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4 6
ALL THE PRETTY FLAWS
MUSICAL MOOD :
CHRISTINA AGUILERA - WHAT A GIRL WANTS
"That's my girl."
"Potter!"
I felt a sliver of panic as James tipped his head back, his eyes closed and his chest barely rising with shallow breaths. Considering the state I had found him in, there was a chance that he was just sleepy.
Or he was having a bad reaction to the antidote I had made him take.
Both were viable options at this point and neither were conducive to getting him out of here without earning us both life-long detentions.
"James." I patted his cheek but he didn't move and I slid closer to him again, fingers pressing against his jawline as my knees dug into his thigh. "Please." My voice sounded a little whiny and frantic and there was a fair chance that I was already crying, but I didn't care. "Look at me. Please?"
My heart stumbled when his eyelids opened, not fully, and then his head dropped to the side where I still had my hand on his cheek. He was looking at me - cloudy and vague - and I was frantically going through Pembrooke's Potion Prognostics in my head, trying to find any signs of poisoning. His pupils were still too wide and I felt the scattered beat of his heart pulsing against his throat like a broken metronome, but I didn't know if any of this was normal - if the antidote was working.
"How - How are you feeling?" I wasn't sure what I wanted him to say but just hearing his voice would have been enough. I needed him to be OK more than I wanted to run away from this - him.
He blinked at me, slowly, like it was a feat of strength, and then turned his head away with a soft, ragged snort. "Great."
He had closed his eyes again and I watched him for a second, feeling entirely helpless. I had to get him out of here but I didn't know how - where. I couldn't just drag a piss-drunk James Potter through the castle all the way up to Gryffindor tower and hope that nobody would notice.
"Potter."
He didn't react and I shook him by the shoulder, unable to keep the panic out of my voice. "We can't stay here."
"Just go, Woodley." He groaned and, even though his words bled into each other, they felt harsh enough to make me flinch.
But I ignored it - I had to. After all, this was to be expected, wasn't it? Drunk or not, he must have felt it; the effect of the love potion leaving his system. I had once read in a book that it felt like coming down from the best drug and waking up from a nightmare at the same time.
"Come on, you have to get up." I pulled on his arm, but he was heavy and sluggish and entirely uncooperative as he lay sprawled on Slughorn's scruffy yellow sofa. This was futile; I couldn't move 180 pounds of Quidditch-player by myself. He hadn't even budged and I was already panting. The old Potions master might have turned a blind eye to his favourite student sleeping it off on his couch but I couldn't leave him alone like this; drunk and half sick from love potion withdrawal.
"James." I tugged on his arm again, harder, and he groaned in protest as he pushed himself up, staggering dangerously, before stabilising himself by grabbing the edge of Slughorn's desk. The impact knocked over two candles and a stack of books, but at least he was standing.
Kind of.
I made to move towards him but he stretched out his arm before I could get any closer. "I'm fine," he slurred and then his hand slipped and he bumped into the desk again, taking down the remaining three candles, two of which rolled off the table and clattered to the floor.
Bleeding Circe, this was a disaster.
"You're not fine. You can't even walk." This time, I ignored his protests and slipped his arm over my shoulder. I felt the impact of his weight immediately, the press of his body as he leaned into me, and pushed my other hand against his chest to keep him upright.
We made it down the dungeon hallway, entangled and unsteadily, more falling than walking. Rounds were predictable enough and we didn't run into anybody until we reached the Entrance Hall, but then I heard a jumble of voices, a laugh, and I froze.
Brogan Roberts was leaning against the bannister of the grand staircase a little too casually, especially considering that he was supposed to be on patrol, talking to a wildly giggling Cora Bletchley.
Not that I was in a position to judge, really.
In a knee-jerk reaction, I grabbed James's sweatshirt and roughly shoved him against the wall. The brazier next to the doors had conveniently burned out and the lack of light was potentially enough to conceal us until they had moved on.
