James wasn't there when I got to the bottom of the stairs that morning so I waited for him as we had planned. I was starting to get annoyed that he was running late and was about to leave when he arrived looking very tired.

"Why did I agree to wake up at 8 a.m. again?" James asked in a raspy voice, stifling a yawn as he took my hand and began to lead me towards the Great Hall.

"Good morning to you too," I replied. James looked slightly annoyed by this comment. Apparently, James was not a morning person.

As I walked down the hall I felt like I had been invisible my entire life and now for the first time ever I was being seen. Random people smiled at me and not one person knocked into me. I was also less nervous this time and it was nice knowing we had boundaries and guidelines now.

When we reached the Great Hall Della was already sitting at the Ravenclaw table and her eyes widened when she saw me walking in hand in hand with James Potter. I immediately let go of his hand. I didn't know if I was ready to introduce him to Della yet.

"Alright I'll see you later then," I said starting to walk towards the Ravenclaw table.

"Wait," James said and I stopped, "Don't you want to introduce me to your sister?" He wondered.

"Not really," I said honestly. He looked very offended by this. Because who didn't want to meet James Potter? "I don't really want to involve family in this yet," I explained.

"She's going to find out sometime," He reasoned, "And she's just seen us holding hands."

He was right. I sighed, "Fine."

As we walked over to the table I couldn't read Della's face at all. "Good morning," I greeted her calmly.

She didn't say anything. She was just staring at James. I'd almost never seen Della speechless before.

"This is James," James smiled a charming smile at her as I introduced him and Della watched him closely with an uncertain look painted across her face.

"Hi! What's your name?" James said seemingly unphased by her reaction to him. He was probably used to people being awestruck by him.

"Adelaide," She said shortly.

"Everyone calls her Della though," I added.

"Everyone who knows me," She corrected in a prim voice, "You can call me Adelaide." Now my mouth dropped open in surprise at how she had shifted so quickly from speechless to brash confidence.

"Oh tough!" James laughed seeming impressed. Della smiles a little bit. James was pulling out all of the stops to try to impress her. He was definitely a show-off. And he was good with kids. His younger sister Lily was in Della's year. "Nice to meet you, Adelaide, I'm James, your sister's boyfriend," He introduced himself without skipping a beat.

There was a pause as Della absorbed this information. I turned to James, shocked at his bluntness but he didn't seem to notice. This was certainly not the way that I'd imagined introducing a boy to my sister, even if it was all fake.

"Since when?" Della demanded.

"It's very new!" I tried to defend myself.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Della cried.

"We've barely told—" James started but Della cut him off.

"I'm talking to Willa," Della clarified indignantly and I saw James try not suppress a laugh at how my overly confident twelve-year-old sister was talking to him, "Does Clemence know?" Della asked.

"Not yet," I admitted before adding, "I'll tell her when I'm ready." I could tell Della liked knowing something that Clemence didn't.

"Alright well it was nice to meet you, Adelaide," James said and then to me he said, "tell me when you are done with your private breakfast so I can walk you to class."

I nodded and wordlessly took a seat across from Della who was glaring at me. James headed over to the Gryffindor table and I began to help myself to some eggs and toast, not making eye contact with Della.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me you have a boyfriend," Della huffed finally.

"I'm sorry," I quickly apologized, "It just kind of happened really fast. And I didn't know where it was going so I didn't want to tell you if it wasn't going to turn into something serious." Not a total lie but also certainly not the truth.

"How'd you meet?" Della insisted, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Well..." I started thinking about how to frame this story, "I've had classes with him for years now but we started talking on the Hogsmeade platform the day we came back. Rory's cat got loose and he helped me catch the cat and we started hanging out."

"That's the whole story?" I could tell she was disappointed.

"Yes," I had a feeling I was going to have to tell this story a lot of times so I was going to have to find a way to jazz it up.

"That's not a very good story," Della said honestly.

Luckily before Della could ask any more questions the owl post flew in and Agatha dropped off two letters for Della and me from Dad and Clemence. Clemence had included several pictures of her and her friends seeing all of the sights in Budapest and some interesting Hungarian chocolates called Dragon Eggs which Clemence explained in her letter had little Hungarian Horntail model dragons in them.

Dad's letter talked about how he had joined a football league with some of his friends at work and how work at the bank was going. He said he missed us a lot. Luckily a Hogsmeade trip was coming up soon so I could send both Clemence and Dad some things from Honeydukes.

