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

25.

November 2034

Piper had left his house several days ago, moved into her new flat, and James was still feeling weird. Every time he saw Ella at school, she looked at him like he was the one who'd been cheated on, Juni's unexpected explosion outside her common room seemed to have resulted in a bubbling, seething, under the surface kind of anger that she wasn't able to let go of, and Raigan had cried every day since she'd found out what had happened. She was not handling the fact that Piper had come to him first well at all.

On Friday morning, James went into the bedroom to brush his teeth before work and found Elise standing in front of the bathroom sink doing her makeup.

She always got dressed for the day last, and she stood there wearing her bathrobe untied, her black bra showing through.

He stood behind her, ran his hands up her sides, from her waist to her ribs, then wrapped his arms around her stomach.

She leaned back into him, made eye contact with him in the mirror.

James pressed his lips into her hair.

"James," Elise said.

He just looked at her. Her eyes had so much depth in them. They said so many things at once.

"Are you honestly okay?"

This question took him off guard a little. He'd been so focused on everyone else — Piper most of all, but the girls, Raigan... he'd been so worried about making sure they were all okay, it was something of a shock to have someone asking after him.

"Yeah," he said. "I am. I'm just sad, too."

Elise turned around inside his arms, wrapped her own arms around him and turned her cheek into his chest. He breathed in deeply and shut his eyes.

"I really appreciate everything you did for her," James said. "You're amazing."

"I love her," Elise said. "I really do."

He knew this was true.

"Tell me something good," James said. "I want to stop thinking about it all."

"My parents said they'd have the girls spend the night on our anniversary," said Elise. "So we can do something."

James smiled. "Can you believe it's almost been fifteen years?" he asked. They'd gotten married when Ella was about six months old, right out in front of the house in December, just before Christmas. It was a very small wedding. They'd done it all themselves, planned and executed in about two weeks, and it was perfect.

"In my head," she said. "It's been twenty nine."

James couldn't quite speak after that. He knew she was referring to the decade they were apart, the few years before.

"It was forever already," she said softly. "Even with everything. It's just fifteen years it's been official."

They stood like that, just holding onto each other, for several more minutes. He knew exactly what she meant. Not speaking, not really knowing each other all that time... it had never meant he hadn't loved her. He had always, always loved her.

Then they finished getting ready side by side, both of them quiet. James felt more at peace than he had in weeks.

—-

James knew Piper wasn't up for going out much at the moment, so on Saturday morning, he picked up bagels and coffees and brought them to Piper's new flat.

When she answered the door, she stood there staring at him with this look on her face like she might cry, and then she just stepped aside without saying hello and let him in.

Piper was extremely brief in her answers to his questions, barely said anything at all if she wasn't specifically prompted to.

Finally, she just told him she didn't really feel like talking.

James knew what she meant by this. Of course he did. She wanted him to leave.

But he couldn't just leave her looking so sad. She was his daughter.

Instead, he got out the chess board. He'd put it away himself when they'd moved her in, so he knew right where to find it.

Piper sat back against the couch cushions and sighed.

"I'm not in the mood," she said.

"Just one game," James insisted. "It'll get your mind off things."

So Piper appeased him looking less than thrilled about it. He almost beat her, but then she hadn't put much heart into it until she'd realized he was getting close to a win.

"One more?" he asked, looking at his last piece, slashed in half on the board, moaning and groaning.

"Fine," said Piper quietly, and he thought there was just the faintest hint of a smile on her face.

The pieces all roused themselves and hurried back into their starting positions. They began again.

—-

By the time he'd left an hour later, they'd played twice more (Piper winning each time), and she'd seemed, if not happy, at least distracted.

James had kissed her on the cheek, told her to let him know if she needed anything and to feel free to come over for dinner any night she wanted to. No warning necessary.

"How was she?" Elise asked at home. James tried his best to explain to her his impression of her emotional state, but as Piper had barely spoken, there wasn't all that much to report.

Elise just said, "Hm." And then she got up and left the room, returning less than five minutes later with a piece of parchment folded up.

"What's that?" asked James, sitting on the sofa now.

"An owl," she said. "For Piper."

"About what?"

Elise held it out. "Just read it if you want," she said.

So James unfolded the parchment and read what was a much shorter note than expected.

Bad things can happen to you, but they don't have to define you. When you look at yourself, you get to choose not to see what happened to you, but to see yourself instead. It took me a long time to figure that out, but it helped.

Then she'd signed her name.

James swallowed. He thought about the baby they'd lost, the horrible way he'd handled the whole situation. It still ate at him when he thought about it, even all these years later.

But Elise just took the note back, went and found the owl to send the letter off, and when she returned, she sat down beside him, curling up with her head on his shoulder and her knees in his lap.

"She'll be okay," she told him, her voice confident. James wrapped an arm around her waist, rested his other hand on her knee. He brushed his thumb back and forth.

"I know she will."