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38

AN ANTHOLOGY OF ALMOSTS

MUSICAL MOOD FOR THIS CHAPTER: KIN - COURTSIDE (ACOUSTIC)

"He doesn't look at you like he just wants to be your friend. Not even kind of."

At least he hadn't dared to put his arm around me this time. Still, no elbow bumped into me as I followed James out into the pub garden; I could feel a couple of eyes on us, however, which was already enough to make me regret my momentary lapse of judgement. It got even worse when I realised that we were heading straight for the best table in the courtyard, which, naturally, was occupied by a bunch of glamorous 7th years.

"Lizziebeth!" Freddie shouted when he spotted us half-way across the packed garden, his hands raised above his head, and, even though my palms were clammy and my stomach was moving, I gave him a smile in return. "Finally. We really need your professional opinion. Genie here bought this sleazy, unauthorized eyebrow growth serum and -"

"It's not sleazy, OK?" Genie Patil snapped at Freddie and crossed her arms in front of her chest before turning to me. "It's the same one Meredith Montmorency uses."

"Said the urchin who sold it to you out of the inside pocket of his cloak." He rolled his eyes but Genie didn't pay him any attention.

"I got it at a knock-down price!"

"Which just proves my point." Freddie threw his hands up, looking hilariously exasperated by now. "Tell her you agree with me, Seth."

"No, just tell him that he's wrong."

At that point, not only Freddie and Genie but the entire table was looking at me, some with mild interest, others quite keenly as though they were expecting a show. These were the people that didn't even register you when they passed you by in the hallway and, all of a sudden, I had become the reluctant centre of their attention.

What was even worse, however, was the way Athena Notte was glaring at me over the rim of her drink; as though she had only refrained from hexing me until now because she was still contemplating which horrid spell to use on me.

"No, Woodley, don't let them drag you into this." James shook his head, but he was grinning as he leaned towards me, handing me one of the butterbeers. "They're all nutters, the lot of them."

"I'm counting on you, pyjama girl." Freddie gave me a toothy grin that would have made me feel slightly less out of place if I hadn't picked up on Athena's exasperated eye-roll that, although directed at Selma McLaggen, was hard to miss.

"Circe, what's she even doing here?" She muttered, making sure that it was still loud enough for me to hear, her lips splitting into a wide smile as Selma snorted into her palm. Though mortifying, it wasn't the snide remark itself that hurt - after all, I wasn't really sure what I was doing here either - but the way she had said it; like I had followed James to their table like a delusional lovesick puppy, begging for a treat.

I wanted nothing more but to leave, really.

Instead, I passed my beer to James and leaned in to grab the abandoned glass of Firewhiskey from the table, much to Freddie's delight.

Athena Notte didn't know half of what I could do.

"Hey, that's mine!" James called out in protest when I poured most of the amber liquor into the grass. "What are you doing, Woodley?"

I was barely able to not laugh at the stunned expression on his face as I threw a pinch of salt into the remaining drink, swivelling the glass until the grains dissolved. "This might not work, but alcohol can be used as a solvent to activate potion properties."

"What?" He asked stupidly, just as Freddie let out a whoop that echoed across the entire pub garden. He didn't even hesitate to seize the silver vial from Genie and, shaking off her efforts to physically restrain him, handed it to me with a grin.

"There you go, Lizziebeth."

"Thanks. I only need a small amount," I told Genie, who had surrendered to Freddie and allowed him to sling his arm around her shoulders as she watched me unscrew the top and put a few drops of the alleged eyebrow serum into the glass.

I was in my element. This was my thing. Unlike being all chummy with the cool kids and going to the mat with Hogwarts' Queen Bee, I was actually good at this. I was so focused that I didn't even notice how quiet it had gone around me; when I looked up, I realised that the entire table was staring at me.

"Um, the salt should be able to bind the potion while the whiskey reveals the more obvious agents." I tried to explain what I was doing to make this at least a little less awkward, but when I looked up at James, he was just frowning at me, probably wondering if I had lost my marbles.

Unfortunately, it was too late to stop now.

"Levitate this for me, will you?"

"What?" His gaze dropped to the glass I was holding out to him, apparently still not sure what to make of this.

