Disclaimer: Still don't own Harry Potter :(

Ok So I had several faithful reviews review for me and I would like to send out a big thank you. Now I know that I said I wouldn't post again until I hat ten reviews, but after some begging and threats of death I decided it may be for the best to go ahead and update. I would not like to have anyone's death on my shoulders lol. Please keep reviews guys they mean a lot to me. ENJOY!

Chapter 9: Christmas at the Potters

Albus POV

The morning after the ball, as I was sitting in the common room reading a book, I thought back to last night. As I'd laid in bed last night, I decided that I'd have to think of a way to express to Jaynie that I loved her. See her with James, dancing with him, made me realize how stupid I'd been. But the only snag was go about telling her.

I looked up from my book to see my older brother James walking towards me. I could ask him, he's had plenty of experience telling girls he loved them. But then again, his advice might not be the best seen as how many girls he'd dated over the years.

As he got nearer the couch I was sitting on, I noticed the look of guilt on his face. I smiled to myself, feeling smug. He must be feeling bad about going to the Halloween Ball Jaynie even with knowing how I felt about her.

"Hey Al," he said tentatively, sitting down next to me.

"Hey James, have fun last night?" I asked bitterly, the sarcasm dripping in my voice. I turned back to my book.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see his face light up. "Oh yeah, Jaynie's loads of fun," he said enthusiastically before he caught himself, turning his gaze to the floor in realization of the hypothetical question.

"Yeah, she's great," I said in annoyance, turning back to my book in hopes that he'd leave me be.

"Look Albus, can I talk to you for a minute?" He said sounding sincere.

I closed my book with a sigh and looked over at him "Sure, what's up?"

He took a deep breath and looked away. "Well, you see, last night Jaynie got upset so I took her outside to talk. I was only trying to help her, to calm her down a bit, but somehow we ended up kissing," he said really fast, not looking over at me.

I sucked in my breath sharply. Jaynie had kissed James? Jaynie had kissed James. She really did like him then. She wasn't the kind of girl to kiss any random guy. I felt my heart constrict painfully.

"Al?" James asked tentatively, trying to snap me out of my thoughts.

I looked up at his guilty face and let out a sigh. What could I say to that? My older brother made out with the girl of my dreams. "James, if she really truly wants to date you than I am not going to stand in the way," I finally said, the only thing I could say. Standing up, I started for my dormitory, needing to get away.

"Albus-" he started, bounding to his feet an reaching out to stop me.

I held up my hand to stop him, not wanting to deal with him right now. "It's okay, James," I lied. Slowly, I made my way up to my room and collapsed onto my bed, finally letting the tears run free.

Jaynie POV

When I woke up the following morning my mind was still fuzzy with sleep. Forcing myself to sit up, I tried to clear my head. It was then that last night came rushing back to me: dancing with my head on James shoulder, Sarah's cruel words, and the kiss. James and I had kissed.

I touched my fingers to my lips softly, remember the feel of his lips on mine. The kiss had been amazing. Everyone had been right, he was an amazing kisser. Something didn't feel right, thought it would in time. I slid off my bed and took a quick shower to wake me up.

Lily was waiting for me outside the porthole, bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement. "What happened to you last night?" were the first words out of her mouth. Leave it to Lily to forgo emotions and just cut to the chase.

I gave her the short version of the fight with Sarah and the kiss.

"You kissed James?" Lily looked mortified at the thought. "What about Albus?"

"I don't deserve Albus," I told her softly, shifting my book bag to my other shoulder.

Lily slapped her hand over her eyes in exasperation. "Oh for the love of Merlin!" She turned to me and shook her head. "So you like James now?" she asked slowly, as if trying to make sense of it all.

"Yes," I said simply as I started walking down the corridor. I mean I did like him as a friend and I was sure that, given the time, the feelings could grow into something more.

Lily sighed, following after me. "Ok then," she said with a shrug as we walked into the Great Hall. Upon entering, I saw James sitting at the Gryffindor table with Griffin. Lily and I sat down across from them. James smiled over at me and I felt myself smiling back. He was extremely handsome. To distract myself, I looked around and noticed that Albus wasn't there.

"Where's Albus?" I asked innocently, honestly curious where he'd gotten to. James brow furrowed.

"Why do ask?" he said, his tone confused and tinged with thinly hidden annoyance.

"Just curious," I shrugged my shoulder, piling food onto my plate.

Griffin spoke up after a moment. "He wasn't feeling well this morning, so he's still in bed," he said after swallowing a mouthful of eggs.

I didn't really see Albus for the rest of the semester, except for short snippets in the halls, Great Hall, or Gryffindor common room. It seemed he was avoiding me. If he was sitting at the table and I sat down he got up and left. He would leave the common room if I walked in. He didn't seem to want much to do with James either. I tried not to show how much this hurt me.

