Chapter Text
The Library, Third Floor — Thursday, 4:17pm
James Potter is not eavesdropping. He is conducting a reconnaissance of the stacks. This is different.
Reconnaissance requires a quill, which he has (behind his ear). It requires a fragile sense of ethics, which he has (tragically intact). It requires the ability to stand very still behind a towering bookcase while the voices of Lily Evans and Severus Snape drift through the shelves like tea steam through a cracked door.
James is excellent at all of this. He is practically a professional.
The library smells of old parchment and something faintly citrus — probably one of Madam Pince's preservation charms, probably illegal for students to inhale. A bar of late afternoon light falls across the floor in a long gold stripe, and through it, dust motes drift with total disregard for anyone's existential crisis.
"Alright," Lily says, from the other side of the shelf. Her voice has that particular warmth it gets when she's enjoying herself at someone else's expense. "How about Rosier?"
There is the rustle of parchment. Severus' voice arrives dry enough to desiccate rashers of bacon. "Hmm. His grades are high. His personality is... a statement. He says 'actually' too much."
"So?" Lily prods.
"I'd give him a five."
"Five?" Lily gasps, as if Severus has suggested feeding a flobberworm to royalty. "Harsh. I'd still say he's an eight."
"Eight?" Severus sounds personally offended by the number. "Be serious, Evans."
"I am being serious. Eight. He has cheekbones."
"Cheekbones are not a personality."
"They are if they're that good."
James presses himself to the book spines. They're talking about some sort of score. A rating system. Numbers out of ten. He understands, with the slow, terrible clarity of a man watching a Bludger curve toward his face, exactly what kind of game this is.
...does that include everyone they know?
Like him?
He thinks about this very carefully, in the way James Potter thinks about most things: with tremendous confidence and minimal evidence. He is, objectively, a ten. He has dimples. He is the Gryffindor Quidditch captain. He once helped a first-year find their toad and only used it as an opportunity to show off his Summoning Charm twice. Maybe three times. The point is: the toad was found.
He can be a number. He can be a ten. Please, Godric, let him be a ten.
"Alright, your turn," Lily says, flipping a page. "Regulus and Barty."
Severus hums, businesslike, as if assessing property values. "Regulus. Seven. Points for the hair. Subtracted three for knowing Sirius."
From behind the shelf, James nods in involuntary agreement.
"And Barty?"
"He's a six on potential. At present he's—" a pause, "—excessively gleeful. I'll say four."
"I think he's a ten," Lily says thoughtfully.
"TEN?? "
"Chaos-chic."
"He is a six," Severus says, with the tone of a man filing a formal complaint. "At most."
"Agree to disagree," Lily says pleasantly. "Okay. James?"
James' mouth goes very dry.
Here it is. Give me something high. A solid nine. I can accept eight. Seven at a push. Seven is fine. Seven is a number people respect. Seven is—
There's a pause. A long, considered, architectural pause, the kind that has load-bearing walls.
Severus finally answers: "...He's a four."
James feels his soul leave his body, wave politely to the periodicals section, and walk out of the library.#
"But," Severus continues, with the reluctance of a man admitting the weather is nice, "he thinks he's a ten. And annoyingly enough—" another pause, "—that makes him a six."
Lily bursts out laughing. "A generous six!"
"Conditional six," Severus says crisply. "Very conditional."
James—who has survived Bludgers to the head, a Transfiguration essay graded by McGonagall herself, and one of Sirius' experimental cooking phases that resulted in three students briefly becoming soup—experiences his first true panic.
A four? He has dimples.
He fumbles backwards. His elbow catches a shelf. A book falls. He tries to catch it and instead slaps himself cleanly in the face with The Practical Guide to Parsley.
Silence from the other side of the shelf.
Then Lily's voice, very gently: "James, if you're done dying behind the Herbology section, you can come out."
He edges around the bookcase, cheeks at a temperature usually associated with cauldron explosions. Severus looks at him with the specific expression of someone who has, since birth, known this exact moment was coming.
"Hi," James says, intelligently.
"Numbers," Severus says.
"Numbers," James agrees. His voice does something unfortunate on the second syllable. "Great. Brilliant. I am pro-numbers. I love numbers. Numbers are—"
"James," Lily says.
"Spices," James says, picks up the parsley book, salutes with it, and reverses out of the library at a dignified shuffle.
