AN: Wow look at that, I'm updating with long chapters and seeming to do it pretty quickly and regularly. I'm sort of scared, you know, because in the past I've been known to abandon stories because I just...lose interest. HOPEFULLY that doesn't happen here, because I actually do have a vision for where I want all this to go in the end, I swear! We'll get there eventually. I'm sorry we seem to be dawdling around in the exposition.
Before I let you start reading, I'd like to give a shoutout to my two friends honorary-marauder-1, who I beta for and she's amazing and she's got a couple cute Jily stories, and 911weasleytwins, who has also written some cute Jily stuff. These ladies offer me tons of support and I'm ever so grateful for them both!
Annie was a morning person. She was the only true morning person of the four Ravenclaw girls, and as such, she woke up first. All through last year, the girls had developed a morning routine to deal with school mornings as best they could, and Annie always woke up first. Artemis was a light sleeper, and usually woke up when Annie did. Annie left to go shower, Artemis sat in bed blinking in the early dawn light. When Annie got back, she woke up Marina, who hated mornings but showered in the morning anyway. Morning showers helped her wake up, something she desperately needed, especially last year when Ravenclaws had History of Magic as their first class a few times a week.
"Double Potions this morning, Mina," Annie said, shaking her shoulder gently. Unlike Lark and Artemis's unfortunate nickname, Annie had taken to calling Marina "Mina" after she heard her mum and Quincy using it all summer, and Marina was pretty okay with it. "You have to be awake for Potions or you might explode your hair off, and you said you want to grow it out."
That early in the morning (really, it was like six in the morning; Annie was just insane), all Marina could muster was a drawn-out and incoherent grumble muffled by her pillow, but she rolled out of bed anyway. She was, in fact, trying to grow her hair out; as a kid, her mum kept it cut short and close to her head, as her very frizz-prone, wiry, very tightly-curled hair was difficult for both Marina and her mum, who had almost the exact opposite of her daughter's hair, to deal with. Now, that she was older, though, she wanted to grow it out. This, of course, involved avoiding as many cauldron explosions as possible, so Marina grumpily trudged out of the dormitory to take a shower.
Very quickly last year, the girls learned to not, under any circumstances, touch Lark until the very last possible moment before they headed down for breakfast. Lark was most definitely the least morning-compatible person out of the four of them, and one time last year she'd shot a surprisingly nasty stinging spell at Annie for trying to wake her up ten minutes earlier than usual. After that, the three of them never deviated from the routine ever again. This year was no different, and after Marina, Annie, and Artemis were fully dressed with book bags packed for a morning of double potions, only then did Artemis lose at rock-paper-scissors and approach the snoring Lark. Marina and Annie waited just outside the door until Artemis scooted out of the room.
Hogwarts breakfasts began at six thirty, an hour and a half before the first class period began at eight. Very few people showed up in the Great Hall before seven, and the Ravenclaw second year girls—second years now!—were no different. The girls sat down on the long benches at their long house tables at precisely 7:13. Lark did not show up to breakfast until 7:48, when she grabbed a blueberry muffin off the table and forewent sitting down at all to walk with Annie, Artemis, and Marina down to the dungeons.
Even though she hated mornings, even though Lark worried her with her last-minute-breakfasts, and even though they were heading to Potions first thing in the morning, Marina had to smile. She'd missed Hogwarts.
Unfortunately, that lovely feeling of returning to Hogwarts after summer did not last much more than a week. Second year, it seemed, was the year professors gave up on holding back their assignments. By the end of September, they'd written at least one essay a week on top of two star charts for Astronomy. Lark dutifully kept up the Homework List, though this year she scrapped the one-list organization of last year and started seven separate lists, one for each subject, and was able to post them to the wall with the sticking charm they'd finally learned. Marina, who was better at Charms than Lark was, recast the sticking charm on the Homework Lists after Lark's sticking charm wore off a week in.
