A/N: Hello Everyone! This is a completed one-shot featuring James and one of our favourite quidditch playing OCs.
For those of you who are familiar with my stories, this occurs after How to Adult ends, and before First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage starts. It refers to 'The Incident' that is mentioned in multiple chapters in First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage. So, read on and now you'll all know what exactly happened between James, Melanie, and Selene.
For those of you who are new to my stories, this is a one-shot based on my stories and characters, but I think you'll be able to read it as a standalone.
Warning: Contains a bit of language.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
The Incident
James Potter woke up earlier than he usually did on most Monday mornings, but since that day was the beginning of the N. E. W. T.s season for him and his fellow seventh-year students, he figured that he could probably use the extra time to get a bit more studying in. His first N. E. W. T. exam was Charms the next day, while his last exam of the test taking season would be Transfiguration in two weeks. As James got ready for the day, he eyed his still deeply sleeping roommates. His friend Nolan Finnegan was snoring obnoxiously a few beds away, but James was used to his housemate's loud sleeping habit since they'd been bunking together for the last seven years of their lives. In the bed right next to James was his cousin, best mate, and partner-in-crime Freddie Weasley. Despite the loud cacophony of their housemate's snoring, Freddie still seemed dead asleep and James knew from experience that it would take more than just Nolan's snores to wake up his red-haired cousin.
In an act of kindness, James decided to allow Freddie to sleep-in –they had the day off to study before their first N. E. W. T. exam the next day– and he left his dorm room and Gryffindor tower by himself. He cheerily made his way to the Great Hall for a spot of breakfast before getting ready for a long day of studying. There was less activity than usual for a Monday morning at Hogwarts since many of the students from fifth-year and above were taking advantage of the extra day of studying to get in some much-needed sleep, but there were still a good number of students from fourth-year and below going about their normal daily activities.
Since many of the senior Gryffindor students were most likely still asleep, the only person James spotted at Gryffindor's table that he'd like to eat with was his younger cousin Rose. Sixth-year Rose Weasley was sitting around the middle of the table and seemed more concerned with examining the piles of papers scattered on the table around her than eating from the scantly filled plate directly in front of her.
James sat down across from Rose, and smirked silently at her while he began to collect his favourite breakfast foods. He watched his cousin silently for a moment until he decided to make his presence known.
"Pass the salt please Rose?"
Rose jumped a little in her seat in surprise, and she blinked her eyes owlishly a few times until her gaze fixed on James, "When'd you get here?"
"I've been sitting with you for fifteen minutes Rosie," James deadpanned.
His cousin's brown eyes grew wide as she mechanically handed James the salt shaker, "What? Fifteen minutes!"
"No," James replied, deciding that Rose was obviously way too stressed about her upcoming exams to handle any degree of teasing well, "I'm taking the piss. I just got here."
The sixth-year scowled at him and muttered under her breath. He thought he heard her utter the word prat at least twice, although the rest was unintelligible.
James slid his fork underneath a small pile of scrambled eggs on his plate, "So whatcha studying for?"
"We have our Defense Against the Dark Arts exam first thing tomorrow morning," Rose answered as quickly as she could before she glanced back down at her study notes.
Her cousin took a bite of his eggs and then pursed his lips thoughtfully, "Is that what happened when Norah caught you trying to sneak out of the celebration party early Saturday night? To get some more studying in?"
She rolled her eyes, "No, I'm not that much of a ponce. The incident with Norah happened after she had what I'm going to say was her seventh drink of the night. I was trying to tell her that I'd be open to having a study group for Arithmancy the next day, but she didn't hear me properly and thought that I was telling her that I was going to leave the party to study."
"No," James agreed with a smirk, "Just enough of a ponce to try to invite your teammate to a study group for an exam while in the middle of our victory party for winning the quidditch house cup."
Rose rolled her eyes at him again, "Shouldn't you be studying for something? My exams are only the normal end of the year ones, you have to worry about your N. E. W. T.s."
"Can't I get a balanced breakfast into me first?"
The mention of breakfast caused Rose to glance down at her own mostly untouched plate of food. She had been so anxious about her upcoming exams that she'd spent the past month doing nothing but revising for exams and practicing for their final quidditch game against Slytherin for the Hogwarts house cup that occurred a few days ago. Luckily for her, the people that she usually spent most of her time with were also studying seriously for their exams or practicing quidditch, so she didn't exactly feel as though she ignoring them in favour of something else.
"Besides," James continued between bites of eggs, "I'm going to study Charms with Freddie and Nolan and neither of them are awake yet."
"I wouldn't be surprised if they're both still tipsy from the victory party two nights ago," She replied with a heavy sigh.
As part of the winning quidditch team, Freddie had somewhat of an excuse for imbibing in as much alcohol as he had Saturday night. Nolan on the other hand, was just taking advantage of the slightly bacchanal atmosphere of the party and had gotten more than sufficiently drunk. At the end of the night, only the few people who hadn't been completely plastered could remember Nolan and Freddie's combined sloshed antics that ended with Gryffindor's Head Girl Selene Spiros physically forcing half a sleeping draught down both of their throats to finally get them to stop their inebriated shenanigans. In Rose's opinion Selene would probably not get near enough credit for thwarting what had the potential to be a disaster big enough to get Gryffindor house banned from throwing any get-togethers larger than ten students, let alone parties, for the next three years –at least– if Neville or any of the other professors had found out about it.
"Yeah, neither of them looked very good yesterday afternoon," James agreed with a nod.
Rose picked up her fork and used it to idly stab a cold sausage on her plate, "Just in the afternoon?"
"They didn't wake up 'til then," He said before popping a piece of toast into his mouth.
She shook her head disapprovingly down at her own plate and thought about her older redheaded cousin's behaviour, "What do you think happens if somebody doesn't study at all and gets all 'T's' on their N. E. W. T.s?"
James shrugged, "Not sure, although Uncle George didn't take any N. E. W. T.s at all and he now makes enough money a year that he doesn't have to work even though he wants to."
"You think he'd allow Freddie to get away then with not getting any good grades?" She asked talking about their uncle and Freddie's father.
"He might," James responded without much inflection either way, "But there's no way Aunt Angelina will. She expects at least a passing grade on all of his courses and an 'E' in Defense."
Rose pursed her lips, "Are you worried about your exams? I mean it's not like you really need good grades either since your chosen career path is professional quidditch."
"I still want to do well on all of my courses, besides, I have yet to actually receive an official offer to play for any one franchise so I'll still need good grades to get a job if my original dream comes crashing down on me," He said with forced nonchalance.
His cousin gave him a reassuring smile, "You know that you're going to get an offer to play for Puddlemere. I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason why they're holding off on sending it is because your mum asked them to wait until you finished your exams so that you'd still try hard on them."
