Losing Game/// James Potter

Chapter 41

The next next day, James was sitting in the Gryffindor Common room with the four other Marauders, Lily, and Marlene. Alice and Frank had disappeared up the girls dormitory stairs as soon as the group came back from dinner, while Marlene was trying to teach a stubborn Sirius how to play Wizard's chess. Elsie was sitting in between Remus and Peter on the couch, her head resting on Peter's shoulder while giggling at something he was saying to her. Lily was casually reading a book on the other side of Remus on the edge closest to where James was sat in an armchair. He sat alone in his seat because of the thoughts that had been running through his mind all day.

Being in love with two completely different people at the same exact time proved to be more difficult than James could even comprehend. Throughout the day he found his eyes flickering between the red-haired goddess and his brunette best friend, not daring to settle his sights on either one of them for two long. He thought that if he stared at one girl longer, then it would be completely unfair to the other. And, that was the problem with him being in love with two girls. When James Potter loved, he loved with everything in him. But, how could he give his everything to two girls equally? So, he decided he needed to make a choice. Elsie or Lily.

However, making this decision was even harder on him than not making one. How could he choose between Lily and Elsie? It was like having to choose between the sunrise and sunset, impossible. Lily was the sunset; bold, beautiful, and seen by everyone. You can't miss the beauty of the sunset because everyone is awake for it, just like you can't miss the beauty of Lily Evans because she practically wore her heart on her sleeve. But Elsie, she was the sunrise. The sun rises early in the morning when barely anyone is awake, bearing its soft pink and orangey color for all those who choose to get up and watch it. Elsie was hard to read from an outsiders point-of-view, she was flawed and miscalculated. But for those who choose to watch and try to understand who she is, every single thing she did became beautiful.

James' thoughts were interrupted as he tuned into the conversation being had between the boy who was more like his brother and his best friend.

"PLEASEEEEEEE," Elsie shouted while pouting and crossing her arms over her chest, "Why won't you let me French braid your hair?!"

"Nobody touches my hair, Tibbles...nobody," Sirius replied to the pouting girl from the floor next to the chess board with a pointed finger.

"Oh come on, Black," Marlene rolled her eyes from across the chess board while leaning back on her hands and nodding her head towards Elsie, "You can't possibly say no to that face."

Sirius followed Marlene's gaze to where Elsie had huge puppy dog eyes and a quivering lip, staring directly at him.

"Don't give me that look, Els," Sirius pleaded with the girl, about to break from the look she was giving him.

"Yeah, Els. Don't you know that Padfoot is a sucker for anything dog related?," Remus snorted while looking up from his book with a smirk on his face, "Those puppy dog eyes must be killing him..."

Sirius crossed his arms over his chest while grumbling under his breath, knowing Remus was only trying to further tease him. He let out a sigh of defeat while huffing, "Fine."

Elsie excitedly jumped up and clapped her hands together while walking over to Sirius. She parted his hair down the middle and began working on giving him two matching French braids.

A few moments later when she had finally finished, she tied each braid with a hair elastic and stood in front of him admiring her work. She took her hand and brought it up to his face, squishing his cheeks while saying, "What a cute little puppy."

"Yeah, yeah. You're lucky I love you," he playfully rolled his eyes at the girl in front of him.

"Yeah, Els. He woofs you," Peter chuckled out, earning a laugh from Remus and James.