Wild Hearts ✮ James Potter

Chapter 34.

TW: There is a tiny bit of a steamy make out sesh!

3 days.

72 hours.

4320 minutes.

259,200 seconds.

That was how long Mia Estella Walburga Black had, until she had to face the people she had the misfortune of calling her parents.

That is the amount of time she had before her freedom ended and the torture began.

That was how much time she had left to spend with her true family until her life got turned upside down.

And to say she was a nervous wreck would have been a poor observation. Mia looked as if she was on deaths door. Her skin was clammy and pallid, her eyes had such dark wrinkled bags underneath them that it looked as though she was wearing heavy eyeshadow. But what she thought was on a slightly positive note, she had lost some weight. Not a lot. In fact it would barely be not able to a passerby. But to herself and her friends that had watched her slowly shrink a little in such a short space of time, it was significant.

Her collar bones protruded slightly, they were not defined or completely contoured but they were noticeable enough for her liking. She no longer had extortionately chubby cheeks, they still had a fair portion of puppy chub but they now appeared slender enough. She was still a big girl, and she hated that, but it hurt those she loved more than she could imagine as they watched her suffer.

The ignorant and exaggerated dramatics that Mia had been exhibiting weeks prior was long gone.

It was now terror.

Pure terror.

Because she didn't know why, but she had a bad feeling, a very bad feeling indeed.

James stroked her back under her shirt as they sat down at the back of the transfiguration classroom. Professor McGonogall clearly knew of the situation and the state that Mia was in so she had been very lenient about berating them for talking or not completing work during that lesson.

Mia simply lay her head on the Potter boy's shoulders in exhaustion. Despite sleeping in the same bed as her boyfriend or brother for the past few days, it had done nothing to soothe or prevent the horrific night terrors that seemed to be a frequent visitor for the poor girl.

"Hey." James said as he looked down at her.

She simply hummed in response and briefly glanced upwards.

"I love you." He whispered calmly.

He often did that. He would simply declare his love or maybe confirm her beauty. It was simple sayings such as this that did more to calm Mia's churning anxiety than anything else.

"And I love you." She whispered back.

"To the moon and back?" James questioned.

"To the moon and back." She said.

James had gotten his mother to post them his favourite childhood book called "I love you more." It was about two rabbits who try to profess their love for each other by explaining how much they loved each other until they settled on 'to the moon and back.' as an adequate term. And since then it had become James and Mia's little saying.

After class it was the end of the day meaning they only had the weekend until they should pack their bags and leave.

Knots formed in Mia's stomach as they exited their last lesson of the term. For some reason she thought that when they returned to Hogwarts after Christmas, it would be a very different place to the one it was now.