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

50.

April 2035

JAMES

School had been back on for a week and James was positively exhausted. He always forgot how wiped out he felt those first few days after a break. Even in just a week off, it felt like his stamina and endurance for teaching plummeted back to square one and he had to slowly build it back up again for the rest of the year.

He loved teaching. He really did. But god, teenagers could wear you out.

The fifth and seventh years were beginning to look more frenzied every day as their big exams approached. The sixth years were laughing, all too relaxed, even though they too had exams coming up in a few months — just not official ones. The younger kids were growing increasingly restless as the weather warmed up and thoughts of summer break crept in.

And all the while, James was battling an ever swerving set of emotions regarding his girls. Piper was doing so much better, but he still worried about her, still wished there was more he could do to help her heal and move on.

Raigan had told him she was entertaining the idea of dating again, and he thought it might be too soon, but what did he know, really? Maybe she was ready. He needed to trust her judgment, because he knew she had learned to trust herself, to trust her gut. He kept telling himself that the next time she brought someone to meet him, he would be different. He would support her and try to be comfortable with the whole thing, even though it was still hard for him to look at her and not see the twelve year old girl who'd cried because he was having another baby and she thought he might not love her the same anymore. He had been the most important man in her life, and that wasn't always going to be the case, but he knew it was a good thing.

He wanted her to be loved by someone the way he loved Elise. She deserved to feel happiness like he had.

It was this that he had to remind himself of each time he looked at Ella these days. She was in her bubble of young love and it broke him apart to see it happen, because even though she had been coming to his classroom that week to study, she wasn't coming alone. She wasn't coming to talk to him and just him. She brought her friends with her. She brought Logan.

James would sit in his office when they came in, try his best to be friendly and pleasant as they got settled in and then he'd pretend to grade while really he was glancing up every thirty seconds or so to watch them.

They never touched when they knew he was nearby, but James could still see how smitten Logan really was. Sometimes, when Ella was particularly focused, he would stop what he was working on and just look at her for a while.

You could see it on his face, how much he liked her.

James wanted to hate this, but he couldn't quite manage it, because again, as hard as it was for him to stomach, he wanted Ella to have the kind of love he had.

Maybe this wasn't real love quite yet. They were so young and it was still new and so much could change. He hadn't even met Elise till they were both out of school and couldn't imagine now spending his whole life with any of the girls he'd dated at Hogwarts. But for now at least, it calmed his nerves a little to know that she was happy.

Surprisingly, the main source of his worrying now was neither Piper nor Ella. It was Juniper.

She and Elise had talked in depth every night while she'd been home and he'd actually gotten her to open up a little here and there, too, so he'd gone back that first day feeling optimistic.

And then he'd had her in class.

He was thinking about how she had seemed just that morning as he made his way to the hospital wing to talk to Raigan.