18th June, 2029
When James awakes that Thursday morning, he notices three things.
One: the girl in bed beside him did not sneak away during the night like the others usually did.
Two: there’s a letter addressed to him on the ground by his open window sill.
Three: he smells really, really bad, and he feels really, really bad.
Stupid hangovers.
Stupid work days.
He’s going to have to wake her up so he can get ready, but first, he decides that perhaps he should be expected to make some disgusting or duly suspicious concoction or rather to calm his pulsing headache. That, and find some clothes.
He rubs his eyes, trying to clear his bleary vision, and observes his messy surroundings. Her clothes, but mostly his, are scattered around the room. There are folded pants on his desk chair, and he can spot his leaky quill bleeding onto his new role of parchment from here. His closet is open wide enough to reveal an old quidditch broom and his old Gryffindor tie and scarf. The mirror attached to the inside of the closet faces him, and he takes in the hickeys on his shoulders and neck, and briefly recalls how vicious she was, which had been quite a surprise due to her usually sweet and shy disposition. No matter, it felt good nonetheless. His calendar blinks at him, symbolising the sluggish work day ahead for him. He can hear Lola squeaking away hungrily in her cage, and reminds himself to feed both her and Iris too.
And read that letter.
And shower.
And wake Alice up, maybe.
And apologise to her, because he really should’ve taken her out on a date first.
He tries to make a mental list in his mind on what he has to do. There seems to be so much. He has work too, which won’t help. He knows Jojo will talk his ear off about responsibilities and he’ll have to listen to her because she’ll probably be right. And he’ll have to deal with Alice too. And cancel on Laura, because he doubts taking a girl out three days after sleeping with another is a particularly moral thing to do.
It sucks being irresistible, he guesses.
But as James fishes out his pants and sweaty shirt from last night, the only thing he truly feels relieved about is that Alice had been too distracted with him to notice how messy his place was. How bad it smelt, and still smells.
He picks up the letter and tip-toes his way out the bedroom, leaving Alice snoring behind him. He makes an effort not to look at her. He knows it’s stupid, his limbs are literally shaking from the physical exertion of the entire night, but now that he’s sober and could think right again, he feels looking at her would be some breach of privacy. So he doesn’t, no matter how much he wants to.
He leaves to the kitchen, throws his letter on the dark shiny counter, and reaches down to grab Lola’s food from a noisy cabinet in one hand, and retrieves Iris’ in the other. Lola’s squeaking is so loud that James starts to think that his headache isn’t a hangover at all, and is merely a direct effect of Lola’s insistence on being fed. If he doesn’t feed her soon, she’ll probably wake Alice up, and James really doesn’t want to deal with that conversation whilst his head pounds so terribly.
Maybe if he is sneaky enough he could run away to work before she wakes up.
He feels ashamed right after thinking about it. That’s something Albus would think. Or Lily. Or, even worse, a younger him. Now, he’s supposed to be the emotionally-balanced, reliable one. The one who recovered.
He thinks to himself to make himself feel better. He knows he won’t always feel better, won’t always see his hard progress for what it is, but though he knows it, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.
Lola can probably sense his momentary weakness, because when he reaches into her cage to put food into her bowl, she swipes at him.
“Ow,” James hisses lowly. “Merlin, I always have to stay vigilant with you, don’t I? Do you want breakfast or not?”
Lola relents long enough until her bowl is full before immediately stuffing her face like he had given her elixir from the ferret gods.
James strokes her fur begrudgingly. Damn ferrets. He loves Lola dearly, but sometimes she’s so bossy he reckons he’ll never want a girlfriend with her being so high-maintenance. At first, he couldn’t quite understand why she and Albus got along so well from his youth into his adolescence, but he completely understands now. They’re just as bossy, sassy and attention-seeking, with the same scary appetites.
Iris, on the other hand, is watching him quietly. James sighs. The calm in the storm. He will never pick favourites amongst his girls, but she truly is less naggy, at least. A great horned owl, with a head slightly too big for her body, and wings slightly too small. When she walked, it was always wobbly, and she normally cocked her head to one side when looking anywhere to ease the weight on her neck. Merlin, she is the most beautiful creature James had ever laid his eyes on.
“Hello, baby,” he coos, reaching through her cage to pat the ruffle of feathers on her head. She ruffles her tail in greeting, somehow knowing intrinsically that she needs to be silent. He gives her more food than usual, and lets her have her fill.
