fundamentals of love ; james sirius potter

30. tis the damn season

Life gets better.

And, I don't know how many times I needed to hear that throughout the years, but it's true. Life indeed gets better because, after a certain point, rock bottom gently kicks you out of its hell hole and lets you begin to rise up, higher and higher until you realize that the days have been good for a while now. You have been good for a while now and it's a strange feeling that fills you with anxiety, but even that slowly pours out because it does indeed get better.

I love history, I've always loved history, and when I was awake late at night looking through old documents trying to classify a broken caldron we found, I realised how happy I was. Even the small tasks nobody cared for made me happy because I was able to do something I loved. Maybe, it wasn't just the job, but rather the people that surrounded me as well.

Isla smiles, "Remember how you used to obsessively read over that history essay you got a hundred on whenever you were sad," she asks, though we both know I know. "I think seeing you do that made me realise that we both were really sad, you were better at hiding it."

"I don't think the sadness ever outgrew me as it did with you," I mumble, watching the air hostess begin walking down the aisle with her cart.

"No, I just became better at hiding it."

"Are you sad right now?"

"Not really," she says.

I'm closing my eyes. "That's good, I always hope you're doing well."

"I do too," Isla says softly, "so, tell me about him."

So Victor, who's ten years older than me and looks just like Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron (yes I think he's hot, I can't even help it). He's my best friend basically, we both love taking the train to the city and bullying each other mercilessly. Victor and I have not stopped discussing the British Revolution since we met seven weeks ago, we're only at William and Mary of Orange, so there's still a lot to cover and I'm afraid for when we talk about Princess Diana because he's an avid Crown fan.

But, it's not the fact Victor makes fun of or that he'd die for Princess Diana (those aren't even original traits, Jimmy and Sunil are the exact same), I think what really solidifies him as someone I truly liked was at the wedding we went to in the middle of December.

It was a high-profile donor to the program. Her name was Lola and she loved all my colleagues, especially Victor. We both dressed up the nicest we ever had and took each other as our plus ones because it just made sense. It's not like we had anyone else and we'd come to really enjoy the other's company, so who else to spend a wedding with.

I remember at night, during the reception, we both watched all these people dance while glued in our seats. "Have you ever been in love," I asked, as Lola and her husband twirled like diamonds.

"Three times," he said, "it's been a while now though. All of them have gotten married, two of them even invited me to their wedding." Victor had a deep navy suit and had a glass of scotch in his hands. "What about you?"

And, I'd decided after the incident with James that one night, I was truly going to be sober forever. So all I had in my hands was cold water. "I had my Hogwarts sweetheart, thought we were going to be forever, but we ended up breaking up. We're still good friends though," I told him, as a Taylor Swift song began to play and I was overcome with nostalgia. "And, there was this boy, maybe there still is. But it doesn't matter much anymore."

"I think things matter as long as you think about them."

I didn't like that idea, so I looked away at the ground. "It ended really bad."