I turned to Annika with a glare.
She had the grace to look apologetic.
"He can be difficult—"
"He's rude."
"He's a professional quidditch player. And the son of Harry Potter." She shrugged as if to say what did you expect. I sighed, not ready to argue about someone in their mid-twenties needing basic manners.
"Right. Well, here's a list of textbooks he'll need. I guess I'll see you Monday?"
"Just James, I should think. Though you have my number if you need to call or owl me. Have a nice weekend, Jayne." Fuck. She smiled at me and once again I was dismissed.
"That fucker," Imogen said once I relayed my exchange with Potter & Co. "Should've known he hadn't changed since Hogwarts."
Kit made a face without looking up from her building sketch for her work at a wizarding architectural firm. "Sounds like a right twat. But he's still hot, yeah?"
"For sure." I sighed. The initial thrill of being able to work with James Potter wore off quickly once I actually met him, but I could still appreciate his good looks.
"Damn," she said wistfully.
"You said yourself he had a late night out," Jules pointed out. "I'm sure he'll be in a much better mood on Monday."
"Yeah, 'cause Mondays bring out the best in people." Imogen snorted. "Make sure you assign him a bunch of Arithmancy homework if you want to piss him off, that was the worst."
"He's not taking Ancient Runes. Transfiguration might be the hardest out of all his subjects. But I'll keep it in mind."
"Don't just assign him work for no reason!" Jules protested.
"There is a reason: revenge." At her horrified look, I laughed. "Don't worry, Jules. I won't abuse my role as teacher."
She turned back to her book, relieved. Abuse it too much, I mouthed to Kit and Imogen, who nodded approvingly and gave me a thumbs up respectively.
"Honestly, he's been playing well this season all things considered," Kit said. "He has no reason to be in a bad mood."
"All things considered?" I questioned, sitting up.
"Yeah, he was injured at the start of last season, had to miss the full season. Really messed up his shoulder but he's back now and doing pretty well. It probably would have been a career ender if he were a bit older, he's lucky he's so young."
"Wow, that sucks." I chewed thoughtfully on a cheese puff. He had certainly seemed physically fine when I saw him.
"Forget James Potter, did Anderson get back to you on the proposal?" Imogen asked, eyebrows furrowed. While she wasn't studying Ancient Runes like I was, her own doctoral study of hexes overlapped quite a bit with my advisor's work on curse breaking.
"Yeah, he made some tweaks to the wording of the research question to make it more narrow but basically kept it the same. And he gave me some good sources to read up on for background information."
"Nice. I want to ask him if I could join his new research team on Japanese curses. Professor Carlson said she'd put in a good word for me."
"I can ask him if he's looking for anyone new," I offered. Imogen smiled gratefully. Kit and Jules were two of my best friends and I loved living with them, but they had real adult jobs. Not that their work wasn't difficult too, but Imogen was the only other one who understood the stress that came with academia. It was often the two of us working late at night in our living room while the other two were either out or asleep.
"Awesome, thanks. I'll figure out how to sneak some itching powder in Potter's jersey right before a big match if you ever want repayment." She winked at me and I burst out laughing. And that was the other main reason I loved Imogen.
As I knocked on the door, I had the horrifying feeling that James would be late again, only this time I'd be stuck outside his apartment waiting. Mercifully, he opened the door, tossed me an annoyed glance, and walked away with the door open.
"Thanks for inviting me in," I muttered, not loud enough for him to hear. I sat down in the same spot on the couch I was in a few days earlier, busying myself with taking out my notebooks.
"Fred isn't here?" I asked politely. The friendlier Weasley would have easily cut through the tension in the room.
"I told him to leave us alone during our sessions. By the way—" his eyes glared at me and I automatically leaned back. "I don't appreciate you telling him and my sister about this arrangement. An NDA means you don't tell anyone, including my family."
I nodded, biting my lip. "I'm so sorry. I just thought that they would know already since—I don't know. I'm really sorry, it won't happen again."
He nodded, jaw slightly less tense after taking in my wide eyes. "It's fine," he said roughly. "Just…don't do it again. Fred already knew and I told Lily now, but no one else in my family knows. I told them all not to come by, but they tend to just drop by whenever they feel like it."