"What the f-" James began but I had covered his mouth with my hand before he could ruin everything and gave him a wide-eyed look, hoping that he wasn't too sloshed to catch on. I was holding my breath, waiting for the inevitable catastrophe, the wandlight in my face and Brogan's and Cora's perplexed faces as they drew their gossip-fueled conclusions. But they didn't. They didn't even notice the fumbled manoeuvre as Cora snickered again and Brogan grinned at her, neither of them particularly vigilant.
Maybe they wouldn't see us after all.
Maybe I could still salvage this.
I willed my racing heart to calm down, but then I looked up and it stopped all together. James's head was resting against the wall, my hand still over his mouth, and he was looking at me with heavy-lidded eyes; staring. I should have looked away, but I had forgotten how to. I dropped my hand, feeling the familiar prickle of heat in my cheeks as I tried not to notice the freckles along the bridge of his nose that were few enough to count or the curve of his lips or his sharp jawline or the way his hair fell into his face, tousled and tangled.
And then, stupidly, my gaze caught on his and my heart spasmed. Painfully.
"What was that?" Cora's voice echoed from the high ceiling, loud enough to startle me, and I turned my head to find her and Brogan walking towards the Great Hall, wands raised.
"I bet it's Peeves," Brogan groaned as he pushed open the doors to the dining hall with Cora at his heels. "He's taken to haunting the house-elves around the castle lately."
"Brilliant." Cora sighed and then the door fell shut behind them, plunging the Entrance Hall into complete silence again.
I didn't wait, which was careless and dumb, but I was losing my already limited cool. This wasn't me - breaking into classrooms and sneaking drunk boys through the castle - and I needed it to end. Throwing caution to the wind, I hoisted James's arm back over my shoulders and then pulled him towards the heavy wooden doors that should have been locked but never were, slipping out onto the grounds.
The air was cold and wet with fine drizzle pricking my skin like tiny needles, but I barely noticed. James didn't ask where we were going, probably because he was too out of it to register much anymore, and I prayed to Circe that he would stay conscious just for two more minutes.
We half stumbled down the slope to the small cabin at the edge of the Forbidden Forest and I tried not to overthink it as I knocked on the door a little too frantically. James was growing heavier by the second and I could feel my grip on him slipping as he slumped against me, mumbling something incomprehensible into my hair.
"Alrigh', alrigh'!" Professor Hagrid had flung open the door, his grey hair wild as it flew out behind him. "I'm comin' yeh bleedin' -" He stopped dead in his tracks, his bushy eyebrows rising with his wide-eyed look that shifted from me to James and back to me again.
"I'm sorry Professor," I said, panting with the effort of keeping a barely conscious James upright. "But I didn't know where else to go."
I didn't know what to feel - what to think - so I focused on the basics; on the warm clay mug I was cradling in my palms, on the soft crackling of the fireplace, on the scattered drumming of rain, on James's slow, even breaths that made his chest rise and fall gently.
Professor Hagrid closed the window with a snap and walked back into the crammed sitting room, his head and shoulders brushing against the bunches of herbs and unicorn hair that hung from the ceiling. "Sent an owl up to ter castle fer Freddie." He pulled on the crochet blanket he had thrown over James, tugging in the sides a little before sitting down heavily in his oversized armchair. "That boy." He sighed and I glanced up at him. He was shaking his head but the expression on his face was warm and fond. "Nothin' but trouble. But what do I tell yeh, eh?"
I tried to return his smile but it felt like something was strangling my heart as I pulled the blanket around my shoulders a little tighter. The fabric was scratchy and smelled faintly of wood smoke, but I didn't mind. It was the same blanket Hagrid had given to me five months ago, when I had yelled at James in the snow and he had almost kissed me. What if he had been drugged back then, too?
What if?
