"Impressive," Headmaster Longbottom smiled, dropping the résumé on to the table. Kayla smiled back tightly. "You've got high qualifications in the subjects we need you for, and you're actually qualified to teach. You're a rare gem Miss Smith, but are you sure you want to teach?"

Kayla almost laughed at that. Neville had been her teacher when she was school, and the stress of the years showed in the lines etched in his skin and the greys consuming his hair. Despite that, she could still remember her fifth year when he called her into his office and asked her the all-important question- "what do you want to do when you're older?"

Fifteen-year-old Kayla looked at the leaflets set out on the table, glossy images showing smiling Healers and racing Quidditch stars and drab Ministry workers and intimidating Aurors, and smiled. "A teacher. Like you, but no plants."

He'd laughed, reciting the numerous incidents she'd caused in his class over the years. Back then he'd handed her some other leaflets and told her to think about it, that she was full of potential and was it really worth it? But to her it was all she'd ever wanted.

"Of course I'm sure Prof...Neville," she commended at his playful glare. "It's all I've ever wanted to do, pass on knowledge, pave the road to others people's success."

With a mutter that sounded a lot like 'such a Hufflepuff', Neville began rooting through his desk for some paperwork. "Fill these in and post them back as soon as you can. Chances are you've got the job, but I have to see the rest of the offers and discuss it anyway. You'll receive a letter by August."

"Thanks Prof," she smiled, taking the work and a handful of floo powder. Just before the flames rose around her, Neville's door opened and a tall man appeared, inquiring about next years lesson plan.

Kayla gasped, dropping the powder before their eyes could meet.

Shit.

It wasn't like Kayla hadn't expected to see him there. She knew he worked there now, she was his cousin's room mate for Merlin's sake! But knowing and witnessing are two completely different things.

When she landed back in her apartment, Lucy was waiting patiently on the couch. One look at her face and she sighed a 'you saw him', her voice telling her it was a statement rather than a question. Soon after she was ushered on to the couch beside her and forced to hand over the paperwork she'd been clinging on to since it was handed to her.

It wasn't just the fact that he was Lucy's cousin that she knew him, because that wouldn't explain the seriousness of the situation. Sure, that was how they met, but that wasn't how it ended. She was seventeen and still in Hogwarts, and he was twenty-one and a Quidditch superstar. They met when she came over to the Burrow with Lucy at Christmas in their seventh year, and somehow his playboy charms worked on her and she woke up satisfied but embarrassed beyond hope.

That was meant to be it, but then it was summer and she was eighteen and they were playing quidditch and she beat him to the snitch and then there was an hour in the broom shed and when they re-emerged they were dating. And it was pretty awesome.

Until she was nineteen, and he was 5 months off twenty-three, and he told her that she didn't understand and she said maybe he should find someone that did and he left, slamming the door behind him. Kayla swore to Lucy the next day that the moment the door slammed was the moment her heart shattered.

Then she was still nineteen, and he was twenty-three and broken, and the magazines were glossy with his name and the tragedy that had struck, gruesome pictures burnt into her mind. He was forced to leave the glamour of Quidditch stardom behind, his skills never matching up to what they were even after he was healed. Instead he talked to an old friend and got a job as a TA at Hogwarts, and his story kept on writing itself.

Finally, she was twenty-one, and he was twenty-five, and it was a reunion for Christmas, and he saw her across the room. She saw him too, and smiled, that hope still blazing in her heart. And then he turned away, and the candle flickered out. Lucy reminded her that her cousin had always been a cunt, would love and drop faster than your mind could process, his heart healing so fast you'd wonder if he even had one in the first place. Either way, Kayla did have one, and it was well and truly broken, and for two years she declined every Weasley invitation that he might accept. Which was all of them.

Only now she was twenty-three, and he was twenty-seven, and he was a proper teacher at Hogwarts, and she was the most likely candidate for their open space. And no amount of time or preparation could really prepare Kayla for seeing him again.

James Potter hated kids.

It wasn't exactly a well-hidden fact. He'd requested for first and second years to be removed from his timetable since his first year, and still to no avail. There was just something so icky about them, with their high voices and big egos and stupid hair. All of that changed once they hit third year or so, when they finally got to grips and realised that they were all douchebags, but for their first couple of years he just couldn't handle them.

It's not like he didn't try. He'd loved looking after Albus and Lily when they were younger, being someone that they looked up to and admired, but then he lost his dream career because a stupid broomstick went through his limbs and he was forced to work with snot nosed kids for the rest of his life. At first it was awesome, the enthusiasm and energy bringing back memories long forgotten. But then he began to tell the devoted kids to the twats, and the annoyingly unequal ratio began to chip away at his positivity faster than Lily at a block of chocolate.

So when he received his timetable for his fourth year of teaching and saw the scattered lessons with the younger children, he'd had enough, and marched straight up to Neville's office.

"Neville? About this timetable."

He was about to continue when he saw someone floo out of the room. He only caught a brief glimpse, but the curly brown hair and wide green eyes were unmistakeable.

"James? The timetable?" Neville prompted.

"Yeah, yeah...who was that?" he asked, his mouth suddenly dry. It felt like he'd just seen a ghost, and he knew he probably looked like one had just taken a stroll right through him.