I nearly said, "Yeah, I noticed," but I figured I didn't need to accidentally insult his sister in case he took it the wrong way.
"Sorry," I repeated. "I'm used to working with teenagers, not people who… well, you know."
He nodded again, and we fell into an uncomfortable silence until I finally picked up my notebook.
"So I thought we'd start with a diagnostic of sorts, see where you are in each subject and then build a syllabus around that to focus on your weaker areas."
I stared at him expectantly, waiting for confirmation. He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure. You're the expert."
My not so secret plan to assign him copious amounts of Transfiguration homework if he got too irritating crumpled immediately because James Potter was annoyingly good at Transfiguration and Defense. While he wasn't as strong in Charms, he was still adequate. His only real weak spot was Potions.
"So you're fairly strong on most of the practical applications," I told him, looking over the notes I'd taken down. "But we need to work on your understanding of the magical theory behind it for the written aspect of each test. And on Potions overall."
"Who cares?" he said, already looking bored.
"The NEWT examiners." I responded dryly.
"I can do the actual spellwork. Isn't that the most important part?"
"Practical application makes up 60% of each NEWT exam. You still have to complete the written essays on theory and usage of magic for the remaining 40%."
He mumbled out an expletive, but then looked up at me with an arched brow. "Alright, fine. What do I need to do?"
"I was thinking each day we could focus on one subject. Monday for Potions, Tuesday for Charms, Wednesday for Defense, and Thursday for Transfiguration. I'd say to probably spend about two thirds of your Potions session on brewing and a third practicing the written part. For Charms, half and half. You have a good understanding of Transfiguration and Defense spells, but you need to do a lot of work for Transfiguration in particular on the writing component. We should start by using a third of our time on those subjects practicing written exam questions and a third on the actual magic. Though of course we can adjust how much time we spend on something if I see you're excelling or falling behind in one part or the other. How does that sound?"
"Fine."
"Great." It was embarrassing how relieved I was that he was going along with my study plan. I had to remind myself that I was the one technically in charge, not him. "Here's your reading for tomorrow. We'll start with the epoximize charm."
He took the papers from me without a word, eyes flicking over the first page.
"I'll see you tomorrow then." I said, gathering my things to leave. James let out a small noise of acknowledgement. He didn't look up when I left, still focused on the page I gave him.
"Anyone want to go out?" I asked hopefully, drawing my hair up in a ponytail in preparation.
Kit raised an eyebrow. "You're suggesting we go out? On a Sunday night?"
"I just spent four hours reading about the effect of immobilizing charms on Ancient Egyptian Runes and I've been working with Potter for two weeks now in mostly awkward silence. I need a break."
"Perfect!" Jules beamed at me. "Can I do your makeup?"
Kit and Imogen looked at each other and shrugged.
"Let me get changed, I'll be out in a second," Kit called out as she ran to her room.
"I'm not changing." Imogen sniffed, sprawled on the couch in a pair of jeans and tshirt.
20 minutes later, we were back on the dancefloor at Elixir, each with a drink in our hand.
"I'm gonna go dance with that guy," Jules yelled over the music. The three of us turned to see a tall blond guy smiling at her.
"We'll be here if you need us," Kit yelled back at her. As Jules melted away into the crowd, she turned to me with a sigh. "How did she find the only cute guy here?"
"Hey, tonight was supposed to be about stress relief, not finding guys," I reminded her.
"I need to find a guy for stress relief, if you know what I mean." Kit raised her eyebrows and I laughed.
"Come on," she persisted. "Don't you want to date someone? It's been so long."
"Honestly, I don't see how I could date anyone right now. All my time is split between my research and tutoring James. He's probably the only guy I see with any regularity right now."
Kit's face twisted in sympathy, but before she could react, a sudden swell in the volume of the crowd by the door caught us off guard.
"What's going on up there?" Imogen craned her head forward, but with the crowd around us and the flashing lights up front, it was difficult to get a good look.
I drained my drink. "No idea. Are those cameras?"
Jules came back, flushed and giggling. "Jayne, it's your favorite client," she sang.
"Seriously?" I groaned. "I came here to try and forget about him."
"Yep. Him, Albus, Fred, Rose, Louis, Dominique, Lily, and I don't know how many others."