After we were done eating, Della seemed to have forgiven me for not telling her about James (it didn't hurt that I had given her almost all of the Dragon Egg chocolates) and before class started she went to go show her friend the sweets that Clemence had sent.

When it was almost time for class, I walked over to the Gryffindor table to get James. He was sitting with his friends and other Gryffindors including some of his cousins. Most of the Weasley and Potter clan had been sorted into Gryffindor with Albus Potter being the only exception. Gryffindor was always the loudest table in the Great Hall but it got suspiciously quiet when I started walking over.

I noticed Holly and Coralie Nott along with Poppy Moore, the other main girl in Holly's group watching me from further down the table, her eyes glued on my every movement. Holly had always had every meal with James before the breakup and it wasn't uncommon to see them making out in random passageways or in front of classes. Even if this was all fake I didn't want to be like that.

"Sorry to interrupt. Are you ready?" I asked him tentatively, aware of how many eyes were on me.

"Yes," He said taking a last swig of his pumpkin juice before standing up, "Let's go."

I knew I should have probably said something to his friends and family but I didn't know what to say so I just smiled. Then he grabbed my hand and waved back to his friends as he whisked me towards the Transfiguration classroom.

"So have you talked to Holly at all?" I asked, trying to make it sound conversational.

"Not yet," James frowned at the mere mention of her name.

"She hasn't said anything to you or mentioned me at all?" I dug a little deeper.

"Nope. I'm sure she will soon though," He assured me and then with a sly smile he asked, "Are you really that scared of her?"

"I don't know," I told him honestly, "Marie was telling me about what happened with Alison Li—"

"Oh yeah, that was kind of a mess," James admitted.

"That really happened?" I said horrified as we reached the Transfiguration classroom.

"Yeah but Holly and I are officially done this time so I don't think she'll lash out like that," He explained although that really didn't comfort me at all.

"Hey Wills," Rory said arriving uncharacteristically early for class, she then turned to James and amicably nodded, "Potter."

"Wood," He nodded back.

"How's the team doing?" She wondered. Unsurprisingly it had taken all of five seconds for the conversation to turn to Quidditch.

"Wouldn't you like to know," James shook his head grinning. The first game of the season was coming up soon too and was Gryffindor vs. Slytherin who even I knew probably didn't stand a chance. The Ravenclaw and Gryffindor game was the most anticipated game of the year but wasn't for several months still. Then he turned to me "I'll see you later Beasley?"

"See you later," I agreed. We had Defense Against the Dark Arts together later which was the only class besides Potions we had together. There was an odd pause as most couples would probably kiss but of course, we had agreed not to so instead he just turned and began to walk down the hall.

"That's going to take some getting used to," Rory commented as we both watched James disappear around a corner, "Right are you ready to conjure more birds? I'm so sick of those little birds. I'm ready to get to human transfiguration already." Rory asked as we entered the classroom. We'd been reviewing conjuring and vanishing spells but would soon be studying human transfiguration spells which would allow us to change physical features or possibly an entire human being into other forms. I was a little bit nervous about this as we would be using ourselves or our partners as test dummies for this process.

"You just want to feel like a metamorphmagus," I told her as I knew she was intrigued by the idea of changing her hair color with the flick of her wand.

"Well Professor Lupin just makes it look so bloody cool doesn't he?" She defended herself which made me laugh.


Later that day during Defense Against the Dark Arts, James and Rohan had moved to sit closer to Rory and me.

I had always heard Clemence complain about James and his friends but as far as I could tell they weren't that bad. Rohan was very funny in a somewhat surprising way as he was the Gryffindor prefect but I supposed he was really probably the only option as Billy, Fred, and James were certainly not good candidates for prefect due to fairly frequent detentions.

I also always loved to see how Rory and Rohan lovingly teased each other too.

When Professor Lupin briefly brought up boggarts in class Rohan whispered, just so Rory, James and I could hear, "What's your boggart again Rory? Oh yeah isn't it that little doll you had!" James sniggered a little bit. Apparently, when she was younger, Rory had received a creepy doll called Jane from one of her Aunts. She claimed Rohan had bewitched to fly around her room at night and scare her.

"Those are pretty bold words coming from the guy whose boggart is the dark," Rory whispered back instantly and I had to try really hard to stifle my laugh into a cough.

James and Professor Lupin were close having grown up together and it was clear James they had a very brotherly relationship.