"I'm underage," I said, fully aware of how entirely uncool that had sounded, but, to my surprise, James's lips twitched, curling into that lopsided smile that revealed the onset of the dimple on his right cheek.

"Such a good girl." He put down the butterbeer and then grabbed his wand from his back pocket to put a levitation charm on the whiskey-potion mixture, lowering it over the candle I had placed underneath it.

"Um, Woodley?" James arched his eyebrows at me as the substance almost immediately began to bubble, thin rivulets of red smoke curling above the glass. A few of his friends had started backing away from the table, rescuing their drinks from possibly being showered in whatever I had turned this into.

Merlin, I hoped this wouldn't explode.

"I've got it," I said, even though I truly hadn't, and then dropped the daisy I had picked from the ground into the mixture. It didn't sink into the liquid but was born up by the smoke, revolving idly above the glass, and, for a second, I thought that it hadn't worked.

Maybe an explosion would have been better after all.

But then, suddenly, the flower stopped spinning, hanging suspended in mid-air for a moment before - quite dramatically - shedding all of its petals at once.

Shocked gasps and cries erupted all around the table and a few even joined Freddie as he began to applaud. If the entire courtyard hadn't been watching us already, they surely were now.

"I can't believe it." Genie whimpered, her fingers ghosting over her eyebrows as though to make sure that the mere purchase of the potion hadn't singed them off.

"Come on, Lizziebeth. You can sit next to me." Freddie patted the wooden bench with his flat hand as the others reclaimed their seats around the table, now that the danger of being hit by glass shrapnel was averted. "I'm the best conversationalist of the lot of them. You won't get much out of the other dolts." He grinned at me, but then his eyes flitted over my shoulder and the smile faltered a little as he slowly began to shake his head. "Or, um, no, sorry. Actually, there is no space for the two of you. At all. Pity."

Next to me, James cleared his throat and I looked up to see the onset of a grin curving his lips. "We'll just-" He nodded towards the empty table behind us that had been left unoccupied as people had carried off the chairs to squeeze in around their friends' tables. "Let's go sit over there."

"I -" I glanced over my shoulder where the inside of the pub was glowing with a warm light that pooled out into the courtyard, highlighting the fact that the sun had begun to go down. I didn't want to leave Katie and the guys waiting for so long and there was also the voice of reason in my head that told me to get as far away from James Potter as possible. "I should really get back to my friends."

"Come on, Woodley." His voice was low and warm and he tipped his head a little to look at me, his lips slightly parted as he smiled. "Just one drink."

Merlin, why did this work?

You're not the only one.

I repeated Athena's words in my head like a mantra, trying to fight against my treacherous body that stupidly wanted to angle towards him. Intellectually, I knew I should not have been feeling this way - should not have allowed him to get to me like this. But he was so so good at - well, whatever this was - and I was clearly out of my depth.

What bothered me most, however, was that, somewhere along the line - I wasn't sure how or when - I had stopped being annoyed at his crooked smirks and the way he kept messing up his hair when he dragged his hands through it. All the things that had seemed so arrogant and infuriating and nonchalant before suddenly felt different - genuine - and I needed to not expose myself to this.

To him.

After all, making girls fall for him was one of James Potter's easiest tricks and I was not going to set even a foot on that road.

"Woodley?"

"Yeah. OK."

Great job, Seth. Really.

James was sitting so close to me that his arm occasionally brushed against mine when he lifted his butterbeer to take a sip and I tried not to think of the way he had held my hand in the hospital wing. Above us, the strings of lights swayed gently in the evening breeze, melting with the orange glow of the fading sun that would be gone before the hour was over and giving way to the cold that lurked in the shadows. I had seen a few people securing some of the pub's blankets already in preparation for the chill that would inevitably come with dusk, unwilling to allow this day to end.

"That was pretty cool what you did back there."

I arched an eyebrow at James, not entirely sure if he was mocking me. Doing an impromptu potions experiment in front of the school's in-crowd was many things, but 'cool' wasn't exactly what I would have used to describe it.

