Title: Illicit Affairs
Pairing: James Potter x reader
Summary: Deep down, you always knew it was going to end like this.
Word Count: 2.4k
You had watched them fall in love. What was only a few years ago but what felt like a lifetime ago, you had watched James Potter and Lily Evans fall in love. He had always loved her from the start, he chased after her from the very beginning. While the declarations of love and constant badgering to a date at Hogsmeade was a daily occurrence to everyone and amusing to almost every student at Hogwarts, it was a heartbreaking cycle that slowly chipped away at your heart subtly that you hadn't even noticed it for years.
There was something about him from the very first time you saw him - the confidence, the talent, his humor - it all had enraptured you to him slowly when it was barely noticeable until it became devastatingly fast when it was unavoidable. It was only when you really noticed what you felt for him that they had fallen in love. There's a muggle saying that goes 'there's a very fine line between hate and love'. It seemed that Lily Evans was right on the line and it went over to love instead of hate. James had finally gotten the girl of his dreams, the one he's been chasing after for years, when you fell in love with him.
The unrequited heartbreak you had was perhaps the most painful type of heartbreak. You never told your friends how you felt about him seeing as everyone knew that he would only ever love and want Lily Evans. So as your heart broke when you saw them go on dates, laugh together, cuddle in the common room, kiss - no one knew your pain except yourself. You watched them get married and have a home together. They were building a future together and it hurt you that the boy that you secretly loved as a girl had broken your heart without even knowing it, was building a future with the woman of his dreams while you were still heartbroken over him like the same foolish girl.
You had always known but now knew for certain you could never even have him. You would never have him, that was never in the cards for you. It was two years after leaving Hogwarts that you were at a point in your life where you felt that you were content where your life was headed. Besides, it was years after Hogwarts and you weren't 17 years old anymore. You were now near your twenties. You enjoyed your job in the ministry and even 2 years after graduation found yourself going down a path in your job that could lead to success.
You were happier, content - that should have been enough for you when it happened.
It happened one night at a work party at the ministry. You saw many familiar faces from your days at school seeing as most people ended up working in the Ministry of Magic in one way or another. The first person who had dragged you into conversation was Sirius who had always been fond of you back in your days in Gryffindor House. It was evident seeing him that leaving school and working has not changed his exuberant nature. It wasn't soon after you saw him talk to Remus, that you saw two friends of theirs - James and Lily Potter. They married less than a year after graduating, you found out.
It had made sense - it was logical - that they were together and had married. James will always love Lily and Lily would always love James. You tried your best to smile genuinely at them and make play conversation as someone who is just catching up with two people they used to go to school with. But this wasn't easy, not at all. It wasn't because you wished you could be Lily or that you could be in her place. It was the fact that you knew that a part of your heart will always remain broken by him the unrequited love you had for him and the fact that you just wanted to move on - to find someone that would love you like he loves her, like he couldn't love you. It wasn't that you wanted him like you had when you were in Hogwarts, it was that you wanted what he found with Lily.
No matter how much you were avoiding real conversation between the two of them, you noticed that the energy between the two of them was somehow off. They weren't even holding hands. James looked cautious and Lily looked less than happy, although she was putting on a convincing face. You had excused yourself to get something to drink. Even after that you didn't return, choosing to take a breather in some corridor off of the room you were all in.
It was then that it happened. You were just leaning against the wall in the corridor as you were focusing on your breathing when he came into the corridor where you were. You don't even really know how it happened. One moment he was asking how you were since you left school, then he was telling you that he and Lily were having problems, and then he was kissing you and even worse you kissed him back. The kiss never should have happened - it was wrong. Everything about what you ended up doing was wrong and it never should have come to this.
This. There was a word to describe what you were doing - what you had been doing - and it was as unpleasant and degrading as it sounded. An affair. It was a word that you tried not to think of when you were with him but you know but that is exactly what it was. You were with him when he was married, it was an illicit affair.
How could it not be an affair? You lied to your friends when you told them where you were going whenever you were meeting him. The fact that you always left the back way so no one would ever see you and know what had just happened. It was wrong and terrible of both of you to do this to her especially when she didn't know. There was no excuse for what James was doing to Lily and what you were simply helping him do to his wife.
You always told yourself this was the last time but it was never the last time. You never thought this would be who you were, this kind of woman, but apparently that's what you were now. A mistress, homewrecker - you take your pick and that's what you were now. It seems so easy to lie to yourself and say that this would be the last time when it never would be. It was easy until it happened and gave the push you needed to make it the last time.
It was Sirius who had told you at the Ministry when you saw him at work - "Lily is pregnant, haven't you heard? Their first! It's so wonderful, isn't it?"
