*NARRATOR*
"Actually, it looks like you two are next to being destroyed." James and Amelia spun around.
"Holy shit, dad!" James exclaimed. In front of him, his dad stood with an amused grin on his face.
"Hello to you too, James," Harry said.
"Winky is very sorry, Harry Potter," Winky apologized. "Winky didn't-
"It's okay Winky," Harry said. "You an Apparate back to Hogwarts. I'll take care of these two." With a pop, Winky disapparated.
"Next to be destroyed? Very funny, dad," James remarked. Harry raised an eyebrow.
"Well, Ginny is going to destroy you once she finds out," Harry said with a grin.
"You wouldn't," James said.
"No, Mr Potter! It's my fault. He was so bummed out that it was his grandparents' death anniversaries –or as Nearly Headless Nick would put it, 'death day'- and I thought a trip to Godric's Hollow would do the trick," Amelia defended. "Elf-Apparition is what popped into my head first."
"It won't work, Ames. He can't keep a single thing from mum. I walked in on them snogging one day on our summer holiday in Spain. I don't even want to know what would have happened if I was late," James said. Amelia hid her snort with a cough.
"And I was actually considering not telling her," Harry said.
"As if that would work," James said. "Can you just floo us back to the Gryffindor common room and let her send me a Howler. Not in the mood right now," James said.
"Come on, Mr Potter. I told you, I brought him here!" Amelia exclaimed.
"Mr Potter?" Harry asked
"Ok, Harry, spare James this time?" Amelia asked.
"Fine, and only because you called me Harry," he said. "Come on."
He took them home and flooed them to the Gryffindor common room after offering James and Amelia two butterbears.
"Well," Amelia said as she emerged from the fire right after James. "We got Butterbears, so it wasn't a complete waste." James chuckled.
"But it did make me feel better," he said as he sat down on one of the common room couches. "I can't believe I cried in front of you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Amelia asked before joining him on the couch. "I'm your best friend."
Friend-zoned, again. James thought.
"Yeah, but it was weird," James said. At that moment, Fred came down to the Common Room.
"Unless you two have saved the world loads of trouble and finally got together, what the hell are you doing here?" Fred asked. Amelia rolled her eyes.
"We just came back from Godric's Hollow, how have you been, Fred?" Amelia joked. Fred stopped mid-yawn to stare.
"You what?" he asked.
"Godric's Hollow, where I live." James said.
"YOU SNUCK OUT OF HOGWARTS AND YOU DIDN'T TAKE ME ALONG?" Fred yelled.
"Ssh! You'll wake the Gryffindors!" Amelia exclaimed. Then, she and James recounted the night's events.
"You have to make it up to me with tons of pranks tomorrow," Fred stated.
"Deal," James said.
"No deal," Amelia protested. "We have to think about the prophecy." She looked at the Marauder's Map, then stared at it, open mouthed. "James, Fred," she said. "Look at Pucey's office."
Fred and James looked at the maps. There were several dots in Pucey's office: Adrian Pucey, Graham Montague, Marcus Flint, Gregory Goyle, and Theodore Nott.
"My dad told me about this lot," James said. "What the hell are they doing in Hogwarts at 5 am? Dad took the Cloak from us right before we got here. Damn." Fred was still staring at the map.
"Okay, we've got Bryce Montague and Jackson Flint heading towards their dad's," he said. "You don't think there's a new dark rising, do you?"
"I'm not sure," James says. "Dad's witnessed two prophecies from Trelawney, and we all know how that turned out. What about you, Ames?"
"We have to stop them. They probably Flooed into Pucey's office," Amelia said. "But we can't find out anything through Pucey. He'd get us expelled for sure. I say we use Montague and Flint. They're pretty thick."
"You mean the sixth years, right?" Fred asked. Amelia nodded.
"I'VE GOT IT!" James exclaimed. "Gloria Goyle said she's away for the weekend, right?" Fred nodded. "Well, since Polyjuice Potion takes forever, how about we let our Metamorphagus here to impersonate her?"
"You want me to morph into Gloria Goyle?" Amelia asked. "Wait, that's brilliant, James!"
"She and Flint are dating! He'd tell her anything!" Fred exclaimed, but Amelia made a face.
"Ugh, I have to pretend to be in love with him? The things I do for the wizarding world's sake…" she said. "I know the Slytherin password. I snuck into the common room Friday night which you can safely call two nights ago, and the portrait only changes on the 20th of every month!"
"That's great!" James exclaimed. "When do you think you should go?"
"They're still in the Potions office, but if I go now, I'll get there before them. I'm going," Amelia said and began morphing her features. "How do I look?"
"Terrible, which means you've nailed Gloria Goyle," James said. "What about your height though? You're almost a head taller than Goyle."
"I'll just tell him Madam P grew my bones. He's a dumb bloke, you know," Amelia said and got up.
*JAMES POV*
"Ames, I still think he'll notice," Fred said. "You're way curvier than her." Amelia raised her eyebrows. Okay, I did not see that coming. Isn't he with Alice?
