JAMES
“Merlin, I’m a slob sometimes, but I’m not that bad of a slob,” James replied with a shiver as he laughed, pulling a face of his own at the thought of worms slithering around in his bed at Hogwarts. It wasn’t just gross, it would’ve been disgusting. It would’ve killed his reputation of being cool, and that just simply wouldn’t do, but thankfully he’d never had to worry about such an instance. “You want to watch with me? Blimey, you must really love me, to want to watch it with me even though I don’t always have the time,” he murmured, smile pulling at his lips as he studied Francine. He loved that she loved him that much. “Fine, we can watch Gilmore Girls together, but that means no cheating and skipping ahead,” he warned, grinning back at her. “We’ve got to agonizingly slow together. –Merlin, you’ve got loads of things to watch. Stranger Things looks good. As does Sex Education and One Day at A Time. I don’t think I know which ones Dark and Elite are…. Actually, it might be Netflix and chill, but… I think that also means something different. I’m pretty sure the young lads are saying that these days to mean when someone invites someone else over with watching Netflix as the reason but the chill part is them not watching anything really,” James replied with a chuckle. He sighed softly as she kissed him– it ended much too quickly for his taste, but he took what he could get, for now. “There’s never been another woman for me, Longbottom. No man, woman, or beast could ever replace you.” He grinned fondly over at her, before turning back to his food, taking a hearty bite.
“I’d never do such a thing with someone else. Merlin, I haven’t even been with anyone else,” James replied with a chuckle. For as long as he could remember, it’d always been Francine. She was by his side throughout his childhood, and when they started to grow up, she became more than one of his best friends– she was very obviously more than that. She was meant to be his soulmate, his greatest love, and while he’d been an utter fool at one time and broken up with her when things at Hogwarts were tense and he thought himself a noble hero who wanted to protect her, he hadn’t even considered being with anyone else. He had no interest in the other girls he’d gone to school with– or any of the boys, for that matter, since some people seemed to think he and Scorpius Malfoy were secretly in love with each other, much to James’s disgust. “Oh, really? Well, then…. I guess we can both keep that on the table then, for one day,” he murmured awkwardly, chuckling as his cheeks burned red. “Godric, Longbottom– that’s as Fifty Shades I’ll go, please don’t bloody ask me to do terrible things to you, because I think I’d bloody cry.” He wasn’t entirely opposed to things like tying her up, maybe…. though the thought made him flush even more. But physically harming her? It made his skin crawl. “I don’t know. Why does anyone want to kill me? I’m a bloody fantastic person, aren’t I? Funny as hell? Obviously gorgeous as hell. I’m brilliant too, so I check off all the right boxes, I think. Beats me why anyone would want to take me out,” he joked. “As terrible as it would be to die while having sex, it wouldn’t be the worst way to go. I mean, it’d be awful, but at least I’d die happy.” He leaned back, already stuffed and too full to each another bite. “Oh, that’s extremely rude, Francine Longbottom. Just for that, I’m not letting you see me in bubbles until your birthday. Two can play at that game, love.” He gave her a teasing smile, leaning back in, elbows on the table as he pushed aside his now empty plate.
“Mmmm, I could easily make the arguement that that’s wrong,” she quipped with an innocent tap to her lips meaning she wasn’t going to cross that threshold. But Francine never dove deep into that kind of thing considering she’d learned that most boys were a little on the dirty side regardless of what they claimed. Even her father had those flaws and he had always been Franny’s main example. “Oh, has it taken you this long to realize that I blood love you? Merlin, Potter, it’s almost as if we haven’t been dating for almost all our lives or anything.” Her tone was heavy in sarcasm as she pulled up her leg and tucked it underneath her thigh. Granted, the girl never chose to count their break up in their timeline of events simply because she chose to forget that ever happened. To her, it was but a glitch in the matrix.
Gasping, she leaned over and placed a hand on his arm, “I would never do such a thing! I would only ever do that with Disney films. You still haven’t seen Toy Story 4 and I’ve seen it like a dozen times.” The girl was about to take a bite of her egg roll as she listened to her boyfriend talk about Netflix, an innocent laugh leaving her lips. “Are you trying to say that we’re not young anymore and can’t go along with young slang? What if I wanted to watch netflix but not actually watch netflix? The audacity.” Finally biting into her egg roll, her green eyes shifted as they watched him closely, the brightest of twinkles expressing nothing but fondness. “Sadly, my cat did replace you once upon a time. She only ever kissed my cheek but it was not the best feeling,” she teased.
“So you say but I’m sure your dreams would say different. I know I’ve definitely had some steamy dreams about Chris Evans in his Captain America costume,” she spoke almost nonchalantly even though her cheeks had slowly transitioned to a light pink of mild embarrassment. But she also couldn’t disagree with him since she’d never been with anyone else either. Had she tried? Maybe. Had she gone on a date or two? Perhaps. Yet, the conclusion had always led to the fact that she couldn’t go forward when her mind only ever compared people to her best friend and love. And no boy wanted that as their competition. Deciding that she had eaten enough food - a little more than half - the girl sat back in her chair as she giggled, “It was a joke, babes. Besides, I’ve never actually seen that movie the entire way through since it makes me feel weird so don’t worry about a thing.”
Bringing her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them before placing her chin against her knees. “You’re guess is as good as mine considering the days where that was a scary possibility are... long behind us. You actually forgot to list humble on that extensive resume so perhaps there’s your answer. ---But it would be so traumatic! For the survivor who had to deal with the dead body, I mean. Imagining explaining that to family at a funeral. ‘oh, it was sudden really’ ‘but how did it happen, franny?’ ‘well, you see... i was on top of him and suddenly things went downhill from there...’” Shaking her head, the girl ruffled her hair to rid herself of the image in her mind. Gasping, the small girl soon sat herself properly before reaching over and placing both hands on his cheeks, “You, James Sirius Potter, are a monster. That’s it. I’m replacing you. You’re no longer the love of my life and Chris Evans has entered this chat.”
