Monday morning
the Great Hall
The sixth-year boys went down to breakfast as a pack on Monday morning. Ginny was waiting in the common room again, and even though they lost her on the fifth floor, she was already at the Gryffindor table when they arrived. With a jerk of his head, James indicated for everyone to sit down near her, walked around to the opposite side of the table, and still managed to put Nate and Cameron between them.
"I've been thinking," he said to Cameron in an undertone. "How can we get Al to take Mum for a few hours? I don't have anything to bribe him with since McGonagall took the Cloak and the map."
Cameron tipped a platter and slid several kippers onto his plate. "Does your mum know about Maggie McLaggen?"
James's face lit up. "Brilliant! Stick, not carrot. Do you see him?"
"'Bout a third of the way from the end, right next to the lady in question."
Feeling much more cheerful in the knowledge that his brother could not leave without passing him, James loaded his own plate. He spotted Galahad as the owls flew in and automatically cleared a space for him, but the tawny owl flew past him and landed on Ginny's shoulder.
"It's from Harry!"
James's heart skipped a beat before he remembered there hadn't been time for an owl to fly home and back since he'd flipped her off last night. Harry must have written just because. James groaned. This was sure to be embarrassing. Ginny tore open the envelope and began to read, her breakfast all but forgotten.
"She reminds me of the seventh-year girls whose boyfriends have already left Hogwarts," Cameron said.
James spared his mother a brief glance, but so far she wasn't doing anything worse than twirling her hair around one finger and smiling goofily at the parchment.
"I think it's sweet." Holly Jordan sat down beside James, flashing a shapely ankle and calf as she raised her robes to climb over the bench. "Your parents are really cute together, James."
"They're parents. It's not possible for them to be cute." James discreetly pushed his elbow into Cameron's ribs; he was leaning far too close in his efforts to check out Holly.
"Well, I hope my husband still sends me love letters when I've been married as long as they have."
"Who's sending love letters?" Al and Maggie stopped behind James, although they weren't holding hands like usual.
"Mum and Dad."
"Sorry I asked."
"Listen, I need you to do me a favor."
"No."
James grabbed his brother's arm as he made to leave.
"Mum is all over you. I'm not doing any favors until she goes home."
"Yeah, well, that's kind of the point. I need you to spend a couple of hours with her today, give me a break."
Al looked at Maggie, then back at his brother. "We have plans. Maggie has to revise for Divination, then we're—"
"Plans I promise not to tell Mum about, if you just meet her for lunch or a walk around the lake or something. One hour, Al, come on. I've had her for three whole days!"
"Ask Lily."
"I don't know Lily's secrets."
"It's all right, Al," Maggie said softly. "I can finish my dream diary while you're with your mum, and then we'll go down to the lake."
"Fine. I'll ask her now. Happy?"
"Very," James said, piling more eggs onto his plate.
()()()()
Monday morning break
the Charms corridor
"Can't you do something to make yourself less conspicuous?" James said as he and Ginny queued up outside the Charms classroom.
"Like what?" Their progress through the castle had been painstaking; everyone wanted to slow down or turn around and stare whenever they spotted her.
"I dunno. Maybe Lily has some school robes you could borrow?"
Ginny glanced down. Her robes weren't flashy, but the colors did stand out amongst the uniform black.
"I have a couple of black ones I could wear instead."
He grunted, which she took as a sign of approval. He still hadn't apologized, not for the obscene gesture nor his hurtful words. She had lain awake most of the night staring at James's dot in the boys' dormitory and thinking about what to do next, but the only decision she had made was that she wasn't going home. Go home now and James won, as clearly as if she waved a white flag of surrender in the middle of the Great Hall.
Harry's letter this morning had made her miss him even more. He was as stumped about James as she was, but the hardest thing about being here was the isolation, the sense that she didn't belong, and she missed Harry's support. Oh, he had asked about James and how it was going, but … well, she wasn't ready to admit just how bad it was. James constantly trying to lose her; Al avoiding her in the common room; the way Louis had introduced her in the prefect meeting not as his aunt, but as James's mother. Rose leaving the prefect meeting without speaking to her. Lily arranging to meet only when she thought she wouldn't be seen.
Professor Viridian opened the door, and Ginny followed James into the classroom, fingering Harry's letter in her pocket.
()()()()
"Potter, what are you reading?" Professor Viridian stopped his lecture on the Aguamenti charm.
James looked up from his scroll of notes to protest he wasn't reading anything when Ginny spoke.
"It's a letter from my husband, Professor."
And so it was; James recognized his dad's scrawl. He stared from his mother to his professor, half amused, half apprehensive. Please, please don't make her read it out loud.
"And you have nothing better to do in my class than read personal correspondence?"
"Well … I have heard it all before, Professor."
James slid a little farther away from her, surprised at her audacity. But then again, Ginny hadn't spent six years under Viridian's iron thumb.