He hits a suit of armour in the corridor. It clangs. He keeps walking.
By the time he reaches the stairs, he has made a decision of the sort that historians will later describe as "formative" and psychiatrists will describe as "entirely avoidable."
He is going to make Severus Snape rate him a ten.
("It might kill him," says a future version of Remus Lupin, sipping tea. "It just might.")
The Second Floor Corridor — That Same Thursday, 4:45pm
The thing about Hogwarts corridors at a quarter to five is that they're full of people with opinions. Prefects with clipboards. Ghosts mid-monologue. And, unfortunately, Gilderoy Lockhart.
He was in fifth year and already had the hair of a man with a book deal. He materialised beside James like a pleasant weather event—golden, beaming, radiating the specific confidence of someone who had never once questioned their own rating.
"Potter," he said warmly, falling into step as though James had invited him. "You look like a man in crisis."
"I'm fine," James said.
"You're holding a parsley book," Lockhart observed.
James looked down. He was, in fact, still holding the parsley book.
"Ah, yes," Lockhart said, peering at the parsley book. "Parsley. Excellent choice. It whispers, ‘I am health-conscious yet undeniably dashing.’ Do you always carry this?"
James blinked. "No—yes—ugh, I’m fine."
"Ah, crisis management!" Lockhart clapped a hand on his shoulder. James felt like a trout being congratulated for swimming upstream. "I couldn’t help but overhear—"
"You were nowhere—"
"—that you’ve received a most unfair and tragically low assessment from a peer. Tragic. Yet fixable. Lucky for you, I am a wizard of aura. A maestro of magnetism. A connoisseur of charisma."
James, who was desperate enough to consider anything, made a critical error. He didn't walk away.
"Right," he said. "And how exactly do you—"
"Presence," Lockhart said, spinning to face him mid-corridor and nearly taking out a second-year. "It begins with presence. Watch—"
He turned toward a suit of armour, fixed it with a look of smouldering intensity, and held it for six full seconds.
The armour did not respond. It was armour.
"You see?" Lockhart said. " Even inanimate objects can sense greatness."
"I... yes," James said. "I think."
"The key is to make them feel," Lockhart continued, walking again, "that you are the most interesting thing in any room. Not through words—through aura. Or what you call a diva—"
"Right, but specifically, how do I get someone to—"
"Hair," Lockhart said firmly. "Posture. Eye contact. And never, ever let them see you try too hard. The appearance of effortlessness is the whole game, Potter." He paused, brushing something invisible from his sleeve. "Also, I find a winning smile goes a long way. Have you considered your smile?"
"Have I—I have a great smile—"
"Mmm," said Lockhart, which was extraordinarily rude.
“—this is crucial—smile. Smile like the world is about to bend to your will, and that perhaps it already has." Lockhart flashed a smile so dazzling that nearby portraits gasped. Literally. One fainted.
James tried. For a brief moment, it seemed like his face had forgotten it was supposed to cooperate..
He leaned close to James, voice dropping to a confidential whisper that somehow ricocheted off three corridors and caused a ghost to spill her ectoplasm. "Tip two: Posture. Pretend the world is a red carpet and you are the main headline. Or better—pretend the world is a volcano and your spine is the only thing keeping it from erupting… in slow motion."
James straightened. Somewhere a violin screeched in protest. His toes flailed like confused snakes. His knees muttered, We did not sign up for this.
"Tip three: Eye contact. Not normal eye contact—mysterious, intriguing, slightly dangerous. Like a kid who hacked the Ministry of Magic and is deciding whether to take your memory… or tax you."
James tried. His gaze was smouldering.
Too smouldering, perhaps. Someone across the hall fainted from heatstroke. Nearby, a first-year froze mid-step, eyes wide, whispering, I’m signing-up for Quiddich this year. Just for the eye-candy.
A passing house elf squinted in awe and fear.
"Tip four: Hair," Lockhart said, lifting a hand like a maestro conducting a choir of unicorn manes. "Perfect hair fixes everything: personality flaws, miscast spells, heartbreak… even bad grades. Toss it back occasionally with dramatic flair."
James attempted a toss. The resulting hair flip was… negligible. A single rebellious strand twitched like it had its own agenda.
One strand drooped over his eye anyway, making him squint like he’d just been personally insulted by gravity.