"I wish I could say that that doesn't sound true, but I can totally see Mum asking Oliver and the rest of Puddlemere's coaching staff to hold off until after N. E. W. T.s," He agreed.
"See?" Rose said in a happy tone, "Just focus on your N. E. W. T.s and everything else will fall into place."
"Yeah," James sighed under his breath, "Everything'll just fall into place." He grabbed an orange from a fruit bowl next to him, "You want me to quiz you until someone else comes along?"
Rose glanced at her notes and then almost absent-mindedly at the Great Hall around her. It was rather early in the morning on a day off to expect most people to wake up. She nodded at her elder, dark haired cousin and handed him some of her notes and pointed out where she'd left off.
James and Rose spent a solid twenty minutes studying Defense Against the Dark Arts theory in between taking bites of their breakfast. Rose had just provided a bit of a long-winded explanation on the difference between a curse and a jinx when a tall sixth-year strolled up to their area at the Gryffindor table and gracefully sat himself down next to Rose.
"Morning Rose," Scorpius Malfoy addressed his girlfriend before leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to her lips.
Rose's cheeks were scarlet ten seconds later once he'd pulled away, but she smiled lovingly at the Slytherin and wished him a good morning in return.
"Hey Scorpius, you getting a hard time from your house mates about us beating the pants off your team Saturday?" James asked his cousin's boyfriend without preamble.
A pale blonde brow rose up on the Slytherin seeker's forehead, "Surprisingly, I'm getting less flak for my girlfriend stopping almost all of our team's shots-"
Here he shot Rose a smirk and a wink that caused the Gryffindor keeper to blush once more, "And more hostility because my best mate beat me to the snitch."
"Yeah well, Al is a fantastic seeker," James offered easily before eating another forkful of eggs.
Scorpius frowned at his best mate's brother, "I'm a good seeker too."
"Al's beat you to the snitch every time we played you this year," James reminded the Slytherin.
Scorpius pointed his finger at James, "First, I was only a few seconds behind Al in each game. Second, I still say I would have won most of those games if Al didn't get those prototype gravity-stabilizing quidditch gloves from Victoire."
"Well, you've got all summer to convince Madam Hooch that Al wearing those gloves during games is unfair. I only needed him to wear them this year so we could win and I could get an offer from a professional league," James responded with a nonchalant shrug.
Scorpius glanced at Rose after James's explanation. Rose also shrugged, "Do whatever you want. It's between you and Al really."
"Alright then," He glanced at his girlfriend, "Are we still waiting for Al to wake up so we can study?"
"That was my plan."
Scorpius idly wrapped his arm around her waist, "I figured he'd be awake by now."
Rose shrugged, "He must have been up late with Alice. She demanded he help her study for Transfiguration since we were busy doing that Arithmancy study group with Norah, Christen, and Kieran in the library last night. Alice didn't come back to our dorm until after I'd fallen asleep."
Rose and Scorpius continued to chat about their various study groups and upcoming exams, while James ate breakfast and gazed distractedly around them. The hall was gradually starting to fill-up a little more as more students woke up for the day and decided to finally get some breakfast. James had almost finished his plate when he realized that many of the newly arrived students, most of them from the three eldest years, were non-surreptitiously staring at where he sat at the Gryffindor table. Many of the people looking in his direction were speaking to others around them at the table, causing those people to also look at him in turn.
He glanced at Rose and Scorpius, "Do you also see a whole bunch of people staring at me, or am I going insane?"
The pair stopped talking to each other and immediately investigated James's concerns.
"Yes . . . but why would all these people be staring at you? I figured our House Cup win would be overshadowed by upcoming examinations," Rose told her cousin with a perplexed frown.
James shrugged his shoulders, "Maybe they're looking at you two and not me."
"I doubt it. We've been together long enough by now that most people have stopped making a big deal out of it," Rose replied.
"Besides," Scorpius added with a hard-to-read expression, "They're definitely staring at you and not us."
The staring and the whispering continued and even picked up pace.
Rose tried again to puzzle it out, "Are you certain you haven't done something to deserve it? An end of the year prank you've perhaps forgotten that you already laid the groundwork for?"
"No, I'm fairly certain I'd remember that," James mused.
He was fairly certain that he wasn't forgetting a grandiose end-of-the-year prank, but the staring from his peers was unrelenting. Luckily for him, his best mate, partner-in-crime, and person most likely to remember if they'd had a big prank scheduled for that day, came striding down the hall towards him a few moments later.
"'Moring Mate," James greeted his red-headed cousin Freddie Weasley cheerily.
Freddie sat down beside James and nodded to Rose and Scorpius before addressing his best mate, "Hey, have you talked to Mélanie yet this morning?"
James shook his head at the mention of his girlfriend of one year. Not many people had been up and about when he woke up that morning, and he'd been too hungry to wait for either his friends or his girlfriend to wake up and go down with him for breakfast. Instead, he figured he'd satiate his stomach and catch up with Freddie and/or Mélanie at a later time.
"Not yet, why?"
"She's in the common room right now and worked up into a right tizzy. I'm not sure what happened but she seems really angry and she was harshly whispering with her friend Lauren when I came down from our dorm. They immediately pounced upon me and demanded that I go back up the stairs and wake you up and make you come down to talk to her. I told her that you were already gone when I woke up and I swear for a minute I thought she was going to hex me," Freddie explained to James as he began to fill up a plate with food. Despite the urgency the situation of his words might imply, the most concerned he seemed while he retold the story was when he mentioned his own safety.
Hearing Freddie's story made James feel both very worried for his girlfriend, and also very confused, "Do you know what has her worked up?"
"No idea mate," Freddie replied before shoving half a bacon sandwich into his mouth, "I fwigerd bat berwds arf jup feered."
"Pardon?" Rose asked with both confusion and disgust.
Freddie swallowed the food in his mouth, "I figured that birds are just weird. They're not happy unless there is something for them to complain about to their friends."
Rose blinked in astonishment at her cousin, "And you wonder why Norah Summers doesn't want anything to do with you when she's sober."
"Has she gone on record saying that?" Freddie asked suddenly serious.
James ran a hand frustrated through his black hair, "Can we forget about Freddie's imaginary girlfriend for a moment and get back to my real girlfriend?"
"We can, but for the record, I know less about your real relationship with Mel than I do about my imaginary one with Norah," Freddie informed James before inhaling the other half of his sandwich.
James sighed, "So you don't know why she wants to talk to me?"
"No."
"Do you have any idea why Mélanie wants to talk to you?" Scorpius asked James in a move that was suspiciously invasive for the normally laid-back Slytherin. He was usually silent anytime the Weasleys and Potters were mercilessly demanding information from each other about their private lives.
