It was a perfect autumn day. The leaves were turning from green to red and gold. I felt mighty good as I walked around the lake with Michelle Finnegan, who I had been trying to get alone for a while.

“So… James, what was it that you had to ask me that was oh-so-important we had to come out here?” she asked, looking up at me with those beautiful dark brown eyes. Her eyes reminded me of chocolate, which could be one reason I liked them so much.

“Er,” I started, summoning up all my Gryffindor courage to ask her, “I was wondering whether you would like to go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend?”

Next weekend was the first Hogsmeade Trip of the year and, as my cousin Fred had informed me, ‘Everyone’s got a date, mate.’ After that he went on about how excellent his rhyming skills were, but I won’t bore you with those details. The important part is that I, James Sirius Potter, son of the-boy-who-lived, captain of the wonderful Gryffindor Quidditch team, and an excellent chaser (if I say so myself), did not have a date to the Hogsmeade.

That is how I ended up walking around the lake on a Saturday afternoon with Michelle, who is the best looking girl in Gryffindor, my star keeper, my Cousin Dominique’s best friend, and one year older than me.

I began to feel nervous. It had been at least five seconds since I asked her. Why hadn’t she answered yet? Was it me? I mean, I know I was younger, but I had grown over the summer, stood a good 5 inches taller than her, and I would like to think I had filled out a little from Quidditch.

Then she did the unthinkable, the unexplainable, one of the reasons guys don’t get girls; she grabbed my hand and looked up at me.

I looked down into those gorgeous chocolate eyes. She smiled and stood on her tiptoes and kissed me.

I had kissed girls before, quite a bit actually, but it was nothing compared to this. The kiss was soft; her lips barely grazed mine before she pulled away. I looked at her lips longingly. Those plump pink lips had to be more delicious than those chocolate eyes.

“Yes, I’ll go with you,” Michelle whispered in my ear.

Oh, the pleasure, I thought as her breath tingled my ear. She pecked me on the cheek and started walking away.

As she walked away, I heard her say, “I thought you’d never ask Potter.”

Huh. What did that mean? It’s not like I had fancied her all these years. Oh well, girls would forever remain a mystery to me. I watched her walk away. Not wanting to be a perve, but not being able to help it, I watched her hips sway as she sauntered up to the castle. I stood outside for a minute more then went inside to find Fred and Connor Peakes, to ask what they thought of my date with the best looking girl to grace these halls.

“Freddy, Connor! Guess who has a date with none other than our keeper, Michelle Finnegan?” I asked with maybe a little too much enthusiasm as I entered the sixth year boys’ dorm.

“Stop, Shitting with us, James,” Connor grunted, not even looking up from his book, 1000 moves Beaters can perform, legally.

Fred at least had the decency to look up from what he was doing before scoffing, “Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious! We were walking around the lake and I asked her and then she kissed me and said yes!” I gasped, exasperated that they didn’t believe me.

“Okay, whatever mate,” Fred said, going back to cleaning his beater’s bat.

I stood there, arms crossed, looking around the dorm, trying to think of a way to prove it. Bingo! I would hold practice tonight to prove to them and everyone else on the team that it was true.

I coughed to get their attention. They looked up, bored looks plastered on their faces.

“What now?” Fred asked.

“Due to your attitudes, we have Quidditch practice tonight at four.” With that, I walked out.

I heard Connor mumble “Bloody hell” as the door shut behind me.

“Hey, Lils,” I called to my sister as I made my way into the common room.

“Jamie, how many times have I asked you not to call me Lils in public?”

“About as many times as I’ve asked you not to call me Jamie,” I replied.

“That’s what I thought,” she groaned. "So what is it you need?”

“Just a need to talk to my little sister,” I said

“Don’t believe that and I have to get ready for something so if you have something to say, say it.”

“Lily, since when were you telepathic; you do need to get ready for something and that something is Quidditch practice,” I informed her.

“Joy,” she muttered sarcastically. “I was supposed to study with Lysander tonight.”

