Chapter Text
“At this point, Mr Potter,” said Professor McGonagall, fixing him with a look over the rim of her glasses, “you would require nothing short of a miracle to obtain a N.E.W.T in Potions. Felix Felicis might suffice - but given your difficulty with far less complex brews, I find that prospect… optimistic.”
He swallowed. Hard.
“Right.”
He looked down at his hands, his knuckles whitening.
“Of course,” she continued, “you are fortunate enough to have a Potions Master for a father, meaning that you might not need that lucky brew after all -”
His eyes snapped back up. “I’m not asking my dad.”
His face warmed as his Head of House lifted an eyebrow.
“He’s… it’s embarrassing,” he admitted, slumping slightly, a hand raking through his hair. “He’s one of the greatest Potioneers of his time, and me…” He faltered, tugging at his curls. Then, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he went on, “I just don’t get it. I actually do the homework -”
“A marked improvement on the lack of work you appear to be doing in my class.”
“I’m not failing that one, am I?” he asked, sulk creeping into his voice.
“Far from it,” his Transfiguration Professor told him. “It truly ought to be mildly infuriating, yet I have long ago decided to take it as a compliment.”
She gazed at him for a moment, as if she were waiting for him to reply. When he didn’t, she reached for a quill and some parchment.
“I suggest a tutor.”
“A tutor?”
McGonagall leaned back in her seat. "Do you not tutor a Fifth Year in Transfiguration?"
His cheeks were aflame, burned hotter than it had ever felt. "Well, sure, yes," he frowned, "but I'm - I don't need a tutor, all right? I'll figure it out. I can do this myself, I -"
"Shame," his Professor said, clucking her tongue, "I suppose I should tell Miss Evans her help is no longer required then."
"Evans?"
His mouth felt dry instantly.
"Yes," McGonagall nodded solemnly, although James swore the right corner of her lip twitched into something that looked suspiciously like a smile. "She has generously offered to tutor students in Potions or Charms. As a fellow Gryffindor, I thought she might be the perfect fit." He swallowed as he let those words sink in. Then, his Professor added: "As a tutor, of course."
Right.
He straightened, knees knocking into the mahogany desk, his heart thumping inside his chest. "Professor, surely, you must know that Evans and I -" he faltered. "You must know she doesn't exactly... like me after -" He pulled a face.
She blinked at him.
He felt extremely awkward.
"After I, uhm..." His fingers twitched, the need to run them through his hair almost compulsive. She hated when he did that, though. Lily Evans, that is. "After I asked her out," he finished, feeling even more embarrassed now than when his Head of House had suggested he needed tutoring in the first place.
McGonagall regarded him in silence.
It was not the sharp, disciplinary silence he was used to - the sort that made weaker and less strong-willed students confess to crimes they had sworn they'd never admit to. This silence was contemplative. Measuring. Testing.
"Ah,” she said at last.
"She won't want to come near me. She's ignored me for the better part of the school year. I don't think we've spoken since -"
"What if I said Miss Evans already agreed?"
He gaped at the woman across from him. "She - she what?"
"She already agreed," repeated McGonagall.
He blinked as his Professor continued to look at him steadily. "And she knows it's me?"
When the woman nodded, his laugh slipped out - short, incredulous, and a little breathless. He felt as though his body had forgotten which emotion it was meant to hold.
McGonagall was clearly running out of patience with him, though. "Miss Evans agreed to start tomorrow. At eight, after Quidditch practice."
That was it.
McGonagall had already turned back to her parchment, quill scratching decisively, the conversation filed away with the same finality she reserved for detentions and exam results.
“Thank you, Professor,” James said automatically, though he wasn’t entirely sure his mouth had received the memo.
She did not look up. He was dismissed.
He made it to the door on instinct alone. It closed behind him with a soft, unmistakable click.
James stood there for a moment.
Then another.
The corridor was empty, sunlight slanting in through the tall windows, dust motes drifting lazily in the air like the world hadn’t just tipped sideways. Somewhere far off, someone laughed. Footsteps echoed. Hogwarts carried on. Yet he - he - felt as though his world had shifted.
He stared straight ahead, unseeing, his mind finally catching up to his body.
Tomorrow. Eight o’clock. After Quidditch practice. Lily Evans.
His shoulders sagged.
A hand came up, fingers rubbing at his temple as if that might help reorder the mess in his head. Then, he let out a slow breath - soft and disbelieving.
“What the fuck?”
The words vanished into the stone corridor, unanswered.
He pushed off the wall and started walking, not entirely sure where he was going.