Every moment between us was contaminated with those words now. Because I couldn't tell anymore; I couldn't be sure, could I? Memories were tricky, as much fiction as fact, shaped by emotions that constantly shifted and changed and transformed the past into something inherently unreliable.
Hadn't I smelled the lovenettle on him before?
"More tea?" Hagrid's voice cut through my thoughts and I looked up just as James rolled to his side, grunting softly into the pillow. His face was half-buried in the toffee-coloured fabric, his features soft and relaxed, and I felt the noose around my heart pull tighter still.
"Oh, um, no. Thanks," I said quickly, trying again for that smile that wouldn't quite come. "I - I think I should probably go…" I had put the massive tea cup aside and got up from the oddly shaped pouffe I had been sitting on, still clutching the blanket around my shoulders like a plaid cocoon. "Thank you for everything, Professor."
"Are yeh sure? Jamie'll be glad ter see yeh when he comes ter 'imself again."
He was frowning at me, like he had expected me to stay, and I felt my cheeks blush. I didn't know what he thought had happened tonight but I couldn't explain it to him; that I was probably the last person James wanted to see when he woke up. That I didn't think I wanted to be there to see the aftermath of this horrible night; the look on his face when he was himself again.
"I - um -" I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, biting my lip as I glanced at James again. He seemed fine now - calm, asleep, breathing - but my antidote had been improvised and I didn't know what else he had ingested tonight. I couldn't take the risk. "There's something you should know, Professor."
A sharp knock echoed from the door and I snapped my head around, my hand flinching towards the wand in my back pocket. Clearly, the tea hadn't helped to calm my nerves.
"Like a bleedin' train station tonight," Hagrid mumbled under his breath as he went to open the door, but there was no one there. Wet air slunk into the overheated cottage and then, suddenly, there was a strange ripple, like wind stirring the surface of the black lake, and a dark shape appeared, materialising out of nothing.
"Should've known." Hagrid snorted, stepping aside, and I felt my shoulders tense as Albus Potter walked into the room, dishevelled and wet, clutching a silvery cloak in his arms.
"I got your message," he said, a little out of breath. "Your owl couldn't find Freddie so it came to me. Where's Jamie?" He looked around the room, properly taking in his surroundings for the first time, and then his eyes landed on me.
There was an awkward pause - a strange moment in which we just stood there, frozen, staring at each other - before Albus's gaze slowly shifted to his brother on the couch, his brow furrowing.
"Seth brought 'im in," Hagrid explained, obviously oblivious to the thick tension that was cloying the air around us, and then turned back to me. "What did yeh want ter tell me?"
It was the worst possible timing.
Albus Potter already thought that I was running around poisoning people, which made it not exactly easier to say what I was about to say. But I had to. Even if it meant dealing with a fresh wave of awful rumours and accusations.
"I think - I think James was drugged." I tried not to look at Albus as I spoke, my eyes fixed entirely on Professor Hagrid. "With a love potion."
"What?" Albus tossed his cloak aside and went over to the couch, crouching down with one hand against James's cheek as he examined his face. He looked so panicked and I knew that he was probably remembering his own horrible experience from just a few months ago.
"I made him an antidote and I think it worked," I said as I looked back at Hagrid who seemed to be too stunned to speak. "But I thought, just in case something goes wrong…" I trailed off and bit my lip, not sure how to explain myself - how to make this all less awful.
"Which love potion?" Albus had turned his head towards me but his face was mostly wrapped into shadow and I couldn't see the expression on it.
"I don't know," I admitted and he looked at me appraisingly, like he was considering the things that might have happened between his brother and me.
I thought about it, too. Constantly. About James's lips against my collarbone, my shoulder, my neck. About the way he had looked at me when he'd thought he was in love with me.
About the way he had looked at me when he'd thought I was breaking his heart.
The salty sting behind my eyes was a warning and I blinked it away. Because I couldn't do this here. Not in front of Albus Potter and my Care of Magical Creatures teacher who was preparing a fresh pot of tea just a few metres away. My gaze flickered towards the door and I wanted to run.