On the first Saturday of October, the house Quidditch teams held tryouts. Quincy was absolutely determined to try out with Gideon, and begged Marina to come to Gryffindor tryouts to support him. They were in the library when Quincy brought it up, studying for the upcoming Transfiguration quiz. Marina knew she would probably do terribly and enlisted Quincy and Gideon's help, seeing as Transfig seemed to be so easy for them both, and Annie tagged along for moral support. Ravenclaw and Gryffindor second years had Herbology together on Mondays and Wednesdays as their final class of the day, and directly after they were dismissed from Greenhouse Six by Professor Sprout, the four of them headed straight for the library.
Two hours later, Marina had slumped onto the table, forehead pillowed on Artemis's immaculate Transfiguration notes. "This is hopeless," she mumbled into the table. "I'm completely hopeless." After a very long sigh of anguish, she turned her head so her cheek was against the parchment and stared absently at the bookshelves they were surrounded by. "I'm going to fail this quiz." Annie patted Marina's shoulder, and Marina looked up at her. "McGonagall likes you; maybe you can convince her to leave off the practical half."
"Well, at least you have the theory down perfectly," Gideon said, trying to be encouraging.
"I don't get it," Quincy said, almost more frustrated than Marina was. "How can you have a perfect understanding of why it works and how it's supposed to work but you can't just make it work?"
Annie hummed. "I think it's time for a distraction. You're about to break down in tears, I can tell. How about something to take your mind off it for a bit, Mina?" That prompted Marina to pick herself up off the table, rubbing her skin in case any ink had printed itself on her face, as Annie kicked Quincy under the table. "Right, Quincy?"
"Oh—uh—well—" he stuttered. Marina rolled her eyes; he still couldn't quite handle direct conversation with Annie. "Tryouts!" Quincy blurted at last. "Quidditch tryouts are this weekend."
Gideon latched onto the subject change quite smoothly, given its abrupt beginning. "Quin and I are trying out for Gryffindor, and it would be really cool of you to come," he said. Then he knocked Quincy's shoulder with his own. "Poor Quincy needs at least one person cheering him on, you know," he teased, grinning.
Annie laughed as Quincy shoved the redhead back. "That sounds like fun, don't you think?" she asked Marina.
Smiling, she nodded, but was more interested in the way Quincy's face flushed red at Annie's laughter. She'd ask him about it later, Marina determined, fairly certain now that she had just realized something worthy of a little teasing.
Gideon checked the watch he wore on his wrist—a birthday present he'd gotten over summer, he'd said—and began sorting through the five sets of Transfiguration notes on the table. "Look," he said, "it's only half an hour until dinner. We have Transfiguration Thursday, and you have it Friday, so how about tomorrow after classes we can meet here again and Quincy and I can tell you the sort of stuff you'll need to know for it," he suggested. "Sound good?"
Marina nodded and took a deep breath. "Thank you for your help, you guys," she said, looking between the two Gryffindor boys across the table from her.
"Of course, it's our solemn duty as your friends," Quincy said with a grin as Gideon nodded in agreement.
Armed with the unwavering support of her friends and the helpful tutoring of the boys, Marina went into the Transfiguration quiz with little confidence. She knew for sure that she'd done very well on the written half, at least, and then she surprised herself by getting part of the practical perfect. At least she knew she didn't fail it, and that's what she repeated to herself over and over in her head when she stood to turn in the written section. At least she didn't have to place her parchment on the pile with McGonagall watching—the professor was busy overseeing the practical of Alfred Smith, one of the Ravenclaw boys she didn't enjoy talking to.
Marina spent her free period by the Black Lake with Annie, people-watching. Three Hufflepuff first years were sitting some ways away, giggling to themselves and watching two older Hufflepuff boys. On of them was Roger Meadowes, though, so Marina couldn't blame them. At lunch, Marina had just sat down with Annie, across from Lark and Artemis, as usual, when Quincy attacked, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her around. She almost had a heart attack but recovered quickly enough when she heard her best friend laughing behind her.