Lockhart clapped. "Ah! Very good. You are embracing the aura, Potter. Tip five—"
James (teary-eyed from the little boop from his hair), clutching his parsley book like a shield, whispered, "My hair has a mind of its own for tip number four."
Lockhart’s eyes glittered with triumph. "Not to worry! You have it, That’s the aura! You are a Quidditch jock-chaos loving-messy haired hunkie. You are doing it naturally… disastrously, but naturally!"
"Now," Lockhart said, finally stepping back with the flourish of a man who had just invented gravity. "Go. Walk among them. Radiate. Make everyone feel that their lives are incomplete without knowing you. And remember: aura is everything."
They had reached the main corridor by now, and James was beginning to feel that this had not been useful when he heard it—voices from a window alcove. Lily and Severus again, apparently migrating from the library with their notebook.
"Lockhart," Lily's voice floated out, conversational, mildly amused. "We haven't done him yet."
The sound of parchment.
"Mmm," said Severus. A pause of devastating length. "One."
"Oh, that's harsh—"
Severus said, flatly: "He… tried to flirt with a portrait yesterday."
Lily tilted her head.
Severus: “...It was a portrait that acts like a mirror”
"...One," Lily agreed.
Lockhart had stopped walking. He stood very still, the way people stand when they're deciding, rapidly, what their next move is and whether it involves maintaining their dignity.
He straightened his robes.
He adjusted his hair.
He turned to James, smiled the smile of a man recalibrating his entire afternoon schedule, and said: "I've just remembered I have a thing."
"A thing?"
"A very important thing. Elsewhere." He patted James once on the shoulder. Lips suspiciously protruding like he was holding back a pout "Trust the aura."
And he was gone—swept around the corner with such composed velocity that James almost admired it.
He stood in the corridor alone, still holding the parsley book, watching the space where Lockhart had been.
"Right," he said to no one. "Refine my aura."
Disaster One: The Beginning
Gryffindor Common Room — Thursday, 6:02pm
James burst into the common room with the energy of a man who had just lost a fight with a condiment reference and gained nothing from a consultation with the most self-satisfied fifth-year in the school. "Emergency meeting!"
Sirius didn't look up from the sofa. He was reading a Quidditch magazine with his feet on Remus and the expression of a man at total peace with the universe. "If the emergency is your fringe, we can't help you."
"It's not my fringe."
"It's always a bit your fringe."
"Sirius."
Remus extracted himself from under Sirius' feet with the long-suffering grace of practice. He folded his parchment. He put down his quill. He looked at James with the specific resigned expression of someone who can already see how this ends and has pre-grieved. "Explain it to us as if we're sensible," he said.
"I got rated," James said, and the word came out like it cost him something. "On a Muggle scale. Out of ten. By Snape." He paused for effect. "I'm a four."
A beat.
"Out of—?" Peter started.
"Ten," James said.
"Oh," said Peter, with genuine sympathy.
Sirius sat bolt upright. His magazine hit the floor. His eyes went bright in the way they only did before something truly, spectacularly inadvisable. "We're building a war room."
Remus looked at the ceiling with the expression of a man calculating how much of this was his fault and arriving at the answer: some.
The blackboard Sirius used for Pranks (Ethical, Question Mark) came down. The chairs were arranged. Peter produced biscuits from somewhere—he always produced biscuits; no one ever asked from where. James stood before the board like a general preparing to lose a war he'd started himself, and wrote:
NEW HAIR / CHIVALRY / INTELLECT / CATS???
6 - because of self confidence.. conditional????
"Cats is a no," Remus said immediately.
"How does this scale even work?" Sirius asked, chalk already in hand, circling the word HAIR with unnecessary enthusiasm. "Is it just looks?"
"Based on my—" James paused. "Observations. It includes overall attractiveness, personality, relationships, and possibly aura. Those out of ten"
"...and you're a four."
"A four," James confirmed.
"Which became a six," Peter offered helpfully while looking at the board , "because you like yourself?."
"Which tracks," Sirius said, "because you absolutely think you're a ten."
"I am a ten," James said, with diminishing conviction.
"You walked into a suit of armour thirty minutes ago," Remus said. "I was there. I saw it."
"That was tactical."
"James."
"I was avoiding a corner."
Sirius was already writing on the board with the focus of a man composing a symphony. "Right. James Potter's assets: Posture—eleven. Smile—weaponised. Brains—" he hesitated, "—negotiable."
