Written for Lady Phoenix Fire Rose's The Character One Hour Challenge/The Hardest Challenge Ever.
Character- James Sirius Potter
Word-Wow
Phrase- So Sorry
Mood- Forgetful
Emotion- Remorse
Food- Candy
Sweet Apologies
James knocked on the door warily, as though he thought it might explode with one touch. For all he knew, she could have rigged it that way, too.
"Go away!" Rose yelled from inside. "I don't want to talk to you!"
"You don't even know who it is!" he argued, aggravated. He'd been trying to talk to her ever since the incident the day before, but she wouldn't hear him out. He just wanted to try to fix things.
"Well now I do!" She was still yelling. "Guess what? I still don't want to talk to you!"
"You don't even know why I'm here!" James exclaimed. "And would you just let be in so that we can have this conversation while we're both on the same side of the door? Please?"
The door opened with a jerk and James, who had been leaning on it, fell into the room, sprawled on his stomach. He stood up and groaned. "That wasn't very nice," he grumbled.
"And you're not very nice, so I think you deserved it," Rose spat, sounding as venomous as a snake in that moment.
"I—" James stopped himself, rubbing his hand through his dark hair so that it was even messier than usual. He was about to defend himself, but then he saw how bad Rose looked. Her hair was even frizzier than it usually was and it wasn't restrained into its usual braid down her back, so it was obvious that she hadn't brushed it since the previous day. Her eyes were red and puffy and she was wearing a baggy t-shirt that James recognized as being Albus's and a pair of sweatpants with the Gryffindor quidditch team emblem on them.
He tried again. "I suppose that I wasn't very nice yesterday, yeah," he admitted. He honestly hadn't thought that Rose would get so worked up over this. It wasn't as though he had actually hurt the bloke, he'd just been trying to scare him off a bit.
"Wow, James, wow," Rose said, laughing bitterly. "That's all you can say, is it? That you weren't very nice!"
"I don't know what else to say, Rosie. I'm no good at apologies, you know that," he reminded her, ruffling his hair again.
He stopped when he saw Rose's eyes flicker to his hand, knowing how much it bothered her when he or Al did that. Most of the time, James didn't even know that he was doing it. It was just automatic. His hair never behaved anyway, even when he didn't mess it up.
"Don't try to act all meek to me, Potter," Rose growled. "I saw everything, yesterday. I know exactly what you said to him."
"You heard everything?" James blanched.
"Yep," Rose confirmed. "I heard every bit of it. 'You don't deserve anyone in this family. You especially don't deserve Rose. You'll be run out of the house if you ever try to go meet her parents, you realize. I don't think you even care about that. You're just playing with her, aren't you?' That was some of it, wasn't it, Potter?" Rose mimicked.
James winced. He hadn't really thought about what he was saying at the time. He had been furious. He hadn't even asked Rose what was going on. He had just taken out his anger on Malfoy without thinking. "Yeah, I think that was some of it," James muttered, looking at the floor. He couldn't look Rose in the eye now. There was so much anger and pain there and he hated knowing that he was the one who had caused it.
"Scorpius had been Al's friend since first-year, James, and you've never treated him like that before. He thought that everybody accepted him, you know. He wanted to go home at meet Mum and Dad, officially as my boyfriend, at Christmas," Rose informed him hysterically. "I was going to tell the rest of you that we were dating next week, after we won the quidditch game. We were planning for everything."
"I wasn't thinking Rose!" James burst out. "I just let my anger that a bloke was snogging you, touching you, out without thinking about it! I didn't even think about the fact that it was Malfoy until I was halfway done speaking. I would have done the exact same thing if it had been Frankie! I just wouldn't have had such good ammunition to throw at him."
"You think that it makes it better because it's Scorpius that you were chewing out!" Rose yelled. "That makes it worse James Sirius Potter! Uncle Harry taught us to be accepting of everybody, despite what they looked like or their last name. You didn't just betray me and my feelings, you betrayed what he taught you."
She certainly knew exactly how to make James feel guilty for what he had done. It was true that his dad has always taught them to be accepting. It was just, in his anger, that he had forgotten that.
"Rose," James pleaded, "I'm so, so sorry. I don't know if you'll ever be able to forgive be, but I hope that you can. I honestly just let my anger take over. I never would have said any of those things if I had been thinking straight. I'll even apologize to Malfoy for every word. I'll even help you convince Uncle Ron that Scorpius is a good enough bloke for you. I know that he cares about you a lot, anyway, and that he makes you happy. I'm so—" Rose cut him off.
"You will need to apologize to Scorpius. You will also start calling him Scorpius. He isn't defined by his last name, so you shouldn't call him by that. He's a different person than his family. You will also defend him to Dad with me. Finally, you will give me all of the candy that's is currently in your trunk to repay me for what you did."
James nodded at each one of her conditions. He really hated it when Rose was angry with him, after all. He winced a bit at her last condition, though. It would take him forever to build up a stash like the one that he currently had. "Alright. I'll do everything," he promised. "I—do you forgive me?" he asked her nervously, clasping his hands together. "I really do feel bad."
"I know. I wouldn't have forgiven you if you didn't feel bad, after all," she told him. She wrapped her arms around him in a hug and buried her face in his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her hard. She squeezed back.
"Friends again?" he asked, releasing her.
"As soon as that candy is in this room, yes. And you're apologizing tomorrow at breakfast," she commanded.
"In the middle of the Great Hall?" he whined.
"Yes," Rose said stubbornly. Now go get me my candy."
James turned around to leave and then he remembered something. "Er, I think Nat may have actually eaten all of the Honeydukes chocolate last week… I think she was on her… you know, her time of the month," he whispered conspiratorially.
"Your girlfriend ate all my Honeydukes!" Rose exclaimed.
"I'm sorry!" James grumbled. "It's not my fault. I forgot about that when I promised you the candy."
"Fine, but you're buying me chocolate next Hogsmeade trip," Rose told him.
"Alright," James sighed. "I'll be back with the rest in a few."
James left the girls' dormitory and grabbed his broom from the landing where he had left it. Then he stepped onto the stairs and slid to the bottom, landing in the middle of the common room. He climbed the boy's staircase up to his dormitory and grabbed the bag of candy from his trunk. He gave it a last longing look before holding it behind his back so that he wouldn't have to watch himself hand it over to Rose.
"Just remember that I love you, candy," he told it. "I would never be doing this if I didn't need Rose happy to win the quidditch game next week… Alright, and I can't stand it when people are angry with me."