Then he retreats back to the kitchen, he pours himself a tall glass of water. He’s heard before that pickle juice works, but he doubts it and he doesn’t have any pickle juice. Albus probably knows how to cure a hangover in five minutes. James is slightly less experienced.
He downs the water and the multi-vitamin supplements Mum bought him when he fell sick last week. They're supposed to cure the symptoms of a cold within two minutes and thirty-seven seconds, but he doesn’t really know if they work on hangovers, though. He doesn’t think so, he doesn’t feel much different. Maybe he’ll just go and buy a potion on his way to work. Maybe he’ll just Floo his brother before that.
James sits down at the counter with his half glass of water and groans, hands rubbing at his face. He feels fucking terrible.
His head pounds, like something’s trying to break out of his cranium.
He recalls his list, hoping that can bring some sort of semblance of peace back.
One, deal with his hangover.
He tried his best.
Two, feed his girls.
Check.
Three, have a shower.
Right. Onto number three then.
The sound of the water will probably wake Alice up, though. Maybe he should just suffice to cast some meagre cleaning and fragrance spells until he comes home.
So three: find his wand.
He can’t remember seeing it when he looked around his room, but he doesn’t think he would have ever put it anywhere but there, even when he was black out drunk.
He checks his pockets, and though there’s nothing, he can’t help but feel slightly put out.
“Looking for your wand?”
James turns around to find her in her underwear and her shirt, leaning on the doorframe of his bedroom and holding his crooked wand in one hand. Her brown hair is dishevelled and flows over her shoulder, and her cheeks are flushed, but he can’t tell if it’s because she just woke up or because she’s embarrassed. He knows he is, which is a rare feeling for him to experience when it comes down to anyone else but her. Her dark eyes settle on him in a way where he believes isn’t mortified at all. Reading her now, with the almost-smirk settled on her face, her bare foot against his floor, tapping slightly, he concludes she’s amused at him. Which just makes him more embarrassed, because usually it’s the other way around.
“Yeah, actually,” he says, throat feeling dry still even after downing what felt like gallons of water.
Iris coos at Alice. Alice smiles brightly at the owl, as if Iris can understand what that means. James thinks her smile is lovely.
He tries to stop thinking about it, and walks over to her.
Her attention turns back to him, and she raises an eyebrow when he takes the wand from her. He doesn’t really know what to say on mornings like these. Usually the girls don’t stay the night. Usually James doesn’t bring girls over to his in the first place, no matter how much he might seem like the type to. But, on the occasion where he does, they’re always faceless, or they’re new, or they’re Muggles, or they’re people trying to keep a secret. They’re not girls he’s known since he was a kid. And they’re not ex girlfriends he’s abundantly screwed over in the past.
Luckily, whether she senses his awkwardness or not, she starts the talking.
“You got work today?” She asks.
“Yeah. Nothing too interesting though. Just talking and meeting up with a few clients, I think.”
She nods, and he begins muttering the cleaning charms, because he reckons he may not have time to take a shower after all.
“Could be interesting,” Alice continues, moving to sit down at the counter of his kitchen. “At least you won’t have to be waiting on old pervy drunkards on Diagon Alley. I swear, there are these groups of blokes that know me by name. Not that you can forget a name like Longbottom, I guess. Merlin, I love my dad but I really wish I got my mother’s maiden name instead.”
When he finishes his spells, James smiles at her.
“That’s valid. But to be honest, Alice Abbott sounds kind of douchey.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Fair.”
James asks her if she wants any water or breakfast, and when she declines the offer of breakfast but accepts the water, James takes the time to observe her. To actually look at her properly for the first time today.
She looks comfortable, sitting down at his kitchen, which is the weirdest sight James could think of seeing on a Monday morning, only because he would have never expected something like this to transpire. She’s been to his place before, but only once, when she was dropping off confidential documents with Jojo a few months back that couldn’t be sent by owl, and he invited her inside for a drink. Then she went home, all business. Not cold to him, but not exactly warm either. There was always a thick tension between them whenever they had interacted in settings that could’ve been only half-intimate, no matter how badly they pretended there wasn’t.
He doesn’t want to think too deeply about last night, mainly because he hadn’t thought hard enough of the implications of going out to the pub on a Sunday evening with some coworkers when he was badly stressed out about his brother and mum. He had always struggled with over-indulgence, especially when he was mentally anguished. Large intakes of alcohol apparently was not an exception, despite him usually disliking drinking too heavily. Maybe that was why he was foolish (he had thought courageous, at the time) enough to sidle up against a certain waitress he constantly pretended to not have his eye on.
