Chapter Four
No Pizza In The Library

"She was not looking at you," Fred said, brushing James' account on the happening away for at least the fifth time since they'd left the greenhouses and sat themselves in their dorm.

"I'm telling you, she turned away just as I looked in her direction."

"I think you wanted her to be looking in your direction, and so your mind made up what it saw. In other words, you're going bat shit crazy because you don't know why you like her."

"I don't like her," James protested, trying to convince himself more than his cousin. "At least... I don't think I do. How do you feel when you see Ingrid?"

"Mate, as much as I want to help you, I can't. Girls are a foreign species sent from a different universe and we have yet to understand them."

"You're avoiding the question. How do you feel when you see Ingrid?" James repeated.

Fred sighed and shrugged before speaking, his voice quiet but audible. "Like I want to always be there for her – as a best friend would, but in a cutesy romantic kind of way. Kind of like in those soppy Muggle movies that Nikki forces us to watch in the holidays. I want to just... I don't know, I just want to be able to tell her that she's perfect all the time and hug or kiss her whenever I want to because she's just so... amazing." Fred sighed again, and shook his head. "Ignore everything I just said, it was stupid."

"No... I like when we can talk like this," James said quietly.

Fred raised an eyebrow. "We sound like a couple of thirteen year-old girls at a fucking sleepover."

James rolled his eyes before turning serious again. "You really like her – Ingrid – don't you?"

Fred shrugged. "I guess I do," he replied quietly, looking anywhere but at James.

"Mate, you have to do something about it."

Fred averted back to their original conversation, "I'll tell Ingrid when you tell Alyssa."

"That's different. I don't even like Alyssa in that way."

"Yeah, you do. I could see you relating to everything I said." James opened his mouth to deny everything, but Fred butted in. "Don't even try to tell me I'm wrong. I know you better than you know yourself."

"Whatever. At least you know Ingrid. What if Alyssa's actually a vain heartless bitch?"

"I don't know. Maybe you should just shag her. Ease some of that sexual tension."

"How's that going to help anything, Fred?"

"Trust me on this one."

"Fine." James laid down on his bed, looking at the left post on the end of his bed where the curtain was all scrunched up from being open. "Give me two weeks, tops."

Dinner was over and James let out a satisfied burp, ignoring all the looks of disgust being thrown his way. "That. Meal. Was. Delicious," he stated happily.

"So we heard," Nikki replied with a wrinkled nose. "You really need to work on your table manners."

Rolling his eyes at her (a habit he'd been doing a lot recently), James got up and sauntered along the table to sit next to his brother, seeing as he hadn't seen him all day. "Al," he greeted casually.

"James," the younger Potter replied, not removing his nose from the book his face was mere inches away from.

"Good book?"

"Yes."

There was a silence for at least forty seconds before anybody said anything again.

"What do you want, James?" Albus asked in a defeated sort of way, carefully placing a bookmark between the two open pages of the book, closing it lightly and placing it on the table with so much care that anybody would think it was rigged with explosives.

"Nothing! I just wanted to see my little brother and find out about his day! But if you're going to get all irritable about it then I'll skip to the real reason why I'm here."

"The real reason to which I'm here," Albus corrected automatically, buckling a little under the glare his brother shot him before raising an eyebrow. "Well?"

"You spend your life in the library," he started, matter-of-factly, "I was just wondering if you knew anything about Alyssa Hamilton."

"Not really. She's in the library a lot and she let me sit with her once when all the other tables were in use. She didn't say much, but she lent me her spare quill, too."

"So she's smart and nice..."

"Why do you even want to kno- Wait, do you like her?"

"Of course not, don't be stupid."

"Whatever, James. Just don't be a prick to her, she seems nice. A girl like that deserves someone who, you know... isn't an asshole. You fail the criteria by default."

"Shut up. Wait, do you like her?"

Albus snorted. "No."

"Whatever. Where's Lils?"

"She's sitting with her friends at the other end of the table."

"Well... I wish I could stay and chat, but I really don't want to." James proceeded to ruffle his younger brother's hair before walking along the table, finding his little sister sitting with her and her friends.

"Hey, squirt," he greeted, inviting himself to sit with her and not quite managing to ignore her giggling little friends. "What's their deal?"

"You," she replied simply. "They think you're cute. No idea why."

James grinned at the way Lily was inheriting his gift of gently bullying people in an affectionate way. "Right. Anyway, I just thought I'd see how your day was. See if anybody needs their arse kicking or face broken. The usual."