"How was the quiz?" he asked loudly, reaching around her to steal a chip off her plate. "McGonagall wasn't too hard on you, I hope!"
Marina swatted his hand away. "It was alright. I got part of the practical, at least. Thanks again for that."
"I didn't know you had difficulties with Transfiguration, Marina," Alfred cut in. "I'd be glad to tutor you. I'm pretty good at it myself."
Lark suddenly crinkled her nose like she'd smelled a particularly nasty smell. "No one needs your help, Smith," she said.
"Yeah, we have it covered, anyway," Quincy added.
Alfred scoffed. "Oh, please. There's no better tutor for a Ravenclaw than a fellow Ravenclaw." Then his eyes narrowed, looking up at Quincy, who was still standing behind Marina. "You're not suggesting that you, a Gryffindor, are better at Transfiguration than a Ravenclaw?"
She felt Quincy stiffen, his hands gripping Marina's shoulders a little harder than was really comfortable. Although, really, she couldn't blame Quincy; Alfred Smith was obnoxious.
"Transfiguration is taught by a Gryffindor, Alfred," Annie countered, "and I am very sure that McGonagall is better at Transfiguration than you are."
With a sour look, Alfred turned away, back to the other Ravenclaw boys in their year. Quincy high-fived a giggling and triumphant Annie.
On Saturday morning, Annie woke Marina with a bright smile, reminding her they'd agreed to watch Quincy and Gideon at the Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts. Gryffindor held tryouts at the Quidditch Pitch right after breakfast, so while Artemis went back to sleep and they avoided touching so much as the curtains drawn around Lark's bed, Annie dressed Marina in a cozy sweater and jeans before they headed down for breakfast. When they entered the Great Hall, Marina and Annie noticed Alfred Smith sitting at the Ravenclaw table. The girls shared reluctant looks, but were saved from having to sit with the troll of a boy by Quincy, who had apparently noticed their arrival and came bouncing up to them.
"Good morning! Come on, there's space for you at our table," he said, and pulled Marina over to the table of rather rowdy Gryffindors (even in the morning they were loud!) as Annie followed, amusement plain on her face.
"Is this even allowed?" Marina asked, though her curiosity was winning over her anxiety about following whatever rules might exist.
"I don't see why not," Quincy shrugged, and plopped down on the bench where he must've been eating before he got up to fetch them. "Budge over, Frank—here, sit down!"
So the girls sat, heartily welcomed by the Gryffindor second years. Emmeline Vance quickly swept Annie into a conversation about an Herbology assignment, and Kingsley Shacklebolt politely asked Marina what she thought of the Transfiguration quiz yesterday. Then Gideon bumped his broom, which was resting against the table, and caused it to fall against Caroline Brown's arm so that she smeared her spoonful of oatmeal against her nose and cheek instead of getting to eat it. She flew into a rage, smacking Gideon, who was laughing hysterically as the oatmeal slowly slid down Caroline's face. Marina decided she liked sitting with the Gryffindors.
"Hey, aren't you two Ravenclaws?" piped a voice, and Marina looked across and down the table at a boy, a first year if she remembered right, with black hair sticking up every-which-way and glasses perched crookedly on his nose. "What are you doing over here?" he asked. It wasn't malicious or judgmental, just an honest question.
"We'd rather sit here than have to sit alone with Alfred Smith," Annie answered cheerfully. "Did you forget to comb your hair today? It's quite messy."
The Gryffindors around them chuckled, but no one laughed louder than the boy across from the first year. Curious, Marina leaned forward to see around Quincy and Frank Longottom. It was Sirius Black, the unlikely Gryffindor, that had guffawed so loudly. "She's got you there, James," Sirius said, grinning as this poor James kid tried to flatten down his hair with a sheepish smile. A boy on the far side of Sirius seemed to very obviously nudge Sirius and shot a rather obvious look to James. Sirius leaned to see down the table. "I'm Sirius Black, by the way." Marina almost said "we know" but stopped herself when she realized how that might've sounded.
