Chapter 3—130 DAYS BEFORE

Five days after McGonagall had assigned us a project, I was already finished. I hardly had homework in any other classes, and figured that the earlier I start, the more time I'll have to revise it, and then the better I do on it.

How wrong I was.

"I'm terribly sorry class, but the project that I assigned last Tuesday is no longer needed. Instead, I am going to assign your final project now, and you will have until the end of the year to complete it, but on your own time. You will not get any class time to work on this project. This is a new idea that the Ministry of Magic has discussed with Dumbledore. It sharpens your skills of teamwork, initiative, responsibility and hopefully, Transfiguration." She rolled her eyes slightly, as if the whole thing was a waste of time to her.

"Miss," Kelly raised her hand tentatively—she had always been a little frightened by McGonagall. "Sorry—you said er, teamwork? Will this be with partners?"

McGonagall's lips spread from their permanent tight line, which I assumed was as close as she was ever going to get to a smile and said, "Yes Kelly."

Almost immediately, heads turned in all directions, friends meeting friends' eyes and deciding then and there who was with whom.

McGonagall cleared her throat, and said, "And before you decide who will be with whom... I have assigned partners written down here."

I groaned in unison with my class as McGonagall pointedly ignored us all. She pulled out a clipboard and, clearing her throat again—was that another person with a cold?—she called out, "Henrietta Finn with Marlene Smith," I was instantly jealous. One of Henrietta's family members was a registered Animagus. I craned my neck to watch Marlene smile at the shy Ravenclaw, and Marlene caught my eye, smirking at me. I stuck my tongue at her, shaking my head at her luck. After calling out another few irrelevant names, she called, "Janice Hernandez with Grace Kwan," and there was suppressed laughter and the sound of two girls high-fiving each other. I stared meaningfully at McGonagall, seeing as three of my best mates had gotten the perfect partners, I tried to convey a message of please put me with someone good to her. "Kelly Morgan with Remus Lupin, and Lily Evans with James Potter."

Raised eyebrows, I turned around in my seat to meet his mischievous eyes. I shook my head slightly as he took the place beside me, putting his head in his hands and watching me.

"Hey pardner," He said with what was a pathetic Southern American accent.

"Oh God," I muttered, opening my notebook and taking my quill as McGonagall flew the project outline in front of each partner. As I scribbled my name in the top corner of my outline package, I looked over to see him sucking on his quill. "Is that a sugarquill?"

"You bet," he said. "Want one?"

"I'd love it." I said gratefully, happy for something to do with my hands besides write notes. I was a very fidgety person you see, and not that Potter made me uncomfortable or anything, but it's not as if we were that close. I'd never had to work on anything with him, but I knew he was good at Transfiguration, so I hoped he could get us out of this one with a good mark.

"Listen," I said, after nodding thanks to him and beginning to suck on my sugarquill. "Transfiguration isn't exactly one of my finer subjects."

"Luckily for you Evans, it's my finest subject." He smirked proudly, as I stared at him in doubt. He leaned over me for the outline, and brushed against my forearm as he took the paper from my grasp and wrote his name in his tight writing beside mine in my wide, bubbly writing. He then continued to read it, and once he was finished, he placed it back in front of me.

"Seems easy enough. All we've to do is write a paper on the differences of transfiguring live things with inanimate objects, and I was thinking in our presentation we could do a transfiguration of like, a rat to a teacup—first year stuff, y'know—and then we could do a teacup to a rat and then talk about what we did differently and..." He paused. "Am I taking over?" He asked bashfully. "Sorry, Sirius used to always say I always took over in group projects, and I just—"

"No!" I interrupted, cutting him off quickly. "Really, it was good. I think we should do something a bit harder than a rat and a teacup though, just to show our skills of course, and yes. What you said, we'd just talk about what we did differently in the different transfigurations. I think it's a brilliant idea."

