Bloom Again /James Potter/ ❁book 2❁

❁ Chapter 9❁

Chapter 9

She had grown accustomed to the stares she got as she walked down the halls of the castle, though usually, she was alone or with Bertie, she hardly ever was seen with James, never mind James with his arm around her as he mumbled quiet words in her ear and she kept her arm wrapped around his waist.

Intimacy wasn't the best thing for her but with James, it wasn't intimacy, but it was an escape, it was something she could think of instead of the pain, something she could bask in and feel comfortable instead of feeling horrible. She didn't smile but she was still there, she didn't need to smile to be herself, she didn't need to be happy and James finally got that - he talked to her as though she was the girl he had left on the platform last year and she preferred that.

She wished her friends were like that, she wished she could listen to them speak and not have to do the same but still be involved. She felt alone and isolated and sad and the fact that they were so closed off and different made her feel worse because she knew it was her fault.

James had to go to class soon and she was on route to her classroom that filled her paint supplies and every time she entered it she smiled. It was a smile to herself of the memories of that classroom, it was a seemingly random classroom to the Professors who picked it for her and allowed her to paint there but it wasn't random to her.

It was the classroom that she and James had their first kiss, the classroom that they had escaped to plenty of times to just hold and touch and be with each other without having to think of the consequences or the fact that Remus didn't like them together.

Thinking of that, of Remus not wanting them together seemed almost laughable.

"I wish," she whispered, leaning into him and tightening her grip on his hand, "that you watched me paint. But at the same time, I don't want you to see me paint."

He kissed her temple as they turned onto an empty hallway and she stopped them, leaning against the wall with him in front of her - close to her, but it was just so she could talk quietly, so he would still be able to hear her, but she didn't have to raise her voice in order for that to happen, "why don't you want me to see you paint, Bumble?"

She leaned against the wall, her head lifted to stare at him and he couldn't help but smile at her. He had noticed that she didn't look as exhausted, the bags under her eyes were next to gone and he was thankful that she was looking brighter.

She looked gorgeous to him, and he couldn't deny that seeing her clad in dungarees with paint all over her and her hair messier than usual had messed with his head more times than one. It was different to see her like that, with dungarees over her and paint all over her and he thought she looked simply adorable, and he had even commented on it.

Seeing the blush spread across her cheek was a masterpiece no one could recreate.

"I don't know," she said quietly, always quietly but he never minded. It was just nice to hear her voice again, to see her eyes brighter than usual and to have her close and talking and slowly becoming stronger.

But she was strong, she was always strong, and that strength had never left her regardless of what she thought of herself, in James' eyes and a lot of people's eyes she was still the strongest girl they had ever known.

Even Beau thought that.

"I think," she shrugged, "that if I get better, I'll show you."

"You could paint a stick figure and I'd think it was the most beautiful thing in the world," James whispered, stepping closer, "second to you, of course."

She stared at him, and slowly she reached up to cup his cheek, her thumb swiping along his cheekbone and a sigh leaving her lips, "no matter what you're still the biggest flirt in this entire world."