James had once called me a Gryffindor, but I wasn't. I could never be.
I was always running away.
"It was weird," Albus said suddenly into the silence and it took me a moment to realise that he was talking to me. His eyes were still fixed on James - on the slow movements of his chest - and he pressed his lips together. "I couldn't stop thinking about you. Not in a normal way, I mean. Like, obsessively, overnight. And then everything's just a blur until I woke up in the hospital wing, feeling like I got hit by a bus."
He looked up at me, his green eyes mottled and dark in the weak light, and I felt a mixture of frustration and exhaustion; with him, with me, with every bleeding thing that had gotten me here. I sometimes tried to pinpoint it - when exactly it all had started to go so phenomenally wrong - which of the cursed little wheels had set this cataclysmic path into motion, but it was no use.
I'd thought I'd seen the worst of it, too. But nothing had felt as awful as this.
"I didn't drug you." I sighed. "Or James. I swear."
Albus regarded me for a long second before he let out a slow breath. "Yeah," he said, his gaze settling on one of the herb bundles that dangled next to my head, then on Professor Hagrid behind me who was still pretending to be busy with making tea in the small kitchen. "I figured. I mean, with that whole Laura-thing and all that…" He trailed off, clearly uncomfortable.
"Do you think it was her?"
Albus shrugged, but the gesture seemed more helpless than nonchalant. "I confronted her about it, but she swears she didn't drug me. I really don't think she knew." He swallowed and then glanced up at me with a slight frown pulling on his dark eyebrows. "I - um - I'm sorry. About what I said about you at the Valentine's dance."
I briefly thought about how he had looked at me back then - like I had ruined his life - and shook my head. "Well, you weren't the only one who thought I was some shady potions ring leader, so…"
"Still," he said, green eyes fixed on me, and I wondered what he was making of all of this - of me and James and this entire unholy mess. "It wasn't cool." His gaze drifted back to his brother, smiling vaguely. "Jamie gave me so much shit about it."
For a second, I imagined the conversation between them, but the glimmer of hope that flared behind my chest was almost painful. Because, with the aftermath of the love potion - the emotional wreckage it would leave behind - I wasn't so sure that James would still defend me. I couldn't even blame him.
He moved, suddenly, mumbling a string of incoherent sounds, and Albus bent over him, worry pulling on his features. "Do you really think he was drugged?"
"Yeah." I walked over to them as James's breaths became slightly more ragged and uneven and carefully placed my hand flat against his brow to feel his temperature. "He'll be alright, though."
His skin was a little too warm, heated from the fire and the too-thick blanket, and I pushed back a few strands of damp hair. It looked even darker like this against the pillow, almost black like his brother's, and I knew that I was going to remember the way it felt sliding through the cracks between my fingers.
Albus tilted his head, eyes narrowed. "He just looks piss-drunk."
"I'm fucking great," James rasped and I snatched my hand back as his eyes fluttered open, his heavy-lidded gaze sliding to me. It was still vague but it looked more familiar again - more brown than black, like his pillow - and my heart was not prepared for the impact as he murmured, "Woodley cured me."
He was still drunk. I could hear it in the blurred edges of his words. But the way he kept looking at me felt like a thousand paper cuts.
Like I had done this to him.
Like my antidote had been just as bad as the poison itself.
It was a strange thing. To want to see someone so badly that the emotion manifested into something physical - something alive and painful - and at the same time hoped you wouldn't run into them; that they weren't waiting behind the next corner, or down the hallway, or in front of your class.
I stayed away from the places I might see James. Because I didn't know how to feel, what to do, how to even act around him after last night. Mostly, though, I didn't want to see the change in his face. That look that would make everything that had happened between us feel shallow and twisted and soiled. But it was. How could it not be?
Probably he was staying away from me, too.
