cigarette daydream || james potter

"If you can find a reason, a reason to stay,"

Estella sat perched on one of the tall wooden stools in the Potions classroom, balanced just slightly too far forward as if she might tip off at any moment if she stopped paying attention. Her legs swung idly beneath her, heels tapping against the stool rung in a slow, uneven rhythm that had nothing to do with the lesson and everything to do with her inability to sit still for long periods of time.

The dungeon-like classroom was already heavy with warmth, even before anyone acknowledged it.

Thick stone walls held onto the heat from the outside day, trapping it inside like a sealed jar. The air smelled faintly of dried herbs, crushed roots, and simmering potion bases from earlier lessons that hadn't quite been scrubbed out of the room's memory yet. Rows of cauldrons sat dark and dormant on the workbenches, their surfaces dull in the dim light filtering through the glass windows.

Which, unfortunately, were shut.

All of them.

Estella narrowed her eyes slightly at them, as if they had personally betrayed her.

She rested her chin in her hands, elbows pressed into the desk in front of her, and stared vaguely ahead while Slughorn hovered at the front of the room like an overexcited walrus preparing to deliver unpleasant news.

He cleared his throat loudly.

"As you know," he began, drawing out the words in that slow, ceremonial way of his, "June is approaching..."

A pause.

Every student in the room collectively braced themselves without meaning to.

"This means," Slughorn continued, clasping his hands together, "that your O.W.L. examinations are coming up."

The reaction was immediate.

A wave of groans rolled through the classroom like a spell had been cast in reverse-faces collapsing in despair, heads dropping onto desks, parchment crumpling under frustrated hands. Someone at the back muttered something about abandoning wizarding society entirely.

Estella let out a long, deeply unimpressed exhale.

"O.W.Ls," she muttered under her breath, staring at the ceiling as if it had personally designed the exam system. "Brilliant. Love that for us."

She had never been a fan of tests.

Not in the academic sense.

Not in the emotional sense.

Frankly, anything that involved sitting still and being judged for it felt like a personal attack.

The room grew hotter.

At first, it was subtle-just a thickening of the air, a slight heaviness in the chest that could be ignored. But it quickly became something else entirely. The kind of warmth that clung to the skin and made uniforms feel heavier than they should.

Estella shifted slightly on her stool.

Her eyebrows drew together.

"...Is it just me?" someone near the back whispered weakly.

It wasn't just them.