enchanted | james potter

right where you left me

" I stayed there, dust collected on my pinned-up hair. "

It had been a few weeks since Keira joined The Order and the NEWT exams were fast approaching, pretty much everyone in seventh year were under a lot of stress and there's nothing more better to help that stress than to have a career meeting with Professor McGonagall.

Keira sat in the head of Gryffindor's office, patiently waiting for the teacher to begin.

"So, Miss O'Connor, what is it you want to do once you graduate?" McGonagall folded her hands onto her desk.

"Well, I want to go into the Magical Law Enforcement field, in a perfect world I'd eventually be head of the department." Keira answered.

"Interesting. Would you ever be interested in foreign affairs within that department?"

"Probably, I don't know if I know enough about foreign affairs, though." Keira shrugged.

"Well, you have time to learn. Anyway, I only mention it because for the whole of the department, that's the only opening they have for an internship. I suggest applying, the pay isn't great, and there will be a lot more applicants, but I believe you have a great chance at getting one of those places." McGonagall passed Keira a pamphlet containing more information about the internship, "Plus, usually you move up in the department after the internship and with the way the war is going, there are lots of people leaving the Ministry, meaning more spaces to fill for people like you."

"Yeah, I'll definitely apply to that, thank you." Keira smiled at the professor, "Is there travel involved?"

"I'm not sure for the internship, there may be an occasional trip for a day or two, but yes, there is if you move up in that part of the department. I believe there's positions where you work in another country's government on behalf of our Ministry." McGonagall nodded.

"I'll think about that more." Keira smiled.

"Great. Unless there's anything else you'd like to ask me, I think that's it."

"No, I don't think I have any questions." Keira smiled, standing up.

"Well, if you do, you know where to find me." McGonagall said, walking towards the door.

"Thank you, Professor." Keira thanked, watching her teacher open the door, as she turned around she saw James getting up from the chair she was sat in minutes ago. The two made strong eye contact for the first time in months.

"Ah yes, Mr Potter, come in." Keira heard McGonagall say as she walked down the corridor back to her Common Room where she was before her appointment.

As soon as she got back, she filled out the application, sending it off to the office of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's Foreign Affairs in the Ministry of Magic.

. . .

Soon enough, Keira's first NEWT exam had arrived and was that morning. She sat at breakfast reading her Divination theory textbook, blocking out the outside noises of Sirius' loud laughter. Most of her friends didn't take Divination, except for Josie and Arabella, so they were still carefree that morning, not having the glooming cloud of an exam hanging over them.

Keira dragged her feet to the exam room, going over facts in her head, reminding herself of the process of reading Tarot cards and the different spreads up until she was instructed to open the paper.

Once it was over, she walked out of the exam room much happier than she walked in it. She knew she did well.

As a celebration of her first exam over, Keira went out with Josie and Arabella to Hogsmeade the next day as it was a Saturday. They looked in most of the shops, buying necessities and some new clothes in the boutiques, especially looking for new dresses to wear for their graduation ceremony.

"Hey guys, how does this look?" Keira walked out of the changing room, asking her friends' opinions on the dress she found. It was black knee length dress with a high neck vest top to it and sheer soft ruffles at the bottom.

"Give us a pose." Arabella said as her and Josie stood next to each other with big smiles.

As Keira spun around with his hands on her hips, the shop door's bell rang.

"Oh, hi girls." Keira turned around to see Lily walk in.

"Hey Lily." Keira smiled as Josie said hi, "This is Arabella." Keira gestured with her arm to where Arabella stood.

"Hi." The two said to each other. Arabella was a bit unsure of Lily, she knew what she did at Christmas and had her reservations about the girl because of that.

"Are you here alone?" Josie asked, continuing the group's conversation as Keira went into the changing room to put on the heels she chose.

"Do you think these heels go well with it?" Keira asked walking out of the changing room once again, pausing when she saw James stood next to Lily. For the second time, they made strong eye contact, until James broke it by looking at her dress and heels.

"Um, well, we've best be going, got a lot of thing to do today." Lily spoke awkwardly, everyone could feel the awkward tension between James and Keira.

"Bye." Josie said quieter than usual as Lily opened the door.

"Love the dress, by the way." Lily smiled at Keira before she walked out.

"Thanks." Keira mumbled, her hands at her side awkwardly.

Once the door closed behind them and Keira watched out of the shop window them walk away, Lily's arm looped with his, Arabella let out a sigh.

"Wow, that was very uncomfortable."

"Yeah, um, I'm- I think I'm gonna get this dress." Keira said before going back to her changing room. In there she took a couple breaths, letting a couple tears fall down her cheeks before wiping them away quickly and fixing her makeup in the mirror before walking back out in her normal outfit.

Yes, Keira and James were around each other when they were with their friend group, but they never made any type of contact, they never looked each other in the eye, they never spoke to each other. So, when they did just look at each other, it was a big deal, for both of them. Keira thought about her feeling for him, which put her in a state of sad anger, for James, he always went back to that night he found her in the shower and thought about how defenceless she was, how broken she looked, he was absolutely terrified of the fact that he caused part of that brokenness.

Keira felt stuck. She felt stuck in this place of sadness and longing for something she can't have since her and James broke up. He'd move on to a different place, he'd moved on with Lily, leaving Keira where she was left all those months ago. 

(A/N; this act only has a couple more chapters left, a bit bittersweet because i albsolutely loved writing this act - you can definitely tell since i was writing multiple chapters a day - but i'm also really excited to write the next act because it's going to be good! as always, thank you all for the voting and the people reading, it means a lot, thank you!)