"Subtract two for hubris," Remus said.
"Add three for dimples," Peter said loyally.
"Hair: eleven… actually nah subtract one," Sirius agreed, nodding solemnly. "Average: roughly six. Snape's actually onto something."
"This is a support meeting," James said, wounded. "Can we focus?"
The portrait hole swung open before anyone could respond to that, which was probably a mercy. Regulus Black stepped in—polished, precise, looking mildly annoyed at the existence of Gryffindor décor—with Barty Crouch Jr. flanking him like an exclamation mark in a school blazer. Both of them stopped. Took in the blackboard. The biscuits. James' expression.
Barty's face went through joy, delight, and religious fervour in about half a second.
"Is this," Regulus said, with the careful tone of someone who wants to be sure before committing to interest, "about Snape?"
"It might be," James said.
"And can I make it worse?"
"Absolutely not," Remus said.
"Absolutely," Sirius said.
Barty was already sitting down, producing from his robes a small leather-bound notebook and a quill that was, inexplicably, pink and sparkly. He opened to a fresh page. Wrote DISASTERS (CONFIRMED) at the top in neat block letters. Underlined it twice.
"What's that?" James asked.
"A ledger," Barty said cheerfully.
"Of what?"
"Disasters." He beamed. "All plans need a disaster ledger, especially if the ones involved are Griffindors. I'll update it as we go."
Remus looked at the notebook. He looked at Barty. He looked at the ceiling. "I want to go on record," he said quietly, "as having been in this room."
"Noted," Barty said, and wrote: LUPIN PRESENT. RESIGNED BEFORE STARTING .
Regulus settled into an armchair—not his armchair, no armchair in Gryffindor Tower could technically be his armchair, and yet—with the air of a man taking a meeting he's already billed for. "As a Slytherin, I am uniquely qualified to tease and translate Snape. I'll consult. Modest fee."
"Define modest," James said.
"Your undying humiliation and one Honeydukes slab per phase." A pause. "The good caramel one."
James stared. "Fine."
Regulus produced, from his inner breast pocket, a small roll of parchment. He set it on the armrest. "Sign here."
"Is that a—is that an actual contract?"
"It's a consulting agreement," Regulus said pleasantly. "Standard terms. Non-negotiable."
James signed it. He would wonder, later, what clause three meant. He would never find out.
Peter's hand went up. "Can I suggest something sensible?"
Everyone turned. Peter, used to this, pressed on.
"Muggles have something called the Five Love Languages. Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Physical Touch, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts. If we want James to come across as... someone worth rating highly, we could structure the plan around what Snape actually responds to."
A short silence.
"Peter," Sirius said.
"Yeah?"
"That's the most useful thing you've said since second year."
"The time I found your other sock?"
"Groundbreaking moment. This is comparable." Sirius picked up the chalk. "Right. Five Languages. Which ones does Snape do?"
Regulus considered. "Not Physical Touch. He's bitten someone for a pat on the shoulder. Figuratively. Mostly figuratively."
"Cross it out," Remus said.
"Quality Time is limited—he's not going to welcome James into his schedule voluntarily," Regulus continued. "Cross that too."
Sirius drew two lines through the board. "Leaving us: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts."
"I want to establish my aura first," James said, suddenly remembering Lockhart. "Build the baseline. Then move to service and gifts."
Regulus looked at Barty. Barty mouthed: Gilderoy.
"What?" James said.
"Nothing," they said together.
"Phase One," Sirius announced, underlining it on the board with a flourish. "Acts of Service. You're going to help Snape. Thoughtfully. Without blowing anything up."
"Incredible," James said. "Groundbreaking. What could possibly go wrong?"
"Everything," said Remus, Regulus, and Barty simultaneously, in three different tones of resignation, investment, and glee respectively.
PHASE ONE: ACTS OF SERVICE and also Disaster Two
In which James Potter attempts to be helpful. He is not helpful.
Potions Classroom, Dungeons — Friday, 9am
The dungeons in the morning had a particular quality of cold that James associated with bad ideas… which might not be a good sign.
He arrived early—a thing he had done approximately four times in his Hogwarts career and three of those were accidents.
Today it was intentional.
Today it was ‘strategic’.
