Chapter 40: What is Worth a Fight

"And I killed him."

Cressida tightens her arms around James' stomach but lifts her head to peek out past the material of his shirt. Sirius only looks towards James. "You killed…Peter," James' tiny voice mumbles.

"I had to. Cressida gave him the chance to leave but he didn't. He was going to kill her, James. It was her or him and I chose."

Cressida bottom lip curls inwards at hearing his lies. Partial lies, but lies all the same. She saw where Peter's wand was pointed, and it wasn't at her. She knows he wouldn't have been able to do it himself. He would have brought her to the others to be slaughtered, but he was ready to attack Sirius and that would have been his death in consequence.

James' hand lifts to back to her head, pressing it closer against his stomach. His fingers curl through her hair and she can feel his pain and mourning. "I trusted him."

"We all did."

The day travels agonisingly slowly. James mostly stays in her old bedroom with Sirius talking. Mostly in whispers and Cressida purposely tries not to overhear them. She busies herself by cleaning and dusting shelves and the kitchen, checking through their belongings to figure out what they might need in the coming days. And when the time comes, and the sun is below the horizon, she takes two cans of tomato soup from the cupboard that only expired a month ago and heats them in a pot that she had washed out twice. It was a grim and plain-looking dinner, but there wasn't much else choice, and she didn't want to have James cooking in such a state.

She felt horrible. Both physically and mentally horrid. With two steaming bowls of thick soup, Cressida gently urges the bedroom door open with her shoulder since it wasn't locked close. James is sitting on the chair and as she did, has his feet pressed up against the side of the bed. His arms are crossed over his stomach.

"Here," she says, handing them a bowl each. "I'll get something better tasting soon." But the boys eagerly take the offering of dinner. Cressida leans her side against the spine of the chair, her gaze turned to the broken window which shows nothing but a dry and empty field.

"Aren't you eating?"

Cressida shakes her head in a state of absence.

"I didn't see you eat breakfast or lunch either," Sirius indignantly points out. Cressida didn't feel hungry. She would eat if she did but the notion of food in her stomach makes it gargle and churn.

"I'm going to get air. It's stuffy in here."

She turns away, the back of her mind hearing the sound of someone rising but a soft, "James, just wait," stops him from moving. Cressida takes herself to the back porch. It isn't much of a porch and rather a few short slabs of wood and a single stair that leads out to the back field.

The air is not that cold, the earth having been warmed generously through the day's summer heat that now lingers not long past sunset. She could see far enough to the silhouettes of the trees in the far distance that turns into a sparse forest of the English countryside.

Her head drops, eyes pulled to the ring on her left hand. She rubs her thumb over the small jewel, twisting the band over her skin. Without even realising, Cressida pulls the ring entirely off, holding it in her palm.

"Are you changing your mind?"

She snaps her eyes away from her skin and over her shoulder. James is quietly shutting the back door behind him. Her mouth stays closed as he meanders to her side, shuffling himself down to sit on the porch's edge as she is.

"That was a, um, joke, but now you're scaring me," James adds with a short chuckle.

Cressida closes her fingers tightly, not meeting his eyes. "I've been awful to you, James. Really, utterly, awful." Her throat chokes at the words but she forces it to relax so she can continue saying what is swallowing her mind. "And you must be a saint for getting this far with me."

James slowly turns away from the field to face her, drawing a leg up and stretching it out behind her. He leans close, placing a gentle hand on her back and begins to stroke it up and down.

With a heavy breath, she continues. "I remember you telling me that you thought I had a hazy view of perfection and of you, but I don't think I do. I think you do. Of me. I want to be perfect for you so bad, and I feel like I should know what to do. I do know what to do! But it's like every time I feel like I'm facing the right way, suddenly someone is yanking me on my shoulders and I'm doing the complete opposite. I get moments of clarity and I feel like such a fuck-up but then it fogs over again and I'm saying or doing something stupid and frankly downright awful to you! It's like something is trying to make me hurt you but there's nobody else but me."

The stroking over her back never falters.

Cressida twists her neck, looking into his eyes for the first time since he came out because she needs to see his reaction. "I killed him. Not Sirius." She watches his throat bob but his lips do not open to speak. "He was going to either hurt us or take me away and I knew that I had to get Sirius out of there. I did tell him to leave but he wouldn't listen. And… I really don't know how to handle it. Killing one of my best friends. But I need you to know that it was me and I just need to face your reaction to it."

