James was livid. James fucking Potter. Him. Popular, hot, confident, wanted, was an omega. He'd known—thought he'd known—all his life, that he was an alpha, and if he wasn't an alpha, he'd be a beta. Unaffected.

But now?

He was chum. The bottom of the goddamn barrel. An omega. Helpless. Needy. Weak. How was he supposed to exist in the world knowing what would happen once a month to him for the rest of his life?

How was he supposed to date? No girl would flirt with a pathetic omega. He'd be as unwanted as Peter! No offense to Peter.

He holed himself up in his sole prefect dorm, despite the fact he normally stayed in with the other Marauders and hardly ever took advantage of the place.

Everything was heated, and he'd had cold air charms on the room for hours. He was unprepared, alone, and forced to ride out his first heat by himself.

He had stripped down to just his boxers long ago, his glasses askew on his face as he curled up on the bed, unable to even attempt distracting himself with studying or reading.

The sweat-slicked skin of his upper thighs mixed with the wetness of, well, him, ached uncomfortably, and he'd given up trying to wash it off after three showers.

Then there was you. One of his closest friends and best teammates, bursting in through the door with no regard for knocking whatsoever, yammering on about quidditch practice and the Slytherin team stealing the field before the Gryffindor team could start, fiddling with your jersey hem.

You probably would've kept talking for hours if you hadn't fucking looked and seen the state he was in. And it was quite a state.

"Come on, lovely, don't look so grim," he joked, a shudder wracking through his body before he could laugh.