Severus was already there, arranging ingredients in rows with the neat, militant precision of a man who had opinions about which direction the stirrers faced. He didn't look up when James entered.
James took a breath. Summoned his aura. Thought briefly of Lockhart, then suppressed it.
"Allow me," he said, moving toward the cauldron with the grace of a man who had absolutely done this before.
Severus looked at him for one long, assessing second. "Don't."
"I've got it," James said, gripping the cauldron's handle with both hands. He lifted. The cauldron stayed where it was, because it was made of solid pewter and weighed approximately as much as a small troll.
James applied more Gryffindor. Which, of course, did not help.
The cauldron moved.
Heroically.
?
Directly into the edge of the table, which it struck with a resonant clang that James would later describe as "unfortunate." The impact sent the cauldron tilting; James lurched to correct it; his elbow connected with a tray of pre-sliced lacewing flies, which slid in a graceful diagonal across the workbench, directly into the open jar of powdered asphodel—
The reaction was immediate and purple.
FOOMPF.
A courteous cloud of violet smoke expanded outward and deposited itself on approximately half the class. Someone on the left became briefly translucent. A Hufflepuff blinked and discovered her robes were sticky in a way that defied explanation.
Slughorn, who had witnessed forty years of student catastrophes and developed a certain philosophical acceptance of them, watched his eyebrows lose altitude. He wrote something in his register with the air of a man noting the weather. “Um… can you give me a score, for that?”
Severus did not blink, but he slowly understood what James’ intentions were.
He handed James a rag. "You've earned," he said, voice achieving perfect flatness, "a negative score in competence."
"But points for effort?" James tried.
"Nope," Severus said. He turned to Slughorn. "The ingredients were sabotaged by stupidity."
"Yes, yes," Slughorn said mildly (not aware of the cause of commotion), waving his wand to disperse the smoke. "James, m'boy—perhaps we let Severus manage his own materials, hm? He's rather gifted at—well—" He gestured at Severus' neat, completely unaffected workspace. "All of this."
James looked at Severus' workspace. Every single ingredient was where it had been. The asphodel was on the wrong side of the room now, but Severus' half of the table was untouched.
"Brilliant," James said. To Severus: "Genuinely. You're—that's impressive."
Severus looked at him the way one looks at a very confusing weather event. "Thank you," he said, and returned to his work.
It was not warm. It was not friendly. But it was something.
From the back of the room, Sirius cupped his hands and bellowed: "ONE DISASTER! BARTY, THAT'S ONE!"
"Confirmed by Barty the Tardy," Barty called back, writing in his notebook with sparkly pink quill. "Disasters: one. Ingredients: deceased."
"Both of you," Slughorn said serenely, "are writing me an essay."
[McGonagall's Register, Entry 1 of what will become a very long scroll: "Potter was at Potions. Reports said the incident involving materialising the ingreadients that costs hundred of galleons. Three students are slightly violet. All recovered. Slughorn reports the cauldron was 'somehow moving on its own.' I have written a note to myself to purchase more parchment. I would need more Irn Bru."]
Outside the Library, Third Floor — Friday, after lunch
The thing about Words of Affirmation, Barty had advised, was that you had to mean them. You have to channel:
Sincerity.
Authenticity.
No waffling.
No faffing about.
Snizzle. Snozzle. Snuff.
Huffle. Puff.
Absolutely essential. Do not skip.
And so James went to work.
He had prepared three compliments on a piece of parchment, practised them in the mirror, and felt genuinely ready.
He found Severus in the corridor outside the library, decanting something small and precise into a series of vials with the focused, delicate efficiency of a surgeon who also happened to find most people professionally disappointing.
James watched this for approximately four seconds and felt the prepared compliments evaporate completely.
"You're like a medieval plague doctor," he said.
Severus stopped decanting.
"Efficient," James continued, with the energy of a man who had started down a slope and could only run faster. "Precise. The—the dark robes, the general air of knowing things other people don't, the—I mean it as a compliment. They were very respected. The plague doctors. Ahead of their time, really. Intimidating in the best—"
"A plague doctor," Severus repeated.
"Powerful," James said. "Mysterious."
"You've compared me," Severus said slowly, "to a man who wore a beak full of herbs and watched people die."
"They were trying to help," James said weakly.
"They were not helping."
"They had—okay. The beak was—I meant the competence. And the aesthetic. Mostly the aesthetic." He was aware, distantly, that this was not improving. "You have excellent hands."
