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40

OF STRANGE MAGIC

MUSICAL MOOD FOR THIS CHAPTER:

CARLY RAE JEPSEN, BLEACHERS - COMEBACK

He would graduate and I would get over this and we would never see each other again.

It wasn't raining; not yet. The air was heavy and humid with a fine drizzle that was not enough to bother with a protection spell and so I had simply grabbed the rumpled hooded jumper that had been peeking out from underneath Katie's bed and thrown it over my uniform on the way down to Greenhouse one. It was fleecy and oversized and weirdly patterned with purple and turquoise shapes that looked like something out of an 80s movie and it only occurred to me halfway that it was probably Tarquin's.

I pulled off the hood as soon as I had closed the glass door behind me with a shattering creak, allowing the strings of moonlace that were dripping from the ceiling to feel their way towards my head and shoulders like a very weird pet greeting its owner. The vines were harmless - more curious than anything else - and I didn't even bother to brush them off as I made my way to the small cauldron that was set up on one of the desks, hidden behind shattered pots and overgrown plants. The liquid in it had turned inky blue, which wasn't ideal. At this stage of the brewing process Volantis was supposed to be more violet. According to Tarquin, who was the only one of us who seemed to actually understand Herbology, we would have to use more of the crushed silvernettle leaves to compensate for the dragon scales.

"Hey."

I jumped, almost scattering the packet of silvery powder from shock, and whirred around, my hand already reaching for my wand. It was a reflex; one that would be of little help if I actually had been discovered. I might have been involved in shady semi-illegal potion brewing but I was not going to start hexing my classmates.

"Snazzy jumper." James grinned at me from his spot on the floor. He was leaning against the glass wall, legs propped up, his head resting against the window pane and an assortment of dogeared parchments and papers in his lap. Around him, more books and papers were spread out in a messy half-circle, partially covered by softly writhing moonlace.

"Bloody Merlin." I released a breath of relief and let my wand-arm drop to the side. It was still tingling with unused adrenaline that had jump-started my fight or flight instinct. "Are you trying to get hexed, Potter?"

"Sorry, Woodley." The right corner of his mouth hitched a little higher, exposing his teeth, and I considered running after all. This was frightening on an entirely different level. "Didn't mean to scare you."

I waited for a second too long to answer him - for my stumbling heart to find back into a somewhat steady rhythm. "What are you doing here?"

"I needed a place to study." James shrugged and the papers slid off his lap, spilling onto the floor. "My room's too crowded and the Great Hall is a fucking nightmare before dinner."

It would be for him, of course; there were always people who wanted to talk to him, flocking to wherever he was because they couldn't help it. "What about the library?"

"Yeah, I don't particularly enjoy the vibe there." He groaned and pushed himself to his feet before stretching his arms above his head. The movement caused his uniform sweatshirt to lift a little and I felt my face flush as I caught a glimpse of his stomach; the soft curve of muscles that vanished into the waistband of his pants. It messed up my heartbeat entirely again, which was ridiculous. After all, we had once clumsily rolled around in his bed together half-naked.

Then again, that seemed like a lifetime ago. Almost like something that hadn't actually happened. None of it. We had never talked about it - about the awkwardness, the ramifications, the sheer weirdness of it all - and after a while, it had started to feel as though it had never been real in the first place. These moments between us - all the strange, ambiguous glitches that somehow existed in an alternate universe - felt like I had half-imagined them. Or rather, I had half-imagined that they meant anything when, clearly, they didn't. Not to James Potter, who probably kissed girls in telephone boxes all the time.

And that was fine. Absolutely, fucking fine.

"Let me guess." I turned back to the potion, mostly because I was scared that he would be able to read my mortifying thoughts on my face. "Too many books?"

He shook his head, the smile still playing on his lips, and then he tousled his hair which left it even more dishevelled than before.

Dear Merlin almighty. He shouldn't be allowed to do that.

"Too quiet." He ambled up to me and leaned his back against the desk. It was unnerving, mostly because I could feel his eyes on me as I stirred some of the silvernettle powder into the cauldron, and then his arm suddenly brushed against mine as he braced his hands on the table. Was he aware of the fact that he was standing too close?

"Seriously, Woodley, what are you wearing?"

"A pullover?" I tapped the ladle I had been using to stir the potion against the cauldron and latched it on the edge, mentally going through the checklist for today's potion adjustments again. I was much better at that than trying to not think about my current proximity to James Potter or the fact that, while he definitely smelled the way people did at the end of a long school day, it was still weirdly good and that freaked me out a little.

"Yeah, I can see that." He snorted, not in an amused way but more like he was somehow irritated by Tarquin's questionable fashion choices, and I looked up to find him frowning at me. But he didn't say anything else and I felt inexplicably awkward, like I should have been able to fill in the blanks even without having been given sufficient clues. Maybe I was wearing offensive colours or I was somehow culturally appropriating Tarquin's absurd jumper?