The dark haired seventh-year thought over Scorpius's words carefully before slowly shaking his head, "Haven't the foggiest."
"James!"
James's head –along with the attention of everyone else he was sitting with– turned in the direction of Albus Potter who was practically running up to where they sat. The seventh-year glanced expectantly at his younger brother.
"Yeah Al?"
"I need to talk to you about Mélanie-"
Freddie interrupted his cousin, "Did she threaten you to discover James's whereabouts as well?"
Al ignored him, "She's really distraught right now-"
"I think the word you're looking for is actually angry. That or mentally unstab-"
Al continued to ignore Freddie, "Because she heard a very vicious rumour going around that you're cheating on her."
James felt his stomach turn to lead as his brother's words washed upon his brain. It took him several seconds longer than would be expected to fully comprehend Al's words.
"Wh – But – How – What?"
Al took pity on his clearly confused brother and decided not to drag it out any longer, "Apparently she just became aware of the fact that there is a rumour going around that you're cheating on her with Selene Spiros."
James's face went white and he seriously thought his breakfast was about to make a reappearance, "What?"
"Where would a rumour like that even come from?" Rose asked Al on James's behalf since the latter seemed completely stunned and unable to say anything else at present.
"Ifffs widiculous," Freddie agreed with a mouthful of food. It seemed that even a discussion about a vicious rumour being spread about his best mate's love life couldn't dampen Freddie's appetite.
Scorpius of all people answered Rose's question, "I think I know where it might have started."
Four pairs of eyes, two Weasleys and two Potters, turned to look at the Slytherin and James was able to move enough to send Scorpius a 'go ahead' gesture.
"I didn't think much of it to start with –which is why I haven't said anything about it before now," Scorpius began, "But I did overhear Davinia Selwyn complaining to some of her friends after we lost to you after the house cup game, that she can't believe your team beat us because you're all awful; that they couldn't believe that Selene Spiros was going to get an offer from a professional quidditch team, yada yada; and that the only reason why the Harpies were speaking to Selene could only be because she's shagging James or something like that. I honestly thought it was just jealous speculation and ranting and that it wouldn't go anywhere outside of her circle of friends because it's obviously a ridiculous lie-"
"You heard your housemates spreading slanderous gossip about us and didn't do anything to stop them?" James asked Scorpius angrily.
Scorpius kept his clam in the face of James's growing fury and panic, "My housemates spread slanderous gossip about people between themselves all the time. So do Gryffindors, so do Ravenclaws, and so do Hufflepuffs. I thought it was something that would stay in-house because it's clearly untrue. I guess I overestimated their ability to forget their gossip and move on to something new."
"Yeah, I guess you did, and now the whole castle is spreading around the lie that I'm cheating on my girlfriend with my teammate," James growled as he got to his feet. He turned his back to the table and began to stomp away from it.
He was already outside of the Great Hall by the time Freddie caught up to him, half a bacon sandwich still in his hand, "W'ere you going Mate?"
"To find Mélanie and Selene so I can fix this."
Freddie already knew that James hadn't had enough time yet to come up with a good enough plan to 'fix this' so he tagged along quietly behind his cousin to offer whatever support he could for the mess he was about to get himself into.
As they pair strode through the hallways towards the general direction of Gryffindor tower, James noted that most of the people around them would stop and start whispering when they spotted him. He sped up his pace after the fifth time it happened so that he wouldn't have to overhear whatever it was they were saying about him. He knew the gist of course, but he also knew that hearing the specifics would just make it worse. He needed to find the women ASAP.
The groups of people standing around the hallways and gossiping became larger the closer they got to Gryffindor tower, and by the time the portrait of the Fat Lady came into view what looked like a quarter of their housemates were standing around the portrait entrance talking to students from other houses. More specifically, James noticed Mélanie's friend Lauren Dawson as one of the students milling about in the hallway.
"Lauren is Mel-"
Lauren spun around on her heel when she heard her name and interrupted James before he could finish his question, "How dare you Potter!"
"Listen Lauren I-"
She cut him off again, "My best friend is up in our dorm room crying her eyes out right now because her boyfriend is a cheating assho-"
"I didn't cheat on Mel," James cut Lauren off with a harsh whisper that implored her to keep her voice down so that their conversation wouldn't spread to anymore people than it already had, "But I don't need to defend myself to you. I'm going to go talk to her about this and explain to her that she shouldn't believe the lies that petty Slytherins spread just because I've beat them at quidditch."
James went to move past Lauren, but what she said next stopped him in his tracks, "Are they really petty Slytherin lies when Will Dyson is able to corroborate them?"
"Excuse me? What the Hell does Dyson have to do with this?"
Lauren put her hands on her hips, "Dyson was the one who told me and Mel twenty minutes ago about your affair. He said he saw you snogging Spiros in the hallway near the DADA classroom the day before Christmas break."
"That is so-" James paused for half a second before he found the right way to word what he wanted to say, "Not what happened at all." He could barely hear his own words over the frantic beating of his heart, but thankfully Lauren couldn't read that from his expression.
"Really? Because Will Dyson sounded very convincing as he described in detail what he saw happen."
James frowned at Lauren and squared his shoulders, "Dyson didn't see shit. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go speak to my girlfriend and clear this whole mess up."
"She doesn't want you to bother her right now," Lauren insisted as she stepped into James's path.
"Really? Because both Freddie and Al told me just ten minutes ago that Mel was looking for me."
Lauren scoffed, "Well she changed her mind, women are allowed to do that."
James pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation, "I really think I should talk to her so that I can set the record straight."
"I really think you should give her some space, I'm sure your whore would be happy to entrain you for a few hours until-"
James cast an impulsive and reflexive wandless silencing charm on Lauren before she could finish her insult, "Whatever is going on between me and Mel has nothing to do with Selene, you got that? I don't want to hear you ever suggest again that Selene Spiros would do anything like what Dyson has been saying."
Lauren rolled her eyes at James, and he cast the counter-spell to his silencing charm on her so she could respond.
"Whatever."
He gave Lauren a disgusted look before turning away from her and stalking back through the hallway. He'd only made it a few metres when he spotted two familiar faces out of the corner of his eye. He made a sharp turn to the right, causing Freddie to stumble into his back as he didn't expect such a sudden stop, and he made a beeline to the pair of seventh-years standing near a dourly coloured tapestry with an image of twin ogres on it.
"Childs! Simpson!"
Teagan Childs and Jordan Simpson, Head Girl Selene's Spiros' two best friends, turned when they heard James call their names, and their faces immediately took on imperturbable expressions.
"Potter."
"Where's Selene?"
"We're not telling yo-"
"She went for a run."
Jordan sent Teagan a glare, "Teagan!"
