Strange Benefits (James Potter)

thirty eight: bonus

note: In honour of Strange Benefits hitting 500k reads, Taddaaa! I hope you all enjoy this little bonus (and completely unnecessary and irrelevant) chapter!                                                                                

also: this was a disaster to write because of a number of reasons, one being that i've completely forgotten how to write in British and my writing style has changed and i had to reread several chapters to write this so i hope you all like it!                                                                                                   also: for the love of me, i cannot remember the name of Milla's owl so i again had to go through multiple chapters for it! ugh!

Milla have always loved summertime; the crisp London air, the sunlight against her skin in the afternoon, the lazy hours spent on her bed listening to music with her brother occasionally coming up to annoy her. But somehow this time everything is different. Now there's a sting in her hands from how much writing she's been doing, a small cut on her finger from where her owl, Juniper, had bitten her for tiring the poor bird out with all the letters she's been sending and receiving. Now, she's completely, blissfully, happy. Sure, her NEWT scores are just around the corner waiting to dictate her future, but even that's not enough to rattle her, and then she hears the doorbell ring from downstairs, and her mood escalates even more.

"I'll get it!" She yells, trying to beat Maxwell down the stairs and succeeding. She halts to a stop in front of the full body mirror near the doorway, frowns at the fresh zit just below her chin and messes with her hair before walking to pull the door open. On the other side reveals her boyfriend, James, curly brown hair longer and messier with some grass and dirt stuck in there, along with his crooked glasses and sheepish grin. Milla takes one long and good look at him before rolling her eyes. "You fell face first on the grass, didn't you?"

"Apparating is hard!" He whines childishly before tackling her into a huge hug, one she couldn't complain about. James is warm and taut and familiar in her arms, and she's never missed him this much before. They were used to living in the same dormitories for a whole school year and being apart proved to be one of the only real challenges during the summer, but they made it work. James visited her as often as he could (though those apparently aren't enough to guarantee a smooth apparating entrance) and sometimes he brings the boys along with him. Whenever they couldn't meet up, they owled even more frequently. But they aren't really enough to satiate her need to be close to him all the time.

"Where are your things, then?" Milla asks the bespectacled boy, tugging on his arm to pull him inside the house with her. They sit on the couch, her legs thrown over his to kill the space between them.

James looked even more sheepish than he did before. "I may or may not have left them in my room?"

"James Potter!"