Potter | 𝘚𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬

Chapter 107

At that voice, the rat, stag, dog and cat suddenly turned around, seeing a red-haired girl standing behind them, staring at the four animals with widened eyes.

No one dared to move until the stag made a quiet sound, saying, "Do you think by any chance she didn't see us?"

It still felt weird for Jenna to understand them, but she answered back, "How can you be so dumb, J.P —?"

"EVERYBODY RUN!" the dog suddenly barked loudly, and they soon noticed that the Whomping Willow had started moving again.

But as they started running, they realized that Lily was still frozen on the spot, staring at them in horror. She hadn't noticed that the tree was trying to attack them yet.

So the stag started running toward her the next moment, yanking on her robes urgently with his teeth. As if suddenly coming to her senses, Lily screamed when she looked up and saw one of the tree's heavy branches lowering itself toward them to crash them.

But the stag had pulled her away just in time, the branch missing them merely by a few inches.

And so they started running away from the Whomping Willow and into a far distance before finally stopping, all panting.

The four animals gave each other one last look before transforming back to their human forms, Lily still gaping at them in horror.

"You — how — oh, God!" she exclaimed, breathing heavily.

"We will explain everything if you could just calm down," James said gently, stepping toward her in a slow pace.

"Okay — explain!" said Lily fiercely, folding her arms.

"Right," James nodded hesitantly. "Well, you see — er — the thing is — er —" He then turned to face his sister for support. "Jenna? Little help?"

She rolled her eyes, before turning to Lily. "They just thought it be fun to learn how to become Animagi, and I thought I could join them with my Metamorphmagus abilities."

"But that's insane! Not to mention illegal!" Lily scolded. "Besides, it's an extremely hard process! Why on earth would you do it for fun — unless..."

Lily fell silent, looking between the four of them and back at the Whomping Willow.

"Unless Remus is in there," she whispered.

"R-remus?" Peter said in small and scared voice.

"Yes, that would make sense..." Lily went on, talking mostly to herself. "Because werewolves won't hurt animals... they only attack humans..."

"Werewolves?" James repeated with a nervous laughter, running his hand through his jet-black hair. "Who said anything about werewolves?"

"Remus did," Lily answered firmly. "He told me about his condition. But he didn't say anything about how you four turn into animals to accompany each month on the full moon!"

"Wait, Remus told you?" Jenna raised her brow at the red-haired girl. "But why didn't you tell me?"

"Probably for the same reason you didn't tell me," said Lily, shrugging. "I was trying to keep his secret. He trusted me with it."

"Why did you come here, anyway?" Jenna asked her.

"Because you guys were acting suspicious!" she tried to reason. "I knew something was going on... I just didn't know how severe it was."

"Well, be glad that you didn't follow us inside," said Sirius, scoffing. "We didn't want another Snivellous."

"That's how you saved him last year, then..." said Lily in a low voice, turning to face James. "Snape, I mean."

"Well... yeah... kind of." James shrugged humbly. But then Lily suddenly said something that caught everyone off guard,

"Thank you, Potter."

"Wh-what?" James stuttered, staring at her as if he had heard her wrong.

"I said thank you," Lily repeated herself, her cheeks going slightly pink. "For saving me. From that tree. If you hadn't pulled me away... I probably would've been crushed."

James grinned sheepishly, ruffling up his hair again. "O-of course..."

They both then fell silent for long seconds, staring at one another, smiling lightly.

"Welp..." Sirius started uncomfortably, snapping them back to reality. "This is awkward."

"We should probably get going," said Jenna. "You go back to the common room, Lil. I'll see you tomorrow."

Lily nodded hastily and James cleared his throat, both of them looking away, their faces flushed and their grins still dangling on their lips.

***

The next day, they all pretended like nothing had happened and tried to go back to normal, busying themselves with their studies now that their final exams were soon approaching.

But what Jenna was more nervous about was their final Quidditch match of the season, which was even closer.

Even though they had lost to Hufflepuff, they still had a chance to win the Cup that year if they got a good score against Ravenclaw in the upcoming match.

So as the morning of the final Quidditch match arrived, the Gryffindor team gathered around in the changing rooms, going through their strategic plan one last time before the game.

Jenna didn't know what to expect from the Ravenclaw team that year, seeing as they had a new captain, Mike Williams, who was a blond muggleborn Keeper.

So as they walked into the pitch, Madam Hooch asked the captains to shake hands and on the sound of her whistle, the players mounted their brooms and shot to the sky.

The weather was warm and perfect, making it easy for them to play as the chasers threw the Quaffle at each other and tried to score.

Marlene was playing better than ever, having more confidence than last year. But there was no point denying that James was the best Chaser in the whole field.

They were now seventy points to forty in the favor of Gryffindors, James having scored more than half of them.

Jenna knew if they wanted to win the Cup, she had to catch the Snitch after they had gotten twenty more scores.

So in order to distract the Ravenclaw Seeker, she suddenly shot down forward on her broom to pretend like she had spotted the Snitch. To her relief, the boy fell for it and followed her around the pitch.

But she finally saw the Snitch in time after the Gryffindor chasers had made two more goals and so she shot up to the sky, the sound of cheers booming through the air.

Jenna raised her hand to catch it. The Ravenclaw seeker was right behind her. Seeing how close she was to getting the Snitch, Mike Williams waved his bat and sent the Bludger flying toward Jenna.

But Sirius abruptly flew forward and with his bat, he sent the Bludger in the direction of the Ravenclaw Seeker, knocking him off the broom.

Jenna stretched her hand even more, speeding up. And the next moment the stadium exploded with the sound of cheers as she caught the Snitch.

"Potter has caught the Snitch!" the commentator yelled. "GRYFFINDOR WINS THE CUP!"