James crossed his arms in front of his chest and the pucker between his eyebrows smoothed out the tiniest bit. "I - can I - I need to ask you something."

"Yeah, OK." This was strange - he was acting strange - and though my heart had long abandoned any pretence at not losing its shit whenever James smiled, it seemed to be wholly confused about whether to beat faster or just stop altogether at this; the intense look on his face and the way he was biting his lower lip as he continued to stare at me. That was definitely another thing he should not be allowed to do anymore.

"The Hephadore Theorem is about set theory, right?"

I blinked as the words sunk in, unable to catch on faster. "Oh, um, yes." I exhaled slowly, feeling the sudden urge to laugh. Of course he wanted to ask me about potions. I was that girl, after all. The girl who threw books at him and knew the five elemental laws of basic mixology. But that was normal; safe.

"And I have to adjust the measurements to the changes in the most potent ingredient."

"Yes." I tried to not sound too obviously impressed, but I really was. James Potter was casually talking about set theory and I was stupidly proud of him.

"So that's why I have to change the formula to fit the potion, right?"

"Exactly."

"How do you know Pennington?"

There was a beat of silence before I turned so quickly that I dislodged the ladle from the cauldron. It landed on the floor with an ear splitting clank, cutting through the soft drumming of rain that filled the greenhouse by now, but I barely even noticed. "I - what?"

"Henry Pennington," James said and untied his arms again, letting his hands slide into his pockets. "You seemed… friendly." He acted as though this was a natural turn this conversation could have taken; like the Hephadore Theorem segued right into that general topic area.

"Oh, um…" I felt inexplicably flustered and my cheeks were burning, which I was sure James had caught before I could pretend to clean up the mess around the cauldron. "I guess we've been around each other forever?"

"Right." James nodded softly and then dropped his gaze to his shoes. They were already covered in moonlace, rooting him to the floor, and he pulled his feet out of the green web slowly, careful not to break any of the flimsy vines. Something behind my navel lurched and I snapped my head back to the sluggishly bubbling potion in front of me.

"I didn't really know him, though," I said, because I needed to say something - anything to not have to acknowledge whatever weird things my stomach was doing, "until the wedding, I mean."

"What?" From the corner of my eye I could tell James had turned his head to look at me and I felt the rekindled flicker of irritation with him. It shouldn't have bothered me anymore - what he had said to me back then, how he had mocked me after I had stupidly run after him - but it was hard to let go when it still felt like a punch to the guts everytime I thought about it.

"My cousin's wedding? You know, the one where you were an absolute shit to me?" I had meant to say it like a joke, like I was so over it all that it was nothing more but an amusing anecdote to me. But it didn't sound funny and James flinched visibly as though my words had had an actual physical impact on him. Great, I had made this whole conversation even weirder.

"Woodley, I -" He began, his voice rough and low, but I quickly shook my head to make him stop. I knew that he was going to apologise again and it was unnecessary. We just were where we were.

"It's fine," I said because that was what people said in these sorts of situations and because I couldn't keep circling back to these in-between moments that felt like the agonising pauses between two breaths. "I - Henry asked me to dance. It was nice."

I made myself look at James but he had turned away already, staring at the ground as he nodded, his jaw weirdly strained. "How-" He stopped and dragged a hand through his hair, his eyes cutting up to me, forehead creasing into a frown. "I mean, how well do you know him?"

My eyebrows drew together almost automatically at the implication; was he actually going to go there? Again? Now? I really had no mental capacity to deal with this nonsense right now. "If you're going to tell me that he's an evil pureblood legacy hunter who only likes me for my grandparents' invaluable looking glass collection or whatever, I don't -"

"No!" He said a little too loudly and my sentence fizzled out into the sound of rain hitting the glass roof. "That's not - That's not what I meant." He cleared his throat and then his fingers were buried in his hair again. There was no way this boy could ever survive a buzzcut. "At all." The way he said it was brittle and coarse, like sandpaper brushing against my skin, and just like that, I was there again; between two breaths. Out of air.

It wasn't fair that he could do this to me so easily. It was truly pathetic. Because none of it meant anything, really. All he did was leave spaces; gaping, ambiguous blanks between his words that could mean everything. That could mean nothing. And maybe he actually didn't know that he was doing it, but it was still absolutely shitty. Because it was so easy to want it - to want to hear the things he never said.

"I don't," I started to say and then shook my head because I really didn't know how to have this conversation; what conversation we were having in the first place. Just then, the door to the greenhouse creaked open and I turned my head to find Katie shaking out her umbrella before slipping in.

"Jesus Christ, it's like a disaster film out there. Honestly, I don't care what's for dinner, I'm not going back out there. Ever. Like -" She stopped dead in her tracks when she turned around, her eyebrows arched and her eyes darting back and forth between James and me. "Oh, hey…"

Of course she could feel the awkwardness; the plants could feel the awkwardness. It was so thick that it was practically oozing from the walls.

"Hey!" I managed to sound vaguely casual but Katie wasn't fooled. She also wasn't going to be subtle about it.

