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

36.

February 2035

JAMES

Not quite a week after he and Piper had gone to the Magical Menagerie and picked out her kitten, Raigan came flying up to him in the corridor and threw her arms around him.

"Woah," he said in surprise, stumbling back a step before his own arms wrapped around her. "Good morning to you, too."

"Thank you," she said. "Seriously, just thank you."

"For what?"

She let go of him and looked at him like this should have been obvious. "You bought her that cat," she said. "And all the sudden she's smiling again."

"Oh, right," said James. "Well good, I'm glad to hear that." He had been getting photo updates from her all week, but hadn't been to see her again since Saturday.

"I went and saw her last night and she was like her old self again," Raigan said, her voice a little thick with the threat of tears. "I knew she wasn't herself, but I don't think I realized quite how sad she seemed until she wasn't anymore. This has just totally woken her up. She's had friends over this week and she's been out for drinks once and she's talking more and more about going for that promotion and it's all because of that damn cat." She did start crying then. "I can't believe it didn't occur to me."

"Well, to be fair, it didn't occur to me either," James said. "It was her idea. I just encouraged it."

"Still," Raigan said. She blinked several times, wiped a tear away. "I'm just so relieved. I feel like I can breathe for the first time in months."

They started walking again. James had been headed for the Great Hall before she'd stopped him. He treated himself to breakfast at the school about once a week, but tried not to indulge more often than that. It was much heavier than what he would eat at home.

"She come up with a name for it yet?" he asked.

"Josephine," said Raigan with a laugh.

"Oh, Elise will love that," James said. "I still can't believe she named her cat Werner."

"Pipe says all cats are members of the nobility," Raigan smiled. "But she's calling her Josie for short."

"See now, that sounds like a kitten."

They headed down the marble staircase. Kids were filing into the Great Hall down at the bottom, some talking and laughing, others looking like they'd only physically gotten out of bed. Juni was among them, surrounded by pretty much the whole Ravenclaw quidditch team.

"Your tie," James heard her say, "is a disgrace." He was about to tell her off, but then he saw who she was talking to and he had to hold back a laugh. Henry Parker was walking in beside her and it looked as though he had attempted to learn how to tie a tie correctly, but hadn't exactly gotten the hang of it. It was wrinkled, lopsided, and the smaller end was hanging out about three inches lower than the front.

"You tell him, Juni," James said, following them in. She held her hand up for a high five and he grinned. It wasn't often he felt like Juni appreciated his presence in the slightest. She skipped off with her friends — literally skipped, blonde ponytail bouncing around behind her — and James had the strangest sensation that he was watching a young Elise at school, except for the fact that the thought of Elise ever skipping seemed positively ludicrous.

He and Raigan headed down the middle of the room, past the Hufflepuff table where Ella smiled at him. He stopped briefly to kiss her on the cheek and said, "Mum says good morning and she misses you."

"Tell her I miss her, too," Ella smiled, and he continued along.

"Look at you," Raigan said. "All your girls, happy to see you."

"Yeah, well Juni gives me an inch about once a month, so I think it'll be back to pretending I'm the scum of the earth next time I see her."

Raigan laughed. "She doesn't think that. She's just thirteen."

"Yeah, and I forbid her from acting like she was too cool for me. It worked for Pipe and for El."

Still, he couldn't stop smiling as he selected several strips of bacon. It wasn't an extraordinary morning in any way, but god did he love his daughters. He watched Ella and her friends, all of them huddled over a book and a set of flash cards, studying for some test they must have had that day. He turned towards Juni who was gesticulating dramatically about something or other at the Ravenclaw table, everyone around her talking over one another in response. He laughed a little. They were just so different.

—-

On Saturday, James met up with Piper as usual, but she seemed in a big hurry to get back home. "Can you look at my cover letter and everything today?" she'd asked as soon as they'd sat down, so he was sitting at her kitchen table now, a few pieces of parchment in front of him.

Piper, meanwhile, was lying on her stomach on the floor with Josie climbing all over her. "Ouch," she said. "That's my face." And she scooped the kitten up and sat up, plopping her back down on the floor. He watched her pull her wand out of her pocket and use it to summon one of the toys they'd bought the previous weekend. She made it hover all around by magic, Josie jumping and swatting at it over and over again. James knew he was supposed to be focusing on looking over her application, but he couldn't stop watching the smile on Piper's face.

"You're not even trying to look at that," Piper said, her eyes still on Josie.

"Well, in my defense it's hard to focus with something as cute as that vying for my attention."

"I know," Piper said, and she smiled proudly, like Josie was not a kitten but her own baby. He remembered Raigan smiling like that when Piper had been small, like look at this incredible thing I made. Can you even believe it?

Come to think of it, Raigan still smiled like that around Piper.

It was a struggle not to just watch them play, but James turned his attention back to the resume, making a few notes on a separate scrap of parchment.

"These are just a few suggestions," James said, passing them along to her when he'd made it through all the pieces of her application. "But I think what you have sounds pretty good."

She rolled onto her back and held the parchment above her head to read it (James smiled at this — it reminded him so strongly of twelve year old Piper).

"This is very helpful," she said after a minute. Then she put the parchment aside, snatched up Josie, who had been eyeing the paper with interest, and plopped her on her chest. She planted a kiss on her little furry head. "I'm nervous," she said.

"I don't know," James said. "I have a good feeling about it all."

Piper smiled a little. She closed her eyes, hugged Josie close and then she opened her eyes again, looking up at the ceiling.

"Can I be honest about something?"

"Of course."

She took a deep breath. "I'm really glad I'm not marrying him. I started to feel... I don't know... not so good about it a long time before this all happened. I think I was trying to convince myself I was just nervous."

James didn't respond right away. He wanted to handle this right. It felt like a big deal that she was being so open with him, especially at her age.

"Well," he said after a minute. "Hopefully now you know you can trust yourself. If you get that feeling in the future... you'll know you can listen to it. And that it's worth paying attention to."

Piper nodded. "Yeah," she said. "Exactly."