"You could give my cousin Rose a run for her money," he said and I made the mistake of looking at him for long enough to feel a definite pinch behind my navel as my eyes met his; they looked brighter in this light, the golden flecks burning like campfire sparks, and I knew I shouldn't have stayed. "Don't tell her I told you that. Between you and me, she's two heads shorter than me but she scares the living shit out of me."

I laughed, even though I had sworn to myself that I wouldn't; that I would drink my butterbeer as fast as possible and then excuse myself to find my friends and leave James to go back to his. I had been telling myself and everyone else that he didn't affect me in the least, but the truth was that I was entirely out of my depth when it came to James Potter and I didn't know what to do about it.

"So I thought about this," he said, his shoulder casually touching mine as he rested his arms on his legs, cradling his beer bottle with both hands. "And I need to know why you had to sit with a book on your head."

It took me a second to catch on, but then I remembered it; our whispered conversation in the hospital wing, when I could barely breathe for fear and James had distracted me with silly stories about his family and made me laugh.

You're not the only one.

I swallowed and ran my thumb over the flaky edges of the bottle label I had begun to peel off, reminding myself again of who I was; of who he was. I was not going to drown in James Potter's charms.

"Posture," I said, unable to not snort at the countless times I had been left to balance some ancient tome from my Grandparents' library on my head rather than read it. Clearly my grandmother's priorities were stuck in the last century. "You can't properly navigate snooty upper-class circles if you can't sit like a lady."

"You're shitting me." James raised an eyebrow at me, a look of disbelief on his face. "You are, right?"

I sighed, half-seriously, half-jokingly, before taking a sip of my butterbeer. "There are many rules to being a true Woodley."

"Like what?" He grinned and I felt myself relax a little at the harmless direction this conversation had taken. Talking about the ridiculous antics of my family was safe waters; nothing but lighthearted, superficial chit-chat that didn't threaten to stop my heart at every turn.

"Like, don't get sorted into Ravenclaw."

James grinned, dimple and all. "Sounds reasonable. I wouldn't want to be in Ravenclaw either."

"That's rather rich coming from a Gryffindor." I arched an eyebrow at him and he laughed and shook his head before looking down to the bottle in his hands, twisting it slowly. When he looked up at me again, however, the grin had faded to something more heady.

"What are the rules about dating Gryffindors?"

I felt a weird sort of prickle behind my chest that wouldn't let me pretend that the way his voice had dipped to this low and throaty thing didn't affect me, but I knew better; this boy with the easy smiles and easier compliments was peak James Sirius Potter - the unattainable golden boy that collected girls' hearts like they were Quidditch trophies, just to carelessly toss them aside when they lost their shine because the next one was surely just around the corner. I had never understood before - how no one ever called him out on this, how even smart girls kept falling over themselves to catch his eye - but I could see it now, that he was likable and charming and funny, and it bothered me more than I liked to admit to myself.

"No, Woodley." James groaned and my eyes cut upwards to meet his gaze, thinking for a terrifying second that maybe he could read minds like his father. Then again, occlumency wasn't exactly hereditary and teenagers weren't particularily good at it either as their hormones tended to get in the way. So I decided to play this cool, despite the heat that flooded my cheeks.

"What?"

"You have that look."

"What look?" I frowned at him, watching the familiar lopsided smile pulling on the corner of his mouth.

"That look you get when you're overthinking."

I snorted, rather unflatteringly, and shook my head because this was ridiculous. "I don't have a look."

"You do. You knit your eyebrows and bite the inside of your bottom lip."

I stared at James for a moment, probably gaping at him, and suddenly everything felt weird. His smile had faded as his eyes darted to my mouth where I was actually doing the exact thing he had just described, but he quickly tore his gaze away, raking a hand through his hair.

"You know what helps? To not overthink everything."

I tried to roll my eyes, to feel exasperated with him like I usually did, but neither my facial muscles nor my emotions complied and I felt my hands grow clammy. What I needed most was my dense heart to slow down for a minute so that I could think; to stop reacting like this when I knew he had probably said something like this to countless other girls. "That's also what gets you on the front page of WitchWeekly for mooning the vice minister for magic."

"Hey, that was a political statement."

"The article said you were piss-drunk."

