CHAPTER 2

Jean Chase took the first spare seat at the Ravenclaw table and eyed the food around her with eagerness. Her stomach had been growling incessantly for the past couple of hours.

She had already decided to dive for the chicken when suddenly her vision went black.

"Guess who!"

She never had to.

"Park."

She heard a moan behind her and her vision was cleared again. A boy slumped at her right side, wearing a big grin.

"How d'you always know it's me?" He pouted.

His unruly black hair was curly and wild, almost too big compared to his short, skinny body, and his bright grey eyes were shining with excitement. To be fair, Park Roland looked crazy most of the time and his looks did match his personality. Maybe that was one of the reasons why Jean loved him so much.

"You're the only person who still plays those silly children tricks."

Park faked shock and pretended to be deeply affected. "Well, I'm sorry if you've become too serious for my childishness, Miss Head Girl."

Jean rolled her eyes but couldn't help a chuckle.

"What kept you anyway?" Park continued. "You missed the Sorting."

Jean sighed. She had really wanted to watch the last Sorting of her Hogwarts life with her friends, but unfortunately she had been assigned to watch over the second years. She hadn't minded much at first, since keeping twelve year olds from injuring themselves looked easy until Jean remembered that they were fueled with all the energy that they'd had to hold back for two entire months.

"A couple of kids burned one of the boats of the first years," Jean said, holding out a finger. "And then another tried to fix it but sent it flying instead. And then they tried to duel and it was a mess."

"Are they okay?"

"Guess so," Jean said between bites. "I watched them 'til McGonagall stopped by to give them detention."

Park dropped his mouth. "Geez. Detention in the first day already? Poor things."

She shrugged. "They break the rules, they deal with the consequences."

Park watched her with fascination.

"Now that's an ice queen for you."

"Don't call me that."

"Would you prefer 'Her Excellency the Head Girl'?" The look on Jean's face made him change the subject. "And how did the Head Boy do?"

"Potter stayed with the third years and everyone in his group behaved nicely," Jean said sulkily. Truth be told, she had half wanted Potter to have been in charge of misbehaving kids... The exact type that he had once been. She would have laughed to see him getting a taste of his own medicine.

Park gasped.

"Did you just say... Potter?"

"Yes."

"Potter is Head Boy this year?" Park repeated slowly. "As in, James Bloody Potter?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Park entwined his fingers and set his chin against his hands, a deliciously evil smile spreading slowly through his lips. "Oh, Chang is not going to like that."

"Well, let's hope she doesn't ask," Jean said. "I'd really love to have a quiet night."

"Is it true that Potter is the Head Boy?" A sudden voice asked behind her.

Someone slumped in the empty seat next to Jean. An Asian girl with her hair caught up in a messy ponytail, smoky eyeliner around her liquid dark eyes, pearl drop earrings pending from the lobes of her round ears, wearing chocolate brown lipstick in her tightly pursed lips.

"Chang!" Park's face lit up. "We were just talking about you!"

The girl ignored him, her hard eyes fixed on Jean.

"I repeat - is it true that James Bloody Potter is Head Boy? Because I'll only believe the rumour if I hear it from you."

Jean hesitated.

"Sorry, Chang. It's true."

Mia Chang smacked the palm of her hand against her forehead and slid it all the way down her face in utter desperation.

"Screw. Me."

"It's alright," Jean said gently, even though she knew Chang well enough to know that it was not alright. An explosion about to burst out was already bubbling under her skin. "It's just for one year."

"One year of Potter as Head Boy will feel like bloody eternity. And I just don't get it, how did he get chosen? I didn't vote for him! No one in their right mind would want that presumptuous good-for-nothing-"

"Clearly they do want him since he was admitted by popular vote," Park said cheerfully.

"Jean is also Head Girl and she's not popular." Chang flashed her a look. "No offence, Jean."

"None taken."

"Are you still mad because he beat you last year at the Quidditch final?" Park rested his chin on his hand and flashed her a grin from ear to ear.

Chang almost lost it.

"He didn't beat me because he has talent, he beat me because he was bloody lucky. We were standing side by side on the field," she placed her flat hands vertically next to each other, "-and the wind…"

"…was coming at full force from right to the left, causing the snitch to lean over the left where James Potter was, and making it so much easier for him to catch it," Jean and Park recited at the same time and then laughed at each other. They had Chang complaining about it way too many times by now.

Chang wasn't amused. Her eyes narrowed into slits and she pointed her knife at them.