"Where's Kat?" Sam asked after biting off a piece of Hector's apple, juice dripping down his chin and onto his uniform shirt.
"Trelawny's probably making them stay until someone pretends to see a death omen in their tea leaves." Tarquin shrugged, just as the door to the greenhouse flung open and Katie barged in, her tie flapping over her shoulder and her half-up hairdo coming undone. I noticed it the second I saw her - the slightly unhinged expression on her face as she looked around herself wildly, her gaze finally settling on me - that something was very wrong.
"There you are!" Tarquin called, walking towards her. "What took you so -" He stopped abruptly, his brow creasing into a frown as he, too, seemed to realise that something was definitely off. "Love?"
Katie was still looking at me - wide-eyed and a little panicked - and I felt my stomach clench. She was breathing too fast, like she had sprinted down here, and my thoughts spiralled out of control as my brain threw every horrible scenario at me in a montage of awfulness.
Apparently, the universe had never heard of rock bottom.
"What's wrong?" I dropped my half-eaten sandwich on the plate and walked over to her, ignoring how wobbly my legs felt.
"The potion transaction," she said and I could hear the tremble in her voice as she held out a piece of paper to me. "It's tomorrow. At James's party."
I felt the spindly tentacles of panic coil around my chest and my throat as I unfolded the paper with shaky hands. It was pink and blue and covered in red glitter hearts that framed the smirking image of James Potter. I stared at the photograph dumbfounded for a moment, watching James run his hand through his hair, before I noticed the gaudy glittery letters at the top that read 'VIVA FOREVER' and underneath, scrawled into a pink heart, 'Our boy Jamie is turning sweet eighteen'.
"What happened?" Tarquin asked, his gaze darting from his girlfriend to me and then to the flyer in my hand, visibly confused.
"I - I went to the loo on my way down from Divination and then someone came in…" Katie swallowed as she glanced at me and I knew how she must have felt. It was no small thing to be cornered and threatened all while dealing with the awfulness of knowing you were looking at someone but not being able to process their features. The Occulto spell messed with your mind and it was nothing that could be shaken off easily.
"Did they hurt you? Are you OK?" I was glad when Tarquin draped his arm around Katie's shoulder and she let him. Because I couldn't. Not when I was the reason this horrible thing had happened to my best friend in the first place.
"I'm alright," she said, sinking further against Tarquin's shoulder. "It was just scary."
I could barely think about it. Because this wasn't supposed to happen. I had dragged my friends down with me, far enough to put them in real danger, and the weight of it was smothering me. Instead of protecting them, I had selfishly involved them in this shitshow. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dragged you into this." I blinked, fighting off the looming panic attack that seemed to be battling it out with the part of my brain that was trying to come up with a plan. "None of you. I shouldn't -"
"No. Stop it, Seth!" Katie's voice was too loud, bouncing off the glass panes like shrapnel. "You have to stop," she said, this time softer, pleadingly - desperately. "This has to stop, OK?"
"I - I'm trying -" I stammered, because I needed her to know that I hadn't wanted any of this, but she cut me off again, pushing away from Tarquin as she took a step towards me.
"No, I mean you, shutting us out! I'm your bloody best friend and you keep pushing me away." She gestured around her; at Tarquin and Sam and Hector who all looked serious and concerned. "All of us. We care about you. So much. You are not doing this alone."
I felt a lump lodge itself in my throat as Katie threw her arms around me, cutting through the panicky snares until they released me from their choke-hold. Her hair was entirely in my face but I could still see Tarquin coming towards us over the mop of unruly curls.
"Katie's right," he said and then I felt his arm slide around my back. "We're not letting you do this without us."
"Yeah." Sam's voice was next to my ear and his arm on my shoulder. "I mean, you've been my friend since I can remember."
I laughed. Wetly. "That's a terrible joke."
"Can I just say-" Hector had joined the cheesy group hug as well, his head resting on Sam's as he grinned at me. "We've only been friends for a couple of months, so I feel like my being here means the most, right?"
