Iris' POV
It is no secret that bravery is no Slytherin trait. It will never be said about me that I am courageous.
Today I am supposed to meet James in Hogsmeade to get this bracelet off. For this reason I am lying in bed staring at the ceiling and thinking of excuses not to go. I can just tell him I got sick. I can tell him I need to study. I can tell him I don't really mind the bracelet that much anyway. All lies.
I may not be courageous, but I'm not really a liar, either.
Besides, in all of those plans I have to talk to James Potter anyway, so why not get something out of it, like a free wrist?
I am anxious about this for two reasons.
One. I have no idea what to think about James Potter.
Two. I am utterly terrified of anyone who is certain they can undo a spell that Narcissa Malfoy did.
Why does James want to do this for me, anyway?
I try to analyze how we interacted when I saw him last.
I feel like he can see right through me. Make that reason number three I don't want to go today.
I have to get up and get ready to go. I have wasted a lot of time by lying here doing nothing this morning.
I saunter into the bathroom and look in the mirror.
Not for the first time since I had a run in with James, I begin to think about the differences between his family and mine.
I wonder what holidays are like with a family that big.
I wonder what its like to have a sibling who looks out for you like James is doing for Albus. I know Ivan would never do that.
I wonder what its like to have magic so effortlessly flow through your veins.
I wonder what its like to have people look at your family as heroes.
There is an old saying that the winners write history. I don't have to guess what this history says about my family. The winners didn't give my father or his father that great of a review.
My father is nothing spectacular. He is slow, and dense, and he doesn't do very much. All he is is quite large. He was a friend to Draco. A loyal friend. He did what he was raised to do.
I was raised the same way. To be a friend to Scorpius, to stand up for him, to be by his side. That was supposed to be the way of things. But Scorpius never needed a short girl who can barely fire out a levitation spell to help him.
He had Albus. Anybody that wanted to talk down to Scorpius because of his name was confronted with the Potter name.
Not that I condone what my father did. He just got lucky. He was able to walk away from the war alive, and his parents found him a great marriage match in my mother and he moved on to try and live a straight life after the war.
But some people just can't be healed. My father will always be a brute, and he will always stand beside Draco Malfoy, no matter what.
As for me I don't know who I'll stand beside.
I sigh at my reflection. A couple of third year girls walk in and quickly begin to take up counter space around me. I decide to face the day.
I have got to get this bracelet off.
I open my trunk to decide what to wear. I am realizing I don't have a whole lot of options that aren't my school robes. My mother would perish if she knew I wasn't dressed like any good traditional witch. She would say "Oh dear, you would think you wish you were born into a muggle family, honestly!"
She always says the word honestly as if what she just said is a life changing declaration.
Okay, this is no time to dwell on mother.
I decide that it doesn't matter anyway because I shouldn't care what James thinks of me. Right?
I walk out of the dungeons and up to the main floor at a slow pace. I am not in any rush. Plus my heart is already beating so quickly I don't know that I should over exert it lest I fall over and die.
Okay, sometimes I am just as dramatic as my mother.
My bracelet tinkles on my wrist, my shoes make a clicking sound on the marble floors of the main hall. I am really dragging this out.
Soon the upper aged kids of Hogwarts are all trudging through the early fall air towards Hogsmeade. Younger kids are babbling about candies, and older kids are holding hands and gushing about how they will spend the day together.
I walk behind the pack of people. Clarissa actually was sick this morning so she isn't here to walk with me as she usually would be. Man, I should have tried to catch that from her. Okay, maybe the curse on this bracelet really is going to my head.
When we reach Hogsmeade that pack begins to break apart and I realize that James and I did not make a definite plan about where to meet in Hogsmeade. Great.
But just as I am thinking that, I see James come around the corner. His hair is slightly tousled from the light breeze, he's waving at me, and he's smiling.
I feel like I am the only person in the whole world. I am suddenly very glad I came.