James smirked unabashedly and shook his head as his gaze dropped once more to the bottle he was still cradling in his hands, rolling it back and forth between his palms. "So, I was thinking," he said after a moment and looked back up at me. His face was suddenly much closer than before and my eyes caught on the few freckles on his nose again, wondering if they had always been there, intensified by a couple of days of Quidditch training in the sun.

"Good for you," I said as coolly as possible while my heart was beating in my ears so loudly that I was sure he must have heard it too.

I expected it to crack my ribcage any second, really.

James snorted and I almost dropped my butterbeer when his knee softly bumped into mine. "I know that I probably didn't make the best first impression on you." He gave me a vague smile that was hard to interpret, especially because I was still trying to not think about the fact that his leg was flush against mine. "I can be a bit of a prat sometimes."

"Sometimes?" I said, mostly in an attempt at reminding myself who I was talking to, but James just laughed.

"That week we met…" His hand was back in his hair, mussing up the dark brown strands as he tousled the back of his head. "It - um - it was a weird week. There was this dumb article in WitchStyle and I got, like, a shitload of mental letters from all these random people. It was just -" He trailed off and shook his head before taking a long sip of his butterbeer.

We had never talked about this before; how I had yelled at him on the Quidditch pitch and he had basically called me mental and told me to start a fanclub. While absolutely mortifying, I hadn't given his behaviour much thought back then other than that it had confirmed my rotten opinion about him. But I remembered now; the miniature tree, the matches rolling around on the floor, Athena Notte's laugh echoing down the hallway, and Katie's glossy magazine which she had cited to me over dinner that night: Britain's Number One Bachelor to Watch.

I had completely forgotten about that.

"You actually thought I was stalking you?"

James tucked his hand under his arm and grinned at me. "Well, in my defence, you did look slightly unhinged.

"Seriously, Potter?" I shook my head, trying to ignore how close he had come; he was leaning towards me, our bodies touching, and my stomach was performing a gymnastics routine. "I got stood up by you twice for something I didn't even want to do in the first place. Oh, and let's not forget my personal highlight when you offered to greet me in the hallways.

"Shit, I know." He snorted and I made the mistake of looking back up at him, my gaze catching on the soft curve of his slightly chapped lips before meeting his eyes. He was frowning again, like he was trying to make sense of a complicated potions formula, looking utterly sincere. "Why are you even talking to me, Woodley?"

It was a really good question. Unfortunately, I didn't much like the answer.

What I needed was to remind myself that this wasn't real. He was playing a game I didn't know the rules to and was destined to lose.

"Just out of interest, why didn't you show up?"

"Well, obviously I didn't know that the potions genius Sluggy was raving about would be a pretty girl."

It was a nonanswer if ever there was one and I fully expected him to look at me with that teasing half-smile that always seemed to be more of a challenge - superficial banter rather than anything real. But, when I looked at him, he wasn't smiling; not even a little bit.

It took me a moment to realign my thoughts, mostly because - even though I really wanted to - I couldn't seem to look away from him. "That's what you're going with? Really?"

"I'm serious." James's voice was too low and too genuine and I wished he would stop talking like that; like he meant it. "I would have been there if I'd known it was you." He leaned back just enough to place his hand on the table right behind my back. I could feel his arm pressing against my spine, his body-heat seeping through my jumper, and I froze.

While I was so far out of my comfort zone that my pulse hadn't been normal for at least an hour, James was entirely in his element. After all, this was nothing to him.

I shook my head, more for my sake than James's, and then set the butterbeer aside. Experience should have taught me by now that I shouldn't be drinking with James Potter. "You didn't even know I existed before I threw my books at you."

He snorted and, for a moment, I thought I had successfully steered the conversation away from this unnerving thing that felt like walking blindfolded at the edge of a cliff. But then he looked at me again and I felt his arm flush against my back as his dark eyebrows lowered. "Yeah I did. I - um - I saw you when I was getting Al out of detention."

"You - what?" I snapped my head up, not realising that my movement would result in a near accidental nose-brush and my heart stumbled along stupidly, desperately trying to find back into its proper rhythm. This was getting pathetic and I needed to get a grip. "How?"

"I can't tell you all my secrets right away, Woodley." His smile was barely discernible as his gaze dropped to my lips and I wondered, for a second, if he ever thought about it; about that night on the grounds, about New Year's Eve, about his fingers weaving through mine and the crackling torches in the deserted hallway.

