20
Something bitter settled over Amita’s tongue as she braved the Hogwarts’ halls to attend her Potions’ class. Everything felt surreal to her, why were they walking in the halls? Why were they following schedules, threading down the corridors with friends, trying so hard to get good grades?
Why was everyone willing to play the game? To assume their masks and feel so fulfilled with the roles they play?
What was stopping her from running down the halls, pressing her palm between someone’s shoulder blades, and whispering the cause of their death? What was stopping her from making everyone unbearably anxious, or from playing games with Death and Circe like they had decided to play with her mind, granting her abilities she despised?
But still, Amita kept walking, heading to class. The only things on her mind were unending questions: why her body did not feel like hers, why it instead felt like she shared it with everyone she had seen dead, everyone she wished would die already so she’d be free from the vows encasing her wrist.
When Amita finally entered the dungeons under the scrutinizing eyes of Slughorn—had she answered his last Slugclub invitation already?—Sirius was sitting next to a reading Remus, and James waved at her when their eyes met. She trudged down the classroom and headed for the empty seat by the Gryffindor boy’s side.
He smiled at her, and his eyes crinkled behind his spectacles from the force of it. Amita might’ve found him stunning had it not been for the anxiety pooling in her guts and his lack of acknowledgement of her breakdown in the infirmary the day before.
“Hope you’re as good as Remus, Amita,” James joked, pointing towards his strawberry blonde friend, “cause he sure knew how to pull his weight.”
“More like how to pull your deadweight,” Remus grumbled from the table in front of them and James fake gasped.
“How could you—“ James clasped his hand before his mouth, “Moons’, I’m an exemplary student!”
The tension melted from Amita’s shoulders at the familiar bickering and she sat down, carefully placing her bag near her feet. “Then, can I change partners? I’d rather have Remus,” she tried joking, and while she believed it fell incredibly flat, James wrapped his arm around her shoulders and rubbed at the hair playfully.
“No way,” he admonished, shaking his head fervently, “you’re stuck with me. Now, partner, let’s go get the ingredients for today’s potion!”
Amita barely had time to gaze upon the board and figure out what potion they were brewing that James had already grasped her hand and pulled her towards the storage room.
***
Lily felt relief course through her being at the sight of James joking with Amita. She knew she must be acting unusual, from the way Marlene was starring at her questioningly, but James, Remus and her had already agreed not to speak about Amita’s breakdown.
Remus had informed them reluctantly that Amita was already in the infirmary when he woke up that morning. In fact, when he had come to, Regulus was reprimanding her for not seeking help from Pomfrey when she has panic attacks instead of him.
James had turned pensive at that information, and Lily felt incredibly guilty thinking she preferred him like this: so openly worried and mature. But the truth was, she had never seen him simply being. She only ever caught sight of him when he was either harassing her with public declarations of love and marriage, or pulling pranks and bullying students with the Marauders by his side. Ever since she stopped being friends with Severus—and that much more since the Quidditch match—she had started seeing him in a new light. She simply wasn’t sure where she stood in all that.
James was the one who suggested keeping the ordeal a secret in the hopes of quelling—or at least, not aggravating—Sirius’ growing displeasure towards Amita. Had he known the girl was on speaking terms with his brother, he would pester them to stop talking to her completely, something they agreed to be impossible at the very moment—not when Amita seemed so unstable. And thus, to be fair, keeping Sirius out of the loop also meant keeping Peter and Marlene out of the loop.
“Lils,” Marlene spoke, breaking her out of her thoughts, “can we start brewing, or will you keep staring at the two until your eyes fall out?”
Marlene’s sarcasm never failed to make her smile—it was so different from her sister Petunia’s disdain for such a perverse way of talking—but today her smile wavered. She quickly shook her head free of any unsavoury thoughts.
“I’ll keep looking, thank you very much,” Lily joked while burying her hands into her bag and pulling out her potions’ tome.
***
Amita knew James’ palms were calloused from Quidditch practice, but she hadn’t expected his knuckles to be so soft. She painted the ridges of his skin with her fingers, entranced as he searched for their ingredients with a few mumbles.
One by one, students left the pantry with their ingredients and joined their sitting partner. Amita heard the growing mumble of Slughorn giving brewing explications and the class moving as one—opening their brewers, chopping their ingredients—but still, James did not let go of her hand. After a while, the girl realized he wasn’t quite searching for the ingredients at all, his eyes roaming over the Valerian Sprigs needed for the potion over and over again.
Cautiously, she reached for the white flower and James inadvertently recoiled from the sight of a moving object in his peripheral. He looked at her, lips strangely taut, but, still, he did not let go.
Amita had known it was coming. James might not have acknowledged her breakdown earlier, but that was simply because he was conscious of the numerous eyes and ears in the classroom. It’s wasn’t in his nature to let go. And for the first time that school year, Amita felt uncomfortable with James’ tendency to pry into other people’s business.
She hadn’t felt this way when he threatened Carrow again and again, nor did she, when he tracked her location on his map to help her steer clear of Filch. But, prying into this—the way her mind was utterly broken, the way she could see all of their deaths—it was crossing a line Amita hadn’t known she didn’t want crossed.
She felt torn. Part of her wished to tell James everything in order to remove the burden of her silence from her shoulders, curl up into his side and let him reassure her. His fingers would brush her hair softly in the same way Lady Cardania did after a hard day of work and she’d feel content. But more than anything, her need for James scared her. She had never felt the need to depend on someone like this before—not when she lived with her parents, and not even when Cardania took her in as a temporary ward.
