avoidance maneuvers || open
It wasn’t like him to purposefully ignore his friends. They’d offered to sneak him into the Slug Club meeting, to whip up Polyjuice Potion, or charm Slughorn, or something equally frowned upon, but James wasn’t in the mood for an event tonight. Even with the letter from his parents, he still felt uneasy about the whole thing. Even having told Sirius, and a few others, he felt this impossible weight on his shoulders. His father was improving, yes, but at a much slower rate than the medi-wizard liked, and his weekly letters from his mother, updating him on Fleamont’s condition, while still hopeful, contained an air of resignation in the pages. Short of traveling home himself, there was nothing he could do, and all it did was leave him feeling drained.
Carrying this around made him want to hide away, avoid his friends and people he got on with, people who’d pick up on his mannerisms and foul mood, even if they didn’t know the source of it. So that left him strolling around the caste, dusk settling in, visible through the windows he walked past. He had the Map tucked securely in his robes if he found himself out past curfew, but with the Slug Club tonight, he doubted he’d run into much trouble.
Upon turning a corner, however, he nearly did run into someone, quite literally, pulling up at the last second and shooting his hand out to steady both him and the stranger. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he murmured. “My fault on that one.” He tacked on, content to let them carry on with their day.