"I'll go…" She gestured haphazardly to the general direction of the door behind her, backtracking slowly like she was scared of startling us if she moved too quickly; like we were a pack of skittish mokes.

"Wait, I'll come with you," I said quickly and grabbed my backpack from the floor without even looking at James. I couldn't do this anymore - the weird stomach stuff and the heart palpitations, trying to decipher his half-sentences and half-smiles like I might find something in them - and then, suddenly, I realised it.

"Good luck on your exam tomorrow." I turned back to look at him and I could feel it all; let myself feel it all: the entire cacophony of those extra feelings that made my stomach flip and my heart thrash and my breath hitch and my knees weak, because, of course, he was the cause of all this. And it was so ridiculous that it occured to me like this, here, that I almost laughed. Because I had a fully-blown, embarrassing teenage crush on James Potter and I hadn't even been aware of it until now - until I let it go. "You'll do great."

"Yeah." He did the hair-thing again, but he didn't smile. "Thanks."

And then I was out the door, tucked underneath Katie's useless umbrella, feeling the chubby raindrops plopping onto my cheeks as we ran up to the brightly lit castle.

I had pushed the curtain aside a little so that I could feel the cool wind on my face. The rain had stopped sometime around midnight but the air that drifted in through the open window was still heavy with it, smelling of wet grass and earth. It was almost tangible - weighty and musky in the best way - and there was something so achingly familiar about it that it made my heart heavy. No matter where in the world I would end up, this was forever going to be the smell of Hogwarts to me.

I turned my pillow to the cold side once again, trying to punch it into a comfortable-enough shape, but it was useless. None of my manoeuvres could stop the mess of thoughts that made it impossible to sleep; all lopsided smiles and rumpled hair and dimples. And there was no one to blame but myself. It felt like I had invited James in and now I couldn't get rid of him anymore.

I pressed my face into my pillow and let out a low groan. This was so dumb; how on earth could I be so dumb over a boy? Over the boy. The worst one, really. And I didn't understand it. I couldn't understand how I had gone from indifference to annoyance to thinking about how James Potter's eyes sometimes looked like dark honey in the sunlight like a swooning Ambrosia Tinkertabber heroine.

Another gust of wind pushed through the window, rustling the drapes around Katie's bed and I caught a glimpse of auburn curls spilling over the edge of the mattress. Before I knew it, my bare feet pressed against the cold stone floor sending a shockwave through my body as I crossed the short distance to the bed next to mine.

"Kat, are you awake?" I crawled in and slipped under her blanket, accidentally bumping my knee against her leg. "I need your help."

"Always, Seth, babe, you know that," she mumbled into her pillow, her words slurring together into one sleepy mess. She was obviously not awake and I knew that it would be monumentally shitty of me to insist on talking to her now, in the middle of the night on a Wednesday.

I sighed and turned onto my back, finding the patterns in the swirling symbols that were painted across the canopy. In our first year, Katie and I had tried to talk the lines into meaningful shapes, like clouds in the sky, and my eyes easily found the blob that Katie had declared to be a unicorn. It didn't look like a unicorn. At all. But we had named it Bert anyway and I remembered the way it had felt to be so utterly and completely myself without having to pretend. I never had to pretend with Katie.

"So," I said into the silence, still frowning at Bert, "you might have been vaguely right."

"Uh-huh…"

"About James, I mean." I held my breath for a second and then let my head fall to the side which immediately immersed me into a cloud of Katie's fuzzy curls. "I think I might…" My voice wavered as my heart pressed against my throat and I took a pitiful, shaky breath that might have been a laugh. "I kind of fancy him? A little. Very little."

The words lingered in the sluggish air - real and frightening - and I held my breath for a beat.

"That's great," Katie murmured from somewhere underneath her mop of hair, her voice blending with the soft rustling of leaves and Bernice's quiet snores that filled the dorm room. And then, suddenly, she bolted upright, a strand of hair sticking to the corner of her mouth as she stared at me wide-eyed. "Wait, what? WHAT?"

"Shhh!" I pulled on her arm, trying to get her to lie down again before she would wake up the entire room. "Why are you so surprised? You were the one who kept insisting that I liked him."

"Yeah, but Seth… holy freaking shit." She let herself fall back, her face so close to mine that our noses were almost pressed against each other; never mind the middle-of-the-night-breath situation. "You're actually admitting it. That's major. That's brilliant. That's - wait." She frowned, her eyes darting back and forth between mine. "You have that panicky look; why do you have that panicky look?"

"I don't," I blurted because I was defensive on principle, especially when I was found out so profoundly, but I knew it was stupid. I had woken Katie up because I really was not OK and this really wasn't the time to pretend I was not losing my shit because of James Potter. "I just need you to help me get rid of it - this. Him."

Katie blinked at me and there was a short pause before she said, "why?" like I was being wholly unreasonable. And, of course, she would think I was; to my lovable, quirky best friend, who had a complex yet wholesome history of fancying people since we were ten, this was nothing to shake off but indulge in. And I might have, if I hadn't fallen for the most notorious fuckboy at school.