"I'm serious here. This year I'll teach him a lesson." She lowered the knife and started slicing pieces of chicken in her plate and shoving them gloomily into her mouth. "I've practiced harder than everyone else in the summer. My mother trained me herself."

"No doubt." Chang's naturally pale skin was tanned from the time spent outside playing. Chang swallowed and turned to Jean. Jean almost gulped, such was the resemblance to a sabretooth.

"Oh, and if he even thinks of trying anything with you-"

"Try anything with me?"

"-I will stab him with my wand."

"Stab him with your wand."

"Yes."

Park laughed. "Because cursing him would be too mainstream."

Chang shrugged. "Don't underestimate Muggle killing. It must feel better to do it with your own hands."

Park made a face between amusement and disgust.

Jean ventured, "I really doubt he would 'try anything' with me."

"Yeah, well. Who knows what kind of depraved thoughts are hiding in his head," Chang said darkly, glancing over Jean's shoulder at the Gryffindor table.

Jean turned around and stared as well.

Unlike the other three Houses who were expressing a normal dose of excitement for the first day, the Gryffindor table was dripping with confusion and sheer excitement taken to the utmost limit. It didn't matter where Jean looked, something crazy was happening – explosions, flying food, smoke coming out of ears and noses, napkins shaped like birds flying around in flocks. Lots of laughter and lots of mess. Lots of Gryffindors taking dinner to the edge.

Jean spotted James Potter immediately. He was sitting with his usual gang, laughing so hard that his face was red. In front of Potter, a boy with his back turned to Jean – probably his cousin Fred Weasley, judging by the red hair – was sporting grey donkey ears. Jean's lip quirked but she rearranged her face to hold a serious expression as she turned back to her friends.

Chang was still eyeing Potter darkly.

"Toerag," she hissed.

"Couldn't have said it better," agreed Park, shoving another piece of chicken into his already full mouth.

"Ew, didn't your mother ever warn you to swallow before you speak?"

"Like this?" Roland opened her mouth wide, revealing all of the chewed food inside, and Jean just had to look away.

"I'd forgotten just how graceful you can be, Roland," Chang remarked. Jean laughed.

Even though they had exchanged letters for the past two months, she realized now how much she had truly missed them. How much she would truly miss them as soon as the school year was over.

"Speaking of toerags," Park said.

Jean looked at the main doors of the Great Hall and saw a group of students. On closer examination, though, she realized that the group was composed of a boy - Michael Goldstein, the Ravenclaw Quidditch Chaser - and his fans. Wherever Michael went, there was always a group of girls around him that reminded Jean of flies around food.

"Hey, Quinn. How's this summer?"

Quinn looked up, threw Park a look of extreme loathing, and then went back to her notebook, this time making sure she protected it with her arm. Park's mouth fell.

"See, this is why everyone hates Ravenclaws! We're the brightest and we're always keeping cool secrets and inventions from each other. And stealing them," he added with a cough.

Jean and Chang glared at him, their Ravenclaw pride boiling. There had been some incidents in the Ravenclaw history when rumours claimed that some Ravenclaw wizards had stolen research from other Houses and claimed the findings as theirs. It was a touchy subject for Ravenclaws. Park raised his hands, eyes shining. "But not me. Nope, I am an open book," he stated proudly. "Everyone knows about my experiments."

"You're working on divination with yolks and you've never been successful."

He faked shock. "I'm working on it!"

Jean chuckled. The conversation shifted to yolk divination and drifted to general spell experimentation.

The dinner scurried by faster than she wanted but she realized soon enough that it was time for the first years to get to bed, so she stood up and alerted the fifth year Prefects, who led the new students to their respective House dorms for the first time. Jean walked back to her friends.

"I think I'm going to bed."

"No way!" Park said. "It's like ten o'clock, Chase."

"I know, but I'm getting tired."

She really was. Her head was ringing from all the patrolling and the excitement of the first day.

"Getting old, are you?" Chang asked.

Jean stuck her tongue at her friend and heard Chang's characteristic loud laugh as she walked away. Before exiting the Hall, she glanced again at the Gryffindor's table and suppressed a chuckle when she saw that James Potter had now grown donkey ears as well. His wand was out and it took her a second to realize what he was doing – the water in his goblet rose in the air and formed a defined shape: a snitch. It started flying around, only inches away from his Housemates' heads, until it soared over the Hufflepuff's table… the Ravenclaw's table… and finally the Slytherin's. Jean lowered her pace with curiosity and stopped by the door, her eyes fixed on the transparent water snitch that had lowered its rhythm and was now hovering menacingly over the untidy black hair that belonged to none other than Albus Potter himself. Finally, James flickered his wand and the water snitch fell, splashing Albus who gasped and jumped in shock.