"And if you didn't, maybe I wouldn't get to be sitting here with you. I'm not angry at you." His voice is gentle but steady. It makes her quickly come to the conclusion that he's lying. That she's messed up again and he remains the perfect person by not yelling at her. "What else?" Cressida's bottom lip quivers as she stares at him. James leans forward, his hand lifting to the base of her neck. "What else do you want to tell me?"

She owes him that 'what else'. If she had to minimise all her debt to people, this one would never leave. Cressida gathers her composure enough to answer. "I do love Sirius." She swallows hard, teeth biting into the sides of her cheeks. "I can't…I can't explain it properly but it's not the same love I have for you, but it is there."

The response he gives admittedly shakes her. "I know." Her jaw loosens, staring at his hazel eyes and she feels like she has just ruined him. But James only nods to himself with a weak smile. "I've known that for years. What I want to know is how you feel for me. There isn't one type of love."

Her brows meld together. There isn't? No, of course there isn't. There is a love of family, love of friends and romantic love. But she also knows what she feels towards Remus isn't the same as what she feels towards Sirius. "When I look at Sirius… It's comforting. It's warm. It's home. When I look at you my heart explodes." She lets out a bitter laugh, letting her head fall forward. "That sounds painfully cliché, but it's the only word I can find that fits. I don't feel uncomfortable, but, I'm on the edge of something constantly. Like I'm on the threshold of finding a creature that everybody thought wasn't real."

"It's magical, isn't it?" Cressida nods, lost in her own description until she recognises that James was the one to speak. He smiles, fuller and wider this time. "I realised quite a few things somewhat recently. One of them came to me the night that we got engaged and you told me about how your parents were married. That you didn't think I was going to actually propose to you. It wasn't anything I had said, you just didn't realise that is what people in love do." The backs of his fingers brush against her forehead, knocking away loose strands. "I don't think you have the best conception of what love really is. How it forms, why you feel it, what types of love there is. You already know that you feel differently for me than you do for Sirius. I know you love him. But what you described for him is actually pretty similar to how I feel for him. And I know that I'm not in love with him. But I do love him. He's my brother. I show that affection for him and so do you. You're just doing it in your way because you can't properly conceptualise what it is that you're feeling so you're searching for an answer. I was upset because I wasn't seeing the difference between him and me. You're intimate with Sirius, but it's not…romantic intimacy. That's the difference. I didn't see that for a long time until someone was able to point it out to me."

Cressida feels her lungs empty like someone has pulled a tiny plug and they slowly deflate. She can feel the inner workings of her body heighten. Her heart pumps in her throat, the feeling of her stomach churning around gas.

"I think you've also gotten it pretty damn rough," James continues. "You've gone from a shit family to having a small slither of something good then thrust into this war. And Sirius told me about the Horcruxes. He says they're affecting people that are around them for too long. And apparently you've actually had one with you since we left school two years ago, then you've had the ring for around a year now. I can't even begin to imagine how that's been affecting you. Now you have four. Frankly I've seen the change in you."

Her lips part and a shaky breath passes between them. "I don't…I don't want you making excuses for me."

And through a smile he says, "And I'm not." James shuffles himself closer, linking his arms around her entirely. "I'm not going to deny that things you've done have hurt me. But I'm not going to be the man who leaves you because things were tough. I want to marry you." He reaches down for her still tightly furled hand. At his touch, she loosens her fingers and reveals the ring. "Do you want to marry me?"

There's no pause of thought. Cressida nods fervently.

James touches his nose to her cheek. "I'm not making excuses for you. I'm putting words to the thoughts you're struggling to. I know that you have the best intentions when you act. And you told me that. All the time. You've always told me that you don't want people to hurt. Love is hard for you to grasp. You've had a lot of people die suddenly and haven't had the time to grieve. You are harbouring four Horcruxes that are probably drawing on darkness already inside of you. You want me to be happy, but you can't read my mind and don't know how to give that to me."

Cressida leans into his touch. Ever so softly, she nods.

"I think you were right. About waiting for the war to be over before we get married. There's too much going on." She turns in his hold, leaning against him and buries her head into his shirt. Every word he spoke resonated with her in a way that she never knew could happen. Like someone had entered into her mind and arranged the puzzle of her thoughts. Like Regulus had done only on a much grander scale. It was still messy, but a beginning.

"You haven't been awful to me." James tightens his arms, letting her body relax completely. "You've been awful to yourself and that's what hurts me. I love you and you love me. And that's worth fighting for."