Ahh, guys, I'm just obsessed with Covinksy. And Harry Potter (but what else is new?) so, clearly, they needed to be mixed together.
At first I was going to do a 5 plus 1 thing, but then I made it a 7 plus 1 thing (you know, seven years at Hogwarts, plus the after of it all?) but it more turned into a 7 plus 2 thing. But, I realized as I was writing this up, I didn't really have a prompt like '7 times that blank and two that blank', it's more just like 9 prompts over 9 years...hmm. So, I made one up quick XD Each chapter will have a word prompt I did on a random generator thing, just to give me a little direction!
So, it's '7 times Peter tried to date Lara Jean Covinsky, the one time he didn't, and the one time he did'.
This will sort of kinda follow the plot of TATBILB in Hogwarts form, some things changed, some not. Very loosely inspired, if you will.
The title of this fic comes from the song 'Every Little Thing She Does is Magic', originally by The Police, but the cover by Sleeping at Last is GORGEOUS and is what I suggest you all go listen to :)
BEFORE: Dolorific
Lara Jean's mother died when she was young and most of the time, growing up, she didn't think about it.
If she had to pick out of her siblings, Lara Jean thinks she got off the best with regards to her mother's death. Margot, even being two years older, was just old enough to really remember Eve Song, and misses her deeply and angrily. Kitty was too young to truly remember her mother, so she's always walked around with only stories and videos to supply her truths. Lara Jean was old enough to have a good picture of her mother in her mind and remember the way that she used to bake them cookies or dance with them during rainstorms, but she's also young enough that it's just soft and warm feelings that remain, instead of the pain and anguish that her father and Margot retain from her death.
Lara Jean remembers the black coffin, the mourners and feeling strange and out of place. She was old enough to feel sad, but not without also a bit of confusion.
Overall, her father has done a marvelous job raising the girls without Eve, and it's only passing moment when Lara Jean really misses her mom.
The biggest thing, though, that Lara Jean can never forgive is the fact that the trio of sisters grew up utterly as muggles.
Eve Song had been a witch that had fallen in love with a muggle-born doctor and all but left the magical world behind. Lara Jean can hazily recall her mother taking her and her sisters to Diagon Alley, but that was only on special occasions. When she thinks hard about her memories she does have of her mom, she realizes that the cookies Eve made had frosting that shifted colors or that when they were dancing, the dresses they'd pretend to be princesses in would dance with them too. Lara Jean alo knows she has a whole other side of her family somewhere, behind a wall with spells and charms, but she doesn't think she's ever met them. When they ask her father about it, he says that mom's family didn't take kindly to her choosing to marry him, and usually that's all that's ever said.
Her father, bless his soul, has truly tried. However, how can you teach three budding witches anything about magic when you hardly understand it yourself?
Her father has never tried to hide this life from them, but Lara Jean will also agree he hasn't gone out of his way to educate them. Their house looks like any average non-magical house, no dragons in the windowsills or owls brining the Daily Prophet, no Puking Pastilles smuggled in their lunchboxes, no broomsticks by the doorway waiting to be ridden. Of course, to Lara Jean, the lack of these things were never an issue, not until Margot turned 11 and got her Hogwarts letter.
Their father would never say 'no', so of course, Margot left for Hogwarts. She sent Lara Jean and Kitty back 'Hogwarts; A History' to read and wrote often. She was sorted into Ravenclaw and soon, most of her letters were filled with things- references- that Lara Jean did not understand. They'd never been taught any spells at home, even in theory. She'd never heard of things like 'howlers' or 'Quidditch'. Lara Jean had no idea what it meant to be Ravenclaw, or to be any of the other houses, and Margot thought this was all inexcusable.
When she returned home even at Christmas, Margot was horrified with the state of their house, with the succinct lack of magic in their everyday lives.
"Well, other kids must go there not knowing anything. What about muggle-borns? Like with two non-magical parents?" Her father has asked, scratching his head. Margot had just opened and closed her mouth in horror before stalking into the living room, where Lara Jean was sitting. Kitty had chosen to continue this argument and Lara Jean heard it all play out.