"I just - I don't want this, Kat." My voice sounded thick and weird and dangerously close to weepy and Katie's eyes softened so earnestly that the lump in my throat turned into a proper bludger.

"I really hate to disappoint you, love, but that's not how it works. I didn't exactly want to like Kevin either."

I snorted, which sounded somehow more pathetic and sobby than it was supposed to. "Really? Because, if I remember correctly you were half-stalking him and -"

Katie pressed her hand against my mouth, smothering the rest of the sentence with her palm. "You're going to stab my back, Brutus? Now? In this precious moment of sisterly bonding?"

I laughed against her warm skin and then prised her hand from my face. "Fine, fine… The point is, I don't even like James. I mean, it's just a dumb crush; you had thousands of those."

"Excuse me." Katie opened her mouth in an admirable show of fake indignation. "None of my crushes were dumb."

I laughed, genuinely and, thankfully, much less whiny than before, and a comfortable silence wrapped around us again that was only occasionally disturbed by a ripple of snores from the other end of the room.

"Are you… are you going to tell him?" Katie whispered after a while and I opened my eyes to look at her, her features only slowly manifesting in the darkness that cocooned us. I wriggled uncomfortably against the heavy blanket that suddenly felt too hot and too smothering as my mind immediately spun the question into a low-budget disaster film. I could almost see the smug look on James's face - 'so, you were stalking me all along, Woodley' - and then what? I thought about Athena, about what Genie Patil had said to me last Saturday, about all the girls I had seen James Potter with over the years, all of them just glorified notches in his bedpost.

It felt strange now that I had almost become part of that club. In retrospect, I wished it had been me who had saved myself from making that colossal mistake, but it had been James; James had stopped it and it made everything a thousand times worse. It was pathetic that I fell for the boy who was so phenomenally NOT into me that he had rejected me when I had been in his bed half-naked and unguarded.

"No." I sighed the word, pushing it out with the breath I had held for too long, and somehow I actually felt a little better. It was going to blow over - this was not permanent and, one day, I would look back and laugh about my temporary, embarrassing infatuation with James Potter.

The castle was abuzz, both with anticipation for the weekend that felt tangibly close at lunch when everybody poured out of their morning classes and into the Great Hall, and with rumours that, for once, had nothing to do with me and everything with the arrival of Hey Hey Hippogriff in Hogsmeade.

Thursday afternoon suddenly felt a lot like Friday evening.

"I'm sure they're coming to the castle to see Slughorn," Morgana Evensong said to a group of girls as they passed by the Ravenclaw table and they rewarded her with a round of squeals that drowned in the general clatter. I wasn't sure how exactly, but someone had apparently overheard Slughorn arranging a private dinner with the band tonight and their first instinct had, of course, been to spread the rumours far and wide. I honestly didn't envy the fifth year prefects; patrol was going to be a hot mess tonight.

Katie rolled her eyes like she had absolutely no patience for Morgana and her musings on whether losing Gryffindor 20 points was worth camping out in front of Slughorn's office, but I noticed the slight trace of wistfulness that pulled on her features. I hadn't entirely ruled out the possibility yet that she was going to make me creep around the corridors after dinner, hoping to catch a glimpse of the band.

"YES! Thank fuck!" A shout soared above the general noise and, like so often, heads turned towards the table on the far left side of the Hall where Freddie Weasly stood with his arms wrapped around a broadly grinning James. "You wonderful bastard, you!" He ruffled his cousin's hair and pulled him into another hug as a surge of cheers broke out around them and they were engulfed by a small crowd.

I turned away again, sooner than most, my gaze catching on the teachers' table in the front. A few of them were scowling at the commotion that seemed to have infected all of Gryffindor by now, but none of them called them to order. In fact, Professor Longbottom was positively beaming as was Professor Hagrid, who watched fondly as Freddie planted a brusque kiss on James's cheek.

"Looks like James passed his potions exam," Hector said, his eyes narrowed the slightest bit, and I shrugged as casually as I could.

"Yeah. Seems like it."

I knew Katie was watching me before my eyes found her. Her eyebrows had arched in that soft, questioning way, wanting to know whether I was alright, and I gave her a small smile because I really tried to be. Yesterday had been a sleep-drunk-middle-of-the-night confession; one of those that were nothing but whispers and unfinished sentences wrapped into darkness that only existed after midnight and faded before the sun came up. It was still true, I couldn't pretend it wasn't, but everything felt significantly less bothersome with sunlight pooling through the high windows and James Potter at the other end of the Great Hall that felt more like the other end of the world.

So what if I fancied James Potter a bit. I mean, who didn't? It was almost like a rite of passage at Hogwarts, really - something that just inevitably happened, like awkward growth spurts and gropey snogging sessions behind mouldy tapestries.