“Too bad,” I said and walked away. All of a sudden I stopped in my tracks. Did she say Lysander, as in a boy? My baby sister was going to “study” with a boy. I knew what “study” meant; I’d had lots of study dates where a book was never picked up. I turned around to face her.

“Lily, what do you mean Lysander and you were going to study?”

“Exactly what I said, Lysander Scamander, one of our family’s oldest friend’s son, and I were going to study and do homework together.”

She had said it calmly but I could see in her eyes the look Mum got when she was mad. The look was almost daring me to say something, and being me, I did.

“Lils, you shouldn’t be hanging out with boys, your only 13, and Lysander is a year older than you,” I said, “I don’t want him touching my sister.”

“He was going to help me with my transfiguration homework and if he does do anything it is not your business,” She whispered angrily.

“Go cancel with him because you have to be at Quidditch practice and tell him you aren’t allowed to speak to him again.”

“James Potter, you have no control over me and I will hang out with as many boys as I want,” she whispered furiously, and then proceeded to stomp up to the girls’ dorms.

I would deal with Lysander later but right now I had to find the rest of the team, as my plan to get Lily to tell them about practice wouldn’t work now that she was mad. I was a little nervous at the prospect of seeing Michelle again. I hoped she hadn’t changed her mind.

I scanned the common room looking for team mates I hadn’t told yet. The first one I saw was Layla Nichols, the other chaser and my best girl friend. She stepped through the portrait hole carrying a load of books, which surprised me; normally Layla wasn’t the studying type.

“James, why are you standing there with that stupid look on your face?” Layla asked as a way of greeting me.

“First of all, my sister has a study date with a boy--" at this she smirks-- "and second, you're carrying books on a Saturday.”

“Oh, well of course Lily has a boy; she is one of the most popular girls in her year, and two, I was actually studying. I need to keep my grade up in Potions if I want to stay on the team,” she answered.

I smiled. Layla’s worst class had always been Potions, while much to everyone’s surprise I’m pretty good at it. My dad said I get it from my grandmother Lily.

“Wipe the smirk off your face, Potter,” Layla commanded. “Oh, and before I go, was there something you were going to say?”

“Yeah, we have practice tonight at 4. Would you mind telling Michelle and Molly?” Molly Weasley was our seeker and was pretty cool even though she was Uncle Percy’s daughter.

“Sure, whatever, James.”

With that I walked out of the dorm and to Professor Longbottom’s office to make sure we could have the pitch.

Jeez, I thought as I walked back to the castle, why does Longbottom’s office have to be so far. Couldn't they just have given him an office in the building?

I checked the time on the clock as I walked into the common room. It was 3:30 already. I walked up to my room to grab my stuff to get ready for practice. After all, just because I called it for purely selfish reasons didn’t mean I wouldn’t make it a good practice.

Thirty minutes later, I was wondering how exactly having practice would convince everyone that Michelle was actually going to Hogsmeade with me. Maybe she would kiss me again or something; that would prove it. Sure enough, she did. It was only a peck on the cheek, but it was good enough to put a look of surprise on everyone’s faces. On that good note, I gave everyone instructions.

“Everyone fly two laps around the pitch. Then I want Fred and Connor to work on some of the moves you’ve been reading up on. Molly, I want you to work on your Wronski Feint. Michelle, you will guard the goal while Lily, Layla, and I work on different ways to score.” I paused to make sure I had everyone’s full attention. “I want everyone to work hard. Our next match is against Ravenclaw and trust me, they won’t be as easy to beat as Hufflepuff was.”

When everyone realized I finished, they kicked their brooms off the ground and we did our laps. The practice went on to be successful, with the exception of Lily and Layla both seemed a little peeved at me. I knew why Lily was but I wasn’t sure about Layla.

After practice, I ran to catch up with Layla to see what was up. By the time I caught up with her, she was almost half way back to the castle and boy, did she look pissed off.