"It's weird how they all travel together," Imogen muttered. "Freakishly close family."
"Right?" We clinked glasses, giggling.
"You never said what happened on Thursday between you guys," Kit asked. Three pairs of eyes settled on me curiously. I grabbed Kit's drink out of her hand and took a large gulp of that too.
"Fuck, fine, I'll tell you," I grumbled and launched into what happened when I had walked into James's flat Thursday morning and waited around for around 20 minutes, only to find him still asleep with some girl in his bed. After I had woken him up, he reluctantly asked his bedmate to leave.
"What, why?" the blonde had asked, eyes sleepy. "Who's she?"
"Oh, she's nobody. She's my…housekeeper." He ignored the disbelieving huff I let out, and got out of bed in front of me, making sure I got a good view when he stretched his arms above his head.
"Oh my God!" I whirled around and threw a hand over my eyes when it registered that he was naked. Like completely. "You can't just—I'm right here—"
He ignored my sputtering as he walked by me to pick up his underwear on the floor.
"I'll meet you outside in a moment, Jayne. Thanks for waking me up," he said airily, as though we did this all the time. "Chelsea, sorry, but you're really going to have to leave now."
I barely noticed the dirty look Chelsea threw me as she left his flat, gripping my wand as hard as I could so I wouldn't throw something at his dumb handsome face.
"We were supposed to start 45 minutes ago," I said slowly.
"Relax, Transfiguration's my best subject anyway. So what if we miss one lesson." He walked by me to his kitchen to fix a cup of tea, his messy dark hair falling into his eyes and still only wearing a pair of boxer briefs.
"You can't just have someone over while I'm here and wasting my time." I was too surprised to convey the proper tone of outrage and he didn't seem to register that I was angry. "It's literally a Thursday morning. Can't you ever just have a night off from the whole playboy role you have? It's getting old."
I gritted my teeth as he looked me up and down and gave a slow smirk. "What, I need to wait until the weekend for sex? Just because you're too uptight to—"
I slapped him before I could think. We stared at each other in shock. My mouth was open and trembling and my hand still outstretched, on the verge of bursting out an apology.
I couldn't—wouldn't apologize for that though, and willfully snapped my jaw shut. He held my gaze for another moment, expression unreadable, before I turned and practically ran out.
I had used the extra time to go into Professor Anderson's office and work through some parts of my research, trying to ignore my shaking hands and how angry James Potter made me.
"That fucker." That had become Imogen's go-to reaction to any story I had about James. It was still gratifying to hear each time though.
"That's so terrible, Jayne. I can't believe you had to put up with that," Jules said, putting an arm around my shoulders.
"Thanks." I leaned my head against hers, comforted by her warm hug.
Kit's expression was furious. "That slimy little asshole," she hissed. "Who the fuck does he think he is?"
"The son of Harry Potter? A major quidditch star? Take your pick."
"We'll get revenge somehow," Kit promised.
I laughed, my heart already a little fuller at my best friends supporting me. "That's alright. I think he'll finally realize I was actually being serious. I'm not looking forward to Monday though." I glanced at Jules, who was still hugging me and looking very conflicted. "Ok, what is it? You obviously want to ask me something."
Jules bit her lip, looked at all of us guiltily and lowered her voice. "I know this is super inappropriate and we hate him but…since you saw him naked, how, um, big was he?"
Kit and Imogen turned to me expectantly. My jaw dropped.
"Are you serious? And you two want to know too?" Jules smiled innocently. Kit and Imogen looked at each other and shrugged like yeah, kind of.
I dropped my head in my hands. "Big," I mumbled. "He looked really fucking great actually. Definitely some defined abs."
"Damn it." Imogen's mouth twisted in disappointment. "Would've been karma if he'd been below average."
"I knew it," Jules said with some satisfaction.
"You know what you have to do, right?" Kit's eyes gleamed. "You have to sleep with him."
Jules squealed and Imogen let out a loud cackle.
"What? No!" I protested, though I was laughing too hard to be very convincing.
"Do it at the very end of your tutoring so you don't have to see him again and it's not awkward," she clarified, as though that would make it better. "But he's hot and hate sex is always good. And you need to get some."
