Bloom Again /James Potter/ ❁book 2❁

❁Chapter 28❁

Chapter 28

She felt weird, but it wasn't a bad weird - or as if she was uncomfortable but there was a strange sense of unfamiliarity to wake up at an earlier time than she usually did, and to eat breakfast in the great hall with her friends and to bicker with Beau over how she wasn't eating enough when she was sure that she was and some of her friends took her side, like Peter who had just yesterday watched her eat four cookies and three chocolate frogs in ten minutes.

But even when he voiced that, James said, "well yeah, she sometimes eats junk food but you hardly touch your dinners, you hardly eat what you should."

She wouldn't speak to him for taking Beau's side, not because she thought the boy was wrong but because she knew that he was right and that Beau was right too but sometimes the even look of Beau looking so smug was something she would readily wipe off his face if given the best opportunity.

None of her friends commented on why she was awake so early, they were just happy that she had joined them and took it she wanted some company before her painting. Her new set of dungarees fell over her body because it was what she was most comfortable in, and some days if she was up for it she would let a dress fall over her.

She missed her dresses, she really did. She missed the bright fashion of her dresses and her skirts and she liked to show skin because the feeling of the air blowing against her made her feel free but lately it made her feel too exposed, and dungarees hardly showed her skin - so she covered with everything she could, and she could only bring herself to slide into them as she woke up with a plan.

A challenge.

A goal.

Her friends had gone their separate ways when the bell rang through the great hall and some students stayed behind, chatting still and hardly caring to be late to their first class, whilst her friends all moved to stand up, figuring that the quicker they left to class the quicker they'd be out.

"You know," James had said, "I only said that because I'm worried about you, I don't want you becoming ill. It's the last thing you need to go through."

And she had sighed, a small smile and a slow kiss on his lips setting him up for the day ahead before she whispered, "I know, I know. I just really hate that smug look on Beau because you agreed with him."

James let out a loud laugh, shaking his head and kissing her cheek and whispered, "have fun painting...maybe you could get started on that one of us?"

His wink showed his teasing and she pushed him out of the great hall with a roll of his eyes, and when he went down the corridor in order to go to Transfigurations, she left down the one opposite - far away from transfigurations and up the stairs.

She decided that she couldn't live in fear anymore, fear of people...fear of nightmares...fear of that man. That fear had her doing many things she didn't want to - like closing herself off and crying and skipping classes because she couldn't think of anything else to do that would make her feel better other than painting.

But it wasn't just painting, she was planting again, and she had a responsibility to tend to the plants in her gallery that she felt a distraction even on the bad days she still had.

And as she passed by that said gallery on her way to somewhere else, she only looked in with a peek to see if her plants were getting along, and they were. She wasn't needed there today because she didn't need to paint, and she didn't want to paint.

Of course, she was sure she'd paint sometimes in the next hours, maybe after dinner with Beau's company and forcing him to water her plants for her whilst she created something else on her easel or even added more vines to her wall, but right now she was going to do something else.