A silence of geological proportion simmered through the air.
"Thank you," Severus said, at last, with a tone that meant the opposite. He resumed decanting.
From a doorway ten feet away, Regulus was eating an apple. He watched James with the steady, interested gaze of a naturalist observing something unusual. Barty, beside him, wrote ELOQUENCE: 0 in the ledger with solemn care.
"The hands thing wasn't terrible," Barty offered.
"The plague doctor was," Regulus said.
"The plague doctor was bad," Barty agreed.
Regulus took another bite of his apple. "Disasters: two."
"Two," Barty confirmed, underlining it.
[Madam Pince, to the air, to no one, to anyone who would listen: "There is a boy in my corridor making noises at Snape. If he comes within ten feet of the Restricted Section I am personally leading him to the Whomping Willow. I am also missing a copy yof The Helpful Guide to Parsley. It's been a rough week."]
Gryffindor Tower — Saturday Morning
Disaster the Third: The Laundry Incident
James had read, in a pamphlet of uncertain credibility that Sirius had definitely not written himself, that tidiness was attractive. He had also heard—from Barty, delivered with a straight face—that Severus appreciated a clean environment.
The plan was simple. He would launder his robes. He would, while he was at it, launder everyone else's robes, because generosity scaled. He would present himself, in due course, as a person who handled his responsibilities.
The execution began to wobble at the detergent cupboard, which was locked.
The Potions supply cabinet—the one he absolutely had permission to access—was not locked, because Professor Slughorn kept it open on Saturdays for independent study and trusted the Gryffindors with a generosity that had, until today, been mostly deserved.
James reached for the first bottle whose label included the words "makes everything smell wonderful." He glanced at the name.
Amortentia.
Labelled as a cleaning product. Probably a specialist one.
But hmm smells like hearts' desire. That's just good marketing.
Probs this one.
One hour later, Gryffindor Tower smelled of rain-wet leaves, warm parchment, and something like black coffee left to go slightly cold on a windowsill—which was, distressingly, exactly what Severus Snape smelled like to James Potter, a fact he had not previously examined and was now being forced to examine quite urgently.
The common room had gone strange.
Sirius had walked into the doorframe twice with his eyes closed and an expression of distant beatitude. Peter was sitting in the corner sniffing his sleeve with a look of wondering confusion and quietly saying "oh" every thirty seconds. Two second-years wandered in from the dormitory stairs, noses lifted, eyes slightly glazed, like beagles who'd found a very interesting hedge. One of them sighed the word "lavender" directly at the fireplace.
Remus sat in his armchair with a book held at the exact distance required for plausible deniability, and absolutely did not react at all, and was doing a terrible job of it.
"What did you do?" he said, without looking up.
"Laundry," James said.
"With what?"
James showed him the bottle.
Remus looked at it for a long moment. He closed his book. He opened it again. "James," he said, very calmly, "that's Amortentia."
"It smells like clean."
"It smells like your heart's desire."
"Well," James said, and then stopped, because he was starting to notice what he was smelling, and it was extremely inconvenient.
The portrait hole opened. Severus appeared in the frame, because apparently the universe had decided that subtlety was for lesser narratives. He was there to return a book to one of the Gryffindors—Lily had borrowed something—and he stopped on the threshold and went very still.
His nostrils flared. Just slightly. The way they did when he was identifying something in a potion, focused and precise and involuntary.
He looked at the common room. The swaying second-years. Sirius, who was now on his third doorframe collision. The mountain of robes James was standing in like a very repentant shepherd. He looked at James.
"What," Severus said, with a quietness that was somehow more alarming than volume, "did you do."
"Cleaned," James said, in a very small voice. "With love."
A muscle moved in Severus' jaw. He set the book down on the nearest surface with exquisite, careful control. His expression did several things in quick succession—exasperation, disbelief, something underneath that James couldn't quite name, a flicker in the dark like a lamp briefly visible through a closing door.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. Exhaled.
"Three disasters," Barty said, appearing from behind the sofa in a way that raised several questions. He pointed to Severus. "You can smell it too, can't you." It was not a question.
Severus gave Barty a look that should, medically, have caused harm.
"I'll mark it as circumstantially interesting," Barty said, and made a small note.
"You were not invited into this tower. How did you come in without permission?," Remus told him.