I looked at James leading the Potter-Weasley group to the bar. His eyes wandered around the packed club, passing over me once before doing a subtle double take. I was sure I wasn't imagining his jaw tightening before he looked away again.
"You're ridiculous, Kit," I said, staring at James's profile. "James Potter wants nothing to do with me. Nor me with him."
The morning after was never fun for me. I didn't bother looking in the mirror before I left to meet James, knowing I'd just cringe and that I didn't have enough time or energy to fix last night's makeup that I didn't take off. I just had to get through this one hour with James then I could mercifully take a nap. Not that I really had the time, but something had to give and that thing was going to be some precious research time. Unfortunately, James couldn't let me coast through our Defense lesson in peace.
"What?" I demanded after the sixth side glance he gave me.
"You look like shit," he said bluntly.
I scowled, setting down my quill I had been using to take notes on the text that Anderson assigned me to look over before our next meeting. Honestly, no manners. "I had a late night. Which I think you can probably relate to, seeing as we were at the same place. Except you don't even look hungover." I glared at him enviously.
"You were at Elixir?" His eyebrows rose.
"You didn't see me? I thought you did," I said uncertainly.
"I thought I imagined you. Doesn't really seem like your thing." I snorted. "What?"
"What exactly do you know about me?" I said skeptically.
He shrugged. "Your name is Jayne. I assume you went to Hogwarts. Ravenclaw?"
I nodded. Most people guessed it correctly; the Sorting Hat had placed me in about 10 seconds flat, only after briefly ruminating over Hufflepuff. I waited for him to continue but I soon realized that was it. He didn't even say my last name.
"Right," I said flatly. "Pretty sure you don't know enough about me to know if it's 'my thing' or not."
"Sorry." He grinned. "I just figured you, I dunno, sat around and just read for fun or something."
"I have a life!" I snapped, even though I did read for fun and I barely left the library last week. Still, he didn't need to know that. We both fell silent, clearly remembering when I slapped him last week. "Just…do your Defense essay."
Since I no longer had to pretend to not be hungover in front of him, I gingerly put my throbbing head down on the table and closed my eyes.
"If you're going to 'have a life,' you need to figure out how to brew a hangover potion." I raised my head the bare minimum to see James placing a glass of water and a vial of Pepperup Potion in front of me.
"You're the expert," I said, reaching out to take a sip. I heard a muffled snort from next to me as he picked up his quill again. "Thanks."
"Sure," he replied. "I was just going to deduct the cost of the potion from your paycheck for next week. I'm kidding." He grinned at my dropped jaw, and I let out a reluctant laugh. "And I'm sorry."
I paused in the middle of raising the vial to drink it. James had his eyes trained on his parchment but he continued.
"It was rude of me to waste your time. I won't be late again. And you're not that uptight."
His apology was stilted and rushed but it was one of the best things I had heard all month.
"Thanks," I said quietly. "And I'm sorry if I sounded judgmental. It's not my business what you do in your personal life."
"Thanks." James sounded surprised, like he actually meant it and didn't believe he did. "Not sorry for slapping me though, huh?"
I flushed, but luckily he sounded more amused than angry. "I doubt I'd be the only person to say you deserved it," I said. He let out a laugh.
"Oh, I'm sure Annika would congratulate you if she found out." Then he frowned and my heart dropped. I'd pushed it too far with him and now I was going to get fired and probably sued too—"Ok, how am I supposed to format this answer? This question is asking like 10 different things at once."
"Start with the simplest countercurse then work your way to the most complex," I advised, sipping on my potion. "NEWT evaluators like to see your work reflect a logical thought process. Write down how you would tackle the problem in real life. What solutions are the most obvious?"
"This would be a lot easier if I could actually just perform the countercurses instead of writing it down," James grumbled, but wrote down everything I said.
I still didn't think I liked James Potter all that much. But he was a lot more likable after helping me get over a hangover.
A/N: I don't love this chapter but here it is. In some better news, I finally plotted out where I want this story to go (writing with a plan instead of winging it? who is she?) and now that I have some idea of what to do, I will likely update more often—with the caveat that school will be starting soon so who knows when I'll have free time. I expect this story to be around maybe 10 chapters total, give or take. Hope you enjoy, and please leave a review!