A/N: A long wait again (thank you if you're still with me), but eventually here's the next chapter of this. Also big thanks to those who reviewed the previous chapters! Happy New Year, and hope everyone had good holidays!


James strolled into his aunt and uncle's kitchen on the first day of the Easter holidays, having casually flooed into the living room, uninvited. His uncle and aunt were out, which he had known before coming, but his cousin was sitting at the table, eating a sandwich while engrossed in a book, dressed only in a t-shirt and a pair of boxers, although it was after midday. James crossed the room and, with a swift motion of his wand, upended his cousin's chair.

Hugo Weasley shrieked in an extremely undignified way as he and his sandwich landed with a loud crash on the floor.

"Ow! Merlin!" He glared up at James. "What the fuck? Where did you come from?"

James leant against the edge of the table, his wand still in his hand.

"Okay, Hugo," he said conversationally. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't hex you into the middle of next week."

Hugo looked thoroughly alarmed.

"What are you on about? Why are you hexing me?" he protested, scrambling backwards.

"You know why, you little tosser." James dropped the casual act, and scowled heavily at Hugo. "I told you to keep your nose out, and then you go and write stupid letters about me dying. I mean, seriously, influenza?"

"Oh!" Realisation dawned in Hugo's eyes as he stopped moving back. "Ohh! That's what this is about! Wait, how do you even know about it? Did it work?" he demanded delightedly.

James glowered at him. "Not the point. It was none of your fucking business, and you made me look like a complete idiot. What the hell did you think you were doing?"

Before Hugo could answer, an amused voice spoke from the doorway.

"What on earth's going on?"

James turned his head to find Rose standing watching them, her eyebrows so high they were almost under her fringe.

"Nothing," he started to say, but he got no further.

"I set him up with the girl he fancies, and now he's angry," Hugo broke in, sounding deeply injured.

"What?" Rose still looked confused, but she was obviously enjoying the situation a great deal, judging by the grin on her face.

"That is not what happened!" James growled. "You wrote her a letter out of bloody nowhere, telling her I was dying of flu!"

Rose shrieked with laughter. "Hugo, did you actually do that? Please tell me you did, because that's the best thing I've heard all year!"

"I was trying to help," Hugo said sulkily, from his position on the floor. "You obviously wanted to talk to her, and she'd dumped you. And now you've been talking to her – you must have been!"

"Why the hell didn't I know about any of this?" Rose demanded. She advanced into the room, still grinning. "Hugo, you're the world's biggest idiot, but I kind of love you for this. Who is she anyway? I didn't know you'd been dumped, Jamie. Come to think of it, I didn't know you were going out with anyone. Although I noticed you didn't deny that you fancied her. And," she added, looking thoughtful, "that does explain something Louis said the other day."

"Louis needs to learn to keep his mouth shut," James said.

However annoyed he was with Hugo, he would very much have rather Rose hadn't heard anything about it. Now she had, there was no way she'd let it go.

"So it's true?" Rose dropped into a kitchen chair and surveyed them both. "Come on, Jamie. You've got to spill the beans now."

"Her name's Hazel." Hugo picked himself up off the floor and gazed at the remains of his food. "James, you're a wanker. That was a good sandwich."

"Shut up, Hugo," James said. "Fuck's sake. It's none of anyone's business."

"Hazel," Rose repeated thoughtfully. "Wait. Wait. Isn't that the girl you got stuck under the avalanche with last year? The one who saved your life? Are you still seeing her?"

"Merlin!" James folded his arms and scowled at her, seething. Although he couldn't be surprised. With a family as large and close as theirs, they were always in each other's business. It was just that he was usually the one interfering, and he wasn't sure what to do with this role reversal.

But then again, just last week, when she'd invited him to her birthday party, Hazel had said she wanted him to come as her boyfriend. That she wanted her friends to know who he was and what was going on between them. So if they were making it public, there was no reason for his family not to know either, except for the fact that his family were capable of being very embarrassing, which was something he was probably going to have to just suck up and deal with.

"Okay, fine," he said, after a small pause, while Rose simply looked at him and waited. "Yes, I am. Not thanks to anything Hugo did," he added.

"You say that," Hugo put in. "But when you were talking about it back at Christmas, you said you hadn't seen her for months and you didn't know how to get her to talk to you. And then I wrote to her, and now you're going out." He grinned, having clearly cheered up again. "Did she believe it?"

"Of course she didn't believe it," James snapped. "She's not an idiot! Why would I be dying of flu?"

"Influenza, not flu," Hugo corrected him.

"They're the same thing, you twat," Rose said, and then went on before anyone could side-track her again. "Wow, James. You've got yourself in a bit deep there, haven't you? She's a Muggle. And isn't she some friend of Malfoy's?"

