Cottage Roads ° james potter

-xxv. stop pretending

❛ Cottage roads ❜

"I don't think I'm alright."

"I know."

Claire and James stared at each other both clueless as to what should be said. Neither knew where to start.

"Come in," James offered, stepping aside. She did as told and contemplated everything. She completely forgot why she was even there. "Do you wanna talk abo-"

"What happened with you and Remus?" Claire cut in. James looked away and let out a tired breath.

"I would rather not talk about that."

"Well this is pretty important, shouldn't I know what happened?" Claire insisted.

"Shouldn't I know why you broke up with me?" James challenged. Claire stared at him with a surprised expression. "That's important."

"You know why-"

"No, I don't. I've spent every night for the past two months wondering what I did wrong because we were doing great. I was doing great and you were too- I know you were," James snapped. Claire stared intently at her shoes and listened with a deep frown.

"That's the problem," she began softly. "It started to feel too real. It wasn't fair."

"How's that not fair?"

She felt a lump forming in her throat. "Because I've been in love with you for the past six years. And you could leave at any time for Evans and just the thought of that is basically a break up in itself," she rambled.

Without realizing, James had made his way towards her and had halted right in front of her. He reached down and wiped a tear from her eye.

"I wasn't gonna leave you for Evans. I thought you'd have noticed. I mean I only went out with her because I thought it'd make me feel something but it didn't," he told her. Claire continued to stare at her shoes. "Claire."

"James," she said back.

He smiled and said, "Remus told me about your grandmother. I'm sorry-"

"There's nothing to be sorry about-"

"Well, you should be able to talk to me about it. It's my fault you couldn't. So I'm sorry."

Claire finally looked up at him and simply shrugged. As they looked each other in the eyes, no words were exchanged but they both knew what each other wanted to say. I love you. James then leaned down and quickly captured her lips between his own. It was short. More of a peck but it seemed to heal everything.

Claire then remembered something. "Hold on," she muttered then left the dormitory. As she made it to the common room, she stopped at the sight of her two friends. Only they weren't alone.

"Claire!" Riley perked up. Claire watched as Marlene made her way towards Riley and took her hand within her own. Ohhh, Claire's conscience spoke in realization. Claire smiled happily and nodded at the two.

"As long as you don't break her heart I'm fine with it," she shrugged. She then continued out the common room and towards the Transfiguration classroom. She knocked on the door softly and waited a moment.

"Come in," McGonagall's voice said. Claire opened the door and halted in front of the woman's desk.

"Remember when you said we didn't need any broken hearts this year and I should be very careful?" Claire asked. The woman nodded slightly confused. "Well, that didn't happen. Sad Claire was back, obviously. But now I know that since I've had enough trauma to last me the rest of my life, I'm good. I think I can be happy now."

McGonagall took a moment to process this. "Good. I'm very happy to hear that." Claire nodded happily. She then began making her way out of the class but stopped when she heard her teacher say, "I think your grandmother would be happy to hear that too."

Claire turned back and smiled, "She would. Thank you."

After that short interaction, she made her way back to the common room where she found James and Sirius talking with Hannah. James looked up and smiled. He made her way towards Claire and allowed her to grab his hand and lead her out of the common room.

"Where are we going?" he asked as they stepped into the courtyard.

"A walk," Claire told him.

"I thought you hated walks," James reminded.

"They've grown on me."

As the two caught up on everything it didn't even feel like they missed the last few months. They laughed and joked and chattered about absolute nonsense. This whole time as they were fighting their own feelings they hadn't even noticed that they'd stopped pretending ages ago.

Now, they were real. And now, all was well.