I grinned back at him - at all of them - thinking how strange it was to be here, surrounded by this odd constellation of people who were determined to be my friends, even as everything seemed to be heading south. Maybe, 6th year hadn't been a complete catastrophe after all.
"Now we just have to figure out how to get in," Tarquin said after a while and the uncomfortable reality of the situation slunk back in. He was right, of course. We'd have to find a way to sneak into what was definitely going to be the party of the year; the party of the boy I was trying to avoid at all costs.
"What do you mean?" Hector tilted his head to the side, looking at Tarquin as though he had spoken Mermish. "Through the door?"
There was a beat of silence before Sam snorted and Katie patted Hector's arm as she sighed. "Blimey, sometimes I forget that you're one of them."
It was risky to make a fire when it was already getting dark outside. The walls might have been overgrown with weeds and brambles, but they were still made of glass. The castle wasn't close, though, and dinner was hopefully keeping everybody sufficiently occupied to not notice the faint flicker of light in Greenhouse One.
I leaned my hip against the desk and peered absently into the small cauldron. The lovenettle had turned the yellowish sludge into a warmer ochre colour that wasn't exactly the sunshine hue of Volantis, but it would have to do. I just had to trust that whoever was blackmailing me wouldn't pay too much attention to the details. After all, they hadn't seemed to be too concerned about the quality of their potions in the past.
From my spot next to the desk, I could see all the way to Professor Hagrid's hut at the edge of the forest, windows aglow and faint ribbons of smoke curling above the chimney. I had tried to not think about it all day but it was always there, in the back of my mind, like a song that was stuck in my head.
I'm in love with you.
The door to Professor Hagrid's cabin was pushed open, but I was still too deep in my thoughts to catch on quickly enough, and then, I saw him: James looked slightly dishevelled in a pair of joggers, his hair tucked underneath the neon orange Wizard Wheezes beanie he had worn at the Winter Carnival, and I was pathetically paralysed. He had his hands buried in his pockets as he walked up the slope towards the castle, cutting his way through softly swaying cottongrass and shrubs of gorse that seemed to snag on his trousers but, then, suddenly, he stopped and my stomach lurched as he turned to look at Greenhouse One.
He couldn't have seen me in the semi-darkness, half-hidden behind the curtain of moonlace that trailed down the walls, but he must have noticed the fire. I could see him staring at it, even as I squeezed further into the corner, waiting for him to move on.
But he just stood there, looking, and I held my breath, counting the beats of my heart like seconds. They were too fast and I couldn't keep up. My thoughts tripped, stumbling over each other as the moonlace crawled over my shoulders, winding itself around my arms and my waist, but I forced myself to stay still. To close my eyes and pretend that I didn't care that James was more than fifty metres away and I was a mess. I didn't know how much time passed, how many heartbeats, but it felt like forever.
When I opened my eyes again, the flame underneath the cauldron had died and the sky had turned dark and James Potter had gone.
I stared at the sequined cloth in my lap, blinking vaguely at the shades of pink and silver that shifted with the candlelight. There were feathers too, tickling my kneecap, and some glossy, pleather-y items that probably should have never surfaced from the unfathomable depths of Katie's wardrobe. She wasn't done yet, either. Her towel-wrap was all I could see as she rummaged through the bottom drawer of our communal dresser, picking out shiny tops and even shinier dresses to the beat of Hey Hey Hippogriff's new song.
I wished I was more of a help to her than moodily sitting on my bed and picking at sequins, but I was useless. Mostly because I had seen James in the hallway earlier and he had very obviously turned on the spot and walked off into the other direction. There had been some delightful horrified staring before that, like I was a murderous banshee about to launch myself at him, and then he had stumbled backwards and just bolted.
He hadn't even tried to talk to me. Yes, all of it was embarrassing and terrible, but he could have at least given me a chance to explain. However bad all of it looked, I hadn't done this to him and I had stupidly hoped that he would know.