"It's part of our blood!" Margot had said in a horrified whisper when Kitty had asked why they needed to change, since Kitty liked things the way it was.
Lara Jean had sat by the fireplace, sipping hot cocoa and grimacing as she watched her two sisters go at it.
That's when the truth had all been revealed. Margot had been mortified when arriving at Hogwarts to be told by others, to not know herself, that their mother was the daughter of one of the oldest and most prestigious families of wizarind blood to walk the Hogwarts halls or the Wizarding World.
Despite her mother's maiden name being 'Song', her family name- the one that mattered, Margot informed them all- was 'Black'.
Their maternal grandmother had been a Black and had gone off and met a wonderful wizard from the East, who bore the last name 'Song'. Since their grandfather had been from an affluent wizard family too, and his lineage could be traced and verified, this union was okay. When their daughter had gone off and married a man of literally no magical genetics, this was not.
"Well, why would we want to be part of a family that blasted mom's name off a pedigree tree?" Lara Jean finally spoke up, crankily, from the couch when Margot was finished explaining.
Margot just looked at Lara Jean like she was crazy.
"When you go to Hogwarts, you'll understand what it's like!" Margot said after a few flabghastemed moments, before going upstairs and slamming the door to her bedroom.
Lara Jean wasn't sure she was going to go to Hogwarts. She hadn't exhibited any magic at all, and even Kitty had a burst or two here and there. Maybe she was the non-magic one of the family, she thought.
After that, Margot started going by 'Margot Black' and encouraged her sisters to do the same, once they arrived. Kitty was adamantly against it. Her father looked a little heartbroken, but just would say that he couldn't fault Margot for attempting to get in touch with her family history.
Lara Jean ran the name over her tongue, trying it out.
Lara Jean Black.
It sounded a little strange, but also a little right.
She tried it out with her other last names. Technically, she also retained her mother's last name, so officially she'd be...what? Lara Jean Song Covey Black?
Ugg, that just sounded like a mouthful.
A mixture, maybe? Lara Jean Black Covey? Well, that name certainly sounded closer to what she would prefer, but it still just felt odd. Margot told her she just needed to say it more often, and then she'd grow accustomed to it. She said it would be better go to already prepared to call herself that than to have to awkwardly adjust as Margot had.
Lara Jean decided not to make any hard and fast rules about what she'd call herself. All she was concerned about was if she'd actually get to go or not. She tried to share her concerns with her older sister, but Margot was less than helpful.
"Of course you'll go to Hogwarts. It's part of us. You've gotta."
God-, no, Merlin...she hoped.
xXxX
Lara Jean had lived next to Josh Sanderson for as long as she could remember. When her parents had moved into their house, the Sandersons had already been there for years. Lara Jean, Josh, and Margot were a trio of toddlers that their mothers would take onto the lawn on warm days and take turns watching when the other had something going on. Her entire life, she'd known Josh.
As they'd gotten older, Margot had found friends her age and Lara Jean has stayed closer friends with Josh. He was perfectly in between the pair in terms of school years, although he was only six months older than Lara Jean. Stupid school year cutoffs, Lara Jean often bemoaned, since she'd found herself in love with Josh since they were pretty young. And, she often thought, that maybe if he were her own year, things would be easier. She'd be able to tell him, she figured, instead of keeping her feelings close to her chest.
However, Lara Jean was also happy to be his best friend, which she was for him and vice versa.
After Margot left for Hogwarts, Lara Jean relied on Josh even more. She thought, a lot, that maybe not going to Hogwarts wouldn't be so bad, since she'd be able to stay around Josh. They could grow up as muggles together (although, Josh had no idea what sort of witchy magic lay in the house right next to his) while her sisters went off and had their own adventures at Hogwarts. Lara Jean could hear about their stories and just read about it in books, and this seemed to be a perfect mixture of the worlds. She wouldn't have to worry about what her name would be or what house she'd be sorted into or how to make her dad feel like he wasn't losing all of his daughters more and more.
