Chasing Oblivion

SIX

I twisted and turned the words over and over again in my head, face pale as my fingers shook, leaning as far back as I could into the couch.

It wasn't an enemy in war. It wasn't a death eater.

It was an innocent.

He murdered an innocent in cold blood.

I clutched the cup of coffee in my hands, the liquid had long gone cold as my fingers whitened as I continued to mull over his confession, unaware of how much pressure I was exuding until the cup began to creak.

Harry had left, the image of James having been completely shattered and needing some time to come to terms with the fact that James was a person with many, many flaws.

"Why?" I croaked out, throat hoarse from all the yelling that ensued after his admission.

"That's another story for another time, Love," James sighed out, eyes tinged red from rubbing them so harshly this past hour, head resting in his hands in resignation as he sat in the couch across from me. He didn't believe that we could ever forgive him.

"Tell me," I demanded, wanting – no, needing some type of plausible explanation for his actions. I needed a reason to accept him murdering a six-year-old girl.

"Lilah-"

"I need to know, James. Please," I begged, eyes clenched tightly together, silently praying to Merlin for the strength to carry out this conversation.

"Her name was Amy. She was a Muggle." He sighed out before continuing, "You need to understand that when you left, things changed. The war progressed but something – something happened when you got sent here. There was a rift in time and somehow someone could communicate through it. They knew who you were, Li, and they exploited that weakness. Someone here, now, was threatening your life and if I didn't do what they said then they were going to kill you," he refused to meet my eye, tears rolling down his cheeks as he remembered the fierce determination that drove him through the past two years. "I did horrific things, so many horrible things but I'd do it all again if it meant that I got to be here right now with you."

I stared at him in shock, struggling to comprehend the words that escaped his mouth, the truth somehow so much worse than I had imagined. I felt this overwhelming guilt clench within me, reminding me that James had suffered for years because of me. Because I was stupid enough to run back to the future, to run from one war straight to another without even changing anything that I had originally set out to fix.

"Say something," he begged, rising from the couch only to fall to his knees before me on the cold hard wooden flooring, clutching desperately on my knees as he continued to cry. "Please."

"I don't-I-I'm so sorry," I forced out, throat clenching up, head beginning to pound as my mind played out the possible scenarios that he had to live through over and over again because of my selfishness.

"You're sorry?" He laughed disbelievingly, shaking his head with a knowing smile on his face, the tears slowly halting once he'd realised that I didn't hate him. "You have nothing to be sorry for," he whipped the tears from my face, gently reaching across to kiss my cheeks that were stained with wet trails. "I've made you cry far too much today."

"I forgive you," I smiled softly, leaning into his touch. "We'll figure this out together. As a family."

"As a family."

And with those words he finally closed the distance between us, the kiss starting soft, leaving me ample opportunity to pull away. I tugged him forward into my lap, the kiss quickly progressing to wild and passionate as our desperation for one another grew, to rekindle the ember that was once an out of control fire.

Because that's what we were – a raging, roaring fire. The thing about fires is that when you get too close, you get burnt - a lesson we had both learnt the hard way.

But it was a lesson many had yet to learn.

And it was a lesson I would ensure they learnt.

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Sorry, it isn't as long as it normally is! On the bright side though my exams are over and I've got the next month off uni! So pumped.

The next chapter will be up within a few days as an apology for not updating for the past two weeks.

Thanks for all the reads and votes, I can't believe that I've already got over 1000 reads:) I'm literally ecstatic haha.

Love R101 xx