James and I continued to see each other as the months progressed. We even had a few encounters in the broom closet. Now those were fond memories. I thought I might love him. It was getting easy to ignore the feeling that his wasn't what I wanted. This is what I was getting and it was great. So, when James asked me to come home with him for the Christmas Holidays I agreed.

The Christmas ball had been pushed back to the beginning of April. The professor's decided they needed more time to recuperate before another one was held. My parents were going to the States for the Holidays so I would have had to stay with Granny, no thank you. I was however slightly nervous about meeting Mr. Potter the famous wizard.

The Potter's lived in Godrics Hollow apparently where Mr. Potter had lived until his parents were killed. The house was not huge, but just big enough for the Potters and their three children. Mr. and Mrs. Potter would be meeting us at the train station to pick us up.

"Apparently they don't trust me enough to apparate you guys back to the house," James had told us with a sigh.

"We'll let your track record speak for itself," Lily commented with a laugh, grateful for her parents telling him no. The idea of splinching wasn't a good one for any of us.

Albus was in another compartment on the train ride to Kings Cross. He had not said anything to me since our fight before the Halloween ball. I had only seen glimpses of him since. James didn't want to talk about him either. If I asked about his younger brother, he would simply accuse me of wanting to be with him. I quickly learned to let the subject go with James. However, soon he was going to have nowhere to hide.

When we got to the platform, James helped me out off the train and took my hand in his strong one. With Lily following closely behind, James led me over to meet his parents.

Mr. Potter was not an overly large man. He stood about six foot, but he had a slim figure. He wasn't the type of man you would have pictured to defeat the greatest dark wizard that ever lived. His dark hair was starting to recede and gray. He also had the most piercing green eyes that I'd only ever seen on one other person: Albus. The amazing eyes were covered by a round pair of spectacles. And, true to his old Hogwarts house, he was dressed in red and gold robes.

Mrs. Potter was just a little shorter than her husband with the fiery red hair James said matched her fiery spirit. She had chocolate brown eyes and the kindest and most motherly smile. As they approached Mrs. Potter stepped forward and unexpectedly wrapped me in a hug.

"Jaynie," she said. "We're so happy to finally get to meet you," she said before releasing me.

"It's a pleasure to meet you too Mr. and Mrs. Potter," I said meekly, stepping back to James's side.

"Please call us Harry and Ginny," Mr. Potter said as he shook my hand. The hand I shook felt almost familiar and I realized they were just like the one I was used to holding, the big strong hands of James.

We rode in an enchanted car back to their house where I would be sharing a room with Lily. Mrs. Potter cooked us a fine meal of some foods that, although delicious, unidentifiable to me. It was all good and I didn't think to really ask what it was. It tasted like ham, but as a muggle born, I was learning to just eat the good food and not ask what it was.

James POV

"Hey Mom," I said walking into the kitchen and leaning against the counter. She had set the pots and pan to washing and seemed to be working on something for work at the kitchen table.

"Hey sweetie," she said, not looking up from the papers in front of her. "Give me a just a moment." As her quill flew across the page I took the moment to study my mother. Her red hair was faded a bit since the last I was home, the gray hair starting to show through. Finally she looked up and gave me a smile.

Sliding into the chair next to her, I asked, "So what do you think of Jaynie?" I didn't know if my parents knew the situation between Jaynie and Albus. I hoped not so she wouldn't judge her on that. It wasn't her fault my younger brother was being a prat.

"She seems like a lovely girl," Mom said with a smile. "You really seem to have a keeper on your hands." She beamed at me, pride in her gaze at her first born child.

I smiled back and nodded before asking, "Where's Dad? I wanted to ask him a few questions about Auror training."

"He is in the office talking to Uncle Ron on the floo," she answered, shuffling the papers in front of her and putting them in a little stack.

I knew when dad talked to Uncle Ron over the floo that it was business so I didn't want to disturb him. "Okay, I think I'll just go take a shower and then talk to him later," I said standing up and heading back up the stairs. I met Jaynie in the hallway. I was once again caught by her beauty and my luck that she'd picked me over Albus. She had seemed so in love with him. For a while I had wondered if she still did because she kept asking about him, but then she stopped.

"Hey, you," She smiled at me, stopping to give me a brief hug. I noticed she had a towel in her hand.

"Going to take a shower?" I asked after hugging her back and she nodded.

"Come here you need to try something," I said, taking her hand in mine and leading her towards my room. Once in there, I handed her a portable radio with headphones. She looked at me confused.

"I charmed them to become water resistant. You can listen to the radio while you shower," I smiled at her, knowing how she loved to listen to music.

She grinned at me as she took them from my outstretched hand. "You really think of everything don't you?" She laughed and hugged me again before drifting out of the room to take her shower.

