Moments

I don't own any of the characters you may recognize

Chapter 6:

"Who are you going to Hogsmeade with?" Laney Daniels asked.

"Fred."

Laney slapped my chest, "no silly I mean like on a date."

"Its male-bonding day" I replied.

"That's such a shame because I was thinking you and I could possibly hang out" Laney pouted. That would probably work on some other bloke, but not me.

"Sorry" I said and I tried to slip away, but she grabbed my arm.

"You can't be spending all day with Fred."

"I've got plans, and none of them include you" I said extracting my arm. "Excuse me."

I stalked away. I noticed Ali's short haired friend was glaring at me from the couches but I ignored her.

I slipped out of the tower and headed towards the great hall. I didn't see Ali at our table so I figured she was probably still in her dorm. That was okay I figured I'd see her sometime later during the day. Besides it's not like we needed to be together twenty four seven.

I ate a couple of pieces of bacon before Fred and the other guys came down.

"I thought you'd be upstairs saying goodbye to your girlfriend."

"Nope. Hurry up and eat, we gotta lot to do today" I said.

"Just for that I'm taking my time."

We hit up WWW first and ended up spending most of our day there. Uncle George's new creation doesn't have a name yet, but he let us take samples. It was a potion you slip into someone's drink and when they try to talk they'll end up making animal sounds every third word. The more they try to talk the worse it'll get until eventually their face will start to transform into said animal's shape. Once you have an animal's head it takes at least two hours to wear off. At least that's how Uncle George described it. We won't really know until we try it out. Next we hit up Mia's. I remembered Ali suggesting I should send McGonagall a pizza and I suddenly came up with a brilliant idea. I told Fred all about it, and then we sweet talked Mia into letting us borrow her kitchen for a morning. We set it up for a Tuesday, since that was her least busy morning.

Afterwards we went to the Three Broomsticks for drinks.

I spotted Ali at a table with her friends. I went over to say high while Fred ordered drinks.

"Hey, beautiful" I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and gave her a peck on the cheek.

She frowned.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"No, everything is fine." There was a steel edge to her voice that let me know she was lying.

"Ali" I lifted her chin so I could see into her eyes.

"It's nothing, I promise. We'll talk back at the castle. Go hang out with your friends."

Something was clearly off with her.

"Okay, I'll catch up with you later." I kissed her cheek and went to the table with Fred and our other band mates.

Brendan was explaining his date from hell as I approached.

"You always seem to attract the crazy birds" I said taking a sip of the drink Fred ordered for me.

"Moira Frost wasn't crazy, we went out for two months" Brendan said.

"You dumped her after she set you on fire, remember" Jace said with a laugh.

"I forgot about that" Braden muttered.

"Hey guys."

I looked up to see three fellow seventh year Gryffindors Danielle, Mandy, and Valerie.

"Everywhere else is full, would you mind if we sat with you?" soft-spoken Valerie asked. I know she was pitching her voice low on purpose. She was trying to make her doe-y voice match her doe-eyes to make her seem all innocent. I happen to have a firsthand account that she's not that innocent.

"Sure" Jace said and he began making room.

We all scooted over so the girls could sit down.

"How is it you always manage to nab all the hot girls?" Jace asked as we were heading back to the castle.

I ignored him. It wasn't my fault Valerie wouldn't laugh at any of his jokes or that she wouldn't stop rubbing up against me.

"It's because his name is Potter and he plays Quidditch" Brendan piped.

I scoffed. I wouldn't take any girl seriously who only wanted me for my name. I found the shit quite irritating really. "Maybe it's because of my dashing good looks" I said trying to play it off. Ali wasn't like that, was she? I mean after all I'm the one who came onto her and not the other way around.

"It certainly isn't because of your huge head" Fred added.

I shook my head, it's not big. "You don't want to date a girl like Valerie anyway. She seems like one of those clingy, nagging, kinds of girls who'll threaten to slit her wrist if you ever tried to break up with her."

"Who wants a date? I just want a shag" Jace replied.

"With that ugly mug of yours you'll be lucky if you can get a girl to snog you, let alone go all the way" Brendan said.

"Shove off" Jace pushed him, causing the two of them to break into a mini pushing war.

If anything that's why they don't get dates, too immature.

"Since we're on the subject of birds, yours looked pretty pissed when she left the pub" Fred said.

I hadn't even noticed when she left.

"Something's up. It's probably pms that's why I stopped at Honeydukes to get buy her chocolate."

Fred snorted. "I don't think that's it. She was probably pissed because three hot girls were all but sitting in your lap not even twenty feet away from her."

Was she jealous? Could be, but she seemed to have a problem before Valerie and her crew showed up.

"Nah, Ali knows she has nothing to be jealous of."

"You, my friend, are an idiot" Fred clapped me on the back. "I hope you bought the super deluxe box, you're going to need it."

"You didn't have to buy me chocolate" Ali said. We were in our private room, and she was still in a bad mood. It took me fifteen minutes just trying to talk her into coming here.

"I wanted to" I replied.

"I bought my own chocolate, but I can eat yours since it's here" she shrugged.