James and I were paired up to practice nonverbal spells during class, Professor Lupin gave me ten points for Ravenclaw for being the first person to successfully jinx anyone using a nonverbal spell. James hadn't been able to block my nonverbal Knockback Jinx and had staggered back several feet, landing hard on the ground. Rohan, Fred, and Billy had all applauded me. Professor Lupin had gotten a kick out of seeing "quiet little Willa Beasley" knock James over.

After class James passed me my first note. I didn't want to open the note in front of Rory so I slipped it into my bag, knowing that I would read it the second I was alone. Holly was in Defense Against the Dark Arts too and I could see her watching James and me closely. I was sure that she'd seen James pass me the note.

After class Rory had Quidditch and James had another class so as I walked towards the library by myself, I dug the note out of my bag and opened it.

I've got to stop underestimating you Beasley. - J

I smiled as I read and reread the note several times over.

"Boo!" A voice suddenly said in my ear. I screamed a little bit jumping back in fright only to see that Tristan suddenly appeared in front of me, seemingly coming from the library. I'd been so wrapped up in the note that I hadn't even seen him.

"Merlin! You scared me!" I told him off, jokingly hitting in the arm.

"That was amazing," He laughed at my reaction and I rolled my eyes good naturedly as I was just happy that he'd acknowledged me. "How are you?" He questioned and I couldn't help but smile. My favorite thing about Tristan had always been his warm and inviting energy. I was always comfortable around him.

"Good! I just got ten points for Ravenclaw for performing a nonverbal jinx in Defence Against the Dark Arts," I bragged.

"Nice one," Tristan said giving me a high five.

"Willow wands are supposed to be good for nonverbal spells, but I'd never gotten a chance to test it until today!" I told him. My wand was made of willow wood which Tristan, of course, knew because I had a tendency of going off about wand facts whenever the opportunity presented itself.

"Are you heading to the library?" Tristan questioned.

I nodded, "Sixth year is a lot of work."

"Now you see why I was so exhausted for most of last year," He reminded me, "You're so good at school though, I'm sure you'll be able to keep up with everything." I beamed at his compliment.

"You're good at school too!" I assured him.

"I procrastinate a lot though. I would never have finished that paper on shrinking solution last year if you and Clemence hadn't helped out!"

Clemence and I had stayed up all night to help Tristan finish a potions paper which he'd forgotten about. We'd become slightly delusional around two a.m. and had gone looking for the Room of Requirement (which we did not find) and then I'd almost fallen asleep outside of Ravenclaw tower because I'd been too tired to answer the riddle.

I laughed at the memory and immediately missed Clemence, "We've still got to find the Room of Requirement before you leave Hogwarts!" I told him.

"I have some theories," Tristan reported, then he noticed the piece of parchment in my hand and nodded to it, "What's that?"

"Oh, nothing, just a note from James," I said with a fake air of nonchalance as I put it back in my bag.

"Oh… I thought you said that was over," Tristan suddenly looked uncomfortable.

"We got back together," I shrugged, "We talked for hours yesterday and worked everything out!" I said brightly.

"What do you two even talk about?" Tristan wondered pensively.

"I don't know, lots of different stuff. Family, friends, books—" I started but Tristan cut me off.

"Potter can read?" Tristan snorted and I furrowed my eyebrows a little bit. Upon seeing my reaction he tried to stop laughing, "Sorry. It's just he's kind of a cliche isn't he?"

"That's not very nice," I told him stiffly.

"Oh come on! You remember Clemence telling us all of those stories about him parading around Gryffindor tower like he owned the place!"

"I've gotten to know him better now though" I lied. I still didn't really know James all that well, but I felt it was my duty as his fake girlfriend to defend him. It hurt a little bit that Tristan was being so critical of my alleged boyfriend.

"Sure, whatever," Tristan said. He wasn't laughing anymore and he had clearly not appreciated me defending James, "Well I've got to go talk to Professor Longbottom but I'll see you around Wills."

"Okay," I agreed, knowing that I needed to get to the library so I could continue working on my homework.

So, things weren't totally back to normal but I still believed that this was better than Tristan knowing that I had a crush on him. This way he didn't have to reject me and I didn't have to resent him for picking Clemence over me and I didn't have to tell Clemence that I'd secretly liked Tristan for years. This was better and eventually, things between Tristan and I would get back to the way they'd been before.