The spring after Margot began Hogwarts, Lara Jean went to find Josh, like she did everyday after school. She found him curled up against the trunk of the oak tree in his back yard and he wasn't as talkative as he normally was. Lara Jean brightly tried to make-up for his sullen silence, hoping eventually he'd warm up or tell her what was going on.
Eventually, when it had been nearly two hours of Josh just staring out into the distance with a faraway look on his face, Lara Jean had enough.
"What is eating you?" She finally snapped, a little more forceful than she meant to.
"Something...weird happened." Josh finally said, gnawing on his lip.
"Weird, like…?" Lara Jean frowned, shrugging, "Weird like your dad just danced through the house in drag or weird like you thought you marked your place in a book and it turns out you didn't, though you can vividly remember that you did?"
"Weird like I can't explain it," Josh was obviously trying to piece things together, albeit badly, "I was just...I got into a fight with my mom and the vase on the windowsill just exploded out of nowhere. Lots of strange stuff has been happening lately, I guess. I turned my lights on by just thinking about it a week ago. I thought I saw the rain stop when I looked at it when it stormed real bad last month. I dunno, I think I'm going mad."
Lara Jean felt her breath catch.
Was Josh...a wizard?
However, there was no way to prove this. It could all just be coincidences, although Margot and Kitty's magical outbursts were strangely reminiscent to both of these things. However, if Josh wasn't a wizard, Lara Jean wondered if it was worth getting his hopes up at all?
So, Lara Jean said nothing. Well, not nothing. What she said was;
"Huh, that's strange. You been sleeping enough?" She added it with a smile and after a second, Josh laughed.
"Maybe not. I guess I'm just really playing it all up, huh?" He asked.
But, from that moment on, Lara Jean watched him closely. And, on his birthday that summer, when she saw a very out-of-place owl drop a letter with a Hogwarts seal on his doorstep, Lara Jean stayed away all day, even when he coming knocking on her door, letter in hand, face shining like the sun.
Well, it was obvious now, Lara Jean had to go to Hogwarts.
When she came around to being excited for Josh, who was off the walls excited and thrilled he wasn't going to have to be sent to a mental institution, she talked it up incessantly. She let him borrow Hogwarts; A History and he devoured it like she had when Margot sent it to them. She showed him all her artifacts that their house had begun to collect. She convinced her father to take them all to Diagon Alley to get Josh's broom, since the Sandersons were very thrilled, but also very unaware of the world itself. Of course, her father wasn't much better, but he at least knew some of the tricks of the trade to get them past the secret entrance (or, what to tell Tom the Bartender) and knew to go to Ollivander's for wands, Flourish and Blotts for books, and Madam Malkins for robes.
It was the first time that Lara Jean had been there since she was very young, since a kind Hogwarts professor had taken Margot last year.
And, although Lara Jean still had no magic, she knew that she absolutely had do do everything in her power to be able to come back here, to live here, to go to the same school as her sister...but also as Josh.
So, she convinced her father into buying her a beginner's level textbook of basic spells. Yes, she didn't have a wand, but she'd been hearing about 'magical outbursts' for a year or so now, and figured that maybe, if she practiced enough, she'd coax her magic out on it's own.
Josh left for Hogwarts with Margot on September 1st that year, and was sorted into Hufflepuff. A perfectly fine house.
He wrote often, usually ending letters with some variation of 'I can't wait until you're here too!'
Lara Jean worked for a year by the glow of her nightlight, mouthing spells over and over with her hands out in a ridiculous fashion, willing the magic to flow from her fingertips. For a Alohomora to open her bedroom door, for a Wingardium Leviosa to lift her scrunchie from her quilt into the air, for a Lumos to light up the candles on her windowsill. She read all the theory, memorized the wording until she could pronounce it perfectly, and by all accounts would have been practicing the spells to a level of perfection that Josh- who was currently learning these skills in the moment- did not possess.
