Engraved Love | J. POTTER

4 | quidditch games and immitations

O P H E L I A  L O V E G O O D

Ophelia had gone to the library and checked the table over the past week and there was no response. She knew he had been upset to find out that the girl he had been talking knew who he was and he didn't know who she was but she hadn't realized just how upset he was.

Maybe she should tell him the truth.

And she had contemplated this for a while until she showed up at the library again to find him staring at the table. She quickly stepped between two bookshelves and peeked through to see him. She was becoming as bad as he was.

James stood straight up suddenly and turned around, Ophelia was quick to hide. She moved through the aisle and made herself look busy. She saw him pick up his wand and wave it over the table before he looked around and left the library.

She waited a good five minutes before she made her way over to the table, checking to make sure he was actually gone. 'How is that you get to know who I am but I don't get to know who you are?'

She huffed. He was right. Why should she know who he is when he doesn't know who she is? She jotted down a quick response, 'Because you're awful at performing a stakeout and I'm in Ravenclaw. I have the advantage.'

And things seemed to return to normal after this. At least mostly, anyway. The responses continued throughout the week, only they talked about how James thought he should get to know who she was.

'I think it's unfair,' he had written and she couldn't exactly disagree. If the roles were reversed, she would have wanted to know who he was. Then again, maybe if the roles were reversed, he would understand her reluctance.

She had been getting to know James as the version of herself labeled Loony Lovegood only she'd come to realize it was harder to keep up the facade around him then it should have been. There was something about the boy that made her want to be her real self around him. The one he's been talking unknowingly.

'Why the sudden desire to know who I am?' she replied.

'It's not sudden. I've always wanted to know who you are,' he had responded.

It didn't take a genius to see that he was growing agitated with the girl but there wasn't much else for her to do. She couldn't tell him that it was her because it would ruin everything. At least that's what she managed to convince herself.

J A M E S  P O T T E R

'But you didn't start asking questions till recently,' the girl had written into the table and he huffed. It was true that he hadn't actually started asking her directly who she was until recently but he had been trying to figure it out.

'It's my seventh year,' he wrote out. 'After the term is over, I won't be able to talk to you again.'

He ignored the protests of his friends and continued to talk to the girl. He had tried to take some time away and not reply but it was the worst week of his life. He didn't know what he was going to do when the term was over.

'Then maybe we just need to find a new table,' she responded and he rolled his eyes but there was a faint smile on his face. Because that would solve the problem.

'Or you could tell me who you are,' he countered, not bothering to beat around the bush. But of course, that tactic didn't work.

'Maybe not.'

He read over her reply and let out a breath. He just wanted to know who she was. It wouldn't change anything no matter who she was. 'What are you so afraid of?'

James had spent the past two weeks trying to convince the girl to tell him who he was. She had tried to brush around it every time and he wasn't sure he had it in him to wait anymore.