𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖇𝖚𝖈𝖐𝖊𝖙 𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 ʲᵃᵐᵉˢ ᵖᵒᵗᵗᵉʳ

𝕚𝕚𝕚. TROUBLE IN PARADISE

𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦

THE CLOSURE THAT BLAKE EXPECTED to come after the date wasn't what she thought it would be. Her path to closure was slow but it was better than nothing. She had naively expected it to be the one thing that would come easy for her. She thought that whenever she saw James from that point onwards, she wouldn't feel the butterflies that she did all those other times. That she would feel at peace. Of course, she was wrong. It took a while longer than she expected it to but eventually, those days slowly began to ease and Blake found herself gradually becoming free from the weight in her chest as she searched rooms for James a bit less. She would see him every now and then, sending a smile that didn't reach her eyes and a small wave whenever he greeted her. That was until she was in Slughorn's potion class learning about Armortentia and she came to the realisation that no matter how hard she tried everything would just lead back to him. Half of her just wished that someone would just obliviate her memory of him with a simple wave of their wand.

She couldn't lie and say that when it was her turn to smell the potion it didn't smell like James, because it did. She just hoped that she'd be able to keep that information to herself and herself only but when it came to packing the potion equipment away she found herself side by side with the boy himself.

"Summers," he greeted looking at her with a big dorky smirk.

"Potter," she greeted back with the same tone and a light laugh.

"Your potion smelt like me." He didn't want to say it but it was the only thing he could think of and it didn't help that it sounded more like a statement rather than a question as he intended it to.

Luckily for Blake, James missed how her breath hitched before she quickly regained her composure "And yours smelt like Lily," she replied. There was a beat of silence showing that James attempt to start a conversation did not diffuse the awkwardness "I'm surprised you didn't blow something up this lesson," she teased.

"I am offended by your lack of faith in me Miss Summers," James pouted as they walked back to his desk to which Blake merely shrugged her shoulders at him before saying a quiet "bye" to him and walking back to her own desk. It wasn't long after that, that the bell signalling the end of the lesson rang. Blake was pleasantly surprised when James fell into step with her once she left the classroom and continued the conversation they were having.

James brought his head close to hers as if he was telling her something that he didn't want anyone to hear "I didn't make the potion. I stole from Moony."

Blake shook her head with a wry smile and turned her head to look at him. She knew the truth, after all, she'd had a crush ok him for years which would be considered enough time to understand him"Liar."

That caught James off guard as his eyebrows furrowed in confusion "W—what do you mean? I'm not lying."

"Yes, you are. You're good at potions James. Therefore I cannot believe that you didn't make that Armortentia yourself," she said with a pointed look "So why'd you lie?"

James struggled to find the words, his mouth opening and closing like a fish "Because I have a reputation to uphold. The mischievous marauder that pulls pranks all the time with his mates. Oh! Speaking of pranks! Do you want to hear the prank that we have planned?"

Blake rolled her eyes at his change of subject but never the less nodded her head as they slowly halted in their steps "Sure. But first... I have no idea where we are going. I was just following you." If James had been following her they would have definitely ended up in the library and not halfway down the school fields.

James looked at their surroundings as if he had just realised that they had just been wandering aimlessly and simply said in his best mock french accent "Follow me, mademoiselle," which Blake did. She followed him down the fields towards a secluded area behind the quidditch pitch.

"Nobody really goes here because it's behind the pitch and they think it'll be really noisy but surprisingly there's a lot of privacy," he told her.

"Nice," she replied, sitting down on the grass and looking up at him "So... this prank...?"

At the mention of the prank, James smirked, a mischievous glint appearing in his eye as followed suit "Snivellus is getting a bit too comfortable so We're going to dye his hair bright pink and jinx his notes with this spell that makes all the writing disappear!" he explained.

At the mention of Snape's nickname created by the Marauders along with the details of the prank, Blake's face fell. Just because she had been crushing on James for years didn't mean that she had to like and agree with everything he did. He wasn't perfect.

"What's wrong Blake?" he asked, noticing her facial expression.

She had two options here: she could tell him the truth or she could play it off and pretend like it was nothing. But then again, life was too short for her to not tell him "I just... I don't agree with what you're doing."

"Why?" James was confused "Snivellus deserves it. He's a greasy Slytherin git."

Blake sighed "You do realise what this is, right? It's bullying."

First, there was Lily and now there was Blake. He truly didn't understand why they chose to stick up for him. It wasn't like James' actions were unjustified. Snape was evil "He's a death eater!"

"You don't know that!"

"Yes, I do! Every single Slytherin in this school is a pureblood prick that supports Voldermort," he scoffed.

Blake breathed out in attempts to calm herself. She knew from the experience of her own arguments that getting riled up was not going to help at all "That's not fair, James. Voldermort was a student in our school, does that mean that every student in this school is a death eater?"

Blake had a point and James knew that but his hatred for Snape made him stubborn to back down from the argument "He called Lily a mudblood."

"I know. That was a horrible and disgusting thing to do but continuously making him the victim of your pranks doesn't make you any better than him," Blake tried to reason with him.

James scowled "So you're really siding with him!?"

Blake shook her head in disbelief "I'm not siding with anybody James and you know that. You're better than this. You need to put your jealousy and ego aside," she told him honestly, standing up from the grass "I—I have to go."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

welcome back to me
procrastinating revision for
my sociology exam tomorrow by
writing a new chapter for this book :)

sorry for taking so long to
update, i had a bit of a writers
block because i didn't know
how to show james' asshole-iness

love you x

©HUEYIEWIS
since. 04/05/2020