INSTEAD, james potter [1]

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It was hard to focus on school work when all Lyra wanted to do was for time to pass quickly so she could go to Hogsmeade with Bertram Aubrey and finally have her real first date with a cute guy with the best hair at Hogwarts. 

But she wasn't about to be one of those love-struck girls who ignored their dreams and work just for a boy. Especially a boy she didn't even know if she really liked yet. All she knew was that he was a very promising candidate for her first boyfriend. 

Lyra needed to force herself to do well in school and not get caught up in the feel of sixth year, where everybody felt they deserved a break because they had finished their O.W.L.s and felt like the N.E.W.T.s were too far away to care. 

So she had forced James Potter to sit down with her in library so they could write the best damn Transfiguration essay Hogwarts had ever seen, even if the due date was almost a month away. She refused to procrastinate.

He had complained about it to his friends, of course. He was more of the natural genius type who did everything the night before it had to be handed in. But when Remus pointed out that it meant more time spent with Lyra, he didn't mind quite so much. 

He had also been surprisingly civil throughout the hour they had spent during Saturday morning writing their essay. He hadn't asked her out or paid her any strange, awkward compliments all morning. Lyra was wondering if she had ended up in some strange, alternate universe. 

"You have a typo there," James pointed out as he looked at the paragraph she was writing, even if he knew it was just a first draft. The fact that she even made several drafts was enough to throw him off. "You wrote non-vernal instead of non-verbal."

"Oh, thanks." She sent him a quick smile just for good measure. Then she stopped up in her tracks as she realized how strange the situation was. "Alright, what's going on with you? You're acting so strange."

"Me? Strange? What do you mean?" James scoffed, asking. He knew exactly what it meant, and it was secretly a ploy for her to realize how much she missed feeling like he fancied her, or to say she liked him better now so she could start fancying him like that too.

"You know exactly what I mean," the blonde accused, pointing her finger towards him with a stern look on her face. "You haven't asked me out once or been your usual annoying self for about an hour something. What's going on? Are you sick? Or are you an imposter?"

"You're hilarious," he responded dryly, to which she sent him a tight smile. "And, hey, if you really miss it I'll totally do it again, even if it ruins our essay. Anything for you, love. Anything for you."

"Please don't," Lyra grimaced, which made him chuckle to himself. "I'm actually not hating spending time with you right now. It's kind of nice to just sit here and work with you, you're usually sort of annoying."

"I appreciate that," James grinned, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "So you're sure you want to use the bird-conjuring charm? Isn't it a bit too basic? Basically every sixth-year knows everything about it. We both know we're the star students and could do a bit more."

Lyra couldn't help but be intrugiued, especially as she would do almost anything to get an O on this essay, which McGonagall said would be graded as if it were on the N.E.W.T.s. "What'd you have in mind?"

James did very much enjoy the way she was looking into his eyes, like she was interested in what he had to say. He never wanted that feeling to go away. "Well, I was thinking about our old friend, the Animagus spell."

"You've got to be joking," the Slytherin shook her head with disappointment at the bad idea. "There a million reasons as to why that wouldn't be a good idea. She could figure out you're an Animagus. And also, there are no ways to do it non-verbally."