Bloom Again /James Potter/ ❁book 2❁

❁Chapter 15❁

[still on my break i just had a really bad procrastination session and now have a ton of chapters]

Chapter 15

"It's so cold," she whispered, eyes wide and pulling her jacket around her tightly. Her hand was tightly clutching James' partly for the warmth and partly because the weather was causing frost to wave over the castle and a thin layer of ice to cover the ground.

James had suggested a walk to clear her mind after she woke from a particularly bad nightmare, though he had noticed that she seemed to get over it quicker than she usually did. He wondered if it was her allowing it to fall from her mind instead of overthinking it or that she was far too drained to even try to think of it.

Regardless of her answer, it helped nonetheless.

"Maybe if you got a heavier jacket..." James trailed off, only stopping when her head snapped around to glare at him considering they had had this argument plenty of times. Her jacket wasn't the warmest even though it was supposed to be suitable for winter, she only bought it because she liked how it looked.

"We need to talk," he soon said after a few minutes of just walking. They had found themselves straying from the path around the castle and instead ventured down to the black lake to walk along the edge of the water rippling in the chilly air.

"Very serious," she trailed off, turning to face him to see that he was in fact, very serious.

"I just...I don't want you going back to your house over Christmas," he whispered, slipping his arm around her waist after she confirmed that it was alright to do so, "of course if you want to then yes that's fine but I don't want to leave you alone. I don't want to not be there when you're in that house, Bea, I just - I can't leave you."

She took a deep breath, she hadn't even thought of it before...she didn't realise that she would have to go back there and for it to be the same as it always was, to go to that house and pass that room.

No matter how better she could get, she knew that the feelings she had for that room would never change.

"I don't want your parents to see me like this," she admitted, "and I'm not...ashamed of who I am right now because I know there's no way to truly recover than to trust time and hope it's good to me whilst trying my best to help myself, but I know that it took our friends long to fully accept that I wasn't going to just change overnight...and they're...they're great now and I love that.

But I don't want your parents having a terrible Christmas because they think they need to be cautious around me and I say that because they are the loveliest people, James," she looked at him, her hand resting on his chest and meeting his eyes just to reassure him of how much she adored his parents, "they would try to make me feel so comfortable that they'd be exhausted, and I don't want that but you're right.

I don't want to be without you over Christmas, I don't want to be without any of my friends over Christmas and I wonder how it's going to be. I don't want to go home to that house because I'm so scared in case even seeing that room is going to take me back to the very start." She breathed a sigh.

"Why don't we both stay here?" he suggested, softly brushing the stray hairs out of her face, "we could stay in my room or even yours...we could go to Hogsmeade and take walks like this and I can know that you're safe."

"Do you think my parents would allow that?"

"I think your parents would just want you to be happy," he stood in front of her, running his hands over her cheeks to warm her up and she slowly lifted her hands to hold his, "plus Lyall shouldn't have a say in what you do or don't do."