He looked down, rubbing the back of his neck as if shy. "Well, um. Good, I guess." And he chuckled nervously. I almost laughed out loud at how terribly awkward he was being.

"Are you OK?" I laughed a bit to ease the tension.

"Well, I—" He sighed. "I really like Transfiguration and I just don't want to seem like a drag or something, but I really do want to get a good grade..."

"Potter," I said seriously. "This is me you're talking to. I want a good grade just as bad as you do, trust me." I chuckled and touched his knee, and finally, he looked up at me.

"Cool." He said, in a way that made me take my hand off his knee instantly. His normal flirtatious leer was back, and I hated it. "And you know what day it is today Evans?"

"Um, Monday?" I asked in a monotone, dreading what was coming next.

"January 14th!" He prompted me, as if this should give me some sort of revelation as to what he was so excited about. "Evans! It's a month till Valentine's Day!"

"Alright," I laughed at his giddiness. Suddenly, he became even shyer than before as he sat down in front of me and started stuttering.

"Well, I mean, if y'know if you want t-to I'd um, shucks, will ya be my Valentine?" He burst out louder than appropriate and the groups beside us turned in their seats to stare.

"No, Potter." I said loudly, so they'd hear.

"Please?" He wailed on his knees, so loud that even more students turned in their seats. I caught the eye of Marlene who, again, was smirking at me. I turned back to Potter.

"No." I said strongly, warning him again that he was going too far. "Get up."

"Not until you say yes!" He moaned, and now McGonagall looked up. I met her stern eyes and shrugged an apology, motioning to the whimpering James Potter on the floor.

"Mr. Potter," McGonagall said, and that was all that needed to be said. He stood up in a second, saluted to her like a soldier, and sat back down, back to writing on our project outline.

I laughed to myself as I watched him hunched over our project so enthusiastically it was almost cute. He looked up to me then, with the hopeful eyes of a toddler, and I smiled at him.

"What?" He asked again, almost self-consciously.

Again, I couldn't help thinking how endearing he was being. I just wanted to ruffle his hair in my hands and tell him to get back to work. This was however, inappropriate for our platonic relationship, and so I simply smiled and said, "I'll take it from here,"

"Oh, no it's OK." He claimed, guarding the paper like it was his lifeline. "I've got this."

"James, I feel useless." I insisted tiredly after about five minutes of watching him like he was a sitcom on the telly. A rather repetitive sitcom, come to think of it: he simply had endless ideas, never even stopping to stretch out his hand, as if it wasn't completely cramped up by then.

He looked up quickly. "Oh, you er," He laughed calmly, running a hand through his hair. "You called me James."

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. Had I? Oh God, I had. "I—I'm sorry."

"No," He insisted. "It's OK. Kinda nice," He said slowly, as if not completely sure.

"I didn't mean to, honestly." I swore, biting the last bite nervously on my sugarquill.

"Want another?" He looked at my empty hand. I was thankful for the change of subject.

I probably should have said no right then, but my fidgety hands were just too much to handle. "Please." I said gratefully, taking the new one and popping it straight into my mouth.

"Fidgety hands?" He guessed, going back to work.

Surprised, I looked at him carefully. "How'd you know?"

"I've got the same thing," He said calmly. I watched his hands a lot after that and let me tell you, I did not see his hands twitch even once.

"Thank you class, and remember," She sighed as if it pained her to say it, "Your paper and presentation is not due until June 22nd. Have a nice day."

Sugarquill still in mouth, I packed up my bag and slung it over one shoulder, smiling at him. "This wasn't so bad," I said, and truthfully, it actually wasn't.

He looked at me like he didn't know what to say to that, and he simply smiled. Remus and Kelly appeared beside us, asking our ideas for the project.

"Potter came up with our brilliant idea," I said, purposely referring to him by his surname. I continued to explain our 'live show' idea, which Kelly and Remus agreed was excellent.

