If I May Be So Bold (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

10.

September 2034

JAMES

Getting a chance to talk to Juni outside class was rare, but James could almost always predict when Ella would pop up in his office after classes. Sure enough, he looked up a few minutes after the morning break started and there was Ella. Sometimes her friends came with her, but she was alone today.

"Hey, Ella-Bee."

"Hi." She plopped down in one of his extra chairs.

"How's your morning been?"

"Good," said Ella. "We started fanged geraniums in herbology, and I was the only one who didn't get bitten."

"I've never understood the purpose of a fanged flower," said James.

"That's exactly what I said."

"I imagine it's used in some potion or another, but it just seems like a liability to me."

"One of them got Charlie Weer right in the nose. He had to go see Aunt Raigan."

"Course it did. He prod it or something?"

"Professor Munslow said not to startle them and that you had to tell it everything you were going to do, and he tried to sneak up behind it and it lunged at him."

James couldn't help his smile. "I'll be reminding him of that next time I see he's about to neglect my directions."

Ella smiled, too.

"How's your homework coming? You probably have a lot. It's O.W.L. year."

"I'm keeping up with it for now," she said. "Everyone's whining about you assigning an essay already, but I finished it. It's not that hard if you use the book. It's all right there."

"I always strive to induce whining in the first few weeks of O.W.L. year," said James with a nod.

"Well, mission accomplished."

James smiled again.

"Hey, you want to see pictures of Piper from this weekend? Aunt Raigan just developed them and brought one over this morning." He moved a few things aside on his desk, searching around for where he'd put it. He located it under his lesson plan book, looked at it again with a smile, and then passed it over to Ella.

"Wow," she said softly. "She looks beautiful."

"Don't you think she looks just like her mum?"

Ella nodded. She held onto the picture a long time.

"They set a date, too. I don't remember what it is exactly, but I know it's in April. She wants to take you and Juni to pick out bridesmaids dresses when you're home for Christmas."

"I can't believe she's getting married," said Ella, passing the picture back to him.

"You have no idea," said James. "Just wait till it's you. Then I'll really be in denial."

"That's not happening for a long time," Ella said.

"You can say that again," said James with a serious nod. And then Ella changed the subject to tell him about her new prefect duties and about the first year she sat next to in choir who was completely lost and about how she hadn't even talked to Juni once since they'd gotten on the train almost two weeks ago. James loved to listen to her, loved that she told him so much about what was going on in her life, no matter how inconsequential those things might be.

When the bell rang signaling five minutes till the next class began, he wasn't at all ready to send her on her way. Not after that weekend. Not after looking at that picture of Piper in her wedding dress. But he stood up from his desk anyway, gave Ella a hug and said, "Thanks for the visit, sweetheart. I miss having you home."

"Me too," said Ella.

He kissed her on the forehead and then followed her back out to his classroom.

"See you later," she said. She had his class that afternoon.

"Stay out of trouble."

"You know me," said Ella on her way out the door. "Always in detention."

James grinned to himself and he was still smiling when his next class started to file in.

—-

His stay out of trouble reminder to Ella was a joke. She didn't even know what trouble was. Not once had he ever heard of her being disciplined by any of the teachers since she'd been at Hogwarts. He'd have been surprised if she'd even been on the receiving end of a "teacher look."

Juni, on the other hand, pushed the limits.

The very same day, he heard that she'd been given detention for hexing someone in the corridor.

He saw her passing by his classroom that afternoon after classes ended and he snagged her.

"What is this I hear about you getting detention?" he asked when they were alone.

Juni just rolled her eyes. "It was not my fault."

"It wasn't your fault that you hexed someone?" James asked. "Explain to me how that works, exactly."

Juni perched herself on the edge of a desk, ankles crossed, the heels of her hands against the wood. The stance reminded him so much of himself, as did the brazen way she said, "Well, I wouldn't have done it at all if it weren't for freaking Davis Simmons."

Ella really hadn't prepared him to have a kid like this. Juni had a lot of good in her. She had a magnetic personality. She was smart as a whip, aggressive on the quidditch field, absolutely hilarious... but she was much more difficult to parent than Ella who had a moral compass like he'd never seen on anyone but Raigan.

"I was just trying to go to class," Juni continued. "And I was climbing up the ladder to divination, but he's down at the bottom trying to look up my skirt and joking to his friends about smacking my ass—"

James' eyes went very wide.

"And he thought I couldn't hear him, but obviously I did. I'm not deaf. So I got to the top, and I looked back down through the trapdoor and I told him, 'like you'd ever get the chance,' and I hexed him."

James wasn't sure what to make of this. The teacher in him obviously couldn't condone hexing anyone. That was 'how to not get in trouble at Hogwarts 101.' No magic in the corridors.

The parent in him was both infuriated that anyone would speak about his daughter that way and also really damn proud of her for sticking up for herself.

"Did you explain the situation?" he asked finally.

"Yes," said Juni, exasperated. "Professor Ingleworth gave him detention, too, but she was all 'you still broke the rules, blah blah, blah, and she wouldn't get rid of mine."

"Well," said James. "Maybe next time you can just tell someone instead of hexing him. Then you're in the clear."

"And let him think I need someone else to defend me?" Juni said, wrinkling her nose. "I'll take the detention."

James couldn't help but smile at that. This, he thought, wasn't so much like him as it was Elise. She was in charge of herself. She did not need protecting.

"As your teacher," James said. "I don't condone breaking the rules. But as your dad..." He held out his hand for a high five and Juni smacked it hard. "You keep sticking up for yourself," he said. "I'm proud of you."

He even managed to get a quick hug out of her before she slipped away again, back to her friends.

James thought back to his conversation with Ella that morning and just had to laugh to himself. They were so different. It almost didn't make sense that they'd grown up in the same house. 

He stopped by the hospital wing to see Raigan after she'd gone and found Davis Simmons lying in a bed with purple spots all over his arms and face, moaning and groaning.

"Is that Juni's doing?" he muttered to Raigan, who was on her way back over to him with a bottle of something.

She turned around and mouthed, "She got him good."

James couldn't help the grin that split across his face. Served him right, talking about Juniper that way.