CHAPTER FIFTY ONE
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-: sixth year :-
── IN WHICH SOMEONE KNOWS THE TRUTH
. . .
The words hung between James and Tiger, threatening to move closer and closer to the line of instanity. James couldn't believe what he was hearing, and Tiger seemed downright scared of him in that moment, as he stared, eyes wide.
She had killed someone. It didn't make sense - but somehow it did. She had talked about people in the past tense, and how nobody had believed her on what had happened. The Hunter's curse. She had killed, and it was coming back to haunt her.
But Tiger couldn't. James almost didn't believe her, or thought that maybe he had imagined the words coming out of her mouth. Trying to gather his thoughts, muster the courage to form coherent sentences and speak, he could only stare into the night, flickering to Tiger and then back again.
She was trembling like a leaf, arms folded over her stomach. James knew that she wouldn't be like that if she was lying, or joking - not that it was anything to joke about. She was terrifed, and it was visible in her body language and most prominent in her eyes.
"I understand if you don't want to be friends with me. Or if you want to tell people. I'm not a good person, I was just.. hopeful." Tiger's voice was soft, helpless, and shaking.
James quickly shook his head, stumbling over his words, trying to form a sentence. "No." He could just say, over and over. "I won't.. no." He repeated, firmly.
They were silent for a minute or so, James solely focusing on trying find the words. "How." He eventually said, after deciding that if he couldn't form a proper sentence, then he would just use singluar words.
"When I first started Ilvermorny, I became friends with a boy called Leo." Tiger began, her hands shaking so much that she had to hold them close against her stomach. "We were really close friends, all through our time there."
"We were sort of what you, Remus, Sirius and Peter are. We messed around in lessons, pranked people, broke rules, detentions every weekend." She continued, deciding to stare at the floor rather than anywhere else.
James listened to her with some form of interest that had taken over his entire body. He was trying so hard to be as silent as he could, wanting - no needing, to hear the full story as clearly as he could manage to do.
"Last year we were planning a prank for after our version OWLS. We had finished them that very day, I think. It involved a lot of potion making and combining things which would eventually explode. So not a good thing, not very responsible of us." Tiger smiled slightly at the memory.
"We were dating, and often snuck around the school at night time anyway. So it seemed to us, that the best time to brew these potions we needed was at night. We wouldn't be interrupted, we could do it all night, and there were always potions to wake you up somewhere in there." She continued, fiddling with her hands, and the bracelets that lined her arms.
"It was going well, or I thought it was. We had made multiple amounts of the things were were to use in the prank, and had them stacked up in a crate." Tiger sniffed, and James then realised that tears had began to pool in the corner of her eyes, and although he desperately wanted to hug her, she was still diligently avoiding eye contact, and the Potter boy took that as her needing her space, which he understood.
"I don't even know what happened.." Tiger trailed off, her voice wobbling as tears threatened to spill even more. "He was by the ones we had already made, I was mixing the next one and then.."
The tears were falling down her cheeks at this point, creating dark spots on the wooden floor where they dropped. "Something.. something must have hit them and..." Tiger trailed off, and the only sound could have been her crying.
James was trying so so hard to stop himself from hugging her, but, trying to give her space to breath, he didn't. Instead he shuffled a tiny bit closer, and held out his hands, taking her's in his, trying to help calm her down.
"They exploded. They all exploded." Tiger said, her voice trembling, trying not to break down crying. "We were planning on using them in more open spaces, and one at a time. But it was a small corner and a confined space and all of them."
Her voice was rushed, and like she was trying to get everything out before she completely broke down. And as horrible as it was, James knew it was coming.
"He died and everyone woke up and I was there, holdng my wand above a potion which created those things. Of course, they didn't want the whole world to know that a student had killed another one, and without even thinking to look at what happened, I was blamed and expelled." Tiger finished, staring at the ground.
"They didn't even take into account that he was my boyfriend, or the fact that I was hurt as well. They took one look at it, didn't want anyone to know that students could access these sort of dangerous ingredients." Tiger sighed, tears still pouring down her face.
"I understand if you don't believe me either - not even my own mother did." Tiger couldn't stop herself, and the tears wracked her body as she covered her face, sobbing.
"Fucking hell." James breathed out, not being able to believe what he just heard. The story seemed made up - how could they blame the death of a student on a girl - a teenager.
James moved even closer to her and enveloped her in a hug, pulling her close against his body. They stayed like that for a while, James gently rubbing Tiger's back, occasionally pressing kisses against her head, smelling the vanilla shampoo she used.
"But why did you tell me that you killed someone.. from what I heard it was nothing like that." James finally said, when it seemed that Tiger had calmed down in his arms, her head leant on his shoulder.
"I made a good amount of them." Tiger said. "And.. well.. I caused it. Leo died because of things I did." She sighed, and seemed limp, like all the life had left her body.
"Tigs, you didn't kill him." James reassured her, and she relaxed in his arms. "It sounds like it was a tragic accident and a mishandling of justice." Tiger froze in his arms, and looked up at him.
"My mum made me watch some muggle crime things last summer. Tried to cheer me up." James laughed a little, and Tiger smiled, shaking her head gently.
"Sounds like we both had pretty shit summers." She said, a sigh escaping her mouth, sitting back a little bit, and looking up at him, trying to wipe any smudged makeup from under her eyes.
James's glasses had slipped, and silently, in what seemed to be a typical move from her, she pushed them up his nose, a smile appearing on his face. "Until the garden party." James said, and Tiger smiled slightly.
"Until the garden party. Where I arrived with my cousin and wore one of the summer dresses and pigged out on treacle tarts in front of the handsome boy I just met." Tiger smiled, and it was a little sad.
James could have kissed her right there and then. The compliment burned on his cheeks, and if they had been talking about anything else before, he would have.
But he didn't, and the pair stayed in that position for hours, Tiger sat extremely close to him, so much so that if they looked up at each other, their noses would have brushed.
Tiger seemed so much lighter, the weight of lying to James and hiding what had happened been lifted off of her chest. She was almost like a new person - seemed so much more open, and bright.
He knew that as soon as they left the tower that night she would return to how she was before. But for those few hours, it was something that James would treasure for a while.
Just Tiger being herself, and happy in a way he hadn't seen before.
He hoped that one day, he could see it again.
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