𝗷𝗮𝗻𝗲, harry potter

˗ˋ 83

CHAPTER EIGHTY THREE
✧
-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH THE DATE
COMES TO A CLOSE

. . .

Somehow, Harry telling Jane that he loved her - after she said it first, of course - seemed to make the world brighter. It added something of vibrancy that he hadn't known he had been missing. But now that he had it? It was so, so obvious that his life had possessed a certain dullness... like all he ate was bland food and all he did was the same thing day-in-day out.

Of course.. the whole repetitiveness was something he was currently living through, but unlike the times when the tedious lifestyle was carrying out chores for the Dursleys, there was something different about carrying on with Mrs Weasley's cleaning regime or sitting around in the drawing-room doing nothing but listen to Sirius fantasize about getting another piercing at the hands of Jane, or about his days at school whenever Remus walked in (and now that Harry knew.. well everything about them, he tended to notice more things and wondered whether he had done anything like that), or play a game of chess with Ron.

But the tiresome schedule was broken by one very important thing - Jane. And now that there was some sort of undeniable, actually spoken, feeling conveyed between them.. everything was all the more brighter. And it wasn't just exclusively then, ever since Harry met her his life had just been getting better, the saturation levels slowly increasing and increasing so that the once black and white view he had been left in since the final task of the Triwizard Tournament was now coloured perfectly.

Now that Jane was in his life, now that they had said 'I love you' - that beloved, sacred oath that would perhaps seem like something... overstated considering their age, everything was level. It was final; it was perfect.

Of course, the idea of their age being something that made that emotion seem like overkill, also was allowed to be emphasized because of it. Harry didn't care at this age, he didn't care what others would think about it because he felt so strongly about it. He had never felt something like that before and was so purely overwhelmed by it that he didn't know what to do. He was just insanely lucky that the battle of rising emotions was only taking place within his house, because outwardly perhaps his reaction would be a lot more severe, so to speak.

And Jane was carefully eating one of the buns that he and Remus had made the other day, hand covering her mouth as she took a bite, nodding slowly. "These are good." She complimented, peeling back the paper wrapping even further and licking the tiniest bit of drippy icing on the corner of her finger. 

Harry grinned, pushing past the barrier of overpowering emotions. "You thought they were bad? I'll have you know that me and Professor Lupin spent a good twenty minutes to find a recipe... and a lot longer to get together all the ingredients and actually follow it?" He paused. "We were better at the savoury things."

"You don't say." Jane hummed, eyeing the remains of the bits they had already eaten. "But these are good, and the buttercream is good. I always make it too sweet and then it makes them sickly."

"Huh." Harry brought his knees up to his chest as he drank the last of the pinkish-liquid in his cup - raspberry lemonade was surprisingly easy to figure out. Jane looked up from her bun, head cocking as she questioned his words. "I just never thought I'd be better at making buttercream than you."

Jane laughed, closing the small space between them to place a kiss on his cheek before her head came to lean on his shoulder. "You're a cheeky bludger." She said, taking another bite of her bun.

His arm had quite naturally come to sit around her shoulders, the end of his fingers toying with the caps of her sleeves. "Who have you been talking to that teaches you that?" He asked. 

"I had a conversation with Mr Weasley last night. I told him about bath bombs and he taught me all these wizarding idioms." Jane replied, head tilting upwards as he pressed a kiss to her hairline. "Now I can swear without Flora telling me off because I can feign ignorance."

"Smart." Harry nodded, beginning to sit up and pull the covers over some of the dishes. The lulls in their talk made the conversations in the house below all the more apparent; he had heard their names being brought up in conversations on the landing below the ladder that brought them up here. 

"Ending so soon?" The words came out as a question, but Jane was already sitting up and helping him without a question, picking up plates. "I suppose we'd better though.. I think Fred and George are waiting to pounce."

"Your hearing is way too precise." A voice came from the hole in the ceiling. "Also we weren't listening... although I suppose there's no point pulling the prank now." There was some shuffling around before the voice came through again. "Don't mind us - back to your lovey-dovey shit." 

Harry's lips curled up into a smile, Jane meeting his eyes as she covered her mouth with her spare hand. He shook his head at their shared reactions, seeing as they definitely should have reacted more annoyed at it, but that was another thing they had in common; no matter what the Weasley twins did, it was so much harder to try and be annoyed with them when all you could do was find them funny. 

He carried the plates over to the small basket he had brought up, pulling back the top before pausing. "Oh." He breathed out, hand faltering. "Crookshanks, what the hell?" 

Jane's head shot up from where she was stacking plates and hurried to stand beside him, staring down into the wicker depths and landing on the ginger floor. She loved that cat, as Harry had found out, but when he glanced up at her, there was a hint of longing there. Treacle and Clemtine weren't long forgotten; it would just be cruel to keep them in the house constantly. But Jane missed them, and the house as well. 

He knew everything seemed brighter to him and he was so content to the idea of her being there and safe - but she was so better suited to the life they had lead during the summer. Harry could only hope that somehow everything would end up alright.. and Jane would remain happy. He didn't know what he would do if she wasn't happy.

 ✧

a/n
i'm so sorry this is up
quite late <33

anyways i wrote this
whilst watching the first ep
of stranger things for the millionth
time and i would like to inform ppl
that i have a steve harrington fic on
my other acc and the oc is my pride
and joy - and if anyone wants it and
doesnt know my @ i'll give it. also
i feel like i'll end up making another fic soon
(probs steve again bc i love a good
bad-boy-turned-babysitter/himbo)

added note: i'm toying with a concept
now, if you want i can put it in the comments