Teagan met Jordan's glare, "Jordan, we don't need to start spreading lies too." Teagan then turned her fierce gaze to James, "For some reason she felt keyed up to the point that she figured she needed to go for a run to blow off some steam."
While Jordan was openly hostile to James with the intention of making him feel bad, Teagan obviously felt that guilt-tripping him about Selene would be worse. He wasn't quite sure which of Selene's best friends was right.
"How long ago did she leave? I need to talk to her," James enquired of the pair.
Jordan folded her arms across her chest, "And what would you talk to her about?"
"I was thinking of starting with an apology for Dyson's lies and the other gossip, and then I'd go from there," James replied sardonically. He could imagine Selene literally running farther and farther away from him as they continued to talk.
"Maybe you could start with getting your girlfriend and her friends to stop spreading lies about how she's a homewrecking slag?" Jordan rebutted.
Teagan glanced at Jordan, "It's not James's fault that his girlfriend has literally the worst friends."
"Thanks for your help, but I'll see if I can find her myself," James replied with an eyeroll as he turned away from the pair of women.
"Good luck," Jordan called sarcastically.
"She went to the locker rooms first."
James only got a few steps away before he stopped and turned back to look at Teagan. He opened his mouth to thank her for telling him about Selene's most likely whereabouts, but she kept going.
"Because she needed to change into her running clothes, and she couldn't go to her dorm room to do that because Mélanie and her bitchy friends are there and they'll probably hex her if she steps foot into that room," Teagan continued to twist the knife.
"Right," James muttered to himself before turning around again and sprinting down the hall with the intention of getting to the quidditch locker rooms as fast as he could.
He heard the sound of a loud pair of feet running after him, and he didn't need to turn around to know that it was Freddie following him. James's run slowed as he got to the moving staircases, and he did his best to ignore everybody else who was around and still staring at him as he waited for the right staircase to appear.
"So where are we going?" Freddie asked as he jumped onto a staircase a few seconds after James.
"I need to find Selene."
Freddie frowned at his best mate, "Your girlfriend's having a breakdown and a pratty Ravenclaw is spreading rumours about you cheating on your girlfriend with your teammate, and you think it's a good idea to go talk to the woman that you're allegedly having an affair with?"
"I'm not having an affair with Selene Spiros," James argued as he turned to the corridor on the ground floor that would take him to the Gryffindor quidditch changing rooms.
"That's why I said allegedly," Freddie repeated, "But my main point is that maybe we should be going to find and threaten the git who started this rumour, instead of going to go poke the bear who will most likely hex first and ask questions later if we creep up on her."
James growled angrily, "I'll deal with Dyson later, I need to make sure that Selene's okay first."
"Selene Spiros is Head Girl and can be extremely frightening when she needs to be, she can take care of herself."
James knew what Freddie was saying was true, but he still felt the need to see her and talk to her himself. Instead of arguing with his shadow more, he suggested that Freddie go get the Marauder's Map and track down Will Dyson so that they could get in some payback later that day.
Freddie agreed, only slightly reluctantly, and promised James that not only would he track Will Dyson's movements, but that he'd also conjure up a list of payback-related ideas for James to choose from when he was done dealing with Selene. Without Freddie tagging along, James was able to make his way to the Gryffindor changing rooms much more quickly. He only just hesitated at the door of the women's changing room before he knocked firmly on the slightly scuffed wooden surface, and called Selene's name through the thin door.
While he waited for a response, James looked at the corridor around him to make sure that there was no one around to see him. It was something that he should have done back in December when Will Dyson was apparently skulking around the hallways and spying on him and Selene in his spare time.
Before James could go crazy waiting and wondering whether his teammate was actually in the changing rooms or if he was just wasting more of his time, the door in front of him slowly opened. His heart lodged in his throat as he caught sight of Selene Spiros. She stood in the doorway, dressed in black workout tights, in a faded grey Puddlemere United t-shirt, and had one foot encased in a black running shoe while the other was just covered in a light pink ankle sock.
He realized that he did indeed catch her in the middle of changing to go for a run, as she was only wearing one trainer and her long dark hair was still sitting loosely around her shoulders and back.
Selene's face was a mask of politeness, "Did you need something James?"
"We need to talk."
The minute the words were out of his mouth he regretted the fact that he hadn't thought them through before saying them, but in his defense, the sight of a not-yet-angry Selene Spiros was rather disarming.
Selene's grey eyes, usually wide and expressive, were guarded as she slowly nodded her head at his words and gestured with her head for him to enter the changing room. He complied with her suggestion quickly, the only thing more awkward than potentially being caught exiting the change room at the same time as Selene, would have been having their next conversation out in the open corridor where anyone could stumble upon them.
James only stepped into the room enough for the door to close completely behind him. Selene stepped past him and sat down on the closest bench and began to put on her other running shoe.
"I think pretending that I don't know what you want to talk about would be a disservice to us both," Selene told James calmly as she slipped her foot into the black trainer.
"I still don't think I have the whole story about what the hell's going on out there," James said as he jerked his thumb in the general direction of the world outside the change room, "But I do know that I need to apologize and beg your forgiveness."
"Do you at least know what you're apologizing and begging forgiveness for?" She asked as her fingers nimbly turned her loose laces into a tight double-knot.
"Something about Will Dyson being a lying prat and my girlfriend jumping to conclusions and hysterically repeating to our house a rumour that she really should have discussed with me first," He replied.
Selene looked up at him for the first time since he entered the room, "I don't expect you to apologize for other people's actions James."
What remained unspoken was that he had yet to apologize for his own actions. James took a few steps closer to Selene and sat down next to her on the bench.
"Well then the next step on this apology tour should be for my own actions."
"And which actions are you apologizing for?"
Even though he still didn't have the full story, he knew the part he played in the creation of this rumour. If Lauren was to be believed, her reiteration was that Will Dyson had been the git who'd told James's girlfriend that he'd seen James kissing Selene before Christmas, so he figured he'd start there.
"I'm sorry that Dyson saw me kiss you under the mistletoe in December," James told her.
Selene's grey eyes stared into James's brown ones, "You're sorry that Dyson saw you kiss me? Or you're sorry that you kissed me in the first place?"
Therin lied the real problem.
James did feel really bad that someone had spotted him kissing a woman that wasn't his girlfriend, and that that action came back to hurt both his girlfriend and the woman who'd done nothing except get stuck under a sprig of magical mistletoe. However, he couldn't say that he regretted kissing Selene under the mistletoe. The stubborn part of him insisted that she would have been stuck in the corridor under the magical plant for who knows how long if she'd waited for someone else to come along and kiss her and release her from the spell, but the majority of him knew that his pathetic attempts to justify his actions were just that; pathetic attempts.
