This Time, Last Time (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

23.

I am your biggest fan.

I hope you know I am.

But do you think you can somehow slow down?

-"Slow Down," Nichole Nordeman

August 2018

On Tuesday evening, James arrived at Raigan's house just before dinner. Piper was sitting on the living room with what looked like everything she owned spread out all over the room, some in piles or groups, others in something that resembled organization although James couldn't quite figure out what method she was was using. It reminded him of Elise, actually, the way she always spread all her files and papers and things all over her office floor when she was working through something.

"Hey girly," he said, weaving a path through the mess to get to her. "What's going on in here?" he asked, leaning down to kiss her on the head.

"Mum said if I picked out some of my stuff to sell I could keep the money," she said, reaching up to fix her hair.

"You're selling all this?" he asked.

"No," she said, looking at him with narrowed eyes like this should have been obvious. "I'm just picking out what I don't need." James chose not to comment on her tone, but he was getting a little nervous about the approaching teen years and the sass he would inevitably be dealing with.

"Got it," he said. "Looks like quite a project." He started to shuffle his way back out through her maze and asked, "Where's your mum at anyway?"

"Outside I think," said Piper, stacking a bunch of books up.

"Alright, I'll leave you to it, then and go say hello," he said.

She smiled at him and it was like the sass had never been there. He added mood swings to the list of things to be worried about.

Raigan was indeed outside, her wand pointed at one of the flowerpots on the back porch. Water spouted out and into the dirt beneath the geraniums. "Hey, Rai," he said.

"Hey," she said, looking up. She had her hair up in a very imperfect ponytail and was dressed very casually in cotton shorts and a t-shirt. She lifted the spell and gave him a hug. "You were with Elise yesterday?" she asked.

He nodded as they pulled apart. "We went out after work," he said.

"When am I gonna get to see her?" she asked, turning to the next flower pot.

James was surprised by this. "You wanted to?" he asked.

"We used to be friends, didn't we?" she said. "When you and Dawson would be somewhere doing your guy things, we'd talk."

James felt himself relax and he hadn't even known he was holding any tension. It was the first time since the anniversary of Dawson's passing that Raigan had brought him up in this flippant sort of a way.

"Yeah, I suppose that's true," said James. He pulled out one of the chairs around the table and faced it towards her, sitting down on the edge. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and thought about her question. He didn't know why it was a hard one to answer except that maybe he didn't know how Elise would feel about it. Introducing her to Raigan the first time had seemed so natural, like this promise to the both of them that he wanted this to be permanent. Now it didn't feel so easy. He had essentially chosen Raigan over Elise. Or at least, that's what it seemed like he had done.

"I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe I'll talk to her about it."

Raigan frowned at him. "You don't have to you know. If you're not- I mean it just seems like she's gonna be around awhile, you know?"