MY TYPE OF LOVE | marauders era

| chapter sixteen |

"Glinda?"

My eyes barely opened, and I yawned. "Glinda?" The voice asked again, and I rubbed my eyes, struggling to sit up. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm all good." I sighed loudly and looked up at James, who crouched on the floor next to the chair. "What time is it?"

"It's just after dinner," James said gently, "What happened?"

"It's nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fine, James." The bite in my tone made him flinch, and I softened. "I'm just tired, really."

A small part of me wanted to start bawling on his shoulder about everything going on, but I resisted the temptation. Sharing might be caring, but my problems were my own to handle. They always had been.

"Well, if that's all," James replied slowly, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. We hadn't seen you since lunch, and we were getting kind of worried."

"We?"

James grinned. "Apparently, me being your boyfriend means Carri, Oliver, David, and Leon are willing to track me down during dinner and demand to know where you are."

I groaned, leaning back in my chair. "Oh, Merlin. Did they really do that?"

"Yup, but it's all good. I was actually wondering where you were anyways. I created this beautiful poem during Potions, and I was going to recite right before dinner, but then you didn't show up!"

"I'm almost glad I missed dinner, then."

"Hey!"

I laughed softly and uncurled my legs, looking at the toppled textbook and scattered papers beside the chair. Silently I began to clean up, and James helped, stacking the papers together before handing them to me.

"You hungry?" He asked, and I nodded.

"I didn't mean to miss dinner," I said, closing my bag. "I only wanted to get some of my work done alone before I went downstairs."

I could tell James was dying to ask me what was wrong again, but he didn't say anything on the subject. "Want to go down to the kitchen?"

I paused, and thought about it for a second. I was hungry, wanted to avoid people, and Oliver was definitely waiting in the Common Room to ask where I was and what had happened. "Absolutely."

"It's just about to be curfew," James whispered once we tiptoed to the hallways. "We'll have to avoid the prefects and teachers so they don't make us go to our Common Rooms."

"It's too bad neither one of us is a Hufflepuff," I muttered, "Then we'd have a ton of excuses."

"Sorry, Professor, I was just walking Glinda back to her Common Room after our date, since we're dating. Did you know? She's my girlfriend," James mocked, pitching his voice high. I laughed, but quickly stopped at the sharp voice behind us.

"Well, Potter, anyone who's been within ten feet of you in the past week knows that."

We both froze, my foot still mid step. Slowly, we wheeled around, smiling sheepishly at the exasperated redhead prefect behind us. Leon grinned from her side, looking too pleased with the situation for his own good. "Why, hello, Evans," James said, breaking our surprised silence.

"It's almost curfew, Potter. Why aren't you in the Common Room?"

"It's almost curfew, not past it," James said breezily. "Don't you worry, Evans, I'm just out on a stroll with my girlfriend. Glinda's my girlfriend, did you know?"