James Potter did not do nervous. Not because he didn't feel nerves - because he simply preferred to ignore them and he always did so more than successfully. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd been nervous when he stepped on the pitch - was it that match against Slytherin in his second year? The one where he'd been dying to win the cup in his first year of playing for Gryffindor?
James Potter did not do nervous. Yet, standing at the entrance of the Potions classroom - seeing Lily Evans at the brewing stations - he felt as though his stomach had tied itself in knots. He also felt as though he might have to make a run for the bathroom, that he might need to empty his stomach before even daring to set foot inside it.
He was about to follow his instincts - flee! Go! Never come back! - when the fellow Gryffindor turned and found him standing there like a complete idiot.
"Oh,” she said. “You’re here.”
You're here? James’ brain stalled. You're here! You hate me!
He had just opened his mouth to speak, when she waved him over.
"Come on," she said. "If we want to have any luck brewing a potion from start to finish before curfew, we better start now."
His knees felt like jelly, but he shuffled forward anyway, trying - vainly - to look confident. He dropped his Quidditch bag to the floor; it landed with a thunk near the desk where he normally sat - all the way in the back to avoid Slughorn and hide his incompetence when it came to even the simplest potions.
"Thanks," he said. His voice sounded a little rough, and he cleared it. "For doing this."
Her back was turned toward him, auburn hair tied in a braid that fell down her back. "Of course," she replied, without looking up.
As he got closer, he found that she'd laid out some ingredients - each one more intimidating than the last. A row of small glass vials glimmered with liquids in impossible colors: a pale blue that seemed to shimmer and shift, a deep crimson that almost pulsed, and a thick, green goo that sloshed slowly as if it had a mind of its own.
Next to them, a few dried components were neatly arranged on a silver tray: powdered root of asphodel, glimmering petals of the mooncalf flower, and a small pile of crushed unicorn horn that sparkled faintly in the dim classroom light. A live newt wriggled lazily in a tiny tank, and a vial of phosphorescent dew from a Fanged Geranium caught the sunlight from the tall windows, casting tiny rainbows across the counter.
James frowned, squinting at the setup.
"Do you recognize the potion?"
He started, looking at her. Her eyes were gentle, a breathtaking green that he truly shouldn't have met.
He looked away, turned his gaze towards the ingredients.
"Uhm..." James muttered, blinking rapidly. "Well… there’s mooncalf petals, asphodel… and… unicorn horn?" His voice trailed off. "I mean… that’s… a lot. I don’t… I’m not sure." He grabbed the back of his neck in an attempt to hide the flush starting there.
Evans tilted her head, lips quirking just slightly. "That’s okay," she said, sounding far more patient than she had ever been with him. "It's not a potion we've studied yet. I thought we could start with a potion neither of us have brewed before. We can fail or succeed together."
She smiled, and his heart skipped a traiterous beat.
"You've never failed anything in your life, Evans," he said.
"Lucky you then! You're actually going to brew a potion that isn't a severe disappointment for once."
If he didn't know any better, he would have thought she was teasing him, joking with him. Seeing as he did know much better than to keep his hopes up when it came to Lily Evans, though, he knew she was more likely to be mocking him for his idiocy.
"I don't know," he told her, mouth a little dry, fingers curled into his palm, nails biting the skin there in an attempt to remind himself that he ought not to see things that weren't there. "When you're working on a potion with someone who's this spectacularly unskilled - you better hope we don't brew some type of poison."
Her eyebrows rose. "Someone's ego has taken a hit."
"Yeah, well -" he rubbed the back of his neck now. "If I want to be an Auror, I need to somehow miraculously pass the Potions N.E.W.T. with an E, and seeing as that's far from likely at this point -" He shrugged.
Something in her gaze shifted and he felt his cheeks colour. He turned away, looked back at the spread of ingredients. “Anyway. Let’s just… start, yeah?”
“An E isn’t far from likely.”
He snorted, pulled a face. "That's far too generous, Evans."
“No, it's not," she contradicted. "You’re not bad at Potions, Potter. You’re impatient." She tilted her chin. "And if there's one thing you need when making the perfect potion, it's the patience for it to become one."
He blinked.
“You rush the instructions. You assume you know what’s coming next, and you skip ahead. Then when it doesn’t work, you panic.” She shrugged lightly. “It’s not a lack of ability. It’s a lack of discipline.”
He opened his mouth to speak - to contradict her, to tell her she was too optimistic - but he didn't get the chance.
She reached for her wand and lit the fire under the cauldron. The soft whoomph of flame beneath the cauldron cut cleanly through whatever protest had been forming on his tongue.