CHECK YES JULIET ▷ JAMES POTTER [1]

𝟎𝟓. 𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑

(05 : LEST FAITH . . .
TURN TO DESPAIR)

✧࿐ ཾ✧

     JAMES POTTER WAS STRETCHED OUT on his bed, eyes bleary and his normally smug features stretched into a frown. He refused to believe that was it — that two lovers who defied the war outside of their teenage bubble could die due to their own incompetence. A message arrived too late and it killed them both. What a load of dragon shit!

"Lumos," a familiar voice whispered, lighting up the shared dorm room. "James, what are you doing?"

Startled, James looked up to see an exhausted Remus staring at him expectantly. "Um, reading."

"I didn't know you could read," snorted Remus. "Now really, what are you doing? I can hear you cursing under your breath from here and I would like to sleep sometime tonight." With the full moon approaching, Remus' senses were starting to heighten. It was why he was always so defeated near that time of the month — every little sound kept him awake and made him more irritated than usual.

"No, really, I'm reading," the messy-haired boy whispered, careful not to wake the sleeping Peter and Sirius. "It's this muggle book called Romeo and Juliet. I, um, found it when I bumped into someone before and it's infuriating! Do you know these kids just . . . got married after knowing each a few days?"

Remus' resignation promptly turned to amusement. "Yes, I'm familiar. Shakespeare."

"Didn't you propose marriage to Lily in the second week of first year?" butted in Sirius.

"You were awake this entire time?"

"Honestly, you could hear Prongs' weeping from Beauxbatons." He rolled his eyes. "But now I'm invested, so what happens next?"

With a huff, James threw the tattered copy down onto his bed. "Well, they died! This Shakespear fellow —"

Remus soon corrected, "Shakespeare."

"Yeah, him, he just bloody killed off the main characters. I thought muggles liked all those 'happily ever after' types?" James ranted, his glasses askew on his face. "And it's stupid because they didn't need to die. If they just communicated better, it would've been fine."

"Go to sleep, James," insisted Remus, adding a quiet 'nox' under his breath.

In the darkness, James lay with the book flat on his chest. As an only child and a Potter, the wizard was always coddled — he had a vault stacked with enough gold to last his family generations and parents that loved him enough to keep him safe in a warded mansion. It had never crossed his mind that not everybody gets a happy ending, but maybe it should have. Like Juliet had told him, there was a war brewing.