"James Potter," James said absently, still trying to fix his hair, now using a knife to try and see his reflection. He was only succeeding in making his hair even messier, if that was possible.
"Sorry about them," called the boy who did the nudging and looking from his spot down the table. "I'm Remus Lupin, and that's Peter Pettigrew," he added, jerking his head to indicate the rather pudgy boy next to James, who was apparently too shy to introduce himself.
"Nice to meet you all," Annie said, grinning one of her happiest grins. "I'm Annie Brennan." Then she kicked Marina under the table.
Puling herself out of her head, Marina smiled down the table. "Marina Stewart-Lautrec," she introduced. Oh, introductions, introductions. She hated introductions. So boring, so much time to get through it all.
Sirius snorted. "Two last names, eh?"
Oh. That wasn't a question she'd been expecting. "Yes," she said. "Two last names. It's sort of a mouthful, but I think it rolls off the tongue nicely." Marina figured it probably wasn't a good idea to bring up her parents just then.
There was one difference between Ravenclaws and Gryffindors right there: where a Ravenclaw probably would've pushed for more information, Sirius simply shrugged and went back to whatever previous conversation he'd been having with the other first year boys.
When the captain of the Gryffindor team rose and grabbed his broom with the rest of last year's Quidditch players, Gideon and Quincy scrambled to finish their breakfast and follow them out. That meant Marina and Annie had to scramble and finish their breakfasts, too, by extension, along with Frank and Caroline and Becky Davies, another Gryffindor in their year, as they wanted to come watch tryouts too. Then, of course, James Potter looked up at the commotion and exclaimed, "You're all headed to tryouts, aren't you? We'll come too, that sounds like such a cool time!" and he gathered up his posse of first year boys, and then one of the first year girls perked her head up and followed us out. Marina never caught her name if she had one.
As a pack of scarlet and gold and noise with a bit of blue in there somewhere, they all migrated out to the pitch. Marina rubbed her hands to warm them in the cool October morning, hoping the sun would come out and cast some warmth down on the grounds. Marina didn't know a whole lot about Quidditch, and Annie knew even less, but from the reactions of the Gryffindors around them (aside from Becky, who had only come to watch some of the older Gryffindor boys fly around on their brooms and show off, according to her), she and Annie were able to piece together an understanding of what was good and what was bad. From how it seemed to be going, Quincy and Gideon were nowhere near as good as the older students. As supportive friends, Marina and Annie cheered though they were wincing along with their classmates.
"Jackson and Prewett sure don't give up, do they?" James commented. He'd sat himself and his group close around the other Gryffindors, remarkably without any qualms from either year. "I mean, look at—oh! Jackson almost slipped off his broom again."
Frank squinted up at poor Quincy, who was indeed hanging by both his hands and one knee. "Nah, he's alright. There he goes, right back up." Quincy had indeed pulled himself back up.
"They do have impressive tenacity, you're right," Annie said.
When all was said and done, Marina and Annie went with the rest of the Gryffindors to meet the tried-out students on the ground of the pitch to hear the results. They got there just in time to hear the Gryffindor captain say, "Better luck next year, boys. Keep practicing; I see some real promise in both of you!" and step away with a friendly clap on Gideon's shoulder.
Though he smelled gross from being a boy in general and also going through tryouts, Marina offered Quincy a consolation hug. "Sorry about not making your team," she said to both the boys. "I know you were both excited for this all summer."
"Yeah, well we'll just have to practice more, just like Killian said," Gideon sighed, scuffing his feet in the dirt as they walked back to the castle.
Marina didn't know what was up with all this referring-to-people-by-their-last-names business, but she did know that Gideon was right. Surely there was a way for aspiring Quidditch players to practice playing without butting into the real teams' practices. She'd nudge Quincy towards looking into it once he got over this disappointment first.
