76 days until Hogwarts started. Yes James was counting, he always did. He'd be entering his sixth year, he looked over on his desk at his prefect badge. He and Alexis Longbottom were prefects together, and her brother Oliver being one of his best friends he didn't mind.
She was oddly rather quite while Oliver was one of the most ecstatic personalities in the common room. Speaking of his mates, he had a framed picture of them on his bedside table. They were wearing their Gryffindor robes, and it was after their end of term exams from first year.
On the far left was Oliver. He had thick brown hair like his sister and they were the set that had their mother's pale eyes. On the far right was Vincent Nott, Dad said he had went to school with his father, and it was quite a shock that he had gotten sorted into Gryffindor, but not all that much since James' brother Albus, and cousins Louis and Roxanne were Slytherins. Next to James was his cousin Fred, he had light brown skin and dark hair, though his sister has her father's fiery red hair.
"James." The voice of his little sister Lily came from outside his door.
"What, Lil?" He asked.
"Your mom says she wants you to go outside and play Quidditch." A familiar voice said that wasn't Lily. James got up and opened the door, his sister stood before him with his arm over her shoulder.
He traced the arm with his eyes to the smirk of the blonde Slytherin that had recently been appearing more and more this summer. He had been Al's best friend for almost five years and had never been over this much as since he and Lily started having their thing going on.
Yeah, Scorpius Malfoy and Lily Potter. Most gasp when they hear it, but hey, they work in kind of a weird way. James didn't question it. He just wished everybody didn't act so damn cuddly around here. Louis and Alexis had their hate love thing going on, and Teddy and Victoire, better known as Tori, were practically snogging every five minutes. Even Al and that damn Cali of his were making googly eyes at each other.
Don't even get him started on his parents. Not that James doesn't appreciate love, but he just kind of felt left out almost. His thoughts were broken by the sound of the fifteen year old clearing his throat.
"We would like to start the game now." Scorpius said and James rolled his eyes. He followed them downstairs and within thirty seconds of being outside, James knew how the teams where.
It was always the same teams but since it was rather small group today, they had dropped a Beater and a Chaser. On Al's team; there was Teddy as the Keeper, Scorpius and Roxanne as Chasers, Louis as the beater, and himself as the Seeker. On James' team; there was Oliver as the Keeper, Fred as the Beater, Alexis as the Seeker, and himself and Lily as chasers.
"Alright, fair rules, we know how this goes no blood and no one's moms get called." Hugo said flying up onto the broom.
"Come on, start the game already!" Rose called from the stands.
"Go Ted!" Tori called.
As James mounted and saw his cousins sitting on the benches. Victoire, Rose, and Dominique were cheering them on. Molly was too busy reading to be bothered, and Lucy was stuck keeping score. Normally Rose would play but since the Lovegoods weren't here and neither was Vincent she sat out.
"JAMES!" A voice called and he spun his head in their direction. A quaffle barely missed him and it caused him to loose balance for a minute.
"Watch it Potter, you might get hit." Scorpius laughed and Albus high fived him. That did it. James called for his sister and she passed him a bludger he swung at it and it missed Scorpius but ending up hitting Teddy in the gut.
"Ugh." The twenty one year old went down with a soft thud thanks to Rose quick spell casting. James almost immediately dismounted checking on his brother.
"Teddy, are you okay? Sorry I meant it for Scorpius." James said earnestly, and Teddy looked up at him with a smile. That's how James knew it was bad, when it was bad Teddy always tried to act like he was fine. Victoire and James were the only ones who could tell this, but his clutching his stomach didn't help his plead.
"I'm fine, trust me. But maybe next time you shouldn't be aiming at anybody." Teddy said trying to laugh, but squeezing his gut in pain.
"Ted, we're going inside." Tori said.
"No really, Tor, I'm okay. I just seemed to misplace the bludger." Teddy said, and James in turn waved his hand motioning for Tori to take Teddy into the house. James headed off in the direction of the woods behind the keeper's goal.
"Come here bludger!" James called stepping further into the woods than he had before. He normally didn't go in here, it wasn't really his style.
"Looking for this?" James turned around and was nearly knocked over by the sight.
It was a girl. She had light brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail with some kind of fabric sticking out of it, and it made her green eyes more enticing than James would normally describe a girl's eyes. She was about a half a foot shorter than him, and had one a t-shirt with awful coloring and some shorts that had obviously once been a pair of jeans.
She had those fancy ear hats that all the muggles seemed to have on them, with a cord drawing down to her pocket. What did Rosie call it?
"Hello, earth to the cute boy." James looked up, she had called him cute. Sure James had been described as it by a number of girls at Hogwarts, but that was because he was the son of the Great Harry Potter, or the fact that he was a Prefect and could get them out of detention with Professor Malfoy.
"Yes, that is mine." James said, it was the only thing he could say.
"What did you call it? A bludge? What kind of ball is that?" She asked.
"A bludger, you use it to play Quidditch." James said, as if she had just asked him what Hogwarts was.
"What's Quidditch?" She said tossing the bludger in the air.
"No, don't!" He said, clasping it in between his hands before it started to shake. She stared at him and laugh. God her laugh was gorgeous.
"You're weird. I'm Ariel." She said holding out her hand.
"James. James Potter." He took her hand, and hadn't even noticed that his was sweaty until she pulled away and wiped it on her leg.
"Quidditch must be a rough sport." She laughed and James blushed.
"So, Ariel, you live around here?" James asked.
"Yeah. Just moved in to that house." Ariel said pointing to the house at the opposite side of the woods. James remembered an old man by the name of Mayor living there before. He always gave out huge chocolate bars on Halloween.
"What happened to Mayor?" James sounded worried, and Daisy shook her head.
"My grandpa needed somebody to look after him, so me and my brothers moved in." Ariel smiled, she smiled pretty.
"Well, hey Ariel, maybe we can hang out sometime?" James asked.
"Yeah maybe. You know, you should teach me how to play that Quidditch of yours." Ariel said, turning around and waving her hand behind her with two fingers as she walked back to her house.
James watched her strut away and then headed back to his own. He noticed they all had went off into their own little groups. Albus was currently with Lucy, Hugo, and Fred. While Lily and Scorpius had cleary run off together. Dominique had followed Teddy and Tori into the house. Oliver was chatting with Molly and Roxanne. Alexis, Rose, and Louis were sitting by the tree having a serious conversation when Alexis waved him over.
Louis looked almost relieved probably because he thought James was going to let them escape somewhere, and James would have had not Rose sent them away.
"Why'd you do that?" James asked.
"Because you're acting weird." Rose said and James' heart did a small flip. Ariel had described him as weird as well. What was he doing?
"Jamie, is everything okay?' Rose asked.
"Absolutely perfect, Rosie. Just perfect." James said spinning in a circle before he sat down to lean against the tree next to his cousin.
"What is it?" Rose asked, crossing her arms.
"She lives across the woods with Mayor. She's just shorter than I, and has the most mesmerizing green eyes. And she wore those muggle ear hats around her neck." James said and Rose shook her head.
"Headphones?" Rose asked.
"Yeah. She didn't know what Quidditch was either, weird right?" James asked.
"Probably because she's a muggle." Rose clarified and James smacked himself in the head. He couldn't teach a muggle Quidditch but he wanted to.
He shook his head all the way on his walk back inside, he needed to think this through so much. Hugo came up to his older sister laughing. "What's James' problem?"
"He likes a girl." Rose smiled.