the girlfriend experience ━━ james potter ¹

xvi. drinks and jealousy

His eyes flickered back to the cloak now in her hands. The three boys behind him shuffled about awkwardly and Sirius was just about ready to take a step out from behind the portrait when James finally got in the right state of mind to say, "I'm going to break your bank for this, Ward" very calmly, although Bronwyn detected the slight shaking of his chin where he was very close to going red in the face.

Now that James could look at her straight on, Bronwyn brandished her shiny white teeth in a triumphant grin. "The drunker the better, I say, Potter."

✧

"I LOVE YOU FOR BEING EIGHTEEN. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BEST FRIEND."

The drinks were flowing, the booths were full and Madam Rosmerta was most definitely reconsidering Tequila Tuesdays.

Bronwyn was only a couple of drinks in, but it was enough to make her giddy and confident and pink in the cheeks. An hour in, when she stood off to the side, she liked what she saw. A happy life, a teenage bliss, void of the dangers of the Wizarding World even for just one short night. Her friends sang and danced, squashed onto the same stool, pressed up against each other.

It didn't feel like a common school party. The sweat wasn't the overpowering scent it usually was. Now, it was replaced with the sweet aura of Butterbeer and the worn cosy smell of the wooden planks beneath their feet. The music wasn't garish and disturbing; it was background noise, serenading them into a good time, minus the earache.

Bronwyn was just thinking how James Potter would love to be trampled on and squeezed into a booth right about now. He would watch with wide, bright eyes as the waiters carried trays full of drinks, the contents splashing about until they were in his grasp.

She just wondered if they were ever going to get there─

Just as though she had summoned him, James, followed closely by his three usual companions, burst through the door into the pub, letting a nippy draft float in with them.

"Filch. Cat. Hay." James was panting, as were his two other friends, Sirius and Peter (Remus seemed just as he was earlier: tired but unbothered all the same).

James looked as though he were in pain as he gasped out the three random words, his hands collapsing on his knees, his back slumping over giving him an uncomfortable hunch.

As Bronwyn approached the door, apparently the only one who noticed the unhinged new arrivals, beads of sweat across the four boys' faces ─ Remus included this time ─ came into view and the wheezes for air got even louder.

"Are we playing scrabble, I'm confused?" Her eyes flicked from one boy to the next, noticing how each of them heaved for breath in different ways. Peter's whole body shook, Sirius's hand seemed glued to his chest, Remus' mouth ballooned as if he were trying to savour the air he did manage to gather and James was sort of just a ragged mess that Bronwyn was expecting to collapse on the floor at any given moment.

He just about kept it together as Remus explained James' previous incoherent explanation as to how they had got there in the first place.

"We tried to escape through the normal exit but Filch caught us, let Mrs Norris chase after us I assume because his cat can run faster than him and then Sirius pushed one of the hay barrels from the stables into Filch's face and then we made a run for it."

Bronwyn half-expected Remus to yearn for more air after that long-winded story time in which he didn't once come up for a breath. He didn't, once again being the most unfazed boy she had ever met, but she was unimpressed either way.