About all of our almosts that we never spoke about.

"We're out and I'm not going in there." Genie Patil stood in front of us, one hand braced on her hip, the other holding out an empty beer jug, and I seized the opportunity to pull my leg up, effectively twisting away from James's arm.

"OK, what the bloody hell are you talking about?" He sounded vaguely annoyed as he narrowed his eyes at Genie, but she didn't seem even the least bit abashed and just continued to hold the jug out to him.

"It's a mosh pit and I've already had enough traumatic experiences for one day."

"No, piss off."

"Come on, James, please?" She whined, her full lips forming a pout that made James snort. "The bartender obviously has a thing for you and you don't have to prostrate yourself to get a pitcher."

He was shaking his head still, but his eyes flitted to me, a sort of weird look on his face, and, for a dense second, I thought that maybe he was actually afraid I'd be gone when he came back.

"I promise I won't let her out of my sight." Genie said with a dramatic eye roll and put her hand on my shoulder, probably for emphasis. "And I'll be nice. Scout's honour."

"You're not a fucking scout. And you're never nice."

"Come on, just do it already." She tugged on his biceps and he reluctantly let her pull him to his feet.

"Alright, alright, I'm going," he groaned and took the pitcher before turning back to me. "Don't believe a word she says. She's a shit drunk."

Genie stuck her middle finger out at him in response and he turned away laughing, returning the gesture over his shoulder.

"Merlin bless him," she sighed and then pushed herself onto the table, taking the place James had just vacated. "Thanks again for saving my eyebrows. I owe you one."

I looked back at her after trying to catch a glimpse of my friends through the opened pub doors, hoping that they would come and get me if they decided to leave. It somehow felt as though I had been away from them for much too long already. "You really don't."

She considered me for a long moment and I realised again how impressive Genie Patil was; she was beautiful, of course, with her dark skin and shiny black hair, but there was something else about her - something so unapologetically confident that she could regal her friends with an impromptu striptease at a party and it wasn't a big deal because, well, she was Genie.

"You know, Freddie hypes you endlessly." She was still looking me over, taking her time as her eyes unabashedly lingered on everything from my hair to my trainers, and I stifled the urge to shift where I was sitting.

"Doesn't Freddie hype everyone?" I glanced at the still packed table across from us where Freddie was apparently in the middle of recounting some hilarious story that had everybody roaring with laughter.

"True. I guess he's right, though." She narrowed her dark eyes at me, her gaze catching on the slightly uneven piercings Katie had amateurishly jammed through my ears at the end of last year. "So, what's the deal with you and James?"

I cut my gaze up, automatically glancing towards Athena, who was already bundled up in a blanket and leaning against Selma McLaggen, before I looked back at Genie. I wondered how much she actually knew - how much they all knew - how much James had told them, and I felt the familiar prickle of heat spreading across my cheeks and my nose. Merlin, what if I had been the hilarious story to entertain them on their last pub outing?

"Um, we're friends. Kind of." I thought it sounded good - right; after all, what else was there to say? But Genie's black eyebrows knitted as she tilted her head to the side, her gaze flitting rapidly from my eyes to my nose to my hair.

"He doesn't look at you like he just wants to be your friend. Not even kind of."

I ignored the jolt in my stomach and pressed my lips together, fully aware that Genie was watching me closely. She seemed to expect some sort of reaction - a confession, something to give away my bluff - but I had put quite some effort into not thinking about James and I wasn't going to go there. Ever. Especially not with a drunk Genie Patil sussing me out.

"Listen -" I shook my head, hoping to convey that what she was implying was ridiculous, but she didn't seem to be interested in my attempts at denial.

"It's just - you seem like a nice person," she cut across me, her lips curling into a soft smile that wasn't unkind, "but I've known James for a very long time and don't get me wrong, I love him, he's a great mate and I don't particularly enjoy cockblocking him; but he's the worst when it comes to girls." Her eyes shifted from me back to the table with her friends and I followed her gaze to Athena who was still resting her head against Selma's shoulder, staring at something at the back entrance of the pub.