"Don't ever say that to me again, Fred. See you at breakfast." she said and walked towards the Gryffindor common room door. As she walked towards the door, I couldn't help but notice that she really was curvy. All this time, I've never really noticed her body. It was always her personality that I found amazing.
"You're still not together, are you?" Fred asked me, snapping me out of my thoughts.
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"Right, you and Amelia still don't know you have mutual feelings for each other," Fred said with a roll of his eyes. "You guys are pretty obvious, you know? The whole school knows, except you two. Professor Longbottom told me he assigned you guys the same plant on purpose."
"What?" I asked, shocked.
"You were going mad when she went out with Wood and Drake Umbridge."
"I wasn't." Fred laughed.
"Alice told me Ames acts the same way when the girls mention it to her," he told me. Okay, I was definitely interested to hear that. "She did smell you in that love potion. Speaking of which, who did you smell if you're so hopelessly in love with our Ames?"
"1) I am not hopelessly in love with her. 2) I did smell a certain Metamorphmagus…" I admitted.
"So unless this 'certain Metamorphmagus' is Teddy, I'm going to say I knew it!" Fred said. I rolled my eyes.
"Let's get some sleep before meeting Amelia at breakfast."
Fred and I exchanged a worried glance again. The only people not in the Great Hall were Jackson Flint, Bryce Montague, Scorpios Malfoy and Amelia.
"We should go looking for her, right?" Fred asked. I nodded.
As if on cue, the Great Hall's doors burst open and everyone stopped talking so that every step that was taken by the three people that entered was echoes throughout the entire Hall.
Those three people where Scorpios Malfoy and Madam Pomfrey supporting a bruised and bloody Amelia.
"AMES!" Fred and I yelled in unison and ran towards her.
"Hey guys," she said, exhaustion evident in her voice.
"I'll leave you guys to deal with her," Scorpios said.
"Thanks, Malfoy," Amelia said. "I owe you."
"I trust you know how to take care of yourself, dear?" Madam Pomfrey asked as Fred and I helped Amelia onto the Gryffindor bench, making her sit between us.
"Yes, Madam Pomfrey," Amelia said and Madam Pomfrey went back to her wing.
"What happened?"
"What the fuck did they do to you?"
"What does Malfoy have to do with it?"
"Are you alright?"
"Did you get information?" Fred and I bombarded her with questions.
"If you'd wait, I'll tell you what happened," Amelia said. She reached out to load her plate but stopped. "Holy shit." She grabbed her arm and groaned.
"Here," I said and put what she usually eats on her plate. "Look at that gash."
Amelia couldn't tell us anything because everyone was asking how she was, so in the end Fred and I took her up to our dormitory.
"Here it goes," she said. "I reached the Slytherin common room a bit before the gits got there. Then, Flint was all softy when he saw me, aka Gloria Goyle. The first thing he said was 'It's starting'."
"The dark rising?" Fred asked.
"Wait, and you'll find out," Amelia said and sat down on my bed. "Ugh, my sides hurt. Anyway, Flint and Montague decided to spend the rest of the morning in the common room and I sat down with them. 'Dad says there won't be any mistakes like last time. There will be no Boy Who Lived,' Montague said. 'Finally, the world will be rid of filthy blood!' Flint added. So I said, and I definitely don't mean it, 'No more Mudbloods'. Ugh, I hate myself. Anyway, Flint kept referring to the new Dark wizard as Him, so I didn't get to find out who he was. He told me the names of people involved and said that the Gryffindors will get it first, whatever it is."
"Can I please kill him?" Fred asked.
"Be my guest," Amelia answered. "Onto the grosser part of the morning, Flint forced me to sit in his lap." She made a face. "I'm never doing that again, by the way. You were right, Fred!" Then, tears were falling from her eyes.
"I was right with what exactly?" Fred asked cautiously.
"He touched me and he knew. I mean it was very brief, thank goodness, but you know how you said I was curvier than her? Well, he noticed. I was panicking and my morphing went out of control, so he knew it was me. Then, he and Montague outnumbered me. They're huge, you know! So it didn't matter how tall I was, I was outnumbered and they're ten times my size. Then, this happened." She gestured to her bruises.
"I'll kill them," I said angrily.
"Then Scorpios Malfoy found them and told them he'll erase my memory, since they were too dumb to do it. The kid got out a Weasley's Wizard Wheezes fake wand and said 'Obliviate'. I went along with the plan and pretended I wasn't aware of why I was there. He took me to Madam Pomfrey who gave me some paste I have to put every hour or so, and he told Professor Longbottom. McGonagall's questioning them. Which reminds me, I need to put the paste thing."
"I need to get Alice. She wanted to talk to you," Fred said and left.
Amelia dabbed some paste onto the bruise on her forehead. "Here," I said and dabbed some paste on her cheek. For a moment, our eyes locked and I was seconds away from kissing her.