"The Fat Lady let me in," Barty said. "I told her I was conducting research."
"You're not—"
"Into what?" Severus said.
"James Potter," Barty said, and smiled with the serenity of someone who has already decided they have nothing to lose.
Severus looked at James for a long moment. James looked back. The common room hummed with love potion fumes and someone said "roses" softly in the corner.
"You're going to open every window," Severus said finally, to James. "Immediately."
"Yes," James said.
"And then you're going to go to Madam Pomfrey and tell her what you've done."
"Also yes."
"And then you're going to think," Severus said, "very carefully, about reading labels."
"Deeply yes," James said.
Severus picked up the book he'd come to return, turned with perfect composure, and left.
The portrait hole closed behind him.
The common room exhaled, collectively.
"He stayed longer than he needed to," Peter said, thoughtfully.
Sirius, face still rapturous, said: "I think I'm in love with an armchair."
"That's the Amortentia," Remus said firmly. "Open the windows, James."
[McGonagall's Register, Entry 7: "Potter again. This time it's theGryffindor Tower. Amortentia has been inhaled bu a hundred students. Multiple students affected. Madam Pomfrey advises fresh air and light tasks. She also advises me, personally, to speak to James about reading before touching things. I have drafted the speech. It is three pages long. It begins: 'Mr. Potter, there are things in this world whose labels exist for reasons.'" The House Elves are now angry at the staff and wemight be getting cold soup for dinner tomorrow]
[Dumbledore, to Professor Sprout, in passing, over tea: "Something smells rather wonderful from the third floor. Marzipan, I think. And old books. Curious." He ate a biscuit. He did not investigate. Some things resolve themselves.]
The Library, Third Floor — Saturday Afternoon
They were, as it happened, at it again.
Lily had the notebook. Severus had his tea. The library was mostly empty at this hour, which was, objectively, the correct hour for this sort of activity.
"Sirius," Lily said.
"Seven," Severus said immediately. Then, as if annoyed at himself: "Minus one for the ceiling-walking incident. Six."
"I was going to say eight," Lily said. "He has a very good face."
"He knows he has a very good face. That's the problem."
"Is knowing you're attractive really a deduction?"
Severus considered. "From Black, yes. He weaponises it."
"Fair," Lily admitted. "Seven. Peter?"
"...Six," Severus said. "He's kind. Too kind. His situational awareness is... aspirational. He does materialise food out of thin air. Like a misplaced Hufflepuff"
"Six," Lily agreed. "He apologised to a portrait the other day. Just bumped into it, apologised, kept going."
"Six feels right."
Down the corridor, entirely unaware, Peter was walking back from Madam Pomfrey's with a handful of fresh air advisory notes and feeling, for no reason he could name, rather cheerful.
In the library, Lily turned the page.
"Should we do—" she started.
"No," Severus said.
"I haven't said—"
"Whatever name you were about to say," Severus said, "the answer is not yet."
Lily smiled into her tea. "Not yet is interesting phrasing. We both know we just rated him earlier since he was snooping"
"The rating was accurate at that time," Severus said, and turned a page of his own book with precision that suggested the conversation was over.
Lily let it go. She was, above most things, good at patience.
The Courtyard — Sunday Afternoon
By Sunday, James was ready to concede.
Not to Severus—never publicly, never in those words—but to the general concept of the universe having opinions about his plans and those opinions being negative.
He sat on the edge of the courtyard fountain and let the evening light turn everything gold and inconvenient. The stone was cold through his robes. His tie was half-undone. He had, in the past seventy-two hours, turned half his classmates temporarily violet, fumbled a compliment so badly it included the word "beak," and accidentally marinated Gryffindor Tower in his own emotional subtext.
"Maybe I’m just making a fool out of myself," he said, to the fountain. "Tell me. Why am I doing this again?"
The fountain did not respond. It was a fountain.
The wind shifted. Somewhere behind the far arch, he heard the sound of a page turning.
He looked up.
Severus was there—cross the courtyard, settled beneath a scatter of autumn leaves with his knees drawn up and a book balanced on them. He wasn't doing anything theatrical. Wasn't performing privacy or solitude. He was just—there. Quill balanced loosely between two fingers. Hair falling forward slightly. Not doing anything at all, except existing in a way that was somehow louder than anything else in the courtyard.