"My day was fine," she replied shortly. "Yours?"

"Same. What's happening with that Ravenclaw lad?"

Lily sighed deeply. "I knew that was the real reason you came over here, James. Nothing is happening with him and even if something was, it wouldn't be any of your business anyway."

"I'm just looking out for you, Lils, I don't want you to get hurt."

"I'm not going to get hurt, Jamie. Anyway, we're going to the library now, so I'll see you in the Common Room later?"

James looked over to the Ravenclaw table just in time to see Alyssa, Maya and Caroline get up and start walking to the door. His first guess was that they were going to library to do their Herbology homework, so he turned back to his sister with a smile. "Actually, I was just heading there too. Mind if I walk with you?"

Lily furrowed her eyebrows and looked at her brother suspiciously. "Since when have you ever had an interest in the library?"

"I was in there second period, actually," he replied honestly, smiling at his sister for proving her wrong.

"I wasn't confident you even knew where it was," Lily muttered.

James mock-glared at the youngest Potter. "Seriously though, I need to go there to... to find a book."

"No shit. Which book?"

"A secret book," James replied with a hint of annoyance, "Are we going or what?"

Lily rounded up her friends, which was easy because they'd all been listening to the conversation intently, and they all headed to the library with the sixth year.

When they got there, James saw the three Ravenclaw girls sitting in a secluded corner and quickly said goodbye to his sister and her friends before sitting on a table not too far away from Alyssa's.

As soon as she got up to go to a bookshelf, James was on his feet. "Funny how we keep meeting like this," he commented casually as he caught up to her in the Herbology section.

Alyssa side-glanced him and nodded a little. "Yep... What book are you looking for?"

"Anything that'll get me a decent grade on the Herbology homework," he replied, shrugging.

"Oh, I already did the homework; I'm just finding something for light reading, now."

"Really? Like... you want to know things for fun?"

"Not for fun, per se. More like... just in case it crops up," Alyssa shrugged. She obviously did it a lot.

"Meaning you can also answer questions in class when you're picked on out of the blue and not have to sit there like I do and sound stupid by taking a guess."

"Exactly. But you shouldn't put yourself down, I'm sure you're a very smart person."

James smiled and, in spite of himself, looked at his feet to hide his reddened cheeks. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Alyssa smiled at him in departure and walked away with the book she'd chosen to get back to Maya and Caroline.

Once again, James sat down on his nearby table and this time pretended to read the Herbology book he'd picked up so as not to look suspicious.

About half an hour went by (in which James fell asleep twice and was only awoken both times when his elbow slid off of the table, almost making his face smack into the table) before Alyssa got up again, putting the book she'd taken back and heading over to the Defence Against The Dark Arts part of the library.

James got to his feet quickly and again stood a couple of feet away from her as he pretended to be browsing the books on the shelves in front of them.

A good two minutes of silence passed before Alyssa turned her head a little and realised that it was the older Potter boy again. "Forgive me if I'm wrong," she started, "But are you... following me?" Luckily for James, she appeared to find it more humorous than full-on creepy.

"Maybe. Would you mind it all that much if I was?"

"I'm really not all that interesting, James," she replied with a sigh, "You should waste your time stalking somebody else."

James just shrugged nonchalantly and tilted his head a little to the side. "What if you're the only one I want to stalk?" he asked, air-quoting the word 'stalk'.

"It's not really stalking if I know you're doing it," she pointed out, not helping to smile a bit.

"Darn. I'll have to find a new subject."

Alyssa let out a barely audible laugh and looked back to the bookshelf. "Why are you following me, anyway? Like I said before, I'm not very appealing at all."

"Don't say that. You have a very wide appeal. But I really can't answer your question; I have no idea myself. I either want to be your friend or get into your pants; I really haven't got a clue."

"Well, if it's the former, come and find me when you've got it figured out because that could be interesting. And if it's the latter, then at least you're honest, but I'm definitely not interested in becoming your next one night stand."

James smiled innocently under the accusation and watched her as she walked away with a new book.

Deciding there wasn't anything else for him to be doing in the library, the sixteen year-old strolled out of the place, smiling at the librarian (who, judging by her expression, hadn't forgotten about the pizza incident in the slightest) as he left.

A/N - I know I haven't updated in months, but I'm currently working on Chapter 10, so you can expect more regular updates for a while! Hope you're all keeping well and that this chapter hasn't been a huge disappointment after the wait. -Ti