"Very well, then, perhaps you would like to demonstrate."
Ginny rose from her seat and walked towards the front of the classroom. "Aguamenti," she said clearly, sending a stream of water from the tip of her wand into the bin in a neat arc.
"This is a N.E.W.T. class, Mrs. Potter," Viridian said with a sneer. "Nonverbal spells only."
She gave the professor a disdainful look, then returned her attention to the bin. She set it on fire, extinguished it, vanished the rubble, and conjured a new one, all without saying a word. James and Cameron grinned at each other as Ginny caught the shiny new bin in midair and set it on the desk. Its metallic ring echoed through the silent classroom.
"Is there anything else you would like me to demonstrate, Professor?" She sounded polite, but James heard the ice behind her tone.
"What were your N.E.W.T. scores, young lady?"
James's smile slid off his face. If she told that, then everyone would expect him….
"I earned an outstanding in Charms."
He breathed a little easier. At least she hadn't listed all of them.
Viridian raised his eyebrows. "At N.E.W.T.-level?"
"At O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. It was my best subject."
"I thought that was Quidditch," Viridian said snidely.
"Hogwarts didn't offer a N.E.W.T. in Quidditch when I was a pupil."
James sniggered, and so did several of his classmates.
Viridian glared round at all of them. "In the future, if you are going to sit in on my lessons, you will pay attention. Even if you have heard it all before."
"Of course, Professor."
Ginny resumed her seat beside James and tucked the letter in her bag.
"You should have used your Bat-Bogey Hex," James whispered.
"Watch out, or I'll use it on you." But she smiled.
()()()()
Monday afternoon
the guest suites
James and Cameron stood outside Ginny's room, waiting for her to change before heading outside to Herbology.
"Well? How do I look?" She spread both hands wide and turned in a circle.
She was wearing plain black robes with a red and gold rosette where the house patch should be and had pulled her long hair, usually worn loose, into a single plait halfway down her back.
"You look like Lily."
"That's good, right?"
James wasn't sure. She would be less conspicuous like this, less likely to draw attention from across the halls or the courtyard, but she looked young, not like someone's mum.
"I dunno, mate, I think a lot more posters will go up today," Cameron muttered.
"What posters?" Ginny fell into step beside them.
James said nothing, but she had learned Cameron had no immunity to her questioning look and sent it in his direction.
"There are a lot more Harpies posters on the dormitory walls than there were last week," Cameron said.
"As there should be," Ginny said promptly. "They've put together an excellent team this year."
"No, Mum. Your Harpies posters."
"Really?" She sounded pleased.
James sent her a dark look, and her expression sobered. Briefly.
"Which posters?"
"Your 2004 Player of the Season seems to be the most popular," Cameron said.
James didn't even know Cameron knew which posters were which. James hadn't—at least not before this summer.
"Well, it certainly sold the most copies. I had just announced my retirement when it came out."
"Do we have to talk about this?" James said as they crossed the Entrance Hall.
"Al is going to meet me after Herbology, so I'll see you at dinner," Ginny said.
"Okay," James said, resisting the urge to cheer just to rub her nose in it. She had been a little less obnoxious today. Still sticking to him like a bowtruckle on fairy eggs, but not quite so mouthy—Charms notwithstanding. Still, he was more than happy to turn her over to Al for an hour. Maybe James could even get some distance from her during Herbolog, if she visited with Longbottom.
She had circles under her eyes and seemed tired, like she hadn't slept well. As if James really had hurt her feelings yesterday. Which was what he had been trying to do, hurt her badly enough that she would go home and let him alone, but the idea he might have succeeded didn't make him feel victorious at all. More like … ashamed and guilty. Especially when he thought about what Cameron had said last night, that it must be hard for her to come back to the place where she had lost friends and a brother. James knew he needed to apologize, especially for what he had said outside the DADA classroom, but he was still angry.
He adjusted his rucksack on his shoulder as they passed the vegetable gardens. Ginny and Cameron were talking about the Harpies. James had taken the easy way out yesterday when she asked him what the problem was. It was about more than her being here. More even than the owls crossing and pranking McGonagall before he got the Howler. And he felt more than a little trepidation about his dad finding out about his attitude this weekend. Harry didn't care much about detentions as long as James's marks were good, but he did care about Ginny, and he would not be pleased to hear how James had been treating her.
James entered the greenhouse behind Cameron, who had opened the door for Ginny, and dropped his bag by their table. He needed to find a way to apologize, and he needed to do it before Ginny wrote back to Harry.
Because the last thing James needed was both of his famous parents following him around.
a/n: So, I'm a little early tonight :) It feels to me like this story is dragging a bit, so you might see some random extra updates now and again. Also, for my regular readers (love and ice cream to you!), I'm working on the 8th year fic for NaNo. Again. New excerpts are up on the Camp NaNo webpage (linked on my profile), and I will add more as the month goes on. Thanks for reading!