I guess that's the best 'thank you' I was going to get.

"You're upset talk to me."

When she didn't reply I bit back a groan of frustration.

"Are you mad at me because I was with the guys today instead of you? That wasn't really my fault. The guys were complaining that I haven't been around lately."

She scoffed, "Of course because your mister popularity. James, I don't care if you hang out with your friends" she said sarcastically.

"Oh"

"Truthfully I don't care who you hang out with. It's not like I'm your girlfriend and I have to constantly wonder who you're with or what you're doing."

My God, Fred was right. I could hear his voice saying "Told you so" in my head.

"You are my girlfriend."

"You never asked me to be your girlfriend."

I laughed and then realized, from her raised eyebrows, that she was serious. "Nobody actually does that. I asked you on out on a date. You said yes we've had a good time. We've been making out and fooling around since then, that makes you my girlfriend."

"No that just makes me the girl you're currently sleeping with!"

"I don't fool around with girls I'm not dating. I don't have private rooms where I can be alone with them. I don't show them secret passages ways out of school. I don't take them to my favorite restaurant. I don't buy them chocolate when I think they're pmsing and I definitely don't show them my family heirlooms."

"You think I'm pmsing?"

"Is that seriously all you got out of that?" I asked. I grabbed her shoulders forcing her to look me in the eyes. "I like you, a lot. I care about you. I don't give a shit about any other girl, only you."

She didn't believe me, I could see it in her eyes.

"I'm serious. You're the only girl I like. I…You…." I tried not to blush, I can't believe I'm actually admitting this, "I was a virgin when we met. You're the only girl I eve slept with."

"Really?" she asked her eyes going big.

"Would I be blushing if I was lying?" I asked doing my best to stop blushing.

"I didn't know. There are all those rumors."

"Lies."

"You don't stop them."

"Well it's not like they're negative."

She slapped my shoulder.

"Girls throw themselves at you all the time."

"But I don't act on it" I replied. "Besides it's not really me they want. They're after the Potter name. Everyone knows Potters are famous, rich, and good looking."

"Let's not forget incredibly modest."

"And incredibly modest. You're not like them."

"I'm not? How do you know I'm just not dating you so you'll by me chocolate when I'm moody?" I was glad to see she was in a joking mood.

I placed my arm around her. "Because of that day we met on the train. I crashed into you and you didn't get mad. You also didn't start immediately fawning over me either. And after you came back from where ever you went you didn't throw yourself at me like two of your friends were doing. You didn't even pay me any attention. I know because I spent nearly the whole ride staring at you."

"I thought you were full of yourself and I wasn't going to throw myself at you like Gina and Rochelle were doing. I was seriously wondering why you stayed in our compartment for so long. I had half a mind to go find Laney and tell her where you were at."

"You wouldn't have done that."

"You aren't the only person she annoys. She talks about you nonstop in our dorm. She has this framed picture of you that she keeps under her pillow that she takes out and kisses every night"

"She does not!"

"She does. If I were you I'd be more worried about the lock of hair she wears around her neck in a locket."

"Tell me you're joking."

"I swear to Merlin, it's no joke."

"I'll do anything you want, give you anything if you burn the picture and locket" I said suddenly feeling hot. Its one thing to think a girl is crazy about you, quite another to find out she's just crazy.

"Why would I do that? She's in love with you" Ali teased.

"She thinks she's in love with me."

"Getting the hair out of that locket is going to be hard. She never takes it off. If you really want me to do it you'll have to work for it" Ali said as she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me.

All thoughts of Laney and her craziness left my mind as I kissed her back.

(For some reason FF won't take my page break here, so just imagine a line going through)

"By the way, that wasn't the first time we met" Ali said as I ran my fingers through her hair.

I have no idea what time it is. Probably pass curfew. But I didn't care, I didn't want to move.

"It wasn't? So how did we first meet?"

"It was during my first year, your second" she said as she traced a lazy pattern over my chest. "I was having a bad day in potions. This Slytherin jerk was harassing me and I really wanted to curse him but Professor Grieves was there and I couldn't do anything. I was so mad that when class ended I stormed out of the room and suddenly found myself covered in this red and gold gloopy stuff. I wasn't the only one covered in it , but I was already mad. You were standing there laughing your head off with your cousin Fred and a couple other second years. I pulled out my wand, marched up to you and said 'which one of you gits did that?'"

"That was you. I remember. You were adorable. Had really big eyes, like a Japanese cartoon"

"Anime" she corrected.

"Yeah, that. Anyway I apologized and told you that I was just trying to get the Slytherins."

"And I said if you wanted to prank Slytherins then you should do it at the entrance to their dorms, rather than the potions class and I stormed off."

I remembered looking at her walking away and thinking 'who was that?' but I never bothered to find out. Those were the days when I was still disappointed with Al for not making Slytherin. I played a lot of pranks on first year Slytherins back then. At least I did until my mum sent me a howler for challenging the first years to touch the whoming willow and one of them ended up getting injured.

"It took two days to get all of it out of my hair."

"Sorry about that" I said kissing her hair.

"It's okay, I forgive you" she said and then her breaths evened out as she fell asleep.