CHECK YES JULIET ▷ JAMES POTTER [1]

𝟒𝟒. 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑

(44 : YOU ARE A LOVER . . .
BORROW CUPID'S WINGS)

✧࿐ ཾ✧

HIGH HEELS IN HAND, JULIET found herself padding towards the Gryffindor common room. Being surrounded by all those lovestruck couples made her reevaluate everything — there was no point skirting around her feelings when they were at war and their days of bliss might be numbered. The realisation then led to her recruiting Lily Evans as her messenger since she didn't know how else to reach James. The Gryffindor was more than willing to pass on a hastily scribbled note on a napkin to James Potter. Now Juliet could only hope he would actually show.

It was a little after curfew, but Slughorn's party had been in full swing when she left, which gave her a concrete excuse if she was caught out of bed by Filch. Juliet knew it was a risk to be out that late — lingering around Gryffindor Tower of all places — but it was a necessary risk. If she didn't take it, there was no doubt in her mind that she would keep making excuses as to why she couldn't tell James what she had known for more than a month now.

Juliet Fawley was finally prepared to be a lover and fighter. Just like him.

"Julie?" James sauntered out of the portrait hole. "I got your note."

From her place in the shadows, the redhead stepped forward and tapped her nails against her thigh. The moment had been so built up in her head that she didn't know if the reality would actually be able to compare. "Yeah, this couldn't really wait."

Her nervousness startled him. He'd always viewed her as this impenetrable, fierce figure that didn't get nervous. "To the Room of Requirement then?"

"This won't take long," she assured him, a piece of parchment wobbling in her unsteady stands. As a perfectionist, she had laboured over what she should say for weeks. "James, I've been thinking about how to tell you this for a while now and I —"

Snatching the parchment from her hand, James scanned what was written down with enlarged eyes and a muffled snicker. "Please tell me you don't actually have a cheat sheet on how to say I love you right now."

"It's not a cheat sheet," she defended without much conviction. "I didn't want to forget anything. In case you couldn't tell, I'm out of my depth here."

Emotions weren't exactly in Juliet's comfort zone. It was like her throat started to close in on itself and her tongue tied itself into a knot every time she so much as attempted to blurt out 'I love you.' In truth, the Slytherin really didn't trust herself to be spontaneous, to encapsulate the magnitude of her feelings for that one boy in a sentence or two. Even if James couldn't see it, she was trying so hard. Alchemy and Potions made sense to her — feelings did not.