—
In late October, Marina was preoccupied with staring out the tall Charms classroom windows on a blustery Monday afternoon, watching the wind buffet the far off trees in the Forbidden Forest and lost in her thoughts. In about two months, she'd go home for their Christmas holiday, and her mum and papa would be getting married. She hadn't thought much about it until just earlier that week when it occurred to her that the wedding was actually going to happen. Now she was internally kicking herself for not asking about their backstory over summer like she'd intended. Papa's mother would be coming, but Marina had only met her grandmaman maybe once or twice when she was still very small, so maybe she wouldn't be a good person to ask. Some of Mum's friends from school would be there, she thought, but Marina, again, wasn't very keen on talking to people she didn't know. For reasons unknown, Mum hadn't wanted to invite any of her family. That, Marina thought, was very strange. Maybe she'd been disowned somehow? Marina couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Annie stuck her elbow in Marina's side, bringing her back to reality in time to hear Flitwick's end-of-class spiel about homework and whatnot. "…excellent wandwork, today, class, simply excellent!" Flitwick was saying. "I'm very glad you all seem to be achieving proficient results with your engorgement charms. For tomorrow, I want to see records of your out-of-class studying, whether that be notes over pages in the text or charts of your experiment with the spell…" Marina tuned back out as students started to pack up their bags. Flitwick and his "studying records" were a common thing this year, and he must've talked to Slughorn about it because for a week the Potions professor had tried to assign something similar that resulted in more than a few students in the Hospital Wing with unsupervised brewing-related injuries.
She snapped back to attention when Annie stepped hard on her foot. Flitwick was looking at her expectantly over his little spectacles.
"Oh, um, sorry?" Marina got out, straightening in her seat and trying to pretend she hadn't been ignoring her professor.
"Could I ask you something very quickly before you head to your next class?" Flitwick asked.
Marina felt herself go pale. Had he finally had enough of her lack of attention in class? "Is everything alright, Professor?" she asked.
Flitwick nodded and smiled kindly. "Oh yes, yes, of course!" He said nothing else as the class filed out of the room, having been dismissed at some point when Marina had zoned out.
Annie rubbed Marina's shoulder. "I'll meet you outside the door," she said. "I'm sure you're in no kind of trouble, otherwise Professor Flitwick wouldn't be smiling so much." And then she, too, headed out of the classroom, jogging to catch up with Artemis and Lark.
Nothing was wrong; Annie was right. And Flitwick said so himself anyway. Marina packed up her notes and textbook before approaching the podium Flitwick taught from. "What is it, sir?"
"How is your schedule outside of classes, Miss Stewart-Lautrec?" he asked unexpectedly.
Marina furrowed her brow. "I'm sorry?"
Flitwick shrugged. "Do you have much free time? Too bogged down by assignments and studying, perhaps? Anything?"
Now she was just confused. "I, um, have free time enough, Professor…why?"
"How would you feel about tutoring?"
Marina's furrowed eyebrows shot up her forehead. Tutoring? As in, officially? Well, she supposed she wasn't half bad at helping her friends with their Charms troubles. And she had gotten Quincy an O on his Charms exam last year, hadn't she? "I'm only a second year; wouldn't an older student—"
"Oh, no, no, you see," Flitwick cut in, shaking his head a little wildly. Marina was worried his glasses might fall off. "The student I'd like you to tutor is a first year, so all the better, yes? A closer peer and all of that to put him at ease. He's a bit of a timid soul, see, and you're so quick and talented with Charms that I'm sure there'd be no better student to help him."
"Alright, well…who is this boy I'm to tutor then?"
Flitwick's face lit up in what she would almost call relief. "Oh, you'll do it? Wonderful! It's young Peter Pettigrew, in Gryffindor. Is there a day and time this week you would prefer to meet him?"
Well, it wasn't like Marina had much of a life outside of her classes…she had no pressing obligations to her friends. "Today during the free period after classes is alright for me if it's alright with him," she said, intoning it more as a question than a statement.
The little professor nodded happily. "Yes, yes, he did mention he would be happy to meet any time after class this week. I'll send a note down to his next class promptly. Ah—I suppose the library?"