There was a roar of laughter in the Gryffindor table.

Albus turned away, his wet hair glued to is forehead, and looked at his brother through narrowed eyes. A sneer crossed his lips and his wand was out in a second. Last year he had become more confident, more daring, and stood up to his brother instead of just bending his head low whenever he was bullied. James gave his brother a look that said, Bring it on! and Jean looked away, smiling without realising she was smiling, shaking her head slightly before resuming her walk. The chattering faded as she crossed the hallway, went down the stairs, still smiling to herself, walked down the corridor and away through the gates. A gush of the outside wind hit her face and she retrieved the wand from her pocket as she made her way through the woods.

"Lumos," she whispered softly. Light broke out from the edge of her wand. Rhythmic white puffs of smoke came from her mouth and disappeared in the crisp night air.

Instead of continuing down the path to Hagrid's Cabin, she turned in the direction of the Forbidden Forest. It would be pointless to check if she was being watched – every teacher and student was gathered in the Great Hall. Even if she was caught, she had the Head Girl excuse. She rehearsed it inside her head... Professor, I think I heard a sound coming from there, maybe a student is out of bed.

The crispy cold air was making her shiver and Jean held to her robes tightly. Owls were hooting in the distance; her feet cracked the dry leaves on the grass. She walked for a while, lost in thought, barely realizing that she was still thinking about Potter.

She had always had a crush on him – ever since she could remember. Ever since the first time she had seen him. He had sat across her on the boat to Hogwarts in their first year, but she doubted he remembered. She had watched him on the hallways, rehearsed in front of the mirror and tried a thousand times to approach him, to greet him. But Potter was always surrounded by friends. He was always surrounded by laughter, by confusion, by pranking and cheerfulness. There was always something great happening around James Potter. How could she ever have approached him? Jean Chase, the nervous girl who spent her days in the library, buried in books. Jean Chase, the outcast, who didn't even have enough courage to talk to a normal classmate unless strictly necessary, least of all to James Potter.

And when she finally had talked to him… just a few hours ago…

She almost missed a step when she remembered his words.

Please. It's obvious that McGonagall chose you because you are her pet.

His smug smile. His teasing eyes.

He didn't even know her name.

It had hurt more than anything he could have said. There it was - the proof that Potter didn't like her. The crushing of every fantasy she had had over the past six years about him taking her to the school ball, or dedicating her a Quidditch victory.

She shook her head like the gesture could also shake her thoughts. It hadn't played out how she had imagined their first talk – she had imagined countless times that James Potter would bump into her by accident like in Muggle novels, or that one day he would tell her out of the blue that he had seen her in class and wanted to get to know her better, or stop her in the hallway and tell her that he thought she was such a great student and he was in love with her magic. She bit her lip. How could she have been so stupid?

One day back into Hogwarts, and everything was already crumbling apart.

It was obvious that McGonagall had chosen Jean because of her grades - clearly it couldn't have been by popular vote. She was failing in the whole "outstanding social reputation" part that came with being Head Girl. Maybe Potter was right – Jean herself thought that Mia Chang was a much better fit. She was fierce and had a brilliant mind, she was a great Quidditch player and of course, brave and confident. Chang had almost landed on Gryffindor.

In other words, Mia Chang was everything that Jean Chase was not.

She stopped in the middle of a step and realized that she had been looking down the whole time. She rose her eyes to the full moon above and drew a shaky breath. A cold breeze shook her hair and lifted her cloak. She felt a chill down her spine and decided it was time to go back.

No sooner had she entered back in the castle than she had made a new promise to herself. Starting tomorrow, she would stop trying to get Potter's attention. No more thinking about him at night, or day dreaming about him during classes, or fantasizing about something that could never happen.

Starting tomorrow, her attention would be completely focused on her friends, and her duties as the new Head Girl.

AN: Hello everyone :) If you're reading this, thank you for sticking with me this far - I really hope you're enjoying the story. I actually started it in 2016 and I've got it figured out inside my head, so now that I've picked it up, all that's left to do is write it! I'll upload my chapters as soon as possible after they're finished, and I hope you love reading about Jean and James as much as I am enjoying writing it.

-Xo, Scarlett-