She couldn't tell Margot, she told herself, she couldn't. She had a feeling her father knew her worries, and she was equally glad and disappointed he didn't ask her to talk about it. He'd made one comment about it, once, but Lara Jean had snapped at him enough to make him regret saying anything. She wished she hadn't, but she didn't know how to bring it up again. She didn't know how to tell anyone.
She told Josh one day, a week before her own birthday.
'Do you think they'll send a letter if I'm a squib? Would they know?' She wrote him. Her biggest fear, other than never getting a letter at all, was getting a letter wrongly and going to Hogwarts and having to be asked to leave because she couldn't do anything.
'I think the know better than that," Josh replied back, 'But you shouldn't worry. You've been a late bloomer for everything, why are you surprised that this is any different?'
However, Lara Jean still worried. She simply could not help herself.
The days leading up to her birthday were filled with dread that churned in her stomach and kept her up at night. It made her unable to eat anything at all, even when her dad attempted to cook some of mom's old classics. It left her awake in the night, staring at the bookshelf with her hoard of wizard things, running through spells under her breath and hoping for something to happen, anything.
The day before her birthday, Lara Jean didn't want to leave her bedroom at all. Even her father promised to take her out to get ice cream and new books could not budge her.
She just sat at her window on her bed, staring across the street at Josh's unused tree-house. She wondered, when she didn't get her letter tomorrow, how she'd be able to survive, knowing that her family and Josh were all part of this wonderful world she wasn't a part of. Maybe she'd switch to Margot's old room, so she didn't have to see that anymore. Maybe she'd convince her dad to move.
It's funny, since two years ago, she hadn't even wondered about what Hogwarts or Diagon Alley was like, thought her life would be anything more than ordinary...and then, and then…
Now, that's all she could imagine. She'd put all her eggs in one basket. She'd thought about how she could work at the Ministry of Magic one day, or maybe at a magical bookshop, or she could be going on adventures and researching weird wizarding animals. She could do anything.
True, she could still do anything here, but it simply wasn't the same.
She lay on her bed, growling in frustration and anger. She spun onto her stomach, burying her face into her pillow.
"Nox" She mumbled, more out of repition than anything else.
Above her, the lights dimmed and Lara Jean nearly jumped up, thrilled.
"Lumos!" She said, and the lights came on.
The next day, Lara Jean got her letter to Hogwarts, and in that moment, all was well.
xXxX
For Peter Kavinsky, there was never any question he'd get his letter. He'd already gotten it, in fact, by the time Lara Jean got hers.
He was a half-blood by science, but could have passed as a pure-blood by status. Both is parents were half-bloods who had done great things at Hogwarts, claimed their fame, settled down and produced two magical sons that were making sparks in their bassinets before the could walk. He'd lived in and around the Wizarding World his whole life, summers spent at the Quidditch World Cup (whenever they could go), and weekends spent in Hogsmeade watching the students in their house scarves parade around.
Peter had gotten a toy broom at the age of six and, whenever possible after, he was flying. His parents had a large field in the background and Peter was determined to be on the Quidditch team at Hogwarts, like his father before him and his grandfather before that. He'd spent his years with broken bones from trying maneuvers labeled 'DO NOT TRY AT HOME' (but never listened anyway) and a couple chipped teeth from rocky landings. His mom would just sigh, wave a wand or murmur an enchantment, sometimes he had to drink a nasty potion, but most of the time he was patched up to go cause more mayhem on his body as though the original wounds had never happened. He rarely had magical outbursts, since they were contained and he came in contact with magic enough to balance it out.
To Peter, having magic was like breathing; he often took it for granted. It felt as natural as anything else.
The first time he considered, ever, that some kids didn't learn magic like he had- as an integral part of their life- was when he met Lara Jean Covey.
Of course, Lara Jean wouldn't remember the first time they met, as he hadn't even spoken to her. She'd be a little surprised when he'd tell her, years later, since it was a day that she recalled all the moments of, but hadn't recalled seeing a young messy-haired kid missing his front tooth. She feels she would have remembered Peter.
