One Winter Night
James whipped off his invisibility cloak after he had carefully closed the door behind him. The classroom was dark, and the only light came from the moon outside. The desks inside were arranged neatly, the front table was spotless, and it seemed to be one of the most untouched rooms in the building. The large, clear, glass windows lined the outer side of the classroom, and a glass door led outside to a stone balcony where stars could easily be seen.
He strode over to one of the desks closest to the tall windows, and dropped his book bag right next to it. Jumbling out an extra piece of parchment, his quill and ink, a candle, and his Herbology text book, he took a seat. He peered up at the candle and it instantly lit up. Sighing, he glanced down at his text book, but the words seemed to blur, and he found himself shifting in his seat restlessly.
There were many reasons why James Potter studied in the Astronomy Tower: it was a quiet place where no one would disturb him, and it was a place to clear his mind and think straight. Studying there was the last place anyone would find him, and he chuckled at the thought of people thinking he was sneaking off to get drunk in Hogsmeade. The Astronomy classes were usually held at the earliest around eleven, and by then, he would already be half way to the Gryffindor common room. Sometimes, classes would be declared cancelled because of cloudy conditions, in which case James would usually stay till around midnight.
In the past, he had a tough time studying, not that he did it very often, but whenever he was in a crunch to finish or study a subject there were always distractions. One of the Marauders would persuade him to go out to prank somebody, or (such as in recent years) girls would ask him for help in order to talk to him.
He glanced up outside and stared off into nowhere.
Jamie? Who the hell is Jamie? Maybe some friend of hers. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Who says she’s going out with him?
He tore off his piece of blank parchment in half and grasped his quill.
Jamie Patterson, Jamie Fitzgerald, Jamie McGregor. he wrote hastily on the parchment.
It could be any one of them! pondered James with frustration.
He didn’t know any of them very well other than the fact that one of them, Jamie McGregor, was in fourth year.
Rustling the back of his hair, he leaned back, put his glasses on his piece of parchment, and closed his eyes. A black cloud came by and swallowed the moon whole, leaving James in the darkness of the classroom with only the single, lonely candle flickering wildly.
He began to wonder what he should do about the Christmas party. Maybe he would just go alone, and have a good time with the Marauders. No doubt he wouldn’t run out of supply of people to dance with, but what would that tell Lily? Would it just show her that he would use people for his entertainment and selfish purposes? Perhaps he would ask her anyway and hope for the best.
James rubbed his eyes exhaustedly, spontaneously got up, opened the glass door, and walked slowly over toward the edge of the balcony. He listened intently to the crunching sound of snow beneath his shoes. The crisp, frosty air bit at him immediately, and he shivered as he plunged his hands into the pockets of his burgundy hoodie. Light, glittering flakes of snow drifted from the dim sky onto the ground to create a blanket of white. The dark cloud that had covered the moon before moved on and the moonlight shot down upon him.
He had concluded that tonight there were too many clouds passing through the sky that Professor Sinistra had cancelled the nightly Astronomy lessons.
James exhaled heavily and watched his breath swirl gracefully in front of his face and disappear into the night. As he gazed at the moon shining brightly, he was about to drift into another day-dream about running into Lily as a stag, kissing her at the Christmas party, having her around his waist down the halls, telling her how he never wanted their time together to end…
Click.
James instinctively whipped around toward the door. The candle inside went out suddenly, and James was stuck squinting at who had entered the room. His glasses were still on his desk, and his wand was buried underneath a dozen notes and his text books in his book bag.
Cautiously stepping forward toward the glass door leading into the Astronomy room, he peered around quietly, his heart beating fast. He was hoping beyond belief that it wasn’t Severus Snape trying to get another good beating on him again. He abruptly remembered he still had not repaid the favour.
“Hello?” asked James hesitantly. “Anybody there?”
He heard a small scuffle, and saw a small shoe appear from within the shadows followed by a black skirt, brown book bag, white shirt, blue and bronze tie, black robes, dark violet hair, and a pair of chocolate brown eyes.
“Oh,” started Audrey Filendale. “I- I’m terribly sorry for disturbing you and I, uh, will just, er…go right now then.” She turned around quickly and started to dash away from him.
“Wait!” yelled James after her, but she had already zoomed out the door.
Racing dangerously down a flight of stairs with his near-sighted eyes, he finally caught glimpse of a pair of robes. He skipped some steps as he finally got closer to her and finally grasped her by the shoulder at the bottom of the second flight of stairs. She turned around swiftly and her floppy half-bangs went casually over her dark cocoa coloured eyes, and he observed that her face was a scarlet colour as she panted rapidly.
“It’s Audrey, right?” inquired James as he caught his breath and extended his hand. “I’m- “
“James Potter. I know,” finished Audrey.
She was clearly nervous.
“Listen, I didn’t know you had a class- “
“I didn’t,” she cut him off again. “I was just going up there to star-gaze a bit and clear my head.”
“Well, you can if you want. I wasn’t getting much work done anyway, and- “
“Oh, no! Just ignore me! I didn’t mean to disturb you, and I’m really sorry, you were there first, and well, I can do it another time, it’s not like I have to go up there now and- “
“Whoa, slow down, it’s OK,” said James kindly. “How about this: We can both star-gaze, or study, up there, it’s really no problem.”
“Are you sure? I mean I don’t want to intrude on anything,” she asked with a tone of disbelief.
“Nah, it’s really nothing. C’mon.”