The remnants of our lunch vanished from the table - a not so gentle reminder that it was time for our afternoon classes - and I followed my friends out of the Great Hall, only half-listening to Tarquin and Hector complaining about NEWT-level Charms when I suddenly felt a sharp pull and someone yanked me backwards by my backpack. I staggered, only just catching myself before I would have made a clumsy spectacle of myself in the middle of the Entrance Hall, and spun around, feeling the immediate, terrifying impact of the asymmetrical grin that tugged on James's lips.

"Sorry, Woodley," he said, looking equally amused and sheepish and my heart was not having it. "I just - I passed potions." He held up a very crumpled piece of parchment with a purple E in the top right corner like it was a muggle magic trick that involved pulling a bunny out of a tophat and I couldn't help but smile. He had actually gotten an Exceeds Expectations.

"You know, I figured as much when Freddie called you a 'beautiful son of a bitch' and declared his everlasting love for you to the Great Hall." I was relieved to find that I sounded quite normal, even with my heart pounding in my throat, and I thought that maybe I had overestimated the gravity of my feelings. This wasn't so bad.

"Yeah, you wait until he gets a hold of you." James laughed and his dimple showed and it definitely was bad. Very bad. But then his features evened again, just before his eyebrows furrowed, and his head dipped towards me a little. "Really, though… I owe you, Woodley. Massively. You saved my arse."

I shook my head, mostly to have a reason to look away from him. "You did that by yourself, you know?"

He looked at me intently - like he couldn't care less that we were in the middle of the buzzing Entrance Hall and that people were blatantly staring - and I let out a weird little breath that was hard to pass off as anything but awkward.

"Anyway, um, congratulations and good luck for the game and…" I trailed off, blinking stupidly at him. And what? There was no and. This was the final paragraph, the last line. One more Saturday detention and then the string of weird coincidences that had temporarily woven James Potter into my life would reach its frayed end.

He would graduate and I would get over this and we would never see each other again.

"I have to go," I said as my mind snapped back into focus and I forced a smile. Everything was as it should be again.

"What?"

"Class."

"Oh. Right." He gave me one of those looks that I didn't understand and I took a few steps backwards, just as he opened his mouth again to say something.

"Congratulations, again. You deserve it," I cut across him, nodding towards the paper in his hand, and the smile finally felt more real. "Goodbye, Potter."

Even as I stared ahead into the semi-darkness of the badly lit hallway, I had to think about Cora Bletchley and how she had looked at me as though I had kidnapped her kneazle. Her ginger eyebrows had almost touched above the bridge of her nose, which had been scrunched up in an obvious show of disapproval, and her arms had been folded across her chest, creasing her crisp uniform shirt.

I couldn't blame her. Rounds, as a rule, were the absolute worst. Besides the very occasional underclassmen who innocently snuck down to the kitchens and then burst into tears when they were discovered, patrols mainly consisted of extracting couples from various nooks and cupboards mid-shag with their knickers dangling around their ankles. There was absolutely no glory in that, which was why the unloved task had become something to foist off on the freshly minted, defenceless fifth year prefects.

Naturally, Cora had not been chuffed with me for taking over her patrol on the one night five cute rock stars were rumoured to show up in her assigned sector.

Seniority did have its perks.

Never mind that it had been an hour and a half already and there still was no sign of Hey Hey Hippogriff. There was, however, an unusual amount of giggly girls who all broke into manic squeals when they inevitably ran into me in front of Slughorn's office where I had been loitering for the better part of the evening already, hoping for a miracle. By now, I was almost convinced that, like so often, none of the rumours were true. There was no trace of the band anywhere and patrols would end in half an hour and I had given up my Thursday evening for absolutely nothing.

I turned the card I was holding in my hand over once again, frowning at the glittery heart that was drawn around the number 17 when another suspicious rustle came from somewhere down the hallway - then the sound of footsteps from the direction of the main stairs - and I turned with my wand raised, ready to unenthusiastically chase down another batch of fangirls in handmade 'Bewitch me, Hayston Ryes' T-shirts. I should have let them have a go at Katie's birthday T-shirts, really.

"Stop right there!" I called out as soon as I could make out a shape at the other end of the corridor, my wand at the ready to fling a leg-locker curse at the rule-breaker, but they didn't seem to be deterred. There was no squealing, no manic laughter, no running, and then, suddenly, James Potter stepped out of the shadowed hallway, his hands raised in mock-surrender, grinning like he wasn't just casually breaking at least three school rules.

"Again, Woodley? Really?" Even in this light I could see his dimple and my heart caught on the uneven smile and the rugged edge in his voice for an unguarded moment before whipping itself into a proper rhythm again. It would have been so easy to pass this off as sheer nerves, as being jumpy, but it wasn't.

It wasn't and I knew and it was all the worse for it.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" I frowned at him, only slowly lowering my wand. He was dressed in all black with an oddly shaped duffle bag slung across his body and a few strands of unruly hair sticking to his forehead. Behind him, the gigantic painting of some obscure horned creature that might have been a prehistoric mountain troll was scowling at us as, apparently not quite sure what to make of this either.

