The Vanishing Comfort
James takes another deep panicky breath as Sirius tries yet again to talk to Remus. It's been two months since ‘the prank’ with Snape and the Whomping Willow. Sirius has persistently attempted to mend his relationship with Remus. He has intercepted Remus' path, interrupted his conversations, and offered countless apologies.
However, Remus remained distant, ignoring Sirius completely. Feeling helpless, Sirius turned to James for assistance. James refused, telling him that this was something he had to fix himself.
Sirius continued to confide in James in the early hours of the morning. James quickly became overwhelmed with everything. His classes, the rift between Remus and Sirius, and Sirius' familial problems at home.
That's how he ends up where he is now, haunched in a corner of the Restricted Section of the library, away from all the commotion of the school and crying into his arms.
There's no telling how long James stays there in the scarcely lit room before there's any movement from him or the room he's in. Suddenly there is a noise behind the shelf James has his back propped on and he gasps in surprise.
“Hello?” James asks in a whispered tone as he tries to stand and walk to the other side of the shelf but a hand reaches through gaps above and around the books and pushes him back down.
“Wha-who are you? What are you doing here?” he sniffs the snot running down his nose and for some reason, his tears hadn't stopped, only slowed.
“What are you doing here?” a hushed voice replies, not one James is familiar with.
James huffs a wet laugh, “Well, I’d think it's obvious the reason I’m here.” The sentence is punctuated with another sniffle.
“Well, it seems we came to do the same thing then,” the new comer releases their own wet and breathy laugh.
James hums as his tears finally come to a halt, his cheeks stained and stiff from the salty streams. “They say two is better than one,”
Another small and muffled wet laugh comes from the other side of the book shelf and James is beginning to quite like the sound. With his own tears nearly forgotten, James listens as the mysterious person on the other side assumingly leans their head back on the shelf with a small thunk.
He hears sniffles coming more often and the occasional heavy intake or release of breath as the person sobs, James forgotten on the other side.
After a long time, long enough to make James rear numb from sitting so long, the sniffling stops and there is just silence. James doesn't say anything to break it and soon he hears retreating footsteps and the uneasy breaths from the other side are gone.
James chances a peek through the shelves and finds no one on the other side. He sighs and stands and stretches his muscles from being sat for so long and then makes his way to the Gryffindor dorms.
As the days went by, James couldn't shake off the memory of the mysterious person he had encountered in the Restricted Section of the library. He found himself constantly scanning the faces in the Great Hall, hoping to catch a glimpse of the person who had shared his pain and tears that night.
But no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find a single trace of the person. It was as if they had vanished into thin air.
James began to wonder if it had all been a figment of his imagination, a product of his exhaustion and emotional turmoil.
Still, he couldn't help but feel a strange connection to the unseen stranger. Their shared vulnerability had created an unspoken bond, and James found himself longing for their presence once more. He yearned for someone who understood what he was going through, someone who could offer solace and support.