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.
A Second Glance by 21always
Story Notes:
disclaimer: anything you recognize is Jo's
Chapter Notes: Thanks to my betas:twilightHPgirl18 and Gorgeous_Ginny