After she left, I put my own set of headphones on and picked up a Quidditch magazine. Lying down on my bed, I opened the magazine and skimmed some of the articles. I really liked Janie and every day I felt so lucky to have her in my life. Sometimes though, I would get this felling that she wasn't quite over Albus. She thought that she wasn't good enough. So does she think she is settling for me?

Albus POV

I couldn't take this anymore, not another second of seeing James and Jaynie all buddy buddy together. I headed downstairs to find James and talk to him, praying that he would understand. Instead I found Mom. She was sitting at the table working on something from work.

"Hey Mom have you seen James?" I asked, poking my head into the kitchen.

She looked up at me and smile. "Yes dear, I he told me he was going taking a shower," she answered.

"Ok thanks, Mum," I said before heading back up the stairs. I heard the shower on and so I let myself in the bathroom. James and I will usually go in and out of the bathroom talking to each other, it didn't matter to us.

"James," I said kind of loudly so he could hear me over the shower. "I need to talk to you." I got no response. After a few more tries I gave it up and yanked back the curtain back. James and I had showered and shared a room together when we were little I had seen it all.

What I didn't expect to see was Jaynie standing on the other side of the curtain with nothing on but a shocked expression. My eyes involuntarily scanned her up and down, all the way from her wet breasts to her hoo-ha.

"Oh sweet Merlin," I exclaimed under my breath and that seemed to trigger our reactions. Jaynie began to scream and pulled the curtain back. I stumbled backward to get out of the bathroom and tripped over the magazine rack. I heard Jaynie scream my name as I tried to stand up, but then I slipped on some water and smacked my headed against the stool. I could hear Jaynie screaming, but everything was kind of hazy now. The door swung open and James, Lily, Mom and Dad rushed in.

"Albus!" my mother cried confused and worried.

Dad helped me off the floor.

"What are you doing in here Albus?" James asked, sounding furious. Lily was glaring and Mom and Dad looked confused. Poor Jaynie's bright red face was poking out of the shower curtain, looking embarrassed.

"It was an accident," I stammered still trying to get my barring. "I didn't mean to."

Everyone cleared the bathroom so that Jaynie could finish her shower in relative peace. She hadn't heard me talking because she had on some of James' blasted headphones. Dad healed the cut on my forehead and I laid down for a nap, trying to get the image of a naked Jaynie out of my head.

Later that night I went and sat on the roof, the spot I always went to be alone. As I crawled out the window of the attic I saw a figure out there already though. It was Jaynie. I started to head back into the room when she called out to me.

"Albus," she said softly before I could get back in. All I could think about was her bare body. Oh Merlin have mercy on me.

"Yeah?" I whispered back.

"You can come out here if you want," She said, staring out at the stars, a single tear glistening on her cheek in the moonlight. She was beautiful.

"It's okay," I said, shaking my head before continuing my climb back in the window

"Why do you hate me?" She asked hotly, whipping around to look at me for the first time.

I turned back to her and pulled my body outside the window. Walking over to where she sat, I sat down beside her.

"I don't hate you," I told her softly. "I feel quite the opposite actually."

"Then why don't you hang out with me anymore? Why do you avoid me?" She asked her voice breaking, tears flowing down her cheeks.

It was then that I'd realized how much I'd really hurt her. "Think about it Jayne," I tried to explain, "your dating my brother. It wouldn't be right for me to like you and spend time with you under the circumstance."

"What about Sarah?" she asked confused, wiping a few tears away, only for them to be replaced by more.

"We broke up," I told her. "I broke it off the night of the ball. When I saw you with James, dancing with him, holding him close, I knew where my heart truly lies."

"Albus I am all wrong for you," she sobbed, putting her face in her hands. "I have loved you from the moment I stared into your beautiful green eyes first year, but I am all wrong for you."

I put my arm around her, holding her close. "Don't you think that is for me to decide?" I asked softly.

"You deserve someone kind, caring, and smart," she cried, leaning into my embrace. "Not me!"

"Jaynie, to think of a moment you weren't kind and caring would be impossible. You're smart too; you're third in your class. How can you say you're not any of these things?" I asked her, trying to lighten her mood.

She let out a watery laugh and I couldn't help but laughed with her Holding her so close made me remember her very naked body.

"I really do love you Jaynie and it kills me to see you with my brother," I whispered in her ear, not letting her go.

"To be honest I have been trying to make myself like him, but it's not working," she confessed softly, gazing up into the star filled sky.

I had to make a move. I could have my dream girl if I did. I gently tilted her head up to me and planted my lips on her. She immediately responded by moving her lips with mine. We stayed out there for what seemed like hours after that, completely unaware of a little mouse that watching us in the dark.