James does not want to think of all the embarrassing things he must have said to her to save his pride– wishing he had been drunk enough to not remember the mortifying one-liners he had tried on her. But alas, he was drunk enough for a hangover the morning after, but that was all. He also recalls how she had smiled in the way she used to smile at him when they went to school together, how he had thought her laugh was brighter than any other torch that surrounded them, and how he wondered if the fire in his belly was due to him being absolutely wasted or unreservedly in love with her (so embarrassing). He remembers her talking to the manager to be let off early, and him throwing the finger up at Hassan, his colleague, who had started whistling at them as they left.
He remembers how nervous she was to be at his place. How her eyes sprang from object to object, taking everything in as he had drunkenly guided her to his bedroom. She asked time and time again if he was okay with having sex with her, but he had brushed her concerns aside, thinking she was conflicted with his lack of sobriety (truth was, James had been acting more drunk than he really was, as if he knew subconsciously that he would need a rational excuse for his foolishness by morning). He could take it as she didn’t much like new environments, or maybe she was thinking of him and what had happened between them and how she would probably regret everything by dawn.
Maybe James is looking too deeply into it, because now she seems completely at ease with her surroundings, completely confident. Like how he had felt the night before.
He guesses a good shag could change people, the two of them included.
He watches her lick her lips, views the smudged mascara she didn’t wash off from that night, looks at the knots entangled in her hair and thinks of how he’s probably to blame for it, because he knows now that her curls are just as soft as they’ve always been and he’s just as entranced here as compared to when he wasn’t sober. He thinks he’s always been a little enamoured, but he tried not to think about it. She has stretch marks on her thighs. She has chipped pink nail polish on her toes, but not her fingers. Her cheeks are naturally red when she wakes up, and like him, she doesn’t eat breakfast in the morning. He thinks that’s a new thing, something that might’ve changed from when they were teenagers.
She’s surveying him too. Or, more accurately put, his house.
“Are you a sociopath?” She asks him. “Why is your place so clean?”
“It’s not clean, it’s a mess right now. Look, my books are all over the couch, and there’s literally piles of paper on the floor beside that table. Also, it smells really bad.”
“Ah, yes, I see you still have a sensitive nose,” Alice smirks, and James knows his cheeks are pink. “Alright, it’s not clean. But it’s organised. Everything is organised.”
“Organising can be therapeutic, Longbottom.”
She scrunches her nose at the use of her surname, and he grins despite himself.
“Sociopath,” she repeats again.
Maybe things aren’t going to be so bad. Maybe when he lets her down, as he will have to eventually, she won’t be so hurt. Or she won’t cry. And he won’t disappoint her like last time.
Okay, he is self-sabotaging himself by thinking like this.
What’s an even more horrible thought was knowing he’ll probably have to explain this all to Nasira, because she’s his therapist and Alice had been more or less a topic to touch on now and then. And he’ll have to explain this to Jojo, because she is his best friend even though she’s his coworker as well and could sometimes be a little dramatic.
“I’m going to clean up, probably cover all of this–” he gestures awkwardly to his neck, the hickeys marked on him, and he feels a wave of gratitude at her flushing in embarrassment, “but feel free to raid my kitchen if you want anything. We can talk in a bit.”
“Okay,” she nods, and he turns to go, hating how hot he feels around his neck, like her mouth did more to him than bruise him.
Merlin, he was a child. A nervous wreck sort of tween-child, which did not feel good especially on a Monday.
“Um, James!” Alice exclaims before he can fully disappear into his bathroom. He turns around to look at her, and she’s shifting back into the fidgety, nervous woman she usually is. He hopes he’ll get his charm and confidence soon, because it is a little humiliating how hopeless Alice can render him. “Sorry for, you know, being too aggressive last night. If I was.”
He goes stupid. James Sirius Potter, Wizengamot’s silver-tongued favourite, has lost his ability to form words. Because now he’s thinking about her hands on him, and how she really was aggressive. Like she was hungry. How she used her nails and teeth and breath to mould him into whatever she desired from him the entire night. And he gave himself away completely because it felt good and his brain had functioned much too slowly for the usual whispered doubts in his self-consciousness. In fact, it was probably one of the best shags he ever had.
But, screw Nasira and her preaches about being open with the people around him, Alice could never know.