Upon hearing my footsteps, she turned. “Oh, it’s only you.”
She kept walking.

“Layla, what’s wrong?”

She gave me a death stare that would have given my mum a run for her money.

“Nothing is wrong; how’s your little girlfriend, Michelle?”

This confused me for two reasons. One, something was wrong. Two, Michelle wasn’t my girlfriend yet, and why would Layla care?

“Don’t joke with me, Nichols,” I said, using her last name. “I know something is wrong, and Michelle isn’t my girlfriend… yet.”

She gave me another look of contempt and walked faster. I decided that if she was this mad I would give her some space and talk to her in class on Monday. I walked slowly, letting Connor and Fred catch up.

“Well mate, sorry we didn’t believe you,” Freddy said, “but it was a little hard to believe that you had gotten a seventh-year, and a gorgeous seventh-year at that.”

Connor nodded at this.

“It’s cool. Are you two going with anyone?”

Connor got a nervous look on his face “I, er, well… I’m going with your cousin Dominique.”

Fred and I looked at each other and laughed.

“It’s true,” Connor muttered.

“Oh, we believe you,” Fred started.

“We just can’t imagine why you’d want to go with her,” I finished for him.

Even though Dom was a seventh-year and in Hufflepuff, Fred and I knew that she thought Connor was cute, hence why we believed him.

“She’s pretty fit,” Connor stated, looking embarrassed.

“I can’t agree with that as we’re cousins, but mate, are you sure you know what you got yourself into?” I asked. “Dom’s a lot of work.”

“I know that from spending summer with you, but I figure its one date and she’s gorgeous,” Connor explained.

We all nodded our heads at this. Then Connor and I looked at Fred.

“What?” he asked.

“Well, are you going with anyone?” I asked my cousin.

“Ava Murphy, it’s a little sad that we aren’t going to be able to hang out together at Hogsmeade because we all have dates,” Fred sighed.

“Yeah it sucks, no pranking little first years,” Connor added.

“Enough about girls and how they ruin pranking opportunities,” Fred said. “Let's talk about how we are going to stomp Ravenclaw.”

We walked up to the castle talking about how we thought Ravenclaw would play. Our cousin Louis was the captain of it and he said they had gotten a new chaser and a beater. We figured that they would have very intricate plans that wouldn’t work well.


“I call first showers,” I shouted sprinting up the stairs to our dorm.

“Second,” Fred yelled from right behind me.

“That’s not fair, I always get last shower,” Connor huffed as he got up to the dorm.

“It’s because you don’t have the tall Weasley gene like us; you have a short stocky Peakes genes which is fine since you’re the beater but not good for beating us to the shower,” Fred grinned.

“Do you guys have to make so much noise when you come in?”One of our other roommates, Drew Alderton asked us from where he lay on his bed with his girlfriend, Sara Rockdale.

Drew was one of those guys that were just popular. He didn’t play Quidditch or was really smart or had famous relatives. He was just popular. Every week he had a different girl. This week’s, Sara, was a Gryffindor and in the same year as us. I felt bad for her but I figured she knew what she was getting into by dating Drew.

“Maybe you should find a new snogging spot, Alderton,” Connor muttered at him.

Walking over to the showers, I realized someone was already in there. Considering that four of us were in the room and there were five boys in the dorm, I realized that Mitchell Fetlock was who was in the shower.

“How long has Fetlock been in there?” I asked Drew; Mitchell was infamous for taking long showers

“Er, I would guess about fifteen minutes.”

Fifteen minutes was way too long for a boy to be in the shower. Wanting to get out of my Quidditch gear, I opened the door and made the water freezing with a spell.

“Why the hell is the water so cold?” Mitchell asked running out of the shower room with only a towel.

“No idea, but thanks for getting out of the shower,” I said and walked over to the door and magically locked it so he couldn’t get back in. I heard Connor and Fred laughing at Mitchell. Mitchell was the nerd of our grade and had fallen victim of many pranks.
After the three of us had taken our showers, we sat around talking about our next prank. Back in first year, we had decided to pull a big prank every week. This weekend being Halloween, we were trying to figure out a way to pull of the best prank this year.