As I boasted about my partner to my friends, I realized how shy James was being. Normally—although I couldn't think of any recent moments—he would brag about himself even more than I was, staying on the topic of his awesomeness for as long as possible.

"Alright," He had laughed. "Can we talk about someone else's project ideas now?"

I watched as he listened intently to Remus and Kelly's ideas, wondering who on earth had knocked him off his high horse. Tackled him off, more like, I thought to myself, watching as he smiled, as if relieved the subject was not about him anymore.

He looked up then, and caught me staring. He nodded to me in acknowledgement, the relieved smile still on his face as we turned into the Great Hall.

Curious, I pulled Sirius away from our group once he and Peter had caught up to us.

Now, Sirius Black and I weren't friends: I didn't hate him like I usually hated Potter, but we didn't talk aside from the polite, "How was your holidays?" or "What did you get for question five on Charms homework?" But as he jutted out his defined bottom jaw and stared at me curiously, I got down to the point.

"I know this sounds stupid but um, why has Potter's enormous head suddenly deflated?" I said, staring at Potter pointedly while he took a seat in between Peter and Remus at the Gryffindor table.

"Because I told him to," He said proudly, puffing his chest out much like Potter used to. "And I'm glad people are finally starting to notice," He groaned as if it had been so obvious all along. But then... how long had this been going on?

"What d'you mean you told him to? And when?"

He smiled at me as if he shared an inside joke that I wasn't a part of. It was a sly, half-smirk that made me wonder if I'd come to school in my pants.

"What?" I demanded.

"D'you fancy him, then?" He said excitedly.

"No!" I said too quickly. He took my answer for its opposite. "Black, listen, I don't!" I insisted. "Honestly, please, don't say that!"

"I didn't say anything," He sing-songed.

"Listen, Black," I said in my most serious tone, eyes darkening as I stared him down. "If your lie gets to him, he'll never stop asking me out. I don't fancy him, and if you tell him I do, I'll..." I paused.

"You'll, what?" He smirked, obviously pleased with him. I wanted nothing more than to sock him right in that disgusting smirk-mouth.

However, I simply smirked back, reminding myself of the one thing I had against him: "I'll tell Marlene you used to fancy her."

He chuckled, seemingly unconcerned. "I never fancied Marlene,"

"And as the pads on my feet beat to the tempo of my heart,

I am reminded it is our families that keep us apart,

Oh why must my last name be so dark, so bleak?" I recited from memory, stopping halfway through the poem. My point had gotten across.

"Nice poem," He commented calmly, but his ears were reddening by the second.

I laughed out loud. "I found that poem shoved under my dorm's door last year, addressed to Marlene."

"Maybe you shouldn't have read it, then," He snapped, particularly angry about this 'nice poem'. He worked to calm himself, and I laughed again.

"Listen, I have something on you—whether you care to admit to it or not—and you think you have something on me—which, by the way, you don't" I stressed the word. "So by law of nature, we both keep our mouths shut of any rumours." I said, making sure he looked me in the eyes as I took his calloused hand in mine. "Deal?"

"Fine." He said gruffly, shaking hands, and promptly leaving to join his mates eating lunch.

Once I sat beside Grace and poured myself a cup of juice, I finally sighed, relieved. If Sirius ever told Potter that I fancied him, Potter would go ballistic, and right when I was actually starting to like being with him. Taking a sip of OJ, I looked up at Marlene through my lashes, wondering what might have happened if she'd ever found that poem from Sirius. Would she have deciphered the clues of the writer, as I had? Would she have broken up with Mark McKinnon, her boyfriend whom she was still happily dating?

But she looked happy, at that alone was enough to ease the guilt that I felt from stealing her note. One day maybe, when Sirius had gotten over his embarrassment from it, I might show her.

Authour's Note: Tell me what you thought of this chapter! Do you like that Sirius had a thing for Marlene? Do you want to hear more of that backstory? Review for me and tell me anything!

Thanks for reading,

-Taylor