Hero of the Story || James Potter x Hermione Granger Fanfiction

7 | i'll teach you everything i know

vii.

i'll teach you everything i know

(Light by Sleeping at Last)

__________

November 27, 1974

"Merlin, I was afraid you'd ditch me today!" was Hermione's soft greeting upon seeing Peter entering the library.

Her brother skidded to a halt when he saw her company. Unwittingly, his blue eyes narrowed at the back of Severus' head. As if sensing his hostile gaze, her Slytherin best friend turned around and sneered at him.

"What is he doing here?" he snapped, glancing over at Hermione to glare at her.

"He's my brother," she reminded, unbothered by his ire. "And I wanted to help him with his studies, so I invited him."

Severus lifted his chin and with a polished wave, all of his things were neatly placed inside his bag. He then stood up from his seat and shouldered the strap of his bag.

"Sev, come on..."

"I'd rather die than study with pompous gits like him," he harshly muttered. Hermione's eyes widened at how he swivelled around with practiced flourish, reminiscent of her Potions master in her previous lifetime.

"Melodramatic git," she murmured under her breath once Severus was gone. She then turned to Peter and awkwardly smiled. "Sorry about that."

Peter shrugged. "Good riddance, I guess," he said.

"Peter!"

He sheepishly smiled and slid on the chair opposite Hermione. "You and I both know we don't really like each other, Hermione," he pointed out. "Why bother acting civil?"

"Because it's what a normal, decent person does?" she offered.

Peter merely rolled his eyes and started piling his things onto the table.

"What are you going to study today?" she asked, glancing at the colour-coded schedule she had prepared for her brother.

"Herbology, I think," he said, grabbing onto said parchment and scanning it for the schedule for today. "Yes, it says second year Herbology."

Peter started to study the syllabus from their second year Herbology. Hermione lightly smiled at how he struggled with remembering basic details and how he repeated it again and again under his breath to memorise it. She remembered how her favourite professor, Professor McGonagall, once pointed out that Peter Pettigrew wasn't up to par with his friends' intelligence and skills. Peter wasn't exactly that dull. He just didn't really care too much about studying. But unlike James, who was amazingly gifted with Transfiguration and Charms, or Sirius who was especially talented in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Peter did not really have something he was good at. Well, maybe there was skateboarding, but of course that wasn't something he could use for his future career.

It warmed her heart how he was now trying, though. Harry and Ron never listened to her when she insisted that they should start studying if they wanted to become Aurors in the future, claiming they have a bloody shining reputation that would land them into their dream jobs. Bloody naïve, those berks were – but Peter was earnestly trying his best, wanting to prove to everybody that he was as talented as his best friends.

Thus, Hermione was patient with him when her brother asked about things he couldn't understand. Thankfully, they were tackling second year Herbology, which Hermione had gone through already, so it wasn't questionable how she knew about these things.