He'd seen her, at age 10, in Flourish and Blotts surrounded by first-year charms books, and thought that she looked far too young to be looking at Year One textbooks. That, and the fact that it was during the week, so if she were a Hogwarts student, she would have been at school.
He hadn't meant to spy on her, but she'd intrigued him. So, he'd stayed on the other side of the bookshelf, keeping his head low, but his eyes in the space between the books, just...watching.
"Lara Jean, we have to go soon."
"Dad, please, can I get a couple books?" The girl- Lara Jean, apparently- said, gathering a whole stack in her arms, looking to her father with large, pleading eyes. Her father was wearing muggle jeans, something Peter recognized but did not see often, and from the way that the girl was dressed too, Peter wondered if she was completely muggle-born.
"That's hardly a couple," Her father ruffled her head, "Two." He said firmly. Lara Jean began to methodically sort through the books, "Hon, these are books you'll get next year anyway. Wouldn't you want more, uh, exciting books?" He asked, "Kitty is getting a picture book that pops up and moves like a TV and Josh is basically hyperventilating about the books on dragons."
"Well, who says I can't get some practice in before I go next year?" Lara Jean asked. Peter titled his head; that would mean they'd be in the same year. Maybe he should try to befriend her, he thought. He didn't know a whole lot of other kids his age.
Her father seemed to see something that Peter did not, for his whole face set into a pained lined and he knelt beside Lara Jean, "Baby, this isn't going to make magic appear if it's not-,"
"It's there!" Lara Jean yelled over him before her father could finish, "It is. I know it is." She didn't sound as sure as her words may have let on.
"Just because you haven't seen any magic, though-," He father tried again.
"I have!" Lara Jean stomped her foot, "I just, er, didn't want to tell you. I exploded a vase." She said in a quiet voice. Peter could tell from the way her fingers quivered it was a lie, but her father seemed to believe it.
"You know that I'm proud you're all witches, right?" Her father tried to reach out to her again, "Your mother would be proud too."
"I know," Lara Jean whispered, "Look. I'll pick two and find you in a sec." She said, a clear dismissal.
Her father seemed to hesitate, but let her be. Peter furrowed his brow...did she not have magic? Could she not produce it, meaning to or not?
He saw her flip to a page in the textbook. She reached into her pockets, taking out what looked like a little scribble of paper of notes to herself, perhaps places to visit here in Diagon Alley. With a decisively lock of her jaw, she crumpled the paper in her fists. She held her hand out, palms up and paper extended, holding in a deep breath as her eyes scanned the page.
"Incendio," She whispered, a fervent prayer, her lips mounting the word with a precision that even Peter did not master. When his father said that charm, it sounded so simple. When Lara Jean said it, it sounded magical, it sounded like lyrics to a song, it sounded beautiful. There was a moment in which Peter could feel his heart beating rapidly, as he wished so hard that the little ball of paper would catch on fire.
When it did not, however, and Lara Jean's face fell, Peter just knew that she had not seen a lick of magic. But, as quick as the disappointment seeped across her face, it was replaced by a more purposeful look. Peter half expected her to slam the books and leave them, but instead, Lara Jean picked two of the beginninger's spell books and loped her arms around them, striding away with a burning in her eyes and a walk to her step of a girl who was not about to give up.
"Covey! C'mon, your dad says we only have an our left, and I want to go to the pet store and pick my owl," A gangly boy called to her, his arms loaded with supplies for an upcoming school year.
In the back of his mind, 'Covey' rang a bell.
Peter wanted to reach out to her, but found himself unsure of what to say anyway, and just watched her walk away.
That night, he asked his parents about it.
"Covey," His mother rubbed her chin, "I'd check the Pure Blood book we have in the back, but if it's who I think it is, it probably wouldn't do much use," She admitted.
"Yeah, burned off the tree, wasn't she?" His father agreed, "The daughter of the Blacks that ran off with that muggle. I always wondered what happened to her."