I didn't have to look, really, but maybe I needed to see it too; how she was unable to take her eyes off of James who had been dragged into a conversation on his way to the bar, her eyes tracing his every move like she was dying of thirst and he was water in the desert.

And, what was even worse, she wasn't the only one either.

I had moved through the clusters of mostly Hogwarts students, thinking that it was much warmer here, close to the building where the proprietors had cast a heating charm to last well into the night. Around me, glassy-eyed people were swaying unsteadily like one gigantic mass with the swell and ebb of their voices that softly washed around me and I let them carry me to the widely opened back doors of the pub. It was a relief to see Katie's shock of auburn curls still in the corner where I had left her and the boys an hour ago.

"Hey." I felt a hand wrap around my wrist - sloppily, so that it grabbed half my hand - and I stumbled a little when James pulled me against him, a slight frown on his face as his eyes flitted over mine. "Where are you going? Did Genie talk shit about me?"

He was talking quietly, his head bent towards me, eyes still searching my face like he was honestly concerned, and I quickly shook my head, trying to put on a casual smile.

"No. Really." Strictly speaking, it wasn't entirely true, but Genie had said nothing that I hadn't already known and it had definitely helped to clear my head. I knew that she was looking out for her friend who was in love with James, of course, but it didn't feel like she had an agenda.

"I have to-" I wanted to explain how I had to get back to my friends and then up to the castle for rounds, which was true enough, but my mouth opened and closed again and I failed to end the sentence as I stared at James's conversation partner - possibly gaping unattractively.

"Hey." Henry Pennington smiled - so widely that his grin was almost goofy - and I was too baffled to react for a second. He hadn't even replied to my last letter and now he was here, in Hogsmeade?

"Hey!" I finally spluttered and, realising that I was still awkwardly half-holding hands with James, took a deliberate step away from him, ignoring his frown.

"Um, Henry," he said after an awkward moment and cleared his throat, "this is -"

"Seth Woodley." Henry was grinning at me but I was still too confused to do anything but stare at him. It wasn't only the fact that he was in Hogsmeade when he should have been in London, but also that I had found him talking to James of all people.

"You two... know each other," James said slowly, looking back and forth between us and, even though it hadn't been a question, I nodded, still frowning at Henry.

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh just - um - good old pub crawl with the lads." He gestured towards the bar where I guessed his friends must have gone off to get drinks, but it wasn't really an answer.

"In Hogsmeade?" James's brow furrowed. "Don't you go to uni in London, mate?"

"I… yeah." Henry gave me a weird look, the smile still in place but somewhat more sheepish as he cleared his throat and tousled the back of his head. "Actually, there's someone I was hoping to run into."

I felt the corners of my mouth tug upwards a little, soft pools of head rising to my cheeks, hardly registering the frown on James's face as he slowly looked from Henry to me. He had come all this way for me. It was a Saturday evening and he could have been in some cool club in London with his uni friends, but he was here, in an unspectacular village pub that was lousy with drunk boarding school kids because he wanted to see me.

"Mate." Freddie's voice jolted me out of my thoughts and I turned to see him standing next to James, one hand on his shoulder. "We're moving inside. Augi and the other girls are cold."

"Funny, really." Augustus slapped the back of Freddie's head in passing as he followed the others to the bar, one arm slung around Genie's waist who was leading the way. Behind James, Athena pushed through the crowd, her fingers trailing his shoulders and neck lightly as she let Selma pull her along and, when he turned his head, she gave him a drunken, heavy-lidded smirk that was laced with the sort of intimacy that felt like a punch to the guts.

"Are you lot coming or what? Shots at the bar. You too, Pennington. Haven't seen you since training camp last year."

I felt the weight of Freddie's elbow on my shoulder, registered the smile on his face, and then the people around us - how they were shifting, rearranging themselves, molding around him and James, looking at them - always looking at them. I wasn't part of this - and I realised I didn't want to be. It was exhausting to navigate the intricate ties of their relationships that had formed over years, always guarded, never quite myself. But mostly, I couldn't keep on feeling like my heart was going to fall out my chest every time James smiled at me.

"I'm going to go find my friends, actually," I said and stepped away for emphasis, unable to not laugh at the mock-appalled expression that instantly appeared on Freddie's face.

