Professor Lupin had come back to Hogwarts as Transfiguration teacher in Harry's seventh year. McGonagall had sustained injuries during the war and was now lounging at St Mungo's hospital eating vodka jelly shots.
He called Harry to his office one day and gave Harry a tattered old diary. "It was your father's," he explained nervously. "I've kept hold of it for this long. Perhaps it is time it went to you."
Harry eagerly flipped to a random page.
Just my luck, man, got up them stairs, man, so ungroovy, man. My best friends, snogging, man. Didn't think they was like that, man. But whatever Padfoot digs, I don't mind. It's alright for him to dig whatever he likes, man. Even if it's Moony. I tell him, "Man, it's all boss, man. I totally understand if you dig Moony that's groovy, man -"
"Er," said Harry, closing the diary. "Is there anything in there about my mum?"
Lupin, blushing, nodded. "Pretty much all the way through, with a few intervals about Quidditch and stuff. Starts from page two."
For the next week Harry read eagerly, soaking up his father's words like pumpkin juice into the carpet. His father spent a lot of time perving on 'Evans' as his father called her. Apparently James was convinced they were meant to be together.
About half-way through, Harry found out why.
It's The Curse, man. I try to explain to the crew but they all like going jive turkey on me man. It's the Curse of the Potters. I get no squeeze man. Seriously, man, I don't dig this one bit, man. Every bird man totally does not dig Potters. The only way to know is to find that bird, man, the one that gets really angry man. The only one that doesn't run away, man. The Ultimate Jive Turkey, man, the one that never leaves you alone and kills you with her anger. She's the bird man, she digs you. It's Evans, totally.
Harry put this theory through his own experimentation. It was true, Harry was afraid to admit - girls ran from him screaming if he showed any sexual interest. It wasn't that he was ugly - he was alright - it was the Curse, it had to be.
He had been intereseted in Cho. She cried all over him.
He tried it on Susan Bones in Herbology. She dumped manure on his head.
He asked out Padma Patil. She cursed him with a bat-bogey hex.
He went to one of the rare gay students he knew - Colin. He couldn't run away fast enough. He even dropped his camera and didn't go back for it.
It was that one rare specimen, the one that hated you yet never left you alone. It was the one that stuck with you and got married to you and that was enough when you were cursed like Harry was.
"Potter," Draco Malfoy sneered in the Entrance Hall after lunch, "going to Potions, are you? Better watch out, your caudlron could explode accidentaly. You know how Snape hates accidents -"
"Malfoy," said Harry, blushing and fiddling with his glasses, "go out with me."
His grey eyes flared with cold fire. "I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid!"
Harry grinned. "Tomorrow night then?"
Malfoy pursed his lips. "Fine. Pick me up at seven. And you'd better make it good, I don't come cheap!"
-fin-