Alice takes his silence as disgust, which is accurate, but it’s not directed at her.
“I’m sorry, I really didn’t believe I’d be so… so domineering. I had a few drinks last night too, and I don’t get drunk like that a lot.”
James, say something. Stop thinking about it and say something.
“Um. No, it’s fine. You were fine.”
Alice looks as if she’s about to say something, and James acts on flight instinct and disappears to the bathroom. Great, that was definitely considerate. Nasira will reel when he tells her of this. Or maybe he just won’t, even if that’s the irresponsible thing to do.
James is a burdened man. That’s what he likes to call himself as a replacement for being self aware. This means he notices most of the times where he’s done something right, as well as done something wrong. He notices when things go well, and when things don't. He takes into account what he can do to make things better, and usually, he turns out to be pretty on the mark, thanks to all those years of being the reserved observer.
However, this also means that he’s aware of all his flaws and fears, and aware when they come into play and affect his actions. This is harder to keep track of, a trait of the burden that he’s had to hone over the years at therapy so he can keep an eye on himself, so he doesn’t turn out to be a total dunce. Sometimes, all he really wants is to be blind to his ugly side, pretend it doesn’t exist, blessed ignorance and all that hooey.
Sweet teenagerdom, how James pretends to miss it.
His fears usually influenced him when he interacted with Alice, like right now, for instance. Because James is thinking of how he needs to stop doing this to her, and how he shouldn’t ever get into a relationship, at least not in the meantime because he knows he’s got a lot of unresolved issues. He should focus on himself, even though he’s been doing that for years and years and perhaps he feels bored with what’s staring back at him in the slightly grimy mirror right now.
He’s got to snap out of it.
James points his wand to the marks on his neck that would be visible through his shirt.
“Evanescorum,” he mutters watching the bruises fade away.
Alice is a woman now, and she had matured just like he had. They weren’t unstable, moody kids anymore. She will see reason, because there is. He knows all of this, but it doesn’t necessarily make him feel better about it all. Maybe it’s because it’s not what he wants. Not really.
He thinks about dating Alice again. She is sweet, considerate, and kind. She has a lovely laugh, and when she looks at people, you’d think she had fallen in love with them. She’s interested in anything anyone has to say, and always looks for the best in them before coming to terms that there might be imperfections too, and even then, she’ll take it in stride. People don’t really care as much as she does, he knows he used to pretend he didn’t, but now that he thinks about it she has always been this way, like it is her nature. She’s polite too, she will laugh and smile at people who she doesn’t like, who are rude or not funny or boring. She pretends not to, but James thinks she secretly likes everyone she meets. And, like the unspoken, intrinsic law of the universe, everyone loves her too, gravitating to her naturally enough. She’s a bit of a romantic, and James wonders if she’s still waiting for someone to come love her with just one glance. James knows he failed at understanding before, but he could probably do it now.
But despite what he’s feeling, the reason he thinks he’s feeling this way could be wrong too.
Maybe he’s just feeling like this because he feels bad about being such a dick to her when they dated before. Maybe he’s feeling this way because he doesn’t want to discourage her when he inevitably leaves this bathroom and tells her that something like this can’t happen again. Maybe he just wants to pursue her to show her he’s not that kind of guy anymore, to show her he did really change and her getting her heart broken before wasn’t for nothing because he really is better now.
But he can’t use her again, not even as some sort of redemption arc to ease his guilt.
He can basically hear Nasira’s voice in his head agreeing with him, which is probably a sign he’s doing the right thing.
Thus, the burden.
He washes his face and his hands and makes a note to wash his laundry when he gets home, because his basket is nearly full. He doesn’t shave, because he doesn’t think that’s a huge priority right now. He looks more mature with the stubble, and he doesn’t exactly despise it. Maybe he will in a day or two, though.
When James comes back out, Alice is gone. She wrote a little note with whatever salvageable parchment she could find in his room, and left it on the kitchen counter besides the unopened letter.
I gotta go back home and change for work; sorry I have to leave you like this but I just remembered on Mondays I have an earlier shift. Have a good day, and if you want to talk swing by the Leaky Cauldron today or send a letter!
Alice xx
Whether that was the real reason why she left, or whether it was because she had felt uncomfortable about the whole situation, James doubts he’ll ever know. But he does hope she has a good day too, and that those men at the pub aren’t as lecherous to her as she says they are.
Being a waitress must suck.