“My dad has a whole new line of Halloween based products,” Fred told us.

“Have him send us the lot of them,” Connor told him.

“Connor, Fred; come here, I’ve got an idea but I don’t want them to hear,” I nodded towards Drew and Mitchell.

They gathered around and I told them of my idea to pull of the best Halloween prank ever.

“It was bloody brilliant,” Fred told my cousins and siblings.

He was reliving our great Halloween prank. It had started out in History of Magic. Fred, Connor and I had taken Puking Pastilles to get out of class.

Once we were all out in the hall the plan started. Hogwarts decorates the Great Hall for Halloween but not the rest of the school. We decided to take it into our own hands.

Uncle George’s new product was pumpkins that walked around and spit pumpkin seeds at anyone who came close. Fred has ordered about 100 of them from his dad. First we placed them was the dungeon and then we proceeded to put them randomly all over the school. Next we enchanted paper bats to fly around the castle. For the final touch we lit of some orange and black fireworks. The only way to put out the fireworks was to say boo really loud.

Eventually the professors had to floo Uncle George to figure out how to stop everything. It had been the best prank this year.

“Your mums are going to kill you,” I heard Rose say.

“Oh Rose, give it a rest,” I told her as I walked over to where they were standing in the common room.

“It’s true though,” Al muttered.

“What are you even doing here Al; shouldn’t you be in the Dungeon with your fellow Slytherins?”

“James, you really need to find a new comeback. The Slytherin thing got old about 4 years ago.” Al replied looking bored with the conversation.

“Okay Albus Severus, I’ll stop.” I retorted, knowing that the use of his full name would annoy him.

“Why thank you, Jamie” Al said with a sneer (he must have learned it from his friend, Malfoy).

“Excuse me?”

I heard a little squeaky voice say. I turned to where it was coming from. A little first year was standing there with a note in his hand.

“Yes?” Connor drawled.

“I was supposed to give Misters Potter, Weasley, and Peakes, this note,” he said, nervousness crawling in his voice.

I grabbed the note and opened it.

Misters James Potter, Fred Weasley and Connor Peakes,
Due to you behavior today, I would like to see you in my office, immediately.
Professor Longbottom

“Oh well, we knew this was coming,” Fred commented “At least it’s with Neville; he usually goes easy on us.”

Connor and I nodded in agreement.

We made our way out of the common room and reach the Great Hall, delayed a little bit by the wandering pumpkins, exploding fireworks, and fluttering paper bats. We crossed the grounds and got to the greenhouses, where Professor Longbottom's office was.


“Welcome boys, your punishment for today’s actions is to clean up the scorch marks made by your fireworks.”

“What, no lecture?” I faked a gasp.

“No James, I’ve finally given up on lecturing you three.”

“We’re not that bad,” Fred said. “I’m sure our parents were worse.”

Neville said nothing to this but continued to go on about our punishment.

“This will be done the Muggle way; each of you will work on a different floor. James, you’ll take the 5th floor. Connor, you’ll take the 1st floor and Fred, you will take the 3rd. You will work for 3 hours. Everything that’s not done by then can be removed with magic.”

We grunted our agreement and went off to the castle to begin our work. I made my way to the fifth floor. This punishment really sucked. Normally, we were allowed to do the punishment together which meant we could talk, but I guess Neville had gotten some sense over the summer.

As I scrubbed the walls, I tried not to think too much. Today was Thursday, two days before the Hogsmeade trip. I wouldn’t say I was nervous just a little concerned about my date. Michelle didn’t seem like someone who would want to go to Madam Puddifoot’s but everyone went to the Three Broomsticks; I would have to think of something special to do. Before I knew it detention was over and I still hadn’t thought of what I was going to do.

Bang! Bang! “Wake up, you three are going to be late to class.”

