Chapter Text
School wasn’t supposed to be hard, especially if you were a supernatural teen whose main classes where magic related. All schools, even non-supernatural ones, had a hard subject. Whether it was math, English, science, you name it. And they also had tutors to help those kids who struggled. But one thing normal schools didn’t have was Hope Mikaelson.
At least that’s what Josie told herself. She couldn’t come up with a different reason for her terrible marks in charms lately.
Mr. Williams was still subbing in this class, which meant that he needed a teacher aid. A WITCH teacher aid, and who better at that job than Hope freaking Mikaelson. The only tribrid and hero of the school. They had seen her blow up stuff, whammy monsters and even play some very sneaky pranks on the students who bullied Pedro.
Most witches were ecstatic to have Hope help with this class. She was a good teacher and also had a lot of tricks up her sleeve to make the spells easier. But for Josie, this wasn’t good at all. Her Malivore memories were back and so was her crush on the tribrid.
She could blame her bad marks on getting used to her new normal, and saying that it was because Landon had left. But that would be a huge lie. Her bad marks were because she stopped paying attention to what Mr. Williams was saying and spent the whole class staring at Hope. Which is exactly what was happening right now.
The bell rang and everyone started gathering their belongings to go to lunch. “Josie, could you stay for a bit? I need to talk to you,” said Mr. Williams. Josie sighed, knowing she was about to get a lecture because of her bad marks.
“Is everything okay Josie? You’ve been very distracted lately.”
“I’m sorry Dor...I mean Mr. Williams” Josie managed to correct her slip up since there were still students in the classroom. “It’s just been a couple of difficult weeks, you know?”
“I get it Josie, but you cannot let your marks drop because of a new monster arrived or because Landon left.”
Every time someone mentioned Landon it made Josie mad. Did they really think she would be that stuck in a relationship that barely lasted a month? She dated Penelope for way longer and she actually broke her heart. Even with all that happening her marks were still good.
Josie stayed silent after that, she obviously wasn’t about to say the real reason for her failing her last test. “There’s another test coming in two weeks. I think getting a tutor would be a good idea,” said Dorian.
“I guess that would be a good idea, but um. I don’t really think anyone would be up for it. Since I’d have to either siphon from them or stay inside the school, which wouldn’t be a good idea since last class I almost set my desk on fire.”
That had been quite an interesting class. She thought it’d be easy since fire spells were her specialty but then Hope had sent her a small smile and boom. Desk partially on fire.
“I’ll tutor her,” Hope said.
She had been so quiet Josie thought she had already left. As she made eye contact with Hope, she could feel the blush starting to come up her neck.
“That’s a perfect idea, Hope!” As soon as Dorian spoke, Josie broke eye contact with Hope. This is so not a perfect idea. She could feel the older girl’s eyes on her. “I’ll leave you two to sort this out. I’m sure that with Hope’s help you’ll get back on track Josie.”
When Dorian left an awkward fell on the room. Josie was avoiding looking at Hope, while Hope kept staring at Josie.
“I’m sorry, I guess I should’ve asked you first if you were okay with me tutoring you. You know, since we’re trying to go back to being friends. At least I think we were friends before I jumped into Malivore and everyone forgot about me. But yeah I should…”
“Hope, you’re rambling.” Now it was Hope’s turn to blush. “It’s okay, I’d actually really appreciate your help.” Josie looked at Hope and gave her a sincere smile, which the auburn-haired girl returned.
“So, how are we doing this?” asked Josie.
“I think it’d be a good idea if we went to the old mill. Since this unit was basically element spells, it’d be safer to go outside.”
“But that’d mean I’d have to siphon from you,” Josie said nervously.
Yes, she had done that before but one thing was one maybe two spells because a monster was attacking and another thing was practicing magic for an hour or even an entire afternoon.
“I’ll be okay, but if you want I can ask your dad for a magical object so you can siphon from it instead of me.” Hope sent her a smile that was supposed to get her to relax. It did quite the contrary. Josie started to feel butterflies in her stomach, the same ones she thought had died as soon as she started dating Penelope and Hope gave her the cold shoulder all those years ago.
“I don’t think my dad will give you one but sure, let’s try that.”
“Perfect, how does tomorrow after school sound like?” Asked Hope.
“That’d be good. Do you wanna meet there or..?” She didn’t know if it’d be okay with Hope hanging out before the tutoring of if it was better to just keep a bit of a distance still.
“How about we meet at the school entrance? That way we can walk to the mill together”
“Sounds good to me.”
Class usually went by pretty slow for Josie but for some reason, today’s seemed to go way too fast. Which meant that meeting with Hope for tutoring was happening soon.
“Jo, you’ve barely touched your veggie sandwich, are you okay?” Mg asked.
“Yeah, I’m just not that hungry today.” If she had been honest, she would have told her best friend how bad she was feeling. She wasn’t nervous no, she was terrified. Getting tutored by the reason you’re being tutored is terrible.
“Hey, you know if there’s something going on I’m here to listen.” He looked at her with a kind smile. She knew he wasn’t gonna be judgy. He might even be able to help out with the nerves.
“Well...actually. I’m not okay.” Mg gave her an Oh I know look which Josie didn’t appreciate.
“I’m trying to tell you something! Don’t make that of course you’re not okay look.”
Mg did look a bit guilty. “Okay, fine. What’s up Jo?”
“Remember that I told you I failed my past two charms tests?” Mg nodded, letting Josie know he was following.
“Yeah, you told me you were worried about what your dad might think since he and Dorian are basically best friends.”
“Well in an attempt to get my marks back up he assigned me a tutor.”
“That’s awesome Josie! That way you’ll get your marks back up and your dad won’t make you quit student council.”
Josie didn’t make eye contact with Mg. She knew this sounded amazing if she didn’t tell him the complete story, so she continued.
“Oh no, it’s not awesome at all. Since you know my tutor is the same reason I need to be tutored.” The last part was barely a whisper if it wasn’t for Mg’s vamp hearing he would have missed it.
“NO FREAKIN’ WAY!”
“Shhhhhh Mg! You’re making people stare at us”
The vampire gave her a sheepish look since he tended to be too loud for her very introverted best friend.
“Sorry, Jo. But it was a natural reaction since you are getting tutored by THE Hope Mikaelson.” Mg kept making these hand movements every time he repeated Hope’s name. And he said it about 5 times until Josie told him to stop.
“This is terrible, but now I can’t get out of it and the worst part is that Lizzie can’t find out since this is the only class we don’t take together and I barely managed to convince her I was being less codependent by taking a different class than her.”
“You’re right about that.”
Josie took her phone out to check the time. “Oh no, I’m late already. I gotta go meet Hope.”
She stood up, grabbed her backpack and ran out yelling goodbye to her friend, knowing Mg would end up eating her sandwich.
“Don’t worry Jo! Everything will turn out just fine!”
Josie gave him a last glance before continuing her jog to the front of the school.