Marina nodded. "That's alright with me, sure."
"Three o'clock in the library, then—thank you ever so much Marina!"
With a bobbing nod and a smile, Marina began to back out of the classroom. "No trouble at all, Professor!" she said, and hurried out the door. Tutoring one of those Gryffindor first year boys…oh dear. Those four had begun to build a bit of a reputation for mischief-makers, always acting like perfect little idiots at meals when Quincy dragged her over to the Gryffindor table. On occasion Quincy and Gideon would invite themselves to the Ravenclaw table to get away from the scene of a future crime. And she had just agreed to tutor one of them in Charms.
She had Herbology to go before meeting Peter in the library, and when Marina had cleared her workspace of spilled dragon fertilizer she dashed up to Ravenclaw, hurrying past Lark, Annie, and Artemis in her haste to collect old notes from Charms lessons of last year. When Marina told the girls the whole story in Herbology, Artemis happily offered her notes—since they were the designated notes to use should your own notes not suffice—that she'd saved from first year. Marina made it past the Eagle and up the stairs and through her trunk and Artemis's trunk and back down the stairs and through the castle to the library in record time.
Peter slinked into the library a few minutes after three, but Marina could hardly blame him for that. The library was sort of out of the way of every other classroom in the castle, and he probably didn't run for his life to get here. Marina waved at him, and when Peter saw her seemed to slump where he stood, dragging his feet across the carpet to the table she'd claimed earlier. With a sullen face, he carefully set his bag on the table and collapsed into a chair across from Marina.
"Hello," she said. "I know we've met, so I'll spare us the pain of an introduction." Thank Merlin. Ugh. Peter nodded and dropped his chin on his folded arms on the table. "So, Charms, eh?" she asked.
Peter nodded again, though it looked more like he was just digging his chin further into his arm. "Flitwick said I needed proper tutoring."
"Well, I've never officially tutored anyone before, but I've helped my friends with their homework loads. That's sort of the same thing, isn't it?" All she was trying to do was make some sort of conversation. This could get very boring very quickly, and the last thing Marina wanted was to get all distant on Peter. "Where should we start, Peter?"
He shrugged. How very helpful. "The beginning, I guess."
Marina nodded and slid Peter's Charms textbook across the table to herself, opening to the first lesson. The textbook's spine cracked when she opened it, and out of curiosity, Marina shut it again before opening it roughly to where she though Flitwick had taught up to about this time last year. It offered her the sweet sound of a fresh spine crack. Usually this was a sound Marina enjoyed because it meant a new book to start devouring, but in this scenario it was probably a problem. In this case, the popping glue meant Peter had likely never even opened his textbook yet.
"Why aren't you reading the textbook?" she asked, head cocked. Gently, Marina set the textbook back down on the table, watching as Peter's face paled and his eyes widened. "The spine's not been cracked yet, which means you've never opened it. Why?"
Peter scrambled back up straight and grabbed for the Charms book. "Er—uh—well—…" he stuttered. And then he dropped his chin to his chest shyly and mumbled something quietly.
Marina furrowed her brow. "Sorry? I didn't catch that."
After drawing a big breath in, Peter said, "James and Sirius don't ever read their textbooks and they're doing fine in Charms."
So Peter didn't do his homework because his friends didn't do their homework. Marina sat back in her seat and regarded the boy across from her thoughtfully. That actually made a lot of sense, having seen those four boys together even as little as she had. The dynamic and pecking order in their clique was clear, even to a relative outsider like her: James was the ringleader, with Sirius as his close second-in-command, and those two certainly could be very overwhelming with their in-your-face-personalities; Remus was a quiet backbone of common sense and rationality; Peter was very much a follower. It was somewhat a mystery why he was so completely integrated in their group, even if it was sort of mean to think of, because he was a little short, chubby, pasty, clumsy, nervous—overall just not at the same sort of level that the other three reigned at. Or, Marina reasoned, he was around because the world needed some sort of counterweight to the other three, especially Sirius and James. Regardless of why, Peter hung around the much more naturally talented James and Sirius and Remus, and though Remus was the sort of boy who was committed to doing his homework, James and Sirius were not. They could sort of get away with skipping homework; Marina remembered first year was mostly just reading work. They were talented enough to get by without it. Still, that wasn't a method that could possibly work for Peter.
