Zero Gravity

I’d only ever had one relationship with a boy, and it was during my fourth year. My experience with Noah Prill was something I tried my best to forget about for many reasons. He was a sixth year and I was a fourth year, so that should have been a bad enough sign.

It wasn’t until a few weeks into our relationship that I realized he had an obsession with dragons that bordered on being unhealthy. I ended things immediately, much to Noah’s dismay, but he left me alone after that. Noah graduated last year and Miles likes to joke that he heard Noah is married to a dragon. I like to punch Miles.

Like I said, it’s something I like to forget. I’m only bringing it up now because James, for some reason, has a real knack for reading tea leaves.

We had decided to use tea leaves as our second method for our divination project, and James had procured some from the house elves. Since I went first with the palm reading, James decided to read the leaves first, which was a horribly bad idea.

“I’m seeing a few things,” he said as he looked between the cup and his textbook, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration instead of making the whole thing up like he should have. “Mostly about your love life. I’m seeing the numbers 1, 4 and 7. Does that mean anything?”

James was looking up at me now, apparently waiting for some sort of confirmation. I didn’t know if it was just some weird coincidence or if James had a secret talent. One for the number of boyfriends I’d had, four for the year I was when we dated and seven for the number of weeks we dated before I ended things.

I decided to lie. “Not that I know of,” I said with a smile and shrug of my shoulders. I was getting better at this whole lying thing.

“Well, bloody hell.” He set down the cup and leaned back in his chair, resting one leg on top of the other so his foot bounced on his knee. “Your turn, then.”

I picked up James’s cup and pulled my textbook closer to me. I was worse at reading tea leaves than I was at reading palms. There was what looked like it could have been a sun or maybe a cat with its face scrunched up. In the corner, there was what looked like a trophy. I decided to go with that.

“I see a trophy,” I said simply, setting James’s cup down before shrugging my shoulders. “Maybe it means you’ll win the cup.”

“Maybe,” he said with a small chuckle. He leaned forward and peered into his cup, which I quickly pulled away from him. “Is that it?”

I nodded. “Yes. I told you I’m rubbish at this. And you can’t read your own tea leaves.”

James didn’t seem convinced, but he leaned back again. “So, what will we tell Trelawney then?”

“I don’t know. Gryffindor will win the quidditch cup and I’ll become a Prefect next year. We can add something about N.E.W.T.S if we want.”

James laughed. “I’d rather not think about N.E.W.T.S. We’ll just go with the first two.” He sat up in his chair and reached for his books. “Is that in then? We’re finished?”

He was already packing up his things and looked like he definitely had somewhere better to be. I could only imagine what it was, but I could guess that it involved a girl and a broom closet.

“Yes, why? You have important Potter things to attend to?” I had no idea why I had asked, or worded in that particular way, but if people could kick themselves, I definitely would have done it. I didn’t even know what a ‘Potter thing’ was. Maybe he didn’t catch on.

He chuckled, scrunching up his nose. “Potter things?”

Dammit.

“Yes, Potter things,” I said confidently, only blessed by the fact that I’d dealt with Miles’s teasing for years and was equipped with many comebacks, most of which involved repeating what had just been said. “You know, quidditch, girls and all that.”

Dammit.

He laughed again and I took to packing up my things as well, knowing that I’d need a quick way out in case James decided now would be a good time to unleash whatever powers his father had bestowed upon him on me.

“Actually, I’m just starving. I was gonna head to the kitchen and grab a snack.”

“That’s a thing you do?”

Dammit.

There was nothing about this conversation that didn’t make me seem like I was 1) gathering information for Cecily’s stalker club and 2) a complete and total loon.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” he said with a curious laugh, looking at me with one of his eyebrows raised. He had all his books tucked under one of his arms. “You can come with me if you’d like.”

“Yeah, sure,” I agreed a little too quickly, not to gather intel for Cecily but because I needed like 15 more minutes so I could have a normal conversation with him so he wouldn’t tell all of his quidditch chums that Posey Ellison was a quack. Miles would agree with him.

James and I walked to the kitchen, where we passed through some secret entrance that James’s father had probably told him about. All of the house elves knew him by name, either because they thought the looked like his father or because he came there enough that they knew him. I didn’t casually stalk him like Cecily, so I couldn’t be sure.

“What would you like?” James asked, looking at me as he set his books down on one of the countertops.

“Something sweet,” I said easily, placing my books next to James.

He quickly maneuvered around the kitchen, and I could tell he knew the place like the back of his hands. In just under a minute, he’d come up with a few cupcakes that looked more delicious than anything I’d had at Hogwarts before and two glasses of milk.

He sat down at a stool in the corner that was clearly made for a house elf, and it took all I had not to chuckle at him, the way he was hunched over and holding out a cupcake. He’d set the tray of cupcakes and glasses on top of the equally small table and motioned for me to sit next him.

With my lips in a straight line, I moved over to him as I tried not to laugh, remembering that I would look even more ridiculous sitting in one of those seats as he would. If he looked funny, then any mortal human, as Cecily would call it, would look completely loony.

“So, do you always get illegal contraband from the house elves?” I asked as James passed me a red velvet cupcake, my favorite, though I’m sure he had no idea.

“Hey, it’s not illegal if I eat it in here,” he said with that mesmerizing laugh, though I wasn’t sure that was totally true. He could probably get away with it though. “Besides, you’re eating it too.”

“Only because no one can resist a red velvet cupcake,” I said to James, or James Potter apparently, I said to myself. Or out loud. That was definitely out loud. James was looking at me in a horrifyingly funny way, so that was definitely out loud.

He laughed again after he’d finished swallowing his cupcake. “What was that?”

“What was what?” I said a little too quickly, hoping to just let my little slip disappear. That was what I got for thinking too much.

“You just said ‘no one could resist James Potter.’”

“Oh no, you misheard me. I said ‘no one could resist chocolate cupcakes’.”

“You mean red velvet.”

“Oh, yes. You’re right. I said ‘no one could resist red velvet cupcakes’. Well, that solves that whole mess. Let’s just move on, shall we? How’s Miles doing in practice? I bet you’re just going to have a great season.”

James was either the nicest person in the entire world or I’d talked so much that he legitimately couldn’t remember what had happened. Or he had gotten distracted by talk of quidditch. Probably that.

“Right, quidditch,” he said, as though for a moment he’d completely forgotten that it existed, but I’m sure quidditch was constantly running through James’s mind. “The whole team’s been doing great. Better than expected. We’re definitely going to give Slytherin a run for their money.”

Beating Slytherin was like the only thing that James cared about. Cecily said it went from some ongoing thing with his dad, but I never paid enough attention to actually know.

I also didn’t know enough about quidditch to really make another comment, so the two of us sat in silence for a long moment, while we finished off our cupcakes and glasses of milk.

James took in a long breath, which was the only thing I could hear in the room, before he turned to look at me. “Posey, can I ask you something?”

“Yes, of course,” I said with a quick nod, praying to merlin that he wouldn’t bring up the whole ‘no one can resist James Potter’ thing. “What is it?”

“When you think of me, what do you think of?”

Girls, quidditch, girls, quidditch, uh, the snitch, broom closets, Cecily Hayes. Oh, and Harry Potter. What an odd question.

“Um, just you, I guess. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason,” he said, leaning back in his chair casually, though no one asked a question like that without having a reason.

“No one asks a question like that without having a reason,” I said, looking at him with soft eyes, my lips pressed together.

Dammit, Posey. Why can’t you just keep your mouth shut?

James laughed at that, leaning forward so he was resting his elbows on his knees, looking even more hunched over than he already did. “It’s nothing, really. It’s just earlier in the library, you asked if I was off doing ‘Potter things’, which was girls and quidditch, you said. I thought, if we’ve never talked before and you thought ‘Potter things’ was playing quidditch and snogging girls, then that’s probably what everyone thinks.”

“Well, I never said snogging them,” I said. James glared at me before I continued. “But, I know what you mean. What do you think of when you think of me?”

James had a curious look on his face, as he looked around the room and then at me. “Miles, I guess, and divination,” he paused, “and now red velvet cupcakes.”

“Well, I guess it could be worse,” I said with a shrug.

“Yeah, all of Hogwarts could think you’re snogging girls in broom closets all of the time,” he said with a laugh, clearly referencing the fact that everyone thought that about him.

“Well, you are. Besides, I thought that was what you wanted. You know, quidditch and girls. Kind of like Miles. All of the girls want you, all of the guys want to be you and you never have to wonder what you’re supposed to be. It’s probably easier that way.” I looked at James and he was just looking at the floor, his lips twisted to the side as though he was lost in the most complicated thought in the world. “I’m sorry, was that offensive?”

He finally looked up at me with a small smile on his face that I wasn’t even confident was a real smile. “No, not at all. I think you’re probably right. It is easier that way. Just focus on quidditch, get out of here in a year and a half and go on and play professionally.”

“Well, there you go,” I said to him with a nod of my head. “It’s good to have goals. And if snogging girls in broom closets helps you achieve those goals, then that’s just a small price to pay.”

“You aren’t going to try to kiss me now, are you?” James asked, causing me to look at him with my mouth wide open as I gasped.

“What? No! Why would you ask that?”

“You just keep bringing up this whole snogging thing and looking at me with those big eyes,” he said softly, and I was still looking at him with my jaw open. “Relax, Posey. I’m only kidding.”

It was only then that I was finally able to close my mouth, and fake a glare at James, though I’m sure he saw right through it. “Well, it wasn’t very funny.”

“Well, I’m not a very funny guy,” he said, which was something that we both knew wasn’t true. Everyone thought that James was the funniest person since George and Fred Weasley. “We should probably head back to the common room,” James said as he stood up from his chair. He held out his hand for me to hold onto. “I wouldn’t want to keep you out past your bedtime.”

He helped lift me off my chair as he smiled at me, and it was then that I knew what Cecily was talking about. He had the most wonderful smile when he was smiling at you. Really smiling at you, and I thought ‘shit, no one can resist James Potter’ and this time I didn’t say it out loud.