Delicate | James Potter

2.16

"I want to ask Lily." James breathed. "She's amazing. She's so beautiful and smart and..."

He trailed off. Alice wasn't entirely sure if it was because he didn't know what else to say or if he really was just too drunk and exhausted to dive into a list. She hoped the latter; 'beautiful and smart' seemed almost generic for someone so insistent on their feelings of love. Maybe she was being salty.

"And you need my help?" She asked, voice a little harder than it had been before.

James didn't seem to notice. "It's - it's because you guys are... are friends. You're a very nice person and... and she'll listen you."

"Oh." It was all she found herself able to say. She'd been foolish to think anything otherwise, and it made her feel a little sick.

"Does that mean yes?"

"You're drunk James."

He blinked slowly at her. "But will you?"

Alice sighed and pulled her legs up onto the sofa, her whole body tilting away from James so that she was lying down horizontally, tucked into a ball, head on the armrest. "Maybe in the morning."

James made a small noise of acknowledgment and said nothing more. Alice lay awake for a while after that. She knew he fell asleep when his breath grew shallow and calm, but she struggled to drift off herself. It was selfish to hope he forgot what he asked her by morning, but she wished it all the same. She didn't want to help him win Lily as a date.

At some point, before she could decide to go upstairs, Alice must have fallen asleep. She had a peculiar dream about a small rabbit trying to find its way through a field of tall grass, and in it, each time the rabbit thought it had reached the edge of the field, it found another in front. She wasn't sure what it meant, seemingly nothing, but Alice didn't dwell long on it, not when she was woken by a nagging voice.

"Wake up." It hissed. Her head twisted away from the noise, further back into the cushion behind her head, face scrunching. "Oi, Goldilocks."

Alice blinked a few times as the light of morning pierced her eyes. It was brighter than she remembered, though quickly discovered it was because she was lay directly opposite the window and the sun was a spotlight upon her. She moved so it wouldn't be.

"Sirius?"

"Yes it's me. Now wake up. I need my Prongs for breakfast."

"What?" She muttered groggily, lifting her head up and for the first time looking around. It took a few moments even then, mind confused from the unusual start, and she took to rubbing at her eyes so that her wavering vision cleared. "What do you mean?"