"You know, you shouldn't try to emulate others so much," Marina said. "That's it, isn't it? You're copying James and Sirius because they're cool?"
Peter bristled as his face reddened. "No," he said, his tone dripping nervous defensiveness. "I'm not copying them. And what does 'emulate' mean?"
Straightening her posture just a little with the pride of knowing a big word, she quickly answered, "It means copying, but it just sounds so much better." Marina blew out a sigh and waved her hand dismissively. "It doesn't matter though. Peter, you should try to do the reading. Flitwick structures his class so that if you don't read then you miss really important information he won't cover in class. Didn't he tell you all?"
Peter flushed a deeper red and shrugged. "I just don't think reading will help with actually doing it," he muttered.
Marina thought for a moment. It was entirely possible that he really just didn't see the value of reading the book because, again, his prominent role models were James and Sirius, and Remus probably could get by without reading carefully either.
"Alright," she nodded, "that's understandable. You spend a lot of time with people that don't need to read the textbook, right?" Without waiting for confirmation (even though Peter nodded after a moment), she continued. "So look. I did the reading. And, see, I read really, really carefully," Marina said, sliding her old Charms book towards Peter, flipping it open and leafing through the pages for him, showing her folded corners and inked-in margin notes. "I really hate taking reading notes on separate parchment," she confessed quietly, with a very serious expression, "so I make all my notes straight in the textbook, since I bought it and it's mine and I can. I swear, reading the textbook is helpful. I even read the bits Flitwick didn't actually assign, the parts we just went over in class. See, he has his classes read about the background of the spell before he asks them to perform it straight in class because it frees up time to answer questions that may have come up in the reading, or he can offer better instruction to more students, and all because he doesn't have to spend half his classes lecturing over material we can just read about. It's actually a rather genius class structure," Marina gushed.
In total silence, Peter stared down at the marked pages of Marina's textbook while she talked, brow creased in thought. When she was clearly finished and not on the verge of saying anything more, he looked up shyly. "I suppose you're right," he said quietly. "But what about if reading doesn't actually help at all and I'm still rubbish?"
"I think," Marina said slowly, as it was still a very half-baked idea, "knowing why and how the spells work will help at least a little. That's why I'm so good at Charms—I have to know why something works before I can make it work." Then she caught Peter's apprehensive and doubtful look, and backtracked. "But, I mean, maybe you're right. In that case, that's what I'm here for, yeah?" And she smiled, hopefully putting as much cheer behind it as Annie could.
Peter looked away and nodded. "Okay. So I'll try reading the textbook—"
"Maybe try starting back at the beginning," Marina interrupted. "It's not too late to try and catch up from the beginning again if you work at it."
"Okay. I'll go back to the first reading we were supposed to do—Remus will know what it was, so I'll ask him—and…" Here he paused and seemed to be deliberating very hard about something. "And can we meet here again next week?"
Marina beamed. "Yes, that's a fantastic idea! Then you can tell me your progress."
Their meeting didn't last very much longer than that, and Marina packed up all the notes and books and stuff she'd brought, not thinking more about Peter and his Charms problems. She was fairly sure that she'd figured out his trouble, and she was fairly sure she'd come up with a good solution to start with. If only he actually did the reading, all of his need for a tutor might go out the window, and for both their sakes, Marina would be very glad about that. It wasn't that she didn't like this tutoring business, she decided; she just wished she couldn't tutored someone who had real difficulty. That would've been infinitely more fun than telling someone off for not reading the assigned textbook passages.