Her stomach wouldn’t settle down and it wasn’t because of the fluttering of butterflies or the growing excitement of love. It was caused by dread, that dread you feel in wet sand when it turns out to be quicksand. That’s what it was: Amita felt like she stood in quicksand and one wrong move would make her sink quicker. She couldn’t pry herself out or she’d die, and she couldn’t abandon herself and let go or she’d die as well.
Amita looked up at the boy’s still tightly shut mouth, at the way he fiddled with his bottom lip but remained silent. Was he waiting for her to speak first?
A bout of anxiety settled around her throat. Her breath quickened. What would she answer if he asked her about the cause of her panic attack? What would she answer if he asked about her nightmares again? Suddenly, she was kicking and struggling against the quicksand, her shoulders nearly fully submerged. She frantically looked around, trying to find something to latch unto. Her eyes fell upon the sight of their potion teacher, hunched over a Slytherin table, peering into their brewing potion.
Before the quicksand could envelop her fully, Amita sputtered: “Slughorn sent me another invitation for his Slugclub. I don’t have any good excuses not to attend this time.”
***
James knew he should let go of Amita’s hand, but he couldn’t find the right moment to do so. Her eyes seemingly went through him as she got lost in thought, and an irrational part of him believed that if he let go, she’d remained there, trapped in her thoughts.
He picked at his lip, an unfamiliar anxiety enveloping him. He had never felt this way, never tiptoed around someone like this, afraid to hurt them. Even when Pads had stumbled upon his doorstep, shivering and covering in blood—he willed himself not to remember—he hadn’t been so self-conscious. Of course, he had panicked; of course, he had feared Sirius wouldn’t wake up. But when the boy had woke up, he had engulfed copious amounts of his mum’s food and tried so hard to act as he normally did, James had indulged him.
Part of him knew he should do the same with Amita, let her speak when she felt the need to, and so he bit his lip and kept his mouth shut.
“Slughorn sent me another invitation for his Slugclub. I don’t have any good excuses not to attend this time.”
A sad smile reached his lips. Perhaps she would tell him next time.
“I can make up an opportunity for one,” James joked, letting go of her hand. “How about a prank? I can make your tongue grow a foot long.”
Amita’s nose crinkled in annoyance, but her tensed shoulders loosened. “No, thanks.”
He laughed, trying to make it as natural as possible. The girl’s head shot up at the noise, her dark eyes peering into his. He shuddered slightly and covered it up by leaning unto one of the ingredients’ shelves.
“How about turning your hair into feathers then? Peter knows a good spell. He dressed up as a raven for the last Quidditch game.”
“He rooted for Ravenclaw?”
“He goes all out for every team, but Slytherin,” he explained.
Amita shook her head amicably and fell back into silence. James didn’t know how he could rekindle the conversation once more. Should he speak about Quidditch? Was Amita a fan? Would it make her remember the ordeal with Carrow? Would it make her cry again? Would he make her cry again?
He must’ve been lost in thought for a while, because he could feel Amita’s worried glances and forced himself to loosen the crinkle of his brows. He sighed.
“Did you want to ask me something?” Amita spoke, voice wavering slightly. She was fiddling with the Valerian sprigs—he noted—but her shoulders were still loose, and her eyes were still fixated upon his.
“Can I help you?”
***
The question was open-ended and vague enough that Amita could easily dismiss it. Once again, the girl was struck by James awareness and compassion. While the Slytherins’ cleverness was used for profit, and Ravenclaws’ for innovation, James’ was geared towards others and his understanding of them. He was a people person.
Amita hesitated on what her answer would be. None of Amita’s needs could be satisfied realistically. She tried to think of something she could ask of James, but the only things in her mind were wide grey eyes and thousands of hands latched upon pale skin.
She closed her eyes willing the vision away and finally, the thought came to her. “One of my paintings was taken by a professor when I was caught after curfew.”
James didn’t seem surprised. He simply smiled at her and willed her to continue.
“I was wondering if I could borrow your map and your cloak to enter their office and get it back.”
The boy if front of her didn’t move nor change his facial expression, but Amita could almost see the gears turning behind his eyes, as he thought of a suitable answer. She reminded herself not to feel disappointed if he refused—the cloak was a family heirloom after all—and simply try to figure out another way to get it back.
“I don’t feel comfortable leaving the cloak with you,” James started, taking her hand in his. He wasn’t looking at her anymore, as though feeling guilty. “You’ve never sneaked around with it before and entering a professor’s office is too risky for a first try.”
Amita had slowly raised her Occlumency shields through out his explanation, and the boy’s eyes filled with remorse when he looked back up at her and realized so.
“I’d feel better if I went with you,” he added, desperate to finish his explanation. “I could help you if things go awry.”
The girl forced herself to breathe, and lower her shields. James didn’t deserve them. He was being open with her, making an effort, and she had to as well. “I’d like that,” she answered softly before licking her lips, anxiously. “I’d also feel more comfortable with you around, I think.”
His eyes crinkled under his spectacles, and Amita suddenly felt incredibly guilty for not telling him the whole story.
“Perfect! So, which professor took it?”
She smiled sheepishly.
“Professor Dumbledore.”