living with them, ginny weasley & the marauders

thirteen

chapter thirteen; why is now never a convenient enough time?

"Now, now, class. Everybody settle down please!" Professor Flitwick squeaked to no avail.

All the seventh year Gryffindor and Hufflepuffs were gathered in the charms classroom for their last subject of the day. Needless to say, everyone was beginning to get quite restless. Ginny was sitting next to Lily, who was humming quietly, waiting for everybody else to sit down.

No doubt, Lily had questioned Ginny about sitting next to James in Transfiguration earlier today. Ginny was forced to lie through her teeth, and tell Lily that he had sat next to her. Admittedly, Lily hadn't seemed completely convinced, but the lie had appeared to be credible enough.

As a flustered Professor Flitwick bustled about the classroom, trying (and failing miserably) to make everyone silent, Lily rolled her eyes and stood up.

"WILL EVERYONE PLEASE BE QUIET?!" Everyone went dead silent at her command. "Thank you," she said sweetly. "Over to you, Professor."

Lily straightened her skirt and sat down, as Professor Flitwick stood there in shock for a moment. As he began the class, Lily turned around to see James (who was sitting behind Ginny and next to Sirius) resting his chin on his fist, staring directly at her.

"Stop drooling, Potter," she whispered harshly. James straightened up and muttered an incoherent "Sorry," before looking up at Flitwick.

"Now, today we will begin with casting our Patronus Charms," he squeaked.

They had spent the entire charms lesson yesterday 'discussing' Patronuses, but they had not been allowed to begin casting them until today.

"We shall partner up, and your partner can give you a score out of ten for each attempt at the charm. Hopefully each try you have, will improve. Everyone can partner up with the person next to—" he looked over at James and Sirius and shook his head. "—Actually, every second row, can turn to the person behind them."

Lily groaned as she realised that that meant she was paired up with Sirius, but Ginny tried to suppress her smile when she figured out that she was paired up with James. If Lily saw her grinning, she'd have some serious explaining to do.

"Good luck," Ginny chuckled, walking away from a furious Lily, and over to a zoned out James. "Hello? Earth to James?" She waved her hand frantically in front of his face.

"Right, yeah, sorry," he jumped, but his eyes wandered back over to Lily.

"If you're too busy ogling at Lily, I'll go find another partner," Ginny said, rolling her eyes.

"Sorry, it's just—" James hesitated. "Oh nevermind," he eventually dismissed it. "Just try and cast a Patronus. I don't know why I'm telling you all my secrets, anyway."

"Hey!" Ginny said rather sternly. "Remember our deal? I help you get Lily? You may not think I care, but I do!"

"Oh yeah, and why is that?" James interrogated fiercely.

"Because I do, okay?!" Ginny shouted, which caused a few stares to be thrown her way. "You — you don't understand." She trailed off timidly.

James ruffled his hair and apologised awkwardly, not knowing what else to do or say to this girl that he'd known for little over 48 hours. "I'm sorry. It's nice of you to care. I just didn't think that someone I've known for two days would care enough to help me. You're quite unusual, you know that?"

"I know. And I wasn't going to let you back out anyway," Ginny smiled triumphantly. "A deal is a deal, Potter, whether you like it or not."

"Alright, fine," James laughed. "Now let's get back to work."

Ginny rolled her eyes at him, getting rather impatient. Wanting to get it over with, she scrunched her eyes shut, focusing on her happiest memory. "Expecto Patronum!"

A great silvery stallion leapt from the tip of Ginny's wand and pranced around the room. Many students were goggling at it in awe, and Professor Flitwick had waddled over to congratulate her.

"Excellent, Miss Granger!" He boomed, as loud as he could. "50 points to Gryffindor."

As he hurried away again, Ginny turned back to a dumbstruck James and acted casually as if nothing had happened. "So, you and Lily?"

"50 bloody points." He said. "Keep that up and we'll win the house cup for sure. 10 out of 10! When did you learn to do that?"

"When I was 14," Ginny shrugged nonchalantly, picking at her nails.

"Blimey, I learnt just after I turned 16, and I thought that I was good."

"Huh, I knew someone who learnt how to cast one when he was 13," she told him. "To be fair though, he was really good at Defence Against The Dark Arts."

"Really, who was that?" James asked curiously.

Ginny had a sudden urge to shout 'YOUR SON' in his face and watch his confused expression as she strutted out of the classroom. But instead, she was forced to fake a fake smile (because apparently that's possible) and as calmly as she could, say, "Harry."

"Oh, right, I'm sorry," James stammered, and tried to lighten the mood. "I'm sure he was a great bloke. Probably very handsome too."

Ginny burst into fits of laughter as she thought of how cocky that sounded coming from James. Of course, the poor boy in front of her really had no clue what he was talking about, so it wasn't exactly his fault. Nevertheless, it was quite a funny statement.

"What?" James chuckled, frowning at her, though he was oblivious to why she was laughing.

"No—nothing,' Ginny managed, wiping her eyes. "So...now can you explain what's happening with you and Lily?"

"I don't want to do it here!" James hushed her frantically. "We'll be overheard for sure."

"So? If you love her, you shouldn't care what everyone else thinks about it," Ginny whispered harshly.

James' face dropped and he looked at her with an apologetic demeanour, and threw a glance in Lily and Sirius' direction. He leaned over and spoke into Ginny's ear so that only she could hear.

"It's not what everyone else thinks," He admitted. "It's what she thinks. Head Dorm at 8:00? The password is Puer Amor."

Ginny looked into his pleading eyes and sighed in defeat. She really hated that boy right now.

"If you don't want to know, then we can—"

"Fine! But that song better be bloody amazing, Potter."