By the time next Monday rolled around, Marina had noticed that Peter was avoiding her like the plague, and it wasn't even like she saw enough of the Gryffindor first years that it would be a big deal, but somehow this seemed very obvious. It was probably obvious because he was very bad at it. A lot of sudden stops and spinning on his heels in hallways followed by James calling after him in befuddlement, or on Saturday when Quincy had pulled Marina to eat lunch at the Gryffindor table and Peter had spent the whole time very obviously trying not to look in Marina's direction. Nevertheless, he showed up after classes on Monday in the library, and he plopped himself down on a chair across the table from Marina, and resolutely looked down at his lap.
"Well?" she prompted.
Nothing. Peter only started swinging his feet.
"Have you tried reading the textbook?" she asked, impatient to see if she was right.
He sucked in a quick breath. "I didn't read it," he said in a rush.
Marina threw herself back in her chair, disappointed and a little frustrated. "Well, why not?"
He only shrugged. Now, Marina wished she could help him, she really could, but how was she supposed to help someone who wouldn't try to help themselves?
"You've had time to read, haven't you? No other subjects bothering you and taking up your free time?" she tried.
Peter shrugged. "No," he said. "I just didn't get around to it."
Her eyebrows tilted upward in concern. Was he being bullied into not doing his work by James and Sirius? "Your friends aren't making fun of you for it, are they? I'm sure they wouldn't tease you. Remus does his work—"
"That's just it!" Peter burst out. He looked up finally and stared Marina down with his pale blue eyes. "Remus always does his work, and James and Sirius just laugh it off. It doesn't bother Remus that James and Sirius tease him about doing his homework, but I don't want them to laugh at me, too."
Well then. She swallowed, taken aback. This was suddenly a much bigger problem than just poor Peter Pettigrew not doing his homework. "Do you want me to talk to them for you about it? I'm older, so they might listen."
By his reaction (widened eyes, gasp, shaking head), she guessed that was the very wrong thing to suggest. "No, don't! I—I can stand up to them, I promise!"
So she backed off, raising her arms in surrender. "I won't, fine. I'll stay out of it. Just prove to me you can do it, okay?"
Peter hastily agreed, and as if to prove it right then and there, he whipped out his textbook and flipped the cover open to begin reading right away. Marina figured that she'd settle for this. She was bothered by the fact that she had to accidentally threaten him into doing his work, but on the other hand, that was why she was in Ravenclaw and he wasn't, right? Marina knew that she was motivated to do her schoolwork all by herself because it was interesting, and she knew now that Peter was very not motivated by himself.
That's how their tutoring sessions went from then on. Every Monday afternoon, under Marina's watchful eye, Peter read in the textbook, asking a timid question every so often. He wasn't stupid, Marina realized quickly. When he put in the effort, Peter caught on to it all very quickly. It probably helped that he was still working through material Flitwick had already covered in class and hadn't come across anything too new yet, but still. This was progress. Marina could see in his face, as he became more comfortable with being around her and with reading the textbook, that he was also realizing for himself that he wasn't stupid. For her part, Marina was very relieved. She'd suggested, once he caught up to his current class material, that instead of meeting every week, they meet on the first Monday of every month, a suggestion Peter had gladly snatched up.
"I don't know how you did it," Flitwick said to her privately in late November, "but you've managed to turn Mr. Pettigrew totally around in this class. Still not top of the class, but he's in a much better place, that's for sure!"
Marina was pretty convinced, by the time December began and the Forbidden Forest had finished shedding almost all its leaves, that she'd finish this year's first term excellently. Aside from Transfiguration, of course, she was doing well in just about every class—and even Transfiguration was getting better with more and more help from Quincy and Gideon. She'd managed to change a first year's life (hopefully) by convincing him to read his textbooks. Her mum and papa were getting married soon. And even though she found herself growing away from Lark and Artemis a little, her friendships with Annie and Gideon were only growing closer.
Yes, she thought to herself, cuddling up with Maia in bed to fend off the ever-increasing winter chill, second year was going pretty well for her so far.