I sat up in my bed and rubbed my eyes. Was I dreaming, who was yelling at us? I looked around and saw Connor was still sleeping and Fred was sitting up yawning. The door opened. I saw Layla come in.

“What you doing here?” Fred asked groggily.

“Seeing as class starts in 15 minutes and you weren’t at breakfast, I figure you three were probably still asleep and came to wake you up,” Layla grumbled.

“Fifteen minutes?” I questioned, making sure I heard her right.

“Yes, James fifteen minutes till class starts.” She looked at me like I’m stupid.

Hold on, if she just answered me it meant she was talking to me again! Layla had been ignoring me for most of the week. On Sunday, she was talking to me but then during our conversation Michelle came up and kissed me on the cheek. After that, she went back to ignoring me. Fred said that it was because she was jealous since she liked me. I couldn’t believe that Layla and I had been friends since second year when we both made the Quidditch team. I had asked Lily if Layla liked me. Lily just told me I was a stupid prat.

“Nichols, it was nice of you to wake us up as we had a long night of cleaning but could you leave while we change?” said Connor, the muffled tone of his voice indicated that his head was still on his pillow.

“Of course, just make sure you hurry. And here are some biscuits; I’m leaving them on this table.”

We all grunted our replies. When I heard the thump that indicated the door had shut, I got out of bed and walked over to the showers.

Connor and I walked into Defense against the Dark Arts with our hair dripping (well, actually just mine as Connor’s head was shaved) and the biscuits left by Layla in our hands. We had barely made it in time. I wondered if Fred had gotten to Herbology in time.

I sat down in my seat in the back row and shoved the biscuit into my mouth before Professor Ashby could see me. Thankfully, he had his bald head turned to the class. I had gulped down the biscuit before he turned but Connor was slightly choking on his which made heads turn. I saw Layla trying not to laugh at us.

“Peakes, is there something you would like to share with us?” Ashby asked.

Connor shook his head.

“Then it would be appreciated if you would stop interrupting the class.”

Connor nodded.

As soon as Ashby stopped droning on about the Patronus charm, Connor and I got out of the class as fast as possible and went to meet up with Fred for Potions.

The day went by fast. Everyone was excited about the first Hogsmeade weekend. It was only a day away.

“So Lily, are you excited about your first Hogsmeade trip; are you going with anyone?” Connor asked through a mouthful of food at dinner.

“Er, well, Lysander asked me, and, well, I said yes.” She blushed.

“Shouldn’t have said that in front of James, Lils,” Rose said, looking at my face.

“Oh no, Jamie is going into protective brother mode,” Roxanne giggled.

“Aw, look his face and ears are as red as my hair.” Molly pointed at her Weasley red hair.

“Bloody hell, what is this, a family reunion?” I asked amid their laughter.

I looked to Fred for help. No help from him. He was bent over his plate laughing so hard that his pudding was falling out of his mouth.

“Lily, I don’t think you should go to Hogsmeade with a boy.
Just go with your friends,” I told her ignoring my cousins’ sniggers.

“Too bad that you can’t tell me what to do,” she retorted.

“Then I’ll have to tell Lysander what I think; where is he?” I asked.

“Losing argument, mate,” Fred whispered to me.

Everyone else nodded. Apparently I wouldn’t find any support here. I looked over to the Slytherin table. It was time to pay my brother a visit.

“I’m going over to see what Al thinks,” I announced.

“Do that, I don’t have to listen to either of you,” Lily seethed.

I ignored her and walked over to Al. He would support me.
After all, he was Lily’s brother too.

As I got near the table, I saw Malfoy hit Al in the arm and tell him that I was coming. Al looked up from eating. He had a surprised look on his face. I guess it was because if it was at all possible I stayed far away from Slytherins.

“Lily’s going to Hogsmeade with Lysander,” I told him when I got closer to the table.

Instead of finding the support I expected, I found Al agreed with everyone else.

