Rainy Days [James Potter]

Chapter 7

Robin had grown to regret her decision. She loathed to wake up and laugh with someone who, for so long had hated her. Had wanted to ruin her. And what she loathed even more was that she was starting to enjoy it.

However, she knew James did not feel the same way. He would show up, happy and well-rested, which made her feel almost self-conscious. She tried to hide the bags under her eyes. She put on concealer, she used spells to make them go away. Whatever she tried washed away with the rain, and she was left looking like a mess in front of someone who actually had their life together.

She did her best to ignore the tugging sensation at the bottom of her stomach, like what she was doing was somehow wrong, but no matter what she did she always knew that whatever was was between the two of them-- unlikely friendship, frienemies or even distrustful acquaintances, whichever-- was not meant to last.

Despite the grins and the jokes, there was an awkward energy. Something neither would acknowledge, because nobody ever acknowledges when something is wrong, so they continued trying to have fun. They laughed and danced.

The rain drowned out the sound of any words shared between the two. They stood in silence, twirling and smiling. Truth be told, they could barely see each other, either. They were just blobs of colour at that point, as they were both sleep deprived and blinded by the storm.

They didn't even notice the two hours that had passed. It felt like twenty minutes. And they certainly didn't notice Diana's polaroid camera until it was too late.

The damage had been done. The click of the camera shutter had sounded. Neither could hear it, though, over the loud crashing of rain and the occasional lightning strike. They were too stuck in their own little bubble to notice the note slipped under Robin's door, late at night, when nobody was in, with a copy of a grainy photo stuck to it, with the two grinning like children, holding each other a little bit too close.

Want the news to spread? Astronomy Tower. Eight o'clock. Don't be late.

Robin read it over and over, hoping that something would change. It stayed the same. Not some stupid joke, not some dream. A real message from a real person. A real danger.

Diana didn't have to sign it-- Robin already knew who it was. She had heard stories of it, but never expected to be a target. Perhaps she thought that her group of friends brought her a strange kind of immunity to these kinds of things. But it was then that she realised that she was just as vulnerable as everyone else. And if she continued down the road she was following, she was in just as much danger.