"I'm sorry that I kissed you, on the lips, when the mistletoe you were stuck under only required me to kiss you on the cheek to release you from the spell," James replied mechanically.
She sighed heavily and shook her head at his words, her dark hair flying around her face as she did so, "We've already discussed this James. Your–the kiss on the lips was an accident. You'd assumed that it was the type of mistletoe that required a kiss on the lips, because that's what Freddie bloody Weasley had charmed to appear over my head three other times that day. You were just trying to help."
"Then I'm not quite sure what else I should apologize for," James admitted honestly.
The edge of Selene's lip quirked up in a half smile, "I don't need you to apologize for anything. You haven't done anything wrong, and I haven't done anything wrong bar gaining Will Dyson's derision in the first place."
"So . . . we're good then?" James asked confusedly.
From the way her friends Jordan and Teagan had been protecting her, he had assumed that he was going to come face-to-face with either a completely distraught or an extremely angry Selene Spiros. Those expectations couldn't be more different from the cool and collected house mate he had before him.
"We're good."
"You know, Teagan and Jordan led me to believe that I was risking my life coming to see you."
Selene let out a deep exhale from her nose, "You would have been if you were Dyson, Lauren Dawson, or any of those other Slytherin girls who I caught jeering at me on my walk down here."
"Yeah, Scorpius kinda said something about Davinia Selwyn and her friends trading rumours about . . . well about us," James admitted.
"So that's how Dyson's rumour found such fertile ground," Selene replied with a roll of her grey eyes as she searched the pocket of her tights for a hair tie.
James nodded sadly, "I'll do whatever I need to, to fix this Selene, I promise. Freddie's already planning what we're going to say to Dyson, I'll get Mélanie's friends to stop talking about the rumour, and I'll somehow get Scorpius to get his teammates in line-"
Selene pulled her hair into her hands and wrapped the elastic around it in a high ponytail, "James, this isn't all on you to fix, and I don't expect you to. If you retaliate against Dyson too obviously, he'll know it was you and he'll only make the rumour worse. Jane Morris is Slytherin's Head Girl and she'll handle any ridiculous rumours that are being spread within the Slytherin common room. Unlike Dyson, she has a sense of decency. All you need to do is have Mélanie convince her friends to just lay off."
"That will be the first thing I do when she lets me speak to her-"
"You haven't spoken to her yet?"
Selene's shocked words interrupted his speech and his eyes were trained on her even more astonished expression. It was the first time he'd seen her as anything other than calm and collected since he entered the change room.
James felt his ears go hot, "Lauren told me that I should give her some space to cool down and I didn't want to force my presence on her when I wasn't wanted-"
"So you came to talk to me instead?" Selene asked, her voice no longer controlled but actually edging towards panic.
"Well, I didn't know if you were in here cursing me out in Greek and yelling to the old team photos about how much you hated me for putting you in this position-"
She interrupted him yet again by standing up from the bench abruptly, "You should be more worried about your girlfriend right now James, than about me. I'm just your . . . teammate. And now that quidditch is over-"
"We're not just teammates Selene, we're friends. And as my friend I'm allowed to be just as worried about you as I am about Mélanie in this situation," James told her firmly as he also stood up from the bench to face her.
Selene shot James a look of pity, but deep in her eyes there was also a twinge of panic that he was able to identify despite her best effort to hide it.
"We're both going to be really busy these next few weeks studying for N. E. W. T.s James . . . so how about we do the both of us a favour and just focus on school and ignore the rumours at large. If we act as nothing more than teammates people will start to realize that that's all that's between us," Selene suggested, saying the words slowly, with control, and without any inflexion to help James identify how she actually felt as she said the words.
James stared at Selene's face, her expression was still measured, but that twinge of fear that had been in her eyes earlier was still there, along with a loose strand of her hair that hadn't quite made it up into her ponytail. Her eyes were too intense to focus on, so his gaze locked on the loose strand of hair instead. He idly reached forward, grabbed the lock of hair between his forefinger and thumb, and moved her hair so that it rested behind her ear and was no longer in her face.
He heard her swallow thickly as he withdrew his hand from her face, and she rolled back onto her heels.
"I should go for my run, and you should go to your girlfriend."
James nodded.
"And, you should refrain from telling your girlfriend that we had this little talk."
"Why-"
She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation, "Do I really have to explain to you why you shouldn't tell your girlfriend that while she was crying into her pillow about you cheating on her, you were busy talking to the woman she thinks you were cheating on her with?"
"We're not cheating-"
"Which she doesn't know yet because you haven't explained to her that Will Dyson's a lying Malakas."
James's lips twitched. He knew they were discussing something serious, but hearing her swear in Greek was oddly adorable.
"Could you repeat that so I can be sure to pronounce it properly when I explain it to Mel?"
Selene's lips twitched as well, "I need to run."
"I'll get out of your hair then."
Selene nodded and stretched her arms above her head, "I'll see you at our Charms exam."
A week later and Selene's suggested plan that they should just ignore each other, and hope that their minimal interactions would help the rumour mill die down, seemed to be working. Besides the odd whisper between Davina Selwyn and one of her Slytherin friends, and the constant pain-in-the-arse sly smile Dyson would send him whenever he spotted James in the same room as Selene, James figured that the worst of the rumours surrounding him and his Gryffindor teammate had started to die down.
James knew that the thing that was helping their rumour situation the most was that he and his girlfriend Mélanie were still going strong, or at least that was the persona they seemed to be projecting to the rest of the castle.
After almost half of their Charms study day being wasted, Lauren Dawson finally cornered James in the library where he was attempting to study for their exam the next day with Freddie and Nolan. His girlfriend's friend informed him that Mélanie would deign to speak to him, and he rushed to where Lauren had informed him he could find her. What followed was a few days and many conversations worth of explanations, apologizing, imploring, and a few arguments. In the end James was able to convince Mélanie that Will Dyson didn't know the whole story when he told her that he had caught James kissing Selene in December, or at least that's what his girlfriend told him she believed after their fourth discussion on the topic. James could tell that Mélanie was still leery and a little sensitive about the situation, but she had told him that she didn't want to break up, so he took that as a sign, of some sort.
They had both been very busy studying for N. E. W. T.s once they settled their relationship issues, so James didn't have much time, or the attention span, to notice that his relationship with Mélanie had devolved into something that might not actually be worth saving.
On the day of the seventh-year's Defense Against the Dark Arts N. E. W. T. practical exam, James found himself face-to-face with the realization that his relationship with Mélanie, his first real girlfriend, was mostly over in principle if not in name.
