pure ; james potter [marauders era]

s i x ;

[ october 18th, 1976 ]

Octavia woke with a start, almost falling off the bed. Her eyes scanned the room in confusion before recognising it to be the the hospital wing. The room was dark and Octavia's hair was wavier than normal, showing the clueless girl that it was previously wet.

A soft snore came from beside the tired girl, causing her to almost scream in fright. She leaned over and looked at her sleeping friend. James had been there by her side all night. After casting a few spells and then carrying the girl to the hospital wing, he couldn't even consider leaving her alone. The other Marauders had come looking for them a short while after the incident and eventually found their two friends (although one was unconscious).

They all waited for hours by her side. In that time, James told the boys what he had seen; how he was being followed around by an annoying Hufflepuff who basically clung onto him the whole time when his eyes drifted to Snivellus and Octavia. He couldn't stop staring at her as she edged closer to the water. He was worried about her as she looked quite horrified. In fact, so did Snivellus. He felt relived when he saw the greasy git make his way up to Octavia, but anger started pulsating through his veins at the horrifying sight of Snivellus fucking Snape pushing the vulnerable girl into the water.

His hands slowly reached out and seconds later, she fell into the water. It was the worst thing he had ever witnessed. Instead of killing him, James' instincts quickly took over and he ran to the water. The young wizard used stupefy to get the mermaids off of her. He was about to jump in the water after her, but she had already started making her way out. He told the three about how by the time he picked her up and started walking her to the hospital wing, Snivellus was out of sight.

The three other Marauders were furious, even Remus wanted to strangle that filthy prick. Eventually though, Madame Pomfrey kicked the boys out of the room. James, not having it, decided to sneak back in during the middle of the night with his invisibility cloak. He's been in the chair next to Octavia's bed ever since.

"James," She whispered. He stirred in his sleep but didn't wake up. "Prongs. James.. James!"

He finally woke up and quickly turned to her, "Tavia, thank Merlin you're okay!"

"Why are we in the bloody hospital wing?" Octavia asked frantically, but it came across sounding angry. She turned her body to face him when he stood up and walked to the side of her bed. She stared up at him, leaning back on her hands that were placed behind her.

James looked at the girl quizzically, not believing what came out of her mouth. "You don't remember anything?"

"I just remember hearing a girl screaming and then a feeling of hopelessness overtake my body... it was horrible." Octavia said honestly, not hiding anything from her best friend. She ignored James' look and instead focused on their closeness. Her thigh was pressed against his knee and although it wasn't extremely close, she could still feel her cheeks heat up.

Octavia went to stand up, only to be pushed back down by James. "You need to rest. A lot happened today, don't you think?"

Octavia gave the boy a smug smile, sitting up straight so that they were eye level. "And who's going to keep me in bed? You?" The young girl had no idea where that came from. She was slightly embarrassed at how forward she was being, yet she was proud of how smooth it came out. With how obvious she was being, she may as well tell him how she felt.