"Are you really sure about this, Kat?" I asked as my best friend tossed yet another slightly over-the-top clothing item at me. It was a metallic blue miniskirt that hit me straight in the face.
"Yes," she said, pushing the drawer close with a decisive bang before getting up from the floor. "It'll go great with your complexion. Trust me."
I frowned at her as I clutched the skirt in my hands. There wasn't a lot of cloth but the material was flashy enough to make up for that. "I mean the outfits."
"Viva Forever, Seth?" She raised an eyebrow at me like she had expected better. "That's a Spice Girls reference. And the 90s glitter decor on the flyer? Please, it's obviously a theme."
I bit my lip as I watched her walk over to my bed, surveying the sea of sparkly clothes like she knew exactly what she was looking for. The towel had come loose around her head and wispy strands of damp hair stuck out from underneath it, curling around her face.
"All I'm saying is that we have a history of messing this part up and it's really important that we don't tonight."
Katie shot me a look over the mesh crop-top she was holding up in front of her and frowned. She knew it too, of course. That our entire mental, half-baked plan depended on this. Because we had no invitation, no creepy wrist tattoos to grant us entrance to the secret party room this time, and also no plan B.
"I know." She sighed and then threw the white meshy thing at me which I was sure was a hundred percent see-through. "But I'm fairly certain I'm right about this."
"Now, they understood the assignment." Hector, who was in all white - loose shirt, half unbuttoned, and baggy trousers - grinned up at us from the bottom of the staircase, which was nice and distracted me from the weird looks that drifted our way. The group of fifth-years that was crowded around one of the common room fireplaces seemed particularly stunned as they craned their necks to gape at us, but I couldn't even fault them this time.
Together, the five of us looked like the most cliché pop band the 90s had spawned.
"Assuming this is the assignment." I tugged on the metallic miniskirt until Katie pulled my hand away and tucked it firmly into her own.
"I think I truly outdid myself this time," she said, grinning, and I wondered if the glitter she had dabbed onto my cheekbones and eyelids sparkled as brightly as hers. I had thought that I looked pretty good back in the confined safety of our dorm room - a little flashy, yes, but good - but my nerves were spiking now that we were actually doing this.
I squeezed Katie's hand once and leaned towards her. "I'm sorry." I sighed. "I'm just tense."
"I know." She squeezed back, which made me feel a little better. "It's alright. You'll be alright." And, somehow, I knew that she didn't mean the party or the Fauxlantis I had stowed in my purse.
We walked down a couple of dark corridors, waiting at the corners and listening for footsteps, but there was suspiciously little patrol activity around the portrait of the dancing trolls. It also seemed very unlikely that no prefect on rounds would have noticed the scattered groups of people that were slinking around the general area in their finest club attire. None of them looked like the Millenium was just around the corner.
It was Halloween all over again.
"What are you doing?" Katie hissed when I stopped walking, the abrupt movement causing her to stumble back against me. What in Circe's name had we been thinking? Why would anyone trust that I, out of all people, could get us into a secret party? In this outfit.
This was the worst plan in the history of plans.
"This isn't going to work." I could feel my muscles tense, the panic slithering up my spine, into my shoulders and arms and neck.
"It is," Katie said in a soothing voice that did not help at all. "Just stay cool and -"
"But I'm not cool!" I shook my hands as my fingers began to tingle with numbness. "I'm the opposite of cool!"
"Hot?" Sam supplied unhelpfully and I shot him a deadpan look.
"Seth, hey." Hector had stepped in front of me suddenly, his hands grabbing my upper arms and his head tipped towards me with all the intensity of a very scary Quidditch captain. "Listen to me. You're not afraid, alright?" He squeezed my arms gently but his eyes were still narrowed at me, dark eyebrows pulled into a fierce frown. "You're a fucking potions queen who is going to take down the arseholes who wiped your friend's memory and tried to blackmail you into working for them. You are fucking bad-ass and nobody, abso-fucking-lutely nobody, is going to fucking mess with you. So you're going to hold your head high and show these dipshits how it's done, understood?"