His head throbs again, and he hears his clock on the wall beside Lola’s cage chime loudly. 5 minutes until he has to leave for work. It’s probably for the better that Alice left. Iris hoots and Lola looks like she’s sleeping again, but he checks they have enough food and water for the day.
He wonders if Alice is thinking about him to the same extent he’s thinking about her. He wonders if she even cares about what happened last night. He wonders if he’s the only one overthinking it, and maybe she doesn’t care as much as he thinks she does. Maybe he’s just being self-centred, and they don’t even need to talk about it. Maybe she’s already under the impression it was a one night stand. There doesn’t have to be anything else.
Maybe James is an idiot.
He goes to his room, notices that Alice’s stuff is all gone, and goes over to his closet to sift through shirts and pants appropriate enough for Wizengamot. He always has to be presentable, when working within the wizarding judiciary. Which is fine but sometimes a pain in the arse when he just wasn’t in the mood for it, like now. After he’s fished out a white shirt, dress pants and a dark vest, he goes back out and drinks some more water to the point where he knows he’ll have to use the bathroom the second he gets to work. His attention drifts to the letter on the counter.
He recognises the handwriting. It’s from his dad.
He can’t help but feel a rise of dread. His dad hardly ever writes to him, and when he does it’s normally short, and mostly business. Anything else and it’s probably because his mum forced him to write something, but Harry Potter’s love language was not inked words in the least. James still doesn’t quite know why he always feels initially apprehensive when his dad writes to him. He should save that thought for a Saturday afternoon.
Anyhow, better to deal with it now.
James,
Unfortunately I have to cancel our plans on Thursday. I may have a board meeting and it will also be Lily’s first day, so I want to be able to help her out. Perhaps you could come over the day after. I can cook up some tamales, I know you like them. Let me know.
Love,
Dad.
Now, maybe it’s because James is in a shitty mood due to his hangover, but he really struggles to sympathise with his dad at the moment. Maybe it’s also because he wasn’t really expecting his dad to not cancel on him, which is actually quite sad. He hadn’t even put it in his calendar, which shows just how much faith he had in the first place. Maybe it’s also because he knows Harry was lying about it being Lily’s first day, because she had told him when she’d start work and he had put it in his calendar and memorised the day. He didn’t have to lie, he could’ve just said it was her second day and she’d still need some help, which would have been fine. He’s also a little upset about the whole tamales thing. Sure, tamales had been his favourite dish when he was sixteen. Now he fancies paella. Bonus if there are oysters.
Maybe it’s because James misses him. Harry hasn’t been to his place in three months, which becomes increasingly more depressing the longer James thinks about it. He knows things have been awkward between them for years now, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be close with him. He loves his dad.
He knows his dad loves him too, although he may struggle with showing it sometimes. He shows it in ways where James is forced to pay attention. In the meals he cooks. In the firm handshakes. In the way he would knock on the door to his room, just to spend time with him even when they didn’t really say anything. In the way his eyes would shine in gratitude every time James said something that would make him laugh, as if it was exactly what he had needed.
He doesn’t know if his dad wants to spend time with him anymore. He sort of thinks his dad doesn’t want to think about him, wants to pretend everything is fine in his world, and nothing outside of that exists. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t really talk to Albus anymore, because Albus isn’t the forgiving type (of course, Albus will always find ways to bother Harry until they meet one way or another, which James thinks is interesting).
James thinks his dad feels guilty. James gets like that too sometimes, so he can understand why Harry does what he does.
James wants to make him laugh again. He hasn’t heard his dad have a really good laugh in a while, and he thinks he might need it.
But he can’t this Friday. The laugh will have to wait.
When James writes out his reply, and attaches it to Iris’s leg, he finds he feels better than he did after first initially reading the letter, and he means everything he had written.
He hopes Lily likes her job as an Auror, she has always prided herself on being the hero, so he knows she’ll be fiercely competent. He should probably write a letter to his mom and tell her not to worry too much or be too pissed about it, because he doubts she’ll listen to his dad or Lily. He should probably invite her over one of these days as well, she hasn’t been around in two weeks and he’s missing her too. Maybe when Lily starts work at the Ministry, she can influence Harry into visiting him more in the parliament section. He hopes so. He wants to see them more.
Iris flies off with the letter, and James thinks about all the things he wishes he can convey to his dad. He doesn’t really know how to do any of it just yet, so until the time is right, he hopes he’s enough as it is.