“No one is going to change her mind about going with him,” he told me. “But I’ll keep an eye out at Hogsmeade to make sure they’re not sneaking around in any dark alleys.”

I walked to back to the Gryffindor table, defeated. Instead of sitting down and finishing dinner, I went up to the dorm. I didn’t feel like sitting there. It’s not like it was a bad thing I didn’t want her to go to Hogsmeade with a boy. She was my little sister. I just wanted to keep her safe.

Michelle caught up with me right before I reached the fat lady’s portrait. She had her hair up in a ponytail with one dark curl hanging in her face.

“What’s with the glum face?” Michelle asked slipping her hand into mine.

“Oh hey, Lily’s going to Hogsmeade with Lysander and no one agrees with me that she shouldn’t.”

“I’m sorry, but you know that no one can change her mind about anything,” Michelle said.

“Yeah, that’s what Al said.” I sighed.

“Do you want to study together?” She looked up at me with those dark eyes; I had no choice but to say yes.

“Of course, let me go get my homework from my dorm,” I replied.

I ran up to my dorm. When I walked in, I tripped over a pair of Connor’s shoes. I looked around the dorm was a mess; I guess the house elves hadn’t cleaned yet. I grabbed my defense against the dark arts book of my bed; planning to finish up my essay on werewolves.

The common room was empty besides for Michelle and some random second years when I got back down.

Michelle was sitting on a couch, chewing on her quill while she worked on her homework.

“You look cute studying,” I told her as I sat down.

She turned her head up to me, a smile played on her lips.

Before I realized what I was doing, I kissed her. Afraid she might get upset, I pulled away.

“No,” She murmured.

Her hands reached into my hair and pulled my lips back to hers. My books fell to the floor when I leaned over to deepen the kiss. It seemed like we had been kissing for a mere second when I heard voices.

“Go James!”

“How can he say I can’t go to Hogsmeade when he’s in the
common room snogging!”

“On this note, I’m going to go study.”

“I think I might puke.”

I looked up to see my cousins minus the ones who weren’t at Hogwarts or in Gryffindor and Connor and Layla. Lily and Layla were talking and throwing quick angry glances my way. Rose was already walking toward her dorm. I assumed it was her who made the studying comment. Fred and Connor looked proud while Roxanne looked like she was deciding what the best way to spread this gossip around was. Hugo just looked bored.

“Er, I’ll just be going up to my dorm,” Michelle mumbled, embarrassed to have been caught snogging in the middle of the common room.

Fred and Connor sat down on the couch next to me congratulating me on snogging Michelle. I laughed and told them that I wished everyone hadn’t seen it. I didn’t mind being caught by my cousins but Michelle wasn’t used to all the Weasleys. I had learned a long time ago that there weren’t secrets in my family.

Later in the evening Molly and Roxanne came down and sat with us. We talked about Quidditch and other things.
Even if they weren’t on a team, everyone in our family loved Quidditch. I think Roxy just liked it because it gave her a reason to stare at boys.

“I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning,” I told everyone around 12:30. I was too worried about my date tomorrow to stay up. I still hadn’t figured out what to do.

“Aw, little Jamie needs his beauty sleep,” Connor laughed.

“You’re just jealous you don’t have as good of looks as I do,” I retorted.

“I think Connor’s better looking than you and Fred,” Molly said blushing.

“That’s because it would be gross if you were attracted to me or James,” Fred said, rolling his eyes and diffusing what could’ve been an awkward situation.

“See you tomorrow at breakfast James,” Roxy said, “I can’t wait to see what your mum sends when she finds out about what happened yesterday.”

I groaned. With this whole Michelle thing going on and trying to figure how I was going to make tomorrow fun; I had forgotten about everything else. I was sure my mum or Fred’s would send a Howler. In fact, Grandma Weasley might even send one too.

“On that note, I’m going up to bed too and going to try not to have nightmares about what my mum might send,” Fred said, “ ‘night everyone.”

Fred and I walked up the stairs, talking about the horror that was sure to face us when the post arrived in the morning.