"Got a bit of flying in. Completely forgot the time," James said and there were a few seconds of stupidly sexy hair-tousling and the onset of a sheepish smile that might have been enough to get some feckless fifth year prefect off his back, but I had been exposed to his fuckboy charms for the better part of the year and, while I had to admit that they didn't exactly have no effect on me, they didn't turn me into an incoherent mess either.

Not entirely, at least.

"It's past curfew," I said like he didn't know, channelling my inner prefect. In truth, though, I would have given anything for a half-naked couple to fall out of some hidden nook right now; anything to absorb the weirdness that made me strangely aware of my arms and the fact that I didn't know what to do with them.

James shrugged, still grinning because obviously he didn't expect the rules to apply to him. "What are you doing here then?" He adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder and my attention was momentarily drawn to the way the damp cloth clung to his chest.

Merlin almighty.

"I'm - a prefect?" I said in a pathetic attempt at keeping my cool but I might just as well have awarded five points to Gryffindor for looking really good in a sweaty training shirt and call it a night. Honestly, I was an embarrassment. Admitting to myself that I kind of fancied James had so far only made my life infinitely worse.

"Look." I sighed and shook my head, still clinging to that little bit of authority that came from the small bronze pin above the embroidered school crest on my jumper. "You need to leave. I have to dock points if you don't."

James frowned and his gaze dropped to the flashy birthday card I was still holding in my hand. The glittery heart was catching the torchlight and I knew he had seen it even as I tried to hide it behind my back. "Why are you on patrol? You're a sixth year." He said after a moment, a soft kink in his right eyebrow as he looked back up at me.

"I - just…" The heat crawled up my face while I tried to act as though it wasn't; as though James Potter hadn't just unravelled my pretence with one sentence. "I'm covering for someone?" I said it like it was a question rather than an answer and I knew right then that I had completely blown it as I watched the corners of James's mouth pull into a grin.

"Who?"

Anybody. I could have literally said any name and he probably wouldn't have been any the wiser, but I was nervous and flustered and hiding those things from him took up all of my mental capacity and so I reverted to my worst Woodley instincts and charged.

"OK, five points from Gryffindor. There you go."

"Harsh, Woodley." James was still grinning, maybe even more than before. He didn't look the least bit impressed by my admirable show of authority and it was so familiarly infuriating that I almost had to laugh.

Instead, I groaned. "Please, just go."

"Why?" He pulled on the strap of his bag to move it out of the way as he leaned against the wall behind him, doing the exact opposite of what he was supposed to do. "Am I making you nervous?"

The right corner of his mouth pulled up higher still until I knew the dimple was there, even without looking. It still made me wholly uncomfortable - because it was genuine and I couldn't have that. I couldn't have James Potter around and mess with my heartbeat like this; not now, not ever, not when I was on a mission.

"Yes, I can hardly contain myself, Potter." I made a show of rolling my eyes and crossed my arms for emphasis. "Now, go please, before I take more points from your stupid house."

Finally, his grin wavered. He pushed himself off the wall and, for a moment, I thought that he would actually go, but the movement resulted in him stepping closer to me and my breath hitched in my throat. Unfortunately, there was nowhere else to look but at his furrowed dark eyebrows and the way he chewed on his lower lip and the strands of damp hair that fell into his eyes.

But I was beginning to understand him; why he insisted on doing this - being so utterly confusing and acting like a belligerent tosser one minute just to end up looking at me like this, like he wasn't just fooling around. He wanted to know how far he could go; how far I would let him, how far his fuckboy charms would get him. But this wasn't a game of Quidditch - there was nothing to play, nothing to be won - and I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of stepping away. James Potter would never know just how good he was at this.

"What - what are you doing?" My voice cracked slightly and my heartbeat was in shambles, but I held eye contact with him nonetheless, almost defiantly.

"Calculating," he said easily, quietly, and the ghost of the vanished smile flickered back to life.

"What?"

"How many house points I can afford to lose."

Of course.

Everything was a game to him and I had had enough.

"That's not -" I sighed and shook my head and it finally occurred to me then that I shouldn't have to prove anything to anybody, least of all to James Potter. "You shouldn't be here." I took a deliberate step backwards, taking myself out of his force field that pulled on me whenever I got too close, and his hand flinched just the slightest bit before he clenched it at his side. I followed the movement apprehensively, but nothing happened, and then my eyes caught on the yellowed piece of parchment that was sticking out of his pocket: the same piece of parchment that had taken him to the edge of the Forbidden Forest last autumn; the one that had led us straight to Sam, and I realised that he must have known - must have seen it on his odd map - that I was here, walking up and down the hallway in front of Slughorn's office.

He had chosen to run into me.

"Why are you here?" My words echoed strangely from the vaulted ceiling, and he pushed his hair back, out of his face.

