this time with a smile, “A new 2020 coupe like this starts at almost two hundred grand. A used coupe like this is still over a hundred.” This one was very used, Anakin couldn’t and wouldn’t argue that it wasn’t a particularly rough diamond. Clearly it had seen an accident.
He gestured around the yard. “But everything here is barely the cost of the steel in them. So, like, a couple hundred bucks. So why spend all that money when I can just get one of these and fix it?”
***
Padme, huh? James thought he had seen someone with that name - it was pretty unique, as far as names went - floating around on the Network, but he didn’t think he’d ever talked to her before. He’d have to make a point to do so next time he saw her.
That didn’t seem too much for a good quality car and James almost said as much, though he stopped himself. Sometimes he had to remind himself that not everyone’s family owned a multinational, highly successful haircare line and couldn’t just go out and buy whichever vehicle suited their needs.
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” James said instead. “You know, if you happen to see something you like that you like that looks too banged up to do anything with, I might be able to fix it up with magic,” James said, giving the banged up coupe a rap with his knuckles. He couldn’t guarantee it - he hadn’t really tried to fix anything larger than his glasses when he’d sat on them last week - but it was worth a shot and James was always eager to see what his magical limit was.
***
This elicited a dubious stare from Anakin. “Is the efficacy of your magic contingent on your knowledge of how the thing you’re trying to fix works?” Because this was the same man who’d called Anakin when he’d pulled the oil plug out of his bike engine. That didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
He started walking towards the Audi he’d pointed at.
***
“Depends on what it is, I think,” said James, following Anakin. Truth was, Hogwarts didn’t exactly cover ‘how to fix technology with magic.’ For one, a lot of technology that implied electricity just didn’t react well to being around magic. A muggle born had once tried to smuggle an old radio into the school and he hadn’t been able to make it work at all. But even the things that could be around magic and could still work were just not something that Hogwarts had ever covered. The only reason his dream self knew about muggle devices was because Sirius, his best friend in the dreams, loved learning about it to make his parents angry.
“If it’s got a lot of moving parts, then I assume you’d need some knowledge of it. But for things like autobody stuff, I shouldn’t need to. I don’t need to have any knowledge of how glasses work to fix mine when they break. Anyway, I’ve been teaching myself how all this stuff works, so I’m sure I could manage it somehow.” James was a quick learner when he put his mind to something.
***
Anakin blinked at James flatley. “Okay,” he said.
He moved to the side of the car and looked from side to side first, to check for anyone that might see them. When he was sure that they weren’t going to be spotted, he crouched down and gripped the bottom edge. As he stood up, he lifted one side of the car up so it balanced on two tires.
“Point out where the suspension connects to the chassis.”
***
This James actually did know, and he felt pretty proud of himself for it. “Right here,” he said, indicating the area near the tire and all but preening with pride. “Any other questions for me, Professor Anakin?” he asked, grinning.
***
James had gotten the question right, but Anakin still stared at him while he lowered the frame.
“Maybe,” he conceded, continuing to walk around the car frame.
“I like this one.” He slapped the hood and it bounced back.
***
“What? I’ve been studying,” James said, a little proudly. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do with his time, and reading old car manuals helped take his mind off his parent’s recent passing. That, and going down to the magic guild to read some of Amycus’s dream school books for interesting spells.
“It seems alright,” James said, and it did, if he squinted. He still couldn’t quite wrap his head around buying a hunk of near junk when there were perfectly good new cars out there, but if you had the ability to turn it into something nice, well, he could see it. He didn’t doubt that Anakin was seeing something entirely different than what James was; the car that he could turn it into someday instead of the car that it actually was.