"No! Lizzibeth, you traitor!" He clutched his chest dramatically, throwing himself off balance in the process so that he tumbled into James, who put a steadying arm around his swaying friend. "Henry, tell her that we leave no wiz or witchard behind."

Henry shook his head laughing. "Yeah, I'm out too, mate. Sorry," he said before turning to me, hands in his pockets and a vague smile on his face. "You know, this really seems like a rowdy crowd and I've got a mean elbow."

I considered him for a moment, how he stood there, illuminated by the strings of lights above us and the dusty violet of the fading daylight, and I thought how nice it was that he was here - that he came because of me - and I nodded.

"Um, see you tomorrow?" I turned to James, stupidly hoping to find something I thought I had glimpsed before - when he had leaned towards me and told me that he could be a prat sometimes - but when he smiled the kink in the curve was too precise, too deliberate. His face was nothing but a mask of casual, collected nonchalance and maybe it had never been anything else.

"Sure. Tomorrow."

I nodded, mostly because everything felt weird all of a sudden - like I didn't know how to walk away. Next to me, Henry shifted slightly, his arm brushing against my shoulder, and I finally felt the chill of the evening creep in, even through the heating charm.

"Enjoy your evening, lads." I waved at Freddie who was still leaning on his best friend, face screwed up in a deeply confused scowl. James, however, showed nothing but cool disregard, looking entirely bored with the situation, and I suddenly wanted nothing more but to get away from him.

I needed to get away from him.

I leaned back, letting the din of the noisy pub wash against me, only half listening to Katie's and Henry's discussion about... was it mobile phones? I could feel the colour in my cheeks, mostly from the crowd-generated heat but also from the butterbeer that I had drunk a little too fast, and I felt the muscles in my shoulders soften, thinking that it should have been like this always.

"Seth'll agree with me, won't you Seth?"

"Hm?" I blinked at Katie and then quickly nodded without having even the slightest idea what exactly I was agreeing to. "Oh yeah, absolutely."

"Bollocks, you weren't even listening!" Tarquin cried out but his girlfriend had leaned over the table, her hand grabbing my arm and her eyes shining.

"Seth, darling, you're the best." She shouted like an over the top telenovela heroine, knocking over half of the glasses in the process. Hector let out a drunken peal of laughter, his shoulder knocking into Sam who turned towards him, smiling, eyes flickering to his mouth, and I felt a mushy surge of fondness for my friends that filled me with a sort of warmth that had nothing to do with the butterbeer.

I leaned back against the wall, my eyes finding Henry, whose smile was brilliant and open and generous, and I thought that I liked how he looked at me, how his knee had been softly bumping against mine underneath the table while he had been talking to my friends, how he had so easily allowed Katie to win the phone argument which might have seemed unimportant but really wasn't.

"Another round then?" Tarquin asked into the pleasant stupor that was starting to settle around the table, but the unruly atmosphere of departure was sneaking in as the fourth and fifth years and a handful of third years began to pack up their things and I pushed myself away from the wall only just stifling a groan.

"I have to get back for patrols."

Shouts of protest erupted all around the table and I laughed as I got up from my seat. "I know, but we're short on people and I said I'd do it." I began to collect the empty bottles, half of which were rolling around the table, and Henry immediately rose from the bench next to me to help.

"I'm sorry," Sam said dejectedly, but I quickly shook my head at him which made the bottles in my arms clink. It wasn't his fault that some lunatics had wiped his memory.

"Don't be silly. Amy Haverston and Marie Dollohof are off sick too." I slid out of the nook, laden with empty bottles, and Henry followed me, carrying the rest.

It had been quite the debate, whether sixth and seventh years should be allowed to stay out longer on Hogsmeade weekends and, seeing the glassy stares and unsteadily swaying bodies as we pushed our way through to the bar, I understood why McGonagall had tried to put her foot down for so long.

"I had fun tonight," Henry said from behind me when we had reached the bar and I turned around, my back bumping against the counter. "A lot."