I blinked at him for a dumbfounded second, my arms still pressed to my sides and my nose almost rubbing against his. "I - um - yes?"
He grinned at me and then gave my cheek two quick pats. "That's my girl."
And then we were walking.
Weirdly, I did feel better. Not entirely, but enough to force my chin up as we approached the familiar stretch of bare wall across from Barnabas the Barmy where a boy - slightly younger than us, maybe a fourth-year - was sitting on a camp-chair. He was reading Which Broom, unimpressed by the clumps of people that were hanging around the corridor, shooting him dark looks, and I clamped my hand tighter around Katie's. If random shady potion dealers believed that I could get into James Potter's birthday party, I could believe it too, right?
The guy on the folding chair looked up and his eyes did a weird mid-thing between narrowing and widening that made him look like he'd been hit with a stunning spell.
"Stare him down," Hector whispered to my left and I did. Like a creepy pogrebin.
For a moment, he seemed only paralysed, the magazine dangling limply from his hands as he watched us approach, and I was sure that this was it; that we'd have to concede defeat. But then, as though imperiused, he jumped to his feet and ran up and down in front of the wall like his life depended on it.
"Have fun," he said as he held open the freshly manifested door for us and I felt Katie's hand twitch in mine.
"So, I never thought I'd say this," Sam said in a low voice as he leaned towards me, his eyes following a group of seventh-years in bedazzled bucket hats and platform trainers, "but I'm really glad I'm wearing these oversized dungarees."
I snorted, still feeling the buzz of what we'd just done in my bones. He was right, though; the party was late 90s galore. Shiny CDs were strung across the ceiling like little disco balls and glitter-infused inflatable furniture was clustered around the lofty room. There were lametta curtains everywhere and approximately a thousand heart-shaped balloons with James's face on them, floating idly above the crowd. The last time I had been here, the place had been an intimidating replica of a too-cool London it-club. Now, it was all fluff and glitter and 1999.
Katie was obviously a genius and deserved all the kisses in the world.
"How does this work now?" Tarquin asked as we moved along the edge of the room to avoid the hub of the crowd that was yelling the chorus of 'I Want It That Way' like there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately, I had no answer for him. There was no manual on how to be a proactive dodgy potions dealer so all we could do now was wait.
"He's coming!" Someone suddenly shouted and an uproar went through the crowd in a nervously excited wave. The lights went down and the music died and I barely realised what was going on as I turned towards the door with everybody else, not quite expecting the violent gut-punch.
Christina Aguilera was belting about all the things a girl wants over deafening cheers as James walked into the room, grinning and shaking his head, with Freddie's arm looped tightly around his neck and flanked by his friends. In his white tanktop and the baggy jumpsuit with the sleeves tied around his waist, he looked like he should have been immortalised on every 90s teen girl's wall and I might have stopped breathing for a second.
"Are you OK?" Katie asked quietly, her fingers digging into the back of my hand, and I nodded.
I wasn't, though - not at all - and she knew it. But there was also nothing anyone could have done about it now and so I took a deep breath, swallowed, and then turned away from James.
Because, ultimately, that's who we were, wasn't it?
It was almost funny how none of it ever changed. How our lives kept getting tangled up in each other just to end up here again; square one, as good as strangers on opposite sides of the room.
A/N: Hey everyone! So, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'd be really really really grateful to hear what you guys think. Also, I'm planning a James POV to upload on tumblr but I'm not yet sure which scene… so, if there are any scenes you would like to read from our boy Jamie's perspective, let me know! I'm eager for suggestions. :) All the best and THANK YOU SO MUCH to those of you who read and review. I know I've said it before, but you don't even know how much that means to me.