After they had made their way to the Astronomy Tower, James could tell Audrey was still quite nervous being there with him. She took a seat almost the furthest from his and seemed to be trying to make as little noise as possible as she went through her books and notes. He re-lighted his candle and (putting on his glasses) resumed peering down at his parchment once more.
The presence of her seemed to take James’ mind off of Lily for the time being, and he was actually taking notes on his parchment as he read thoroughly through his Herbology text.
When he looked up later, he noticed that Audrey was no longer sitting in her seat. She had somehow quietly crept across the room, opened the glass door and stepped outside onto the balcony. He tore his attention away from his textbook and walked with interest next to Audrey. As soon as he stood by her, she glanced at him with an expression of surprise. He didn’t see it though, he was glancing up at the moon admiring its mysterious beauty and listening to the silence that the snowy atmosphere had created. She observed with fondness at his muscular, tall, handsome figure, and his rumpled jet black hair that made him appear as if he had just got off his broomstick after a Quidditch game.
She shivered suddenly, and James glanced down at her. Without another thought, he slipped off his hoodie and hung it around her shoulders gently. Audrey blushed a noticeable crimson as she pulled it on.
“Thanks,” she said weakly.
“You’re welcome,” he replied.
The awkward silence was slowly killing James as he gazed up at the moon once again. He always had something to say.
“So, you’re a fourth year, eh?” inquired James suddenly, making Audrey peer up at him abruptly.
“Yeah.”
“How has your year been so far?”
“It’s been pretty good, except for the huge homework load they’ve been giving out lately.”
“Tell me about it,” said James as he leaned on the edge of the tower. “I didn’t think homework was considered a Christmas present.”
Audrey giggled shyly. “Well, I’ll bet you have no trouble with it.”
James shrugged casually. “Sometimes, but that’s rare, only in the subjects I don’t really enjoy like Defence Against the Dark Arts.”
She smiled.
“How about you?” asked James with a friendly tone to his voice.
“I really like Astronomy, but, well, I have to admit my Transfiguration is horrible. I really don’t understand it, and it drives me insane.” Her smile from before had vanished. “My parents were really good at it, and they understand that I don’t get it, but I still feel horrible about being the odd ball in the gene pool.”
James continued to listen.
“My brother John says that it’s OK, if I’m not good at it because no one expects you to be good at everything.” Her eyes started to water up at the sides. “But then sometimes they don’t understand why I can’t do a lot of other things. The truth is I’m not really good at anything. I know they want me to become an Auror, or a member of the Ministry or something they call respectable because they love me, but honestly, I don’t want to be. They constantly bring it up over and over again to motivate me or something, and I try, but the fact is I’m not that smart or clever.” She sobbed. “The worst part is I don’t have the heart to tell them that.” She buried her face into her hands and turned away from him, embarrassed at the fact she was crying and telling her frustration to James Potter.
She wiped her eyes with the edge of his hoodie, trying desperately to break into a smile but failed. “This is crazy, and really stupid of me. I don’t know why I’m saying this to you, you of all people. I don’t even know you! You probably think I’m crazy or insane, or something. I’m so stupid, and dumb I don’t think I’ll ever get- “
Then suddenly, he gently grasped her by the shoulder and pulled her into him. Her tears soaked into his shirt and tie, and he put his chin on top of her head.
“It’s OK,” he said to her comfortingly. “It’s OK.”
When James had made it back to the common room that night, he still didn’t know where the acts of gallantry, such as lending her his hoodie, and comforting her as she cried, came from. For one thing, he had never felt so close, emotionally, to a girl before, with the exception of Lily. Then again, he had never met someone quite like Audrey. She was shy, a characteristic that he had rarely, if ever, ran into, and she wasn’t like most brainless girls that gawked and flirted with him endlessly. On the contrary, he felt that there was a flaming desire inside her to prove something and also she seemed to possess great perseverance.
That night, after he had held her for several minutes on the snow littered balcony, she finally pulled away and muttered that she should get back. By then, James knew that it was definitely past curfew, and he offered to walk her back to the Ravenclaw common room underneath the invisibility cloak so she wouldn’t get caught. Audrey agreed somewhat reluctantly, and they both made their way clumsily to the west end of the castle. Once there, she thanked him timidly and started to pull of his hoodie to give back to him, when he told her, “Don’t worry about it, you can give it back to me whenever. It’s good for star-gazing on winter nights anyway.”
Even now, as he sat slightly soaked with snow in front of the common room fire, he had no idea where that comment had come from. Then, he began to realize a lot of things he had said in front of Audrey, he had never said except to the people he actually cared about. Was he having feelings for someone he barely knew?
James shook his head to clear his mind.
He concluded that he couldn’t have feelings for her and that the sudden emotion was from sympathy, because he had never known what it was like to try so hard, to have so much pressure on him, and still not succeed. He had been the exact opposite his whole life. His talent had sky-rocketed his popularity, grades and self-esteem to reach the point that it turned into pure cockiness.
As he watched the flames dance around the fireplace, cracking and sparking every so often, a guilty thought came into his mind: Am I abusing my talent?
It seemed very odd to James, for he had never questioned it before. He always thought of himself as the intelligent individual that held no boundaries, but was he wasting his talent to make a fool of other people? What would he have become if he wasn’t talented? Would he be the one being hexed/pranked by others? Would he be struggling, tagging along talented people to hide behind, to defend himself? Or would he try as hard as he could at everything he undertook, like Audrey?
Why am I even thinking about this? wondered James to himself, but subconsciously he already knew the answer: You’re thinking about it because you’re taking your talent for granted, and you know it.