InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "BOOM!"

James "Prongs" Potter (_cervus_) wrote in timerift_log,
@ 2022-03-30 15:20:00

Entry tags:

hp: james potter, tvd: hope mikaelson

Scene: James & Hope
Who: James Potter and Hope Mikaelson
What: Totally normal behaviour. Nothing to see here.
Where: Back of the Dragon's Breath Pub
When: 30th March, just after 1am
Rating/Warning: Language, probably

James hadn't known if anyone would still be in the bar at this hour, but as he stepped through the doorway that separated the pub from the muggle world beyond, it was to find a handful of stragglers hanging on, possibly leaching out the call for last orders as long as possible. Thankfully, none seemed too fussed about the bedraggled wizard hauling himself over the threshold, even if he looked a little worse for wear. That was the thing about wizarding pubs, James had always found - you could get away with anything.

Well, more or less.

James had spent all the time since his arrival trying to get home again. He'd gone back to spot he'd appeared from, finding nothing there but a clueless and tired-looking Ministry official. James reckoned he'd done very well not to turn the bloke into frogspawn - he'd have been about as much help that way. After being shooed away, he'd snuck up as close as possible, trying every ward and charm and whatever else he could think of to find a clue. A hint. Anything... All as desperation and panic, so far carefully kept under control, started to claw it's way up his chest, wrapping itself like ice around his heart and throat. It was only hours later, when his head was pounding and his wand arm ached, that he'd given up. He'd tried apparating, although he'd known it was hopeless before he'd even stopped spinning and felt the sharp pain of a splinch shoot up his arm. The tip of his left pointer finger was probably even now falling out of the sky somewhere near Cornwall.

Eventually, emotionally and physically defeated, James had headed back towards the Dragon's Breath pub. An hour's sleep, two tops, and he'd be back on it. That was all he needed, and then he'd get back home. Back to Lily and Harry, whose names pounded through his veins and faces swelled in his mind's eye every time he blinked.

Smothering a yawn with no small degree of frustration, James' hazel gaze landed in a worn looking armchair that sat vacant by the pub's dying fireplace. That would do. Steps and doors seemed like too much effort, especially for a cat nap. Which was definitely all this was. Stumbling forward, he threw himself down into the seat, long legs splayed ungainly out in front of him as he stared unseeingly into the embers.

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atruetribrid
2022-03-31 12:50 am UTC (link)

Hope should have been looking for a way home. Back to her friends, back to her fate. Back to destroying Malivore and probably killing the love of her life in the process. Back to the reason she’d become the tribrid in the first place.

She wasn’t, because being here felt like a reprieve from all of that. She was in the past, years before she’d ever be born and in a dimension where Mystic Falls didn’t seem to even exist. No Salvatore School, no Malivore. It was a little bit lonely if she thought about it, but it was kind of freeing, too, being in a place where the Mikaelson name meant nothing and where no one looked at her like she was a freak. Well, almost no one. She suspected that would change if any of them knew what she actually was.

Hope probably wasn’t strictly supposed to be in the Dragon’s Breath Pub, but it wouldn’t be the first time she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. She’d been sitting by the fire, a new sketchbook in her lap when the man she vaguely remembered from the journals dropped into one of the nearby chairs. Hope’s steady pressure of charcoal against parchment halted and she looked over at him.

“You okay?” she asked. He looked a little dazed, unless she was just imagining it.

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_cervus_
2022-03-31 03:08 pm UTC (link)

“Hm?” James snapped out of whatever daze he’d been falling into, suddenly sitting up straighter in the chair. Which, it turned out, wasn’t as comfortable as it looked. One hand flying automatically to his chair, he twisted to find the source of the voice. It took him a moment to focus on the young woman sat a short distance away, what looked like a journal or sketchbook open on her lap.

“Yeah,” he replied, distractedly. “Thanks. Just –“

Just what? Worried? Frantic? Terrified?

Pick any of the above.

Instead, James waved a hand vaguely. “Just tired.” It wasn’t a total lie, after all. He was exhausted. He dropped a hand from where it had been absently pulling at his hair, instead pushing his glasses up to rub his eyes for a second. This wasn’t working. He was about as likely to fall asleep as he was to sprout wings. Even if the chair had been vaguely comfortable, the fizzing of anxiety in his veins was making switching off impossible… Maybe this was one of those times when a change was as good as a rest.

Decision made, James pulled himself to his feet and approached the girl, a picture of self-confidence and bad hair, until he close enough to gesture to the empty seat beside her. “May I? Feel like I’m going to drive myself mad sat on my own.”

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atruetribrid
2022-04-03 08:15 pm UTC (link)

"Freaked out by all of this?" Hope injected into the paid before he'd claimed to just be tired. Exhaustion could be a thing. Well, for other people. It wasn't something she experienced much of anymore, but that was a pretty recent development.

She nodded, waving a hand at the empty chair, herself, in explicit invitation. "Yeah, go ahead."

Home was a loner. She'd often said she wanted to be alone, but even she had to admit that company could be good. Maybe it was that lately she'd let herself get close to people. Landon, Lizzie, Josie, even Dr. Saltzman. They weren't here, but she thought they'd want her to reach out to people. To not try to get through all of this alone.

"You wanna talk about it?" she offered.

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_cervus_
2022-04-06 11:20 am UTC (link)

James slung himself down in the empty chair, making himself comfortable almost before the final syllable of the invitation had been uttered. He stretched, easing out the deep-set ache which had taken up residence in most of his muscles over the last few hours. Arms extended over his head, he took a moment to examine the young woman now sitting opposite him. She was pretty, in a serious kind of way. Maybe just a few years younger than him, and apparently more than content sitting in a pub by herself in the small hours of the morning. He could respect that.

"Talk about being tired?" He shrugged carelessly, letting his arms fall. "Sure. You see, usually I do this thing where I climb under a duvet and..." He trailed off, flashing her a wide, good-natured grin. But it quickly died. James Potter was many things - competitive, occasionally annoying, overly obsessed with quidditch - but one thing he could say was that what you saw was what you got.

"I just... could really use not being here," he admitted, after a second's consideration. "A few hours ago I was putting my kid's pyjamas on in 1980, and I need to get back there." He ran his thumb absently over the spot where his fingertip had been a little while previously, levelling his gaze at the young woman. "Take it you're a new arrival too?"

Perhaps she had some answers. Merlin knew James was coming up painfully short. It was almost embarrassing.

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atruetribrid
2022-05-01 07:53 pm UTC (link)

Hope laughed. She couldn't help it. It sounded so much like something she would have said. Using humor as a defense mechanism was something she was well-acquainted with. It was so much easier to make a joke than to actually talk about her issues.

The laugh faded quickly when he gave her a real answer. Hope could be good at hiding her feelings when she needed to, but this was one instant when they were plain on her face. Green eyes filled with sympathy for the man as he explained what he'd left behind. She couldn't even manage what it was like to be in those shoes.

She nodded her head at the question. "A few days ago, yeah. I'm so- is your wife here, too, or is it just you?" She hadn't missed the ring on his finger.

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