"I told you. I was on the pitch and forgot the time." It wasn't what had asked him and he knew it, but he was too good at this game to slip up. "Why are you here?"

I wanted to shout in frustration, but that would have only made things worse. "I feel like we're going in circles."

James breathed out a small, raspy laugh and I shook my head and, just like that, we weren't talking about patrols or curfews or house points anymore. Suddenly, we had somehow stumbled over the invisible line that made it possible to interact without having to acknowledge all the small, terrifying moments in which we had slipped into something else, something infinitely more scary.

Obviously, I needed him to leave, which I was wholly prepared to initiate by pissing him off and taking another ten points from Gryffindor. However, before I could even open my mouth, I heard footsteps - a bunch of them - and muddled voices. Suddenly, James had wrapped his fingers around my wrist and pulled me against him, just as the door handle to Slughorn's office jiggled and we careened into the painting behind us.

I might have shouted at him, or the mountain troll in the painting had shouted at us, but I couldn't be sure. The corridor spun around me and then everything went dark as my back hit something solid. The impact was much softer than expected, though, and I looked up, blinking until my eyes began to adjust to the sudden lack of light, realising that, instead of the very terrifying painting, I was pushed up against a slightly moist, very mossy stone wall. And right there, pressed against me, one arm around my waist and the other planted on the wall behind me, was James.

"Are you mental?" The words tumbled out much too fast and much too high as I tried to breathe through the mixture of panic and confusion that pushed to the surface. James was towering over me, his eyes wide and his lips slightly parted and I was reeling.

I needed space to think, to breathe anything but this mixture of earth and sweat that clung to him and should have been repellent but absolutely wasn't. Unfortunately, there wasn't much space to be had, really.

"Someone's coming," he whispered and then his hand dropped from my waist like he had just realised he shouldn't be holding me like this. "I'm already on thin ice as it is, I can't be caught after hours or Minnie is going to lose her shit."

Right, because he did care about the consequences for breaking the rules, he just didn't think that I would punish him because he thought he had me wrapped around his little finger.

The git.

"You've already been caught, Potter!"

"I have?" He smirked and I ground my teeth at his infuriating arrogance.

"I am a bloody prefect!"

"Yeah. And you were creeping around Slughorn's office with a heart-shaped card and you're currently hiding behind an ugly-arse painting of a weird troll way past curfew. Shady as fuck, Woodley."

He was still grinning but I decidedly pretended that I wasn't rattled by the fact that he had picked up on all of that.

"You hauled me into your disgusting shag nook, Potter." It didn't exactly wipe the smirk of his face but it guttered noticeably.

"What the fuck is a shag nook?"

"You know what I mean." I was tempted to roll my eyes at him again but I felt that I had exhausted the amount of times I could do so without looking like a petulant four-year-old. So, instead, I settled for a frown, mirroring the one that pulled on James's eyebrows.

"I actually really don't. Enlighten me."

"Forget it." I shook my head and stubbornly looked away from him because it was all I could do with the limited space I had. Knowing James, I entirely expected him to not let this go. He was going to grin his unbearably cocky grin and ask me how I imagined anyone could shag in a confined space like this or something equally mortifying, and I was going to blush like an idiot, trying to avoid eye contact in a room that was too small to even stand without touching.

"Is that really what you think of me?" When he spoke again, his voice was too low, too hoarse, and I dragged my gaze up against my better judgement to find his head bent towards me, much closer than he was supposed to be. "This is not - I'm not…" He cut himself off, pressing his lips together, and my chest suddenly felt at least two sizes too small to properly breathe. Outside, the voices had reached us by now and Slughorn's slightly muffled laugh filled the confined space.

"Well lads, it was a pleasure as usual. I have to say that Bourbon really was delicious."

James raised his eyebrows at me and I felt the wild urge to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Here I was, pressed against the boy I was desperately trying to stay away from in a space that was too small to move, with my potions professor and possibly the members of an internationally famous rock band I had originally planned on lightly stalking lingering in front of the only exit, chatting about American Bourbon.

This was bloody fantastic.

Also, my left foot was falling asleep.

I moved as much as I reasonably could, twisting my hips in an attempt at shifting my weight, but James's hand flew to my waist almost instantaneously, pinning me roughly against the cold stone wall; pushing me away from him. It was barely a second that I saw the horrified expression on his face - saw the way his eyes widened - before he lost his balance from the movement and fell backwards, right through the secret entrance.

There was a thud, someone yelped in shock, and then, after a beat of nerve-splitting silence, Slughorn's booming voice echoed along the corridor.

"James? Merlin's beard!"

"Um, good evening, Professor?" James sounded like they had casually run into each other in a pub, not like he had literally just fallen out of a painting in the middle of an empty hallway and I held my breath. This was a proper disaster.

"What…" Slughorn's voice trailed off and, even though I couldn't see him, I could imagine the puzzled expression on his face as he must have been piecing the information together. It wasn't too complex, really.