It was one thing sleeping with a man who is married but the ache in your heart and the guilt that was eating at you instantaneously upon hearing the news of Lily's pregnancy was so different. That was enough to push you to tell him that you have to stop if he didn't say the same thing. Maybe it was fate that just after Sirius told you the news, you saw your boss in your department at the Ministry and were told that you've been offered a position in MACUSA that would boost your career. That, if anything, was fate telling you to do the right thing to help yourself move on - to not be that person anymore.
You found yourself being impulsive on the spot and accepting the job right then and right there.
You were leaving in a week. It was a new start, a fresh start which was what you needed. You needed to be far away from the reminders of your past and the people. Far away from James and his unborn child that his wife was carrying. You couldn't go on like this anymore, this was tearing your soul apart, maybe America could give you the chance to start over. You could find someone who would want the things that James never wanted with you, what he had with Lily - a marriage, a house, now a family. He already had that with his wife, he just wanted you too. You deserved and craved whatever happiness felt like and knew that whatever you are doing with James was having the opposite effect on you.
Now, all you had to do was tell him now and that was what you planned to do today when you were meeting him. He had come into the room that day as he always had - rushing in as he looked over his shoulder, making sure no one had seen him. He then came moving towards you, ready to embrace you when it would all start again when you pushed him back firmly when he was within arms reach.
"I have to tell you something." You said in an almost stern voice so that you couldn't back out like the coward you had become.
He pulled a confused expression and tried to grasp your forearms but you only shrugged him off. "Is something wrong?" He asked.
Something was wrong, what you were doing was wrong but you decided to ignore his question and tell him your news bluntly. "I'm leaving, James." You said at once in the calmest voice you could muster. "I was offered a position in MACUSA and I'm taking it. It will be good for my career and I know it will be good for me."
"Leaving?" He asked, his eyes bulging. "You can't - you can't just leave."
"I can and I have to." You said in the same calm tone and couldn't feel remorse for this, not after what the two of you had been doing.
"Don't leave." He implored you, still trying to grab your hands as you shrugged him off again.
:James, don't do this." You said starting to get frustrated. "It's the best thing for me to just leave. A fresh start will be good for me and with me gone it will be good for you too." You insisted.
"I don't want you to leave." He admitted with his eyes still enlarge and a pleading expression coating his features.
"I know," You said with a fleeting soft look in your eyes before hardening your expression. "But I have to. That's the point."
"The point? Don't - you're overreacting," He admonished. "We don't have to stop and you don't have to leave." He tried to reason but you only shook your head at him.
"Yes we do," You insisted. "She's pregnant James, your wife. We never should have done this, I blame myself. I was just so enamoured with you at school and when you kissed me I wasn't thinking. Then, I was just too much of a coward to stop this." You gestured between the pair of you. "C'mon James, secret meetings and going behind Lily's back for months? That - that isn't who I am and that's what I've allowed myself to become." You said upset at yourself more than anyone else
"Y/N-" He tried to interrupted, the fragments of regret forming in his eyes, but you stopped him.
"No, please just let me-" You cut off yourself, shaking your head and taking a deep breath a syour regrouped your thoughts. "We never should have done this, James. It was wrong when it started and it is still wrong."
"Y/N, you're thinking too much," He attempted to reason with you. "She won't know and she won't find out. We've been careful, we can still be careful."
"You don't get it - I'm leaving." You said frustratedly. "I've already accepted the position, James. It doesn't even matter if she won't find out, what matters is what we're doing is wrong. It's terrible, can't you see that?" You said with wide eyes, imploring him to see what you saw.
He didn't say anything for once and you had hoped that it was because he knew deep down that what you have been doing together was immoral. You took his silence as a means to continue your thoughts.
"I watched you fall in love with her when we were in school. I didn't even know I was in love with you until you were in love with her." You saw the surprised expression on his face as his eyes widened at the news of you falling in love with him when you were still just teenagers. "I'm not in love with you anymore, so please don't think that I am. The point is I knew when I left school that you would never be mine and would always love Lily. I actually got over you for the most part, you know?" You chuckled humorlessly. "And all it took for me to undo all the work that I've done to just get over that you would never be mine was completely undone in a hallway in the Ministry at a work party when you kissed me."
Your face has a somber expression that must have been contagious as the same expression fell over his features. You remember that night when you just wanted to take a breather and not have to see them together, the reminder that you didn't have him and you weren't happy like he was with Lily. He had remembered that night too when he and Lily had been arguing prior to the work party at the Ministry and had lost his self control gone to the hall where you were and kissed you while his wife was on the other side of the room, unaware of the situation.
"We should never have done this James, no matter what poor excuse of a reason we gave ourselves for keeping on doing it." You said in a less harsh tone you had previously been speaking in. "I know you love her. James Potter will always love Lily Evans." You said bittersweetly.
"We're just done, then?" He asked.
"We never should have happened, James." You frowned.
"There's nothing I can do to get you to stay?" He asked quietly, already knowing your answer.
"No," You answered at once. "There's nothing for me here."