The thought had flashed through his mind for the first time in the middle of eating breakfast of all things, but he'd quickly stashed it away into one of the darker recesses of his mind while he focused on that day's upcoming practical assessment. His cousin Freddie was oddly quiet and serious that day as well, knowing that their parents expected all of them to achieve at least an 'exceeds expectations' in their Defense Against the Dark Arts class for their own protection. Freddie's uncharacteristic seriousness made James feel as though the morning was dragging on at a snail's space until he found himself, along with half of the seventh-years who took DADA at the N. E. W. T. level, waiting outside the classroom where the students with the last names from 'H-O' were completing their practical.
James was quizzing Freddie in a monotone voice to help his cousin get some last-minute practice in, while down the hallway the rest of the students seemed to be paired off doing the same thing. Lenny Vale was drilling Marianne Zhales on proper wand technique for a few defensive spells, and closer to the classroom door Selene Spiros was physically showing her friend Jordan Simpson the proper way to flick her wrist at the end of a Hastamnia curse.
Freddie had just properly explained to James how he would go about shielding himself from a Catomidium hex, when Professor Suggit exited the classroom and called the next group of students in.
"Callie Peterson, James Potter, Lucrecia Quest, David Randall, Ottone Ratclyffe, Morris Revere, Harve Ruggeri, Rolland Sandberg, Leanne Seary, Chryssa Shelby, Jordan Simpson, and Selene Spiros."
James followed Rolland Sandberg into the classroom, where Professor Suggit pointed him towards an elderly male examiner who looked older than his Great-Great Auntie Muriel. After going through the normal 'Oh, you must be Harry Potter's son' rigmarole, James began his practical DADA exam.
He breezed through most of the questions with ease, he was a good student when he tried to be, and when he the examiner asked him at the end of the exam to show in his patronus charm, James bit his lip to hide his grin. Patronus charms were easy when you've been learning how to cast them since you were a thirteen-year-old. James took a few minutes to compose himself before he attempted to wordlessly cast the spell. He hazarded a glance around the classroom as he considered which memory he'd choose to create the happy feeling he needed to cast the patronus charm.
To his right, Callie Peterson unfortunately displayed the wrong counter-curse to a full-body-bind curse, and on his left Jordan Simpson was just shaking hands with her examiner and walking towards the classroom exit, having just finished her practical. A few people down from Jordan Simpson's now empty spot, James could see Selene Spiros using her wand to direct her own corporeal patronus around the room. He smiled a little upon seeing the satisfied look on Selene's own face, and then turned back to his examiner; he suddenly knew which memory he was going to use.
After turning back to his examiner, James closed his eyes and cleared his mind except for his chosen memory. It was his most recent happy memory, which meant that it should be relatively strong compared to some of his other happy memories that were farther removed. As he thought through the memory, he waited for the unmistakable surge of happiness that would cue him to start the wand movement for his spell.
Only it didn't come.
There was the sense of accomplishment, and even some smugness, but as he thought over the memory it didn't fill him with the level of happiness he knew he needed to make the spell work properly. He thought over the memory for the third time when an image of Selene Spiros's proud face, from having just completed her own patronus charm, randomly popped into his mind. The half a second long memory of her face cued up another recent memory, and as he thought it through, he felt the unmistakable feeling of happiness bubble up inside him. He didn't bother to stop and consider what his feelings meant, he just channeled them into his spell and opened his eyes in time to see a large and familiar silvery lion erupt from his wand and stalk around the periphery of the classroom.
The lion stopped beside James and proudly shook out his mane, looking like a shining silver beacon of Gryffindor house. A few of his classmates around him stopped mid-spell to stare at his absolutely humongous corporeal patronus, but he found himself glancing to where Selene stood to see if she was looking at him too. Her eyes were trained on his patronus, a small smile turning up the corners of her lips. She looked at his patronus for another second before turning to her examiner and shaking her hand, signalling the end of her exam.
James glanced back at his examiner, who was closely inspecting his lion patronus, and waited for the examiner to tell him which spell was next on his list.
Three spells later and James was shaking his own examiner's hand and walking towards the door on the opposite side of the classroom's entrance. They were all instructed to take a different exit when leaving the classroom than the door they used to come in so that they wouldn't spill any of the exam questions to the members of their class who were still waiting to take theirs. The exit corridor from exams were always much less crowded than the hallways near the entrances were, so James was surprised when he saw a lone figure sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall opposite the classroom door.
"You alright Selene?"
Selene Spiros looked up from a piece of paper she was holding in her hands.
"I'm fine James."
He frowned at her, sitting cross-legged on the hard stone floor couldn't be comfortable.
"So, sitting on gross floors is how you celebrate finishing one more practical exam then?"
"I'm waiting for someone else to finish their exam," She explained with a bit of an eyeroll.
That confused James even more; Selene's closest friends at Hogwarts were Teagan Childs and Jordan Simpson. Teagan had finished her exam at least two hours before them because of where her last name fell in the alphabet, and he could have sworn that he saw Jordan Simpson leave their practical exam before either he or Selene had finished theirs.
"Who?"
He wasn't sure why he was so interested in asking her such benign questions, but if he had to guess he would probably say it was because he hadn't actually had any interactions with her since the week before when he tried to apologize for Dyson spreading rumours about them.
"In fifth year, Marianne Zhales mentioned that she hated that she was always the last one to leave our practical exams, and that she didn't like walking alone back from the sometimes random and secluded classrooms in the corners of the castle that we end up taking our exams in. I promised her that I'd wait for her after our next practical exam, and a tradition was born," Selene explained to him with a shrug.
James blinked at her in disbelief. Marianne Zhales was a member of Hufflepuff house, and besides the handful of classes they had together over the years, James couldn't remember Selene being particularly close to her. The fact that Selene was waiting on the aforementioned gross, hard floor to walk back with a Hufflepuff that she had no more than a passing acquaintance with was both telling, and yet somehow also unsurprising. He wouldn't have believed it about anyone else, but of Selene he did.
"So how long do you expect to be out here then?"
Selene shrugged, seemingly unconcerned, "Marianne's a little self-conscious when it comes to practical exams . . . she'll most likely be the last one to finish."
"Well . . . I'll see you later then?" James said a little awkwardly. He couldn't think of a reason to continue where he was talking to Selene, even though a little part of him was still scrounging around for an excuse to stay longer.
His housemate nodded her head at him and lifted her hand to wave, before freezing mid-motion, "Actually, I was wondering if I could ask you something about your patronus . . ."
Her words were slow and controlled. Everybody knew that people's patronuses were very personal things, and sometimes discussions about them could turn very sensitive.
James glanced around them at the empty hallway and then looked back at Selene, "Yeah, sure."
Selene had watched his eye movements and she slowly stood up from her spot on the floor, "Would you like to find somewhere more private where no one will stumble upon us? I'm sure there's an empty classroom around here somewhere-"
"Claudette."
Her grey eyes narrowed at him in confusion, "Pardon?"