"She's a Black?" Peter couldn't help but blurt. Of course, the Blacks were one of the most prestigious Wizarding families around.
"Technically, yeah," His mother agreed, "However, it sounds like they don't go by that anymore."
Peter almost told his mother about what he'd seen, but felt like it was far too personal, and decided to keep this secret close to him.
Of course, after that, they didn't talk about them much again. Peter just mentioned that he'd heard that name today, and that it sounded like something he'd heard before. It wasn't surprising, since the scandal was still whispered about, even now. His parents didn't know much more about the girl either, much to his dismay, although his father did say he was fairly sure that there was currently a Covey at Hogwarts, a Ravenclaw.
That was too much of a coincidence. A sister, Peter assumed. And that was a good sign, wasn't it? That one sibling was already magical?
He asked his parents what the chances were that a pure-blood and a muggle would create a squib.
"Entirely possible," His father, the scholar between the pair, replied. And, that answer broke his heart, just a little, "Not even unheard of."
"It's more common for two purebloods to create a squib, though, dear," His mother interjected, "Actually, there's quite a lot of theories out there that it's the introduction of non-magical blood that assures any children to be magical. Something about the expansion of the magical signature." She waved a hand fork, thinking, "After the Second Wizarding War, there was a great push for purebloods to marry muggle borns, but marrying straight out a muggle is still a sore subject. At least a muggle-born is magical."
"It's all just theory, anyway," His father shrugged, "Hardly anyone cares anymore, except for really old houses and such, but they're a dying breed as it is. Most everyone is a half-blood now." He said, "Why the sudden interest?"
"Just something Greg was saying," Peter lied, staring down at his plate. He'd been told he was an awful liar. The girl in the bookstore was much better than he was at it. Of course, this wasn't a life and death matter, so his parents didn't press him too much. They continued on with dinner, and the conversation switched to discussing how Bulgaria was doing in the current Quidditch games and how there was a game coming to England soon, so maybe they'd take Peter.
And, while this would usually hold Peter's undivided attention, he couldn't help but let his mind wander back to his day and he found himself strangely unable to push her out of his mind, even when two premium tickets to a great match were being talked about about. A part of him, though, couldn't be prompted to care. Another part of him felt guilty, since Quidditch was just an everyday conversation to him and he wasn't even sure this girl had ever seen someone fly a broom before, which was simply unacceptable to him. But also, very, very sad and not really fair.
That night, he thought a lot about the girl he'd seen. How her eyes had devoured the page with an eagerness Peter would never have from reading a textbook. How her mind had wirled and tried harder to produce magic than Peter ever had in his life. How, maybe speaking truthfully, as a Black, Lara Jean had more right to practice magic than Peter did. How he knew that if she got the chance to study magic, she'd never be bored or dulled by it, but in constant wonderment. How she'd use magic for things, instead of expecting magic to be done, as Peter did most of his life.
He wished on a star, despite knowing how faulty wish magic was, but told that space dust that- if he could- he'd switch places with Lara Jean and give her his magic. Then, he rescinded it a little since his next thought was that he wanted to be around to see what she did with magic and just prayed and prayed she'd go to Hogwarts and they could be in the same house. Peter wished to be friends with Lara Jean Covey, a witch (a wish he felt in his bones so intensely that it scared him a little), who he just knew- out of everyone- deserves a chance for her shot at the world that had so much to offer.
So there you go! First chapter, done! Each chapter will be a year at Hogwarts with both Peter's and Lara's POV :)
I pretty much have all the characters sorted, but tell me which house you think everyone's in, just for fun!
Also, if you have any questions about the universe, just ask about it. I'm sorta making a quasi canon world where like, the events of the HP books happened, but like...we may have cameos of characters, but it's not gunna be real obvious.
If you go to my art tumblr, youngbloodlex22, you can see aesthetic boards I made for Peter and LJ already, which sorta spoils what house they'll be in, as well as the cover :)
Please review if you like this!