This Time, Last Time (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

The end, the first time.

I've got nothing to say,

It's already too late.

I've got this feeling,

I really should be leaving now.

But I can't believe I'm letting you go.

-"Letting You Go," Gabrielle Aplin

---

August 31, 2007

James' things were packed, had been for days, but he still kept pretending to be busy getting things together whenever he and Elise were both home. Her moods were so hard to read most of the time, and worse, so volatile. He didn't know what to say to her when she was in what he thought was in a good mood, nor did he know what to say when she was feeling low.

James had never been good with emotions. Not with his own (which he carefully pushed under the surface and refused to acknowledge until, every once in a while, they exploded outward all at once) and certainly not with anyone else's. Elise's stoic attitude and disinclination to weepiness had been one of the things that had initially attracted him to her. She was hard, but not unkind.

Recent events, of course, had changed that. So it was a combination of his innate desire to avoid personal conflicts of any kind and his complete inexperience at dealing with an Elise who was anything other than steady, pleasant, and practical that had made him resort to hiding out in the bedroom refolding his socks for the third time while she cooked a dinner for two that they would probably eat in silence.

He was excited to leave, excited to be back at Hogwarts. A new job, a change of pace. And it was a job he'd always wanted, if only in the back of his mind. The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. He'd been at Hogwarts back when people thought the gig was cursed and no one seemed to last more than a year, but in his fifth year, following the end of the second wizarding war, they'd gotten a steady teacher who'd really turned things around for him. He'd been sparked. And though he'd loved being an auror, he'd always had it in his head that this was the job he'd really like.

He was glad, too, to be nearer to Raigan and Piper who would need all the help they could get now. Though Raigan had kept the house she and Dawson had bought together, he knew she was planning to stay at Hogwarts full-time. It'd be easier, that way, for them to share the job of caring for Piper, and anyway, it was hard travelling with a one year old. Piper required so much stuff.

Most importantly, living at Hogwarts would isolate her from all the memories in that house.

But even as he was making these plans, imagining what his life was going to be, he felt deeply guilty. Worse when he admitted to himself that he was excited to leave. He should have been worrying about Elise, taking care of her. He shouldn't have even put his name in for the position. Probably shouldn't have accepted it when he did, or at least with a stipulation that he would remain in his home, commuting each day to the school. To do so wouldn't have been typical, but it wouldn't have been impossible either.

He shouldn't have left Elise that night.

But as he did every time he had this thought, he pushed it down, deep down, to the very darkest regions of the many things he'd been suppressing for the past month.

He closed the lid on his largest trunk, locking it for probably the twelfth time since it had initially been packed. It was hard to even pretend to be rearranging anything anymore. He decided that, as it was his last night, it would probably be polite to at least attempt to venture out into the living area.