"The tapestry of Claudette of Chancery," He explained as he pointed to a tapestry that was hanging on the wall about two metres down the corridor, "There's actually a-"
"Secret passage behind it?" She finished for him with a raised eyebrow.
James raised an eyebrow of his own, "How'd you find out about that secret passage?"
"I'm Gryffindor's Head Girl, I know everything," Selene replied with a grin as she took a few steps towards the tapestry.
James followed her towards the hidden passage, "You know everything do you?"
"Mmmhmm, and the things I don't already know are sometimes divulged to me by a drunk Alice Longbottom," She responded.
James rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath about Alice not being able to handle her alcohol, as they made it to the tapestry. He pulled it aside and gestured for Selene to go in first. He followed after her and let the tapestry settle over the opening behind them. There were ancient sconces on the walls above their heads and he pulled his wand out to light them. After finishing the spell, he put his wand away and gestured widely to the cramped passageway they were standing in.
"More comfortable?"
She rolled her eyes at him and settled herself down on the floor of the passage, "And this is preferable to my other spot on the floor because . . . ?"
James glanced around them awkwardly before settling on the floor next to her, "It's more private?"
A chuckle escaped her lips, letting James know that she was just taking the piss when she gave him a hard time about moving from sitting on one grimy floor to another.
"So, what did you want to ask?"
Selene ran a hand self-consciously through her loose dark hair, her fingers twisting the ends that were still dyed a bright scarlet red from their last Gryffindor House quidditch match, "How did you make your patronus so strong? It looked massive, and I would have thought it was real if it weren't for the colouring."
"There's no special trick to it really. I just picked a happy memory. Dad says that the happier the memory the stronger the patronus, while Aunt Hermione suggests that the more recent the very happy memory is, the easier it will be to work with," He explained.
She pursed her lips, "Hmmm. Makes sense. I guess I've got to find a more recent happy memory if I want a stronger showing."
"Your patronus looked good Selene, I wouldn't be worried about it. Do you mind if I ask what memory you used?"
"I usually use my memory from the day Simon was born."
James had to smile, it was such a Selene Spiros thing to do, to say that her happiest memory was the day that her much younger half-brother was born.
"That's a great memory to use. Even though it happened years ago, your present love for your brother should still ground you in it and give it force. The only thing I would caution, is that sometimes as memories age, other emotions can come along that taint the original memory. For example, I love Lily and I think I recall her birth as being a happy day, but she's just grown into such a pain in the arse that the memory of her birth has been clouded over with those sometimes-annoyed emotions," James explained.
His assurances seemed to do the opposite for her though, her face slipped into a knowing frown, "Oh . . . well that explains it."
"What explained what?"
Selene sighed, "As a pre-teen my memory of Simon's birth was a happy one, but like you said, as I've aged, I seem to remember other aspects of it . . . mostly my grandfather coming from Greece for it and him spending the time leading up to my step-mother's delivery, insulting my mother and her family."
"Yeah, that would probably dampen it's effectiveness as a memory for a patronus," James mused.
"I'll pick something different next time," She assured him.
He raised a dark brow at her, "You plan on needing to use a patronus outside of the theoretical realm after we graduate school?"
She shrugged nonchalantly, "You never know. Anyway, I showed you mine, your turn to show me yours."
He thought about teasing her and pretending that he didn't know what she was talking about, but then he figured he should answer her truthfully since she was so truthful in her response.
"I used a memory from winning the House Cup two weeks ago," He admitted.
"And that was strong enough?" Selene questioned him.
It wasn't at first. In fact, his memory didn't start to elicit the right amount of happy emotion until he thought specifically about the part of the memory when he saw Selene's face once they'd landed on the ground after Al had caught the snitch. She was the person closest to him when they dismounted from their brooms, and almost like magnets he'd been drawn to her in their excitement. In a matter of seconds, he had scooped her up in a hug and spun her around so fast that her feet had left the grass. Something about that particular part of the memory had been strong enough to make the correct type of power surge through him, and when he felt like he was ready to cast the spell he went ahead and did it without considering what exactly it meant.
Now that he was thinking it over again outside of his practical DADA exam, he felt his throat thicken with saliva and his pulse start to speed up.
"Yes, that memory was enough."
She caught his gaze for a second as she considered him. He wasn't quite sure what she found in his eyes, but he was so worried that his quickly beating heart would give away something else, that he just stayed frozen in place.
Selene looked away from James's brown eyes and glanced down at the pocket of her robes where her hand was starting to dig through it, "I guess if I was brave enough, I might have had a better happy memory to use."
He glanced down at her hands and saw her pull out the paper she had been holding when he first found her in the corridor. Upon closer inspection he realized that the piece of paper she was holding was actually an envelope. And envelope that was oddly familiar to him even though it was clearly addressed to her. His gaze traced over the forest green writing and the familiar insignia of the wax seal on the back of the letter.
"That's from the Holy Head Harpies."
He stated the obvious, but Selene didn't tease him like he thought she might. She seemed too worried about what the contents of the letter might contain, to be listening to him too closely.
"I got it a breakfast . . . but I didn't want to open it before the practical because-"
"Because you were worried that it would distract you," James finished the thought before she could.
She locked her grey gaze with his brown one, "Yeah. I figured a rejection letter wouldn't help me focus for our practical."
James didn't correct her, or tell her that her fears that the letter contained a rejection were ridiculous.
He knew that the letter could only hold an offer for her to join the Holy Head Harpies' professional second-string quidditch team upon graduating, but he also understood that the unknown was a very scary thing. The Harpies would be ridiculous not to give Selene an offer, and since they had started scouting her around Christmas time, he also knew that they wouldn't put all of the effort that they had into her without presenting her with some sort of offer after she graduated. He also knew though, that despite Selene's relatively healthy sense of confidence, everyone became nervous when their dreams were on the line.
"I understand," He told her. He slowly reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out an envelope of his own. The difference was that the writing on his letter was dark blue, and the wax insignia sealing it together was that of the Puddlemere United quidditch team, "It's why I also have yet to open the letter I received at breakfast."
Her eyes lit up in excitement upon seeing his envelope, "Congratulations James! You did it."
"I told you that I didn't open it yet."
Selene's expression was earnest as she placed her hand on his forearm, "You're too amazing not to get an offer James. Puddlemere's been scouting you since, like, October."
He knew how Selene felt about being excited but also anxious to open her letter, because he had one of his own that he had been procrastinating opening since early that morning. While Selene had been scouted by his mother's old professional quidditch team during the last school quidditch year, James had been scouted by Puddlemere United's professional team for their only open second-string chaser position. His letter also seemed to contain Schrödinger's offer.
"If I'm so irresistible, how come I never received an offer from my favourite team?"