He was close enough so that I had to tilt my head back to properly look at him. "Yeah. Me too." My elbow knocked into the bottles behind me, and I half-turned to try and catch them before they would all cascade to the floor, just as a tangle of exuberant cheers caught my attention. Across from us, at the other end of the bar, James was laughing at something Freddie seemed to have said, sipping on his drink while Athena had draped her arms around his shoulders from behind, leaning against his back. They looked like a couple - entirely - and I quickly turned away again, just to find Henry frowning at them.

"I thought James didn't do girlfriends..."

I shrugged because I didn't know - because I shouldn't have cared - because, for a second, I had pictured myself in Athena's place and felt ridiculous for it. "So, um, how do you know Freddie and James again?"

"Quidditch camp. Every summer. You lot are friends?"

I thought about it, how there was no category, no definition I could comfortably fit James into - this volatile mess of looks and conversations and arguments and awkwardness that didn't make any sense. But it wasn't friendship, was it? It definitely wasn't more; he had made that very clear - twice.

"I've been helping James with potions."

Henry's eyes seemed to flicker towards James again and I wondered what he had made of the entire situation before, when James had grabbed my arm and pulled me in - had it looked weird?

Had it been weird?

My heart was beating in my ears and the pub felt too small, too loud all of a sudden. But when Henry spoke again, it wasn't about James.

"So, I swore that I would never like a girl my parents approve of, but I really want to see you again. Do you think we could do this again maybe? Like, on purpose? Soon?"

"Your parents approve of me?" It occurred to me too late that maybe that wasn't exactly the bit I should have focused on, but Henry laughed and when he reached out to take my hand, I let him.

"Are you kidding me? You're a Woodley. They're thrilled."

I could tell that he was angling towards me, his head bowed ever so slightly and his gaze fixed on me like there was nothing else worth looking at. Over his shoulder, I could see Katie and the boys already waiting by the door, pulling on their jackets, and I suddenly knew that Henry was going to try and kiss me; I also knew that I couldn't.

It wasn't that I didn't want to kiss him, I just didn't want to do it like this, in front of all my sloshed classmates and stupid James Potter, and so I swerved the slightest bit and kissed his cheek.

"Hey Hey Hippogriff is playing a concert in Hogsmeade on Friday. You should come."

He seemed perplexed for a second but then his mouth curled into a smile and he squeezed my hand. "I'll be there."

I returned the gesture and then untangled my fingers from his, knowing that, as soon as I had turned around, he would be looking after me all the way until I had left the pub.

I was staring at the towering statue of Winniefred the Willful, frowning at the way the sculptor had carved her mouth into a straight, hard line, unyielding for eternity. The story was a simple one, really; black and white to not confuse anybody. After all, everybody knew she was the witch that had broken Godric Gryffindor's heart.

Quite literally.

He had loved her and she had taken a piece of his heart for her own.

My gaze wandered to her left hand in which she was holding a box - supposedly containing the actual piece of the founder's heart that was still beating faintly if one just listened closely enough - and I couldn't help thinking that maybe she had known that taking a part of his heart would last longer than his glorified infatuation with her.

There was a dull thud and I snapped my head around to look for the source of the noise. It had grown quiet in the corridors after the first batch of students had returned to their respective dormitories and it was still too early for the sixth and seventh years to abandon the comfort of The Three Broomsticks and the uncarded alcohol supply it provided. But there was another bang, followed by a spill of giggles, and I rolled my eyes at the prospect of having to extract some snogging couple from behind a tapestry.

However, when I rounded the corner, I realised that no such action would be necessary.

The small knot of people was quite out in the open, walking - tumbling - along the dimly lit hallway that branched off towards Gryffindor tower and even though none of them seemed particularly sober anymore, James was barely able to walk by himself, leaning heavily on Freddie and Augustus as they lugged him towards the flight of stairs that led up to their common room entrance.

Athena was right behind them, her hand resting against the small of James's back, and I wished I could have turned the other way, but I was frozen to the spot, unable to move. And so I could do absolutely nothing but stand there and stare like an idiot when Athena turned around, her eyes finding mine and her lips curling into the sort of wide, confident smile that said more than a thousand words ever could.

A/N: As always, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and please let me know what you think. Reviews really make my day and are my motivation when I can't seem to find it. Thanks to those who always take the time to comment; it means the world to me, you guys!