Harry Potter and the New Bloom (A Marauders AU)

It's All Very Botanical

Daisy couldn't remember the last time she felt nervous around a boy.

It must have been in high school, when she met Glen, but for the life of her she couldn't remember the nervousness that Glen had given her in any happy light. It was too tarnished after everything that came after. Surely it had been happy once, right? Before the fighting and late nights, before the nervousness had turned to anxiety, worrying if she would have to go and get stitched up this time. Just the thought of bouncing her daughter on her knee in that over-crowded waiting room made her heart palpitate. But it had to have been good once, too... right?

Was it ever as good as this though? These butterflies in her stomach now, though? She glanced over at James as they walked through the hallway of the college, wondering.

Her heart was palpitating right now, as well, but it wasn't in a fight-or-flight way... it was in a why-is-he-so-handsome way... in a I-want-him-to-hold-my-hand way.

"So what sort of classes are you interested in?" she asked.

"Dunno," James replied, and he pushed his glasses up his nose, turning to walk sideways. "How's the business classes?"

"Boring?"

"Ah. Well. Not those, then. Though I reckon it would be nice to have a friend built in," he said, smiling.

Daisy said, "Oh? Who's that?"

"Well, I was thinking you, but -"

"OH!" Daisy laughed. "Sorry."

"I mean - we are, aren't we? Friends?"

"Of course."

"My discourse Monday didn't scare you off me for life, then?"

"No," Daisy laughed.

James smirked. "I was worried it might have done." He paused in front of a wall displaying student art. "So did you ace the exam with your portrait of me?"

"I did," Daisy said, nodding. "I didn't even have to shag the professor to pass."

James flushed, thinking of the things those girls had said about her during the exam.

"That's what they say about me around here," she said, seeing how red his cheeks had turned. "Sometimes it's easier to make their jokes with them than to fight it."

"I suppose," James said. "But they ought to shut their mouths."

Daisy shrugged.

James jammed his hands in his pockets.

"So if you don't have any major in mind, why are you looking at coming to college?" she asked.

"Because my real passion goes to school on the first and everyone thinks I need something to stay busy." James stared at a painting he recognized as Remus's work. It was an abstract, but James knew it was Sirius, really. Shades of black and grey, broken up by sharp daggers of hot pink and silver linings.

Daisy said, "Have you thought of being a nanny?"

"A male nanny? Is that a thing?"

She shrugged. "I mean perhaps not traditionally."

James laughed.

"Seriously, there's excellent pay in it. Trust me, as a parent that's struggling to pay my own nanny, I know." Daisy sighed as they continued walking. "And then to have her complain about working an extra hour and a half at double pay - one time a week. I understand if she can't do it but she agrees and make sure that I'm aware of what a bleeding sacrifice it is every week... but it's hard to find nannies for Lily Anne and --"