"Your ex-girlfriend. She applied for the job. Timetable?" Neville replied nonchalantly. He was always cool about those sorts of things, brushing things over to make them seem unimportant. It's probably the only reason he'd survived so long as Headmaster after Minerva handed him the reigns.

His original reasons for coming here flashed back to him, and he took control. "I refuse to take these lessons. They never end well and you know it," James jabbed at the slots with 1st or 2nd years scrawled underneath, forcing Neville to remember the bad endings in the past. One time he caused three first years to get broken arms in their first quidditch lesson because he 'pushed them too hard', while last year he swore in front of another group of newbies and received a total of 14 howlers from pissed off parents.

"We need you to take them James. You can't just decide to not take them just because you don't like little kids! If there was another teacher who could take them, I'd change it instantly, but there's no other teachers qualified to teach quidditch, and Professor Locke is already taking on too many classes. He can't handle a bunch of squabbling first years asking if vampires are more like Twilight or Supernatural!"

With a sigh, James saw that his battle was lost. At least until he spied the résumé sitting on the top of Neville's desk.

"Aha! Look! She's qualified! Make her do it!" he shouted gleefully, thrusting Kayla's form into his face. It was a pretty impressive résumé, especially for someone so young, but he didn't think about that. It only made him think about how much she'd accomplished since he'd left, and how it was stupid he was even thinking about that because he was totally moved on and dwelling on the past would only bring up ghosts which is pointless because Hogwarts already has way too many to handle-

"We'll see," Neville sighed. "I'll already be asking her to do so much. Muggle studies, care of magical creatures, arithmancy, potions. She's going to be all over the place."

James hummed in response. Over the years the student population had grown, making it impossible to just have one teacher for every lesson. Instead they were handed out all over the place. Some teachers specified in only one or two subjects, while others had to take up any spaces where people couldn't make it. James himself was lucky to just have Quidditch and DADA, with an occasional Transfiguration thrown in for when Lisa Crowley couldn't make it.

"I'm sure she'll be able to handle it," he smiled faintly, leaving the office with a hurried excuse. By Neville's tone, he had already settled on Kayla being their newest addition, which gave him less than two months to prepare himself for seeing her again.

After all, break-ups can be supremely messy, especially when you never bothered to clean up in the first place.

It was the 2nd of August, and an owl had arrived.

Kayla could tell these from underneath the safety of her duvet, hearing Lucy's shrieks as the bird flapped around their kitchen.

"Kayla! KAYLA! I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU'RE NOT HERE AND HELPING ME IN THE NEXT THREE SECONDS I'LL BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH MY-"

She sighed, the rustling of her sheets drowning out exactly what Lucy planned to beat her to death with. "Missy! Here girl!" She clicked her tongue, the owl settling immediately on her shoulder. On the other side of the small island in their kitchen was a very dishevelled Lucy wielding a wooden spoon.

"If your owl tries to kill me one more time-"

"Maybe if you weren't so threatening she wo-"

"I'm threatening? SHE FLEW AT ME WITH CLAWS EXTENDED!"

"Did you offer her food like I told you to?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't have time to get to the fridge before my FUCKING EYES WERE CLAWED OUT!"

Kayla and Missy shared a look, the former offering her owl a grape from the island in return for her letter. Missy accepted it gratefully, gliding out of the window with a final glare towards Lucy.

"Your owl wants me dead, and what do you do? Feed it my grapes. Good friend you are."

Kayla smiled at Lucy's antics, flicking through her mail. A magazine, some offers, another bill-

"What? Kayla? What is it?"

She gulped down the lump in the throat, her fingers brushing against the wax across the back, a shield pressed deep into it. "It's from Hogwarts," she breathed. Lucy leant forward to catch her words, and began squealing as soon as they reached her.

"Open it! Openitopenitopenit!" she kept on squealing, pushing them both over to the sofa. Their rented flat was originally a floor to a large and grand house, but had been altered into a maze of small flats for the owners to get some more money. This meant that their fireplace, though kinda old and gross, was fully operational, and even had room for a TV above it, a TV which Lucy impatiently muted while Kayla skimmed through the letter.

"Well? What does it say?"

Kayla looked up at her best friend, tears glazing over her eyes. "I got it," she whispered. "I fucking got it!"

Lucy shrieked, enveloping her in a gigantic hug while babbling about all the letters they'd have to send and the bad-ass party they were going to throw in honour of her dream job. Despite the euphoria in her stomach and the warmth in her heart as Lucy kept on talking, she couldn't help but feel like this was all a little bitter sweet. Like these letter was one of those awkward red button deals. You get your dream job, but you have to work alongside your heartless ex-boyfriend the whole time.

Before she could delve any deeper into misery, Lucy pulled back and grinned manically at her. "Get dressed."

"What? Why? I haven't even eaten ye-"

"No time. We'll get food while we're out." Lucy leaned in like she was about to reveal top secret plans, her nose practically pressed against Kayla's. "We're going shopping."

Author's Note

And here it is! I've been writing this for a while and realised last night that I now only have two chapters to write until I've finished it, so I decided to start posting. This also means updates for colours will hopefully kickstart again. I started writing this a while back so sorry if it's iffy in some parts. It's 10 chapters and 30,000 words-ish at the moment, and like all my stories, it moves pretty fast. Please read and review, like always! :)

Chapter title = Big Red Dragon by Little Green Cars