Of course Rose remembered the name, and of course she'd put two and two together – Rose always did. James tried very hard not to show his irritation with her, because that would only make her worse, but he didn't think he was doing a very good job.

"Why would it be a problem that she's a Muggle?" he demanded, ignoring the mention of Malfoy. "Wouldn't have expected you to be prejudiced, Rosie."

"I'm not prejudiced." Rose rolled her eyes. "I'm thinking practicalities here. How could she live in our world? And how would you ever live in the Muggle world?"

"Bloody hell, we've only been going out a few weeks. Bit early to think about where we're going to live." James was aware, in some back part of his mind, that part of the reason he was so annoyed by this line of questioning was that he had thought about it – maybe not in terms of where they'd live, he wasn't thinking quite that far ahead, but he had wondered what would happen when she went off to university. But he didn't need someone like Rose, who always thought she knew best, to start pointing out difficulties when all he wanted to do was be with Hazel.

"Anyway," he went on. "Why shouldn't I be able to live in the Muggle world, part of the time at least? Hazel knows I'm a wizard – it's not an issue. I'm going to her birthday next week, and they'll all be Muggles. I just won't do any magic."

"Or talk about any magic, or anything to do with magic. What happens when they start talking about television or aeroplanes or their exams, or asking you about your job? You've never taken Muggle Studies, and the only contact you've had with the Muggle world has been visiting your dad's cousin once a year, and using your homemade Muggle ID to drink in their bars when you were underage. There's no way you'll be able to fake it."

"Look, I'm pretty sure I can handle it, Rose," James snapped. "I've been hanging out Hazel since January - and all last summer. And pretending to be a Muggle isn't exactly Advanced Potions. I'll manage."

"You never took Advanced Potions either," Rose remarked.

"So what?" James glared at her, thoroughly exasperated. "It's just a saying!"

"Well, I took Advanced Potions. And I'm telling you, I'd rather that than pretend to be a Muggle in a crowd of actual Muggles all wanting to get to know me. But fine, you do what you want. Just don't blame me when you get hit with a lawsuit for breaking the Statute."


Later, he repeated the conversation to Hazel (missing out the bit about dropping Hugo on the floor, and also most of the argument with Rose). He had brought her to the Three Broomsticks - safe and quiet enough, now that Hogwarts was on holiday - and they were lounging in a booth at the back, mostly hidden from the rest of the pub, his arm around Hazel's waist.

"So now that that Hugo, Louis, and Rose know," he finished resignedly, "you can pretty much guarantee the rest of my family are going to know soon too. Not that that's a bad thing," he added. "They're just a bit full on."

They would want to make a big fuss over Hazel, he knew they would, and he'd really rather keep her for himself. He couldn't even imagine what Grandad Weasley would be like when he realised that James was going out with an actual Muggle.

"Well, I don't mind," Hazel said. "I'd like to meet more of them some time. I met your sister that time, but not properly."

"Yeah, well." He leaned over and kissed her. "I'm not sure I want you to meet them. They'll only be embarrassing."

She laughed. "I bet they won't be." She looked up at him, a little more seriously, her face very close to his. "Are you really going to be okay, coming to the party?"

He shrugged, slightly surprised by the question. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be? It's your birthday – I want to come." He grinned. "And I promise I'll be on my best behaviour."

She frowned. "I meant about pretending not to be a wizard. D'you want me to, you know, talk you through any stuff or anything? You're going to have to have a story for if people ask you about your job or anything."

James laughed. "Nah, I'll be fine," he said, with considerably more good humour than he had had with Rose. "I'll make something up. By the way," he went on. "There's a bunch of us going to the Leaky Cauldron at the weekend. That's the pub in Diagon Alley. They want to know if you're coming. And I mean, we're not really keeping this secret any more, are we? So d'you want to come?"

He smiled expectantly at her. She had wanted to see Diagon Alley for ages, but they'd avoided it because of all the people he knew there. As he'd said, though, secrecy was a bit redundant now that so many people knew anyway. He'd expected her to be delighted with the idea, but she was still frowning slightly.

"Yes, okay," she said slowly.

James also frowned. "Are you okay? You don't have to come, if you don't want to?"

"No, I'm fine." She shook her head, shaking the frown away, and smiled at him. "I'd like to come."

It still wasn't quite the enthusiastic reception he'd thought it would be. Had he somehow said something to upset her? But she was smiling again, and asking whether butterbeer was classed as an alcoholic drink, and the moment had passed. But James was left with a slightly uneasy feeling, as if something had happened without him being aware of it, and he wasn't sure what to do about it.