A butterfly drifted past and landed, tentatively, on the open page beside him.
Severus glanced at it. Something in his face shifted—brief, unguarded, the shadow of something almost fond. It wasn't a smile, exactly. It was the thought of one.
James forgot to breathe.
The rest of it—the disasters, the ledger, Barty's quill, the purple smoke, the plague doctor comment—all of it went quiet, the way everything goes quiet when something true arrives without announcing itself.
Oh, he thought. Oh, that's the problem.
Not the rating. Not the number. Not the mission.
Just—him. Sitting in the afternoon light, reading a book, being briefly kind to a butterfly he thought no one could see.
James straightened up. Something shifted in his chest with the clunk of a gear finding its proper position.
"Right," he said quietly, to himself, to the fountain, to the butterfly. "Round two."
He jogged off across the cobblestones with the energy of a man who has remembered why he started, which is sometimes the most dangerous kind.
Gryffindor Common Room — Sunday, 11:58pm
The Midnight Council
The fire had burned to embers. Most of Gryffindor Tower was asleep. The only light came from a floating orb Remus had conjured and then immediately regretted, because it illuminated the expressions of everyone present and those expressions were not reassuring.
Sirius had produced a new map. Not the Map—this one was handdrawn on Honeydukes wrapper and labelled, in his own handwriting: OPERATION: PERFECT SCORE (no explosions?) with a doodle beneath it of James flexing at a stick-figure Severus who appeared to be recoiling slightly.
"Phase Two," Sirius announced, pointer produced from nowhere, striking the map with the authority of a man who had no authority and was fine with that. "We refine. Less chaos, more sincerity. Sneaky sincerity."
"That's just manipulation," Remus said.
"It's strategic kindness," Sirius corrected.
"What's the difference?"
"Intentions," Peter said.
Everyone looked at him.
"James' intentions are genuine," Peter said. "So it's not manipulation. He just needs a framework."
"Wormtail," Sirius said slowly, "you are the most underestimated person in this room."
"I know," Peter said, eating a biscuit.
Regulus was in the armchair again. Barty was on the floor, ledger open across his knees, reading back the disaster tally with the ceremony of a court recorder.
"Three confirmed disasters," Barty reported. "Ingredients. Plague doctor. Amortentia. There was also the armour incident in the corridor, which I'm logging as a near-miss." He looked up. "The current over/under is five total disasters before phase resolution. We are at three. "
"Who's betting?" James asked, wary.
"Ravenclaws, mostly," Barty said. “The betting pool currently consists of 10 Slytherins, 5 Griffindors, 13 Ravenclaws and a Hufflepuff”
"Huffington from fifth year has put down a significant sum on four and a half."
"You can't have half a disaster."
"Huffington thinks the door incident counted as point-five," Barty said. "I'm inclined to agree."
"There was a door incident?" Remus said.
"Before the ledger," Barty said solemnly. "Pre-ledger disasters are logged but unconfirmed."
Regulus: “James decided to take Lockhart’s advice for some reason and caused chaos in the hallway by winking at anything that moves. Why do you think we went to the Griffindor common room to begin with?”
"There is a moral problem with all of this," Remus said.
"There are several," Regulus agreed, "and I have profited from all of them."
"The plan," James said loudly, "for Phase Two. Can we discuss the plan?"
"Right," Sirius said, turning back to the map. "Anonymous acts of service. Gifts. Things Snape needs that he doesn't have. You leave them. No fanfare. No plague doctor energy."
"The plague doctor comparison was a creative choice," James said.
"It was a choice," Regulus said neutrally.
"Also," Peter said, "maybe just—be kind? Directly? When he's standing right there?"
"That's terrifying," James said.
"That's the point," Peter said.
They brainstormed until the fire went entirely cold. What emerged was: gifts, small and thoughtful and anonymous (mostly), and the increasingly inevitable prospect of James Potter simply being honest about his feelings in spoken words to another human's face.
"Lily said to try honesty," Remus mentioned.
"Lily is wise," Peter said.
"Lily is terrifying," Sirius said. "But also wise."
James stared at the map for a long moment. The doodle Severus was still recoiling. He picked up a quill and, very carefully, redrew the stick figure so it looked less like it was running away and more like it was considering.
He wasn't sure why. It just felt more accurate. Or maybe he’s just delusional.
END OF CHAPTER