Selene sighed heavily and changed her comforting grip on his arm to a pinch, "You're such a git. You know that the Harpies don't recruit men."
"No, it seems they only recruit super talented and smart Hogwarts Head Girls."
She moved her hand from his arm and tapped her finger on her envelope, "We don't know that yet."
"Yet," He repeated with a self-assured smile.
"Well, if you're so confident why don't you turn that inward and open your own letter?"
James looked down at his envelope consideringly before giving his head just the slightest shake. He glanced back at Selene's face and held his envelope out to her, "Trade ya?"
It took her half a second to grasp what he was suggesting, and even less time to nod her head in agreement. They traded envelopes and then turned the letters around so that they were staring at the wax crests.
"On the count of three?"
"One."
"Two."
"Three."
James opened the letter and his eyes scanned the page in a hurry until he found the sentence he was looking for. He peeled his eyes off the letter and glanced up at Selene, she caught his eye at the same time and her face broke out into a beautiful smile.
"You did it!" He blurted out to her without any other preamble.
Her expression didn't change as his words registered in her head, because she was too busy announcing to him his own news.
"So did you!"
James's bright smile somehow widened even more as he heard his own good news. He felt Selene trying to hand him his offer so that he could read it for himself, but all he could focus on in that moment was the pure happiness shining in her grey eyes.
Her happiness for him. He didn't know how he knew it, but he did. In that moment it was undeniable that the source of happiness shinning in her eyes wasn't for her own accomplishment, but for his.
As he focused on her face, he quickly found himself drawn forward. Before he knew what was going on one of them – or both of them, it was impossible to tell– had closed the distance between their faces, and pressed their lips together.
While James didn't quite know what had gotten into him, he did know exactly what he was doing. There was no confusion over who he was kissing, and as for the why, the only thoughts that were running through his scattered mind were that he had felt such a sudden rush of happiness and affection for Selene, and that the way he had apparently chosen to demonstrate those feeling was by capturing her mouth with his and kissing her was all of the emotion he was presently feeling, along with other emotions that he hadn't realized had been slowly simmering under the surface.
There was no way for him to know what was going through Selene's mind, bar pulling away from her and verbally asking her, but he decidedly knew that following that approach would put an end to their kiss completely and he wasn't quite ready for that to happen yet. He did know that she must not have been completely horrified with the kiss, because even though she could have pulled away from him, she did the opposite and pressed her lips back against his. Her hands found themselves pressed against his chest, but instead of pushing him away, she seemed to be clutching the fabric of his robes. Whatever sense he had left in his mind disappeared when he realized that Selene was reciprocating the kiss, and it along with any semblance of a rational thought that might have been starting to take shape, promptly vanished as though someone had cast an Obliviate spell at him.
His hands travelled to her head and while one hand rested in her cheek the other slipped to the back of her head where it cradled the nape of her neck. Everywhere they touched felt electric, and James deepened the kiss when he heard her let out a quiet sigh. The kiss felt intense, but his mouth was soft as he caressed hers. One of her hands slipped up from his chest and rested on his neck. Her fingers only just stroked the fine hairs on the back of his neck while her thumb came to rest near his pulse point. The feeling of her fingertip resting overtop of his pulse made his heart beat more quickly and he thought that if she couldn't yet feel his blood thumping through his veins, she'd definitely be able to hear it.
He felt her start to pull away after what could have been five minutes or two hours, but it seemed that she'd only removed her mouth from his so that she could take a few deep breaths. He hadn't realized until that point either that he could also use some more oxygen, as he'd been more focused on kissing Selene than he had been on breathing.
James opened his eyes and instead of all of his thoughts coming back to him now that he was no longer snogging her, staring at her face further ensured that his mind would stay blank. The skin of her cheeks, which, like the rest of her skin normally had a golden shine to it even in the darkest months of winter, had a faint red glow to them from her blush. Between her rosy cheeks and the brightness in her grey eyes she looked absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. His gaze locked on hers and he pressed his lips to hers again, the hand that was still in her hair helping him maneuver their faces together so that he could kiss her deeply once more.
Selene kissed him back yet again, but just before James could get lost in all of the sensations once more, she pulled her mouth away from his and removed her hands from his body.
"James . . ."
Her tone of voice was agonized, and it was enough of a shock to James's system that it got his head working again.
"Selene-"
"You should leave," She interrupted him before he could apologize, try to explain, beg her forgiveness, or whatever the Hell would have come out of his mouth in she hadn't interrupted him.
He swallowed thickly and realized that whatever he could have said probably would have made the whole situation worse, so he stayed quiet except for letting out a loud exhale. He glanced at her face once more and could tell right away that all she wanted in that moment was to bolt.
Why she didn't just get up and leave was confusing for him until a little voice in the back of his head, from where it came, he did not know; reminded him that Selene had promised Marianne Zhales that she'd wait in the hall for her until she finished her practical.
It was such a Selene Spiros thing to do, to be completely devastated and mortified by a situation he put her in, only to refuse to leave because she'd already made a promise to another classmate that she'd stay.
James silently nodded his head and began to look for his letter. Both his and Selene's letters were on the floor, they must have dropped them during their interlude. He picked up the one that was closest to her, guessing correctly that it had been his letter, and then he pushed himself to his feet. He took a few steps towards the passage's exit, but then he stopped and glanced back at Selene. She'd picked up her letter from the Holyhead Harpies, but she didn't seem to be reading it. Instead, the letter hung loosely in her left hand while her right hand had moved up to pinch the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were closed and the expression on her face was one of distress.
He bit his lip and couldn't stop himself from blurting out, "Mel and I have been done for a while now."
Selene's eyes snapped open and she stared at him.
"Technically we're still together, but emotionally we haven't-"
"It doesn't matter James."
Her voiced sounded defeated and she closed her eyes again.
James sighed, his head and his emotions swirling all over the place, he didn't know what he should think, or what he should feel, but he knew that he should leave her alone. He turned his back to her and walked to the end of the secret passage.
Before he could open the exit, he whispered one more thing into the silence of the passage, "I'm sorry."
A/N: Dun, dun, duuuuun! Wow, looks like I've just spilled the tea.
For those of you who are familiar with my stories, please let me know what you think!
For those of you who are new to my writing, I hope that you liked this one-shot. I have many, very lengthy, next gen stories under my belt. They mostly centre around a Teddy/Victoire pairing, but there is also a lot of mention of the other next gen Weasleys and Potters, hence my needing to write a one-shot about a missing moment with James. If you liked this story check out my profile and my other stories. I will warn you that I've been writing stories for a while, so you will see a change in writing ability if you read them chronologically.
Please leave me your thoughts, comments, questions, or concerns in a review or a PM.
Have a wonderful day!