"I - um - I was… uh…" James stammered, sounding so phenomenally helpless that I felt a little bad for him. Sure, he had gotten us into this mess of a situation in the first place and everything was, as usual, entirely his fault, but running into a Professor past curfew was never a pleasant experience.

"I see," Slughorn said after a moment and I was readying myself for the inevitable lecture that surely was about to come, just like the obligatory loss of 20 house points. Maybe I could sneak Gryffindor a few random points for orderly uniforms tomorrow to soften the blow. "You were on your way to the prefects' bathroom, I take it? Alone, of course."

Wait, what?

"Er, yes." James cleared his throat and I could hear a few suppressed chuckles from the other side of the painting. "That."

Was this really just happening?

"It is rather lucky I ran into you, actually," Slughorn continued unperturbed and I wondered if it was always like this for James; if he always got away with everything. "I do have something I've been meaning to give to your father but he is always so busy, of course." He chuckled - indulgently - and I couldn't believe I had actually felt guilty for a moment. "Oh, where are my manners? This is James Potter, Harry Potter's oldest son, of course. And James, these are Hayston, Mac, Fate, and Brixley. The boys were paying me a visit before their concert tomorrow. You are attending, I trust?"

"Um, yes. I am. Nice to meet you," I heard James say and then there was a tangle of greetings and possibly handshakes, judging by the shuffling noises, before Slughorn chimed in again.

"Splendid. Do you boys mind finding your way out of the castle alone?" He asked and there was another hum of muffled voices that was once more drowned out by the potions Professor. "Very well, very well. I will take care of Mr. Potter here."

"But, Sir, I -" James said and there was a definite hint of panic in his voice now, but Slughorn wouldn't have any of it.

"Not to worry, my boy. Not to worry." There was a hearty clap, a few more mumbled words of farewell, and then the sound of a door falling shut.

I waited for another heartbeat, just to make sure that the coast was definitely clear, and then stepped out through the portrait again, finding the hallway empty and the troll in the picture snoozing.

"Hey," I hissed and tapped a finger against the canvas until the shaggy monster cracked one bleary eye open, "which direction did they go? The boys, I mean."

The troll blinked, looking definitely cross with me for the unceremonious treatment, but it probably figured that the sooner it got rid of me, the sooner it could go back to sleep and so it raised its knobbly club, pointing to its left.

"Cheers!" I called and then sprinted down the corridor, praying to Circe that one of the staircases had conveniently decided to move. I was skidding around the corner when I finally spotted them, already ambling down the main stairs, headed towards the Entrance Hall.

"Wait!" I shouted across the hallway and, if that wasn't already bad enough, waved the glittery card above my head like a mental fangirl as I ran up to the four intimidatingly attractive members of Hey Hey Hippogriff. They were all frowning at me as though they expected me to douse them in Amortentia and I supposed that I did look slightly unhinged, but, to their credit, they stopped nonetheless.

"Hey, I remember you!" Fate The Drummer arched a perfectly manicured eyebrow at me as I reached them - out of breath and slightly sweaty - and I was admittedly flattered. While I liked to think that I was absolutely immune to handsome and charming rock stars with lilting American accents and blinding white teeth, it was hard to pretend that he had no effect on me whatsoever.

"Your friend came out on stage at Horace's Christmas party, didn't he?"

Right. That. Of course he remembered me because of that.

"Oh - um -yes." I was trying to breathe through the stitch in my side, which wasn't exactly the way I would have liked this to go, but I assumed that they had seen much more embarrassing displays than my shocking lack of stamina.

"Are you okay?" Hayston Ryes asked frowning and I nodded before thrusting out the card to them. It was now or never.

"My best friend is a huge fan and it's her birthday tomorrow…" I trailed off as I watched Hayston flip the card in his hand and pull a pen from his back pocket like most wizards would a wand, the cap wedged between his teeth while he scrawled something in one corner before passing it on to his bandmates. Clearly, they were professionals.

"Anything else?" Fate smiled at me after they had all had a go, holding out the card that was now covered in writing and actual heart-doodles, and I felt stupidly starstruck for a moment.

"Um, thanks?" Was the most eloquent thing I was able to produce, my hand actually trembling as I took back the card again. This had been so much easier and so much more awkward than I had expected and I wasn't quite sure how to proceed from here when something else occurred to me. "Actually, do you lot still do that thing where you get people onto stage to sing with you?"

I couldn't believe I was doing this. I was pushing my luck, I knew it, but the guys only exchanged quick glances and then Fate smiled his blindingly white smile again.

"Yeah, you interested?"

"Um, no. Trust me, you don't want that," I said quickly, feeling the familiar heat in my cheeks as I had to actively keep myself from clenching the holy birthday card too tightly in my hand, "but I have a casual suggestion for you, if that isn't too much to ask..."

A/N: Hey there lovely readers, it's been a while again, I know. But I still hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and I promise I'll be back with the next one sooner this time. As always, thank you for reading and I'd love to get a comment, even if it's a short one… hearing what you guys think really makes my day :) All the best, NH Stadler