Chapter Two: Advice For James Potter Fan Girls
lovely chapter image by purplepotter77 at the-dark-arts
I don’t advocate pulling on the heartstrings of stupid girls, but one must do what they must do. For any of you who are interested in marrying James Potter, the way to his heart is through his mother. Get Ginny Potter to like you and you’re in.
The two of the laugh and smile together, as Aunt Ginny flicks the pages and we watch the oh-so-magical moving photos. Oh, Connie, why are you so jealous of people who are magically talented? I’m sorry. I can’t hear your obnoxious question over the sound of my ten-megapixel camera and camcorder.
“Oh, isn’t this one the cutest. What do you think Connie?” Ginny says as she points to the most horrendous photo in the album. The photo where I am kissing James on the cheek. At age five, kissing someone on the cheek is like full-frontal snogging and kissing them on the lips is sex. I try my hardest not to gag. I presume that’s inappropriate for this sort of social function.
I smile sweetly as I say, “it certainly is.”
Finally, she lets us leave.
“C’mon Connie, you have to admit we were a cute couple,” James says teasingly. His hair is wild and it looks like he’s just been electrocuted. He’s always looked like a bit of a mad scientist, because he is one at heart. Ever since we were little, pre-marriage, James’ thing has always been inventing. He’s always pulling contraptions apart and putting them together, muggle and magical devices alike. And you don’t know how hard it is to resist a sexy geeky scientist, especially when he’s pouting at you.
I succumb. “Yeah, I guess we did.”
How pathetic am I? I need a distraction. I whip my phone out from my back pocket. No texts. I am such a loser. I try to browse the net, when the all dreaded message pops onto my screen. You are currently not connected to the Internet.
Fuck, I swear inwardly.
Desperation forces me to speak to James. “You guys don’t happen to have wi-fi?”
“Wait, do you mean wee-fee,” he starts.
“Wi-fi,” I correct, through clenched teeth. I can’t stand when magical folk can’t pronounce muggle terminology properly.
“Ah, no, but I could really do with it, whenever I need muggle information, I go to the local library. I could take you if you’d like.”
“No thanks,” I say, turning on my heels.
It's one thing being stuck here with James, but no wi-fi, no internet. I'm sorry, you may be a wizard with a wand, but you have not lived until you have embraced the beauty of the World Wide Web. I need access to videos, fanfiction, random gifs of cute boys like normal people crave oxygen. This wouldn't be a problem if my mother had let me buy a new phone, the problem is my mother doesn't even know what a phone is. She calls it a tele-drone. FML.
I pocket my tele-drone, since there doesn’t seem like a solution. I’m going to have to bring out my social skills, dust them off and then actually use them. The first on my mental list of people to say hello to is my Uncle Rolf. Uncle Rolf’s family is quirky, not the how cute is that girl her name is Vanilla quirky. They are the frolic in the street only wearing your underwear sort of quirky. Yeah, that kind, the scary kind. It isn’t hard to find him; he’s the tall brunette wearing a kilt.
Once he catches sight of me, he grabs me into a death hug.
“Connie, how are you?” he asks.
-Insert typical conversation between adult and teen, with extra quirkiness and awkwardness-
Molly, thankfully, comes and rescues me, before Uncle Rolf launches into a great discussion about the release of thestral vision glasses, and how they’re an abomination. I know what a thestral is, and whether I’ve seen death or not, I’ll never be able to see one, so to be frank; I don’t really care. But saying things like that is rude, so I shut my trap.
“Molly. I’m not going to be able to survive, there isn’t Internet here,” I say.
She laughs. “Who needs internet when you’ve got me?”
“I do,” I grumble, and I earn a light thwack to the back of the head, to be fair I had that one coming.
“So fill me in on the gossip, are you single?” she says, poking me continuously.
“I guess, but there’s this guy, who I’m almost dating but not quite.”
Molly hits me again. I forgot how physical she gets when she is speaking; my body is going to be littered in bruises by time I get back home. “Other best friend’s older brother.”
“Name, details, now!”
I tug at my jeans, which are now slightly damp with sweat. I should have worn shorts.
“His name is Elliot and he’s a total dork in the cutest way possible. He’s into films and he has a good taste in music.”
“Right then it’s settled, we shall bribe Uncle Harry into getting this place interneted, so you can talk to lover-boy,” Molly says a little too loudly. I hush her up and scold her for making the noun internet a verb. We walk inside, because I need to change desperately before I melt.
Thinking of Elliot makes me have that gushy, want-to-fall-in-love feeling. I know I’m not completely insane about him, but I like him a lot. He’s the only person who has been able to hold my interest after you-know-who. And that’s what I really want, I want to get over him. Falling in love with science nerds is so two summers ago, I tell myself, this year it’s all about dorks who love star wars and lord of the rings.
I root into my bag and pull out my white shorts.
“Are these too short?” I ask, holding them out for Molly. They’re like a belt, but it’s hot and since my brain cells are fried, I don’t really care for my dignity.
“Well, my dad would have a heart attack if I wore those. Got tights?”
After a moment of ruffling through my bag, I yank out a pair of tights and hold them up. “These okay?”
Molly looks wary, but nods. “They’ll be all right, if anyone makes a comment. I did not tell you to wear them.”
We laugh. Molly points me off to the closest toilet. After banging my foot on the sink twice and my calf on the toilet, I pull my tights and shorts on. With a sore leg, I exit the bathroom. Molly’s face drops as she says, “you look like a whore.”
“I kinda do, don’t I?” I say, looking down at my skinny chicken legs. All of my skinny chicken legs.
“But you don’t really care, do you?” she answers, folding her arms across her chest.
“No, I don’t, should I?” If you haven’t noticed, we’re getting lost in the rhythmical pattern of asking each other questions.
“I would, but you don’t. you’re not trying to make a statement, are you?”
“Dunno, I don’t think I am. It looks like I am, doesn’t it?” I crack a smile. Molly, then, erupts into giggles and I do the same.
“We’re sort of mad,” Molly says in between fits of laughter.
“Sort of, Molly. You are mad.” I hear a deep creepy voice drawl behind us. I can’t stand boys with overly deep voices that creep you out. I don’t like the sort of boys who stalk you either, you know as most girls shouldn’t, but some girls have a couple of loose screws and think it’s charming. Charming, my arse.
I turn around. Internally, I face-palm. His name escapes me. I want to give myself a pat on the back, well done for successfully not remembering one of your childhood best friend’s names. I curse my cheese brain under my breath and watch him as he looks me over.
“Nice legs,” he says in a surly voice that makes my toes curl.
“Nice face,” I retort. He has a handsome face, with a ‘chiseled’ jaw line. Let’s be honest, most of us don’t actually know what a so-called chiselled jaw line looks like.
“Still a cow, Connie?”
Holy guacamole, Andrew. Since when did Andrew Longbottom get sexy, we’d all heard that his dad was a late bloomer, but seriously. What happened to the fat boy who used to eat fish and chips everyday?
“Still a fish stick, Andrew?”
There’s a tentative moment, but he engulfs me in a hug. I hug him back.
“I’m still pissed at you, you know,” I say, stepping back.
“Guessed as much,” he shrugged.
Molly squeals and drapes an arm around both of us. “It’ll be like old times, all of us hanging out.”
“Except for James,” I say clearly.
“It doesn’t matter, he’s bordering on becoming a hermit lately, he stays in his room and invents all the time. It’s been a cause of family friction.” Molly twitches at the words family friction.
“Oh my goodness, we totally forget to tell you, Ken Sandringham is having a party, we were all invited. Like all of us, me, Andy, Albus, James, the twins, Rose, Lily, Hugo, Mal-,” Andrew cuts off Molly’s waffling. Smooth change of topic on Molly’s behalf.
He says, “What waffles is trying to say is, we’re taking you to a party.”
Great. A party at someone’s house I don’t know.
“This Ken, he will be okay with you bringing me?”
Molly laughs, “yeah, we told her. Her name’s Ken-dra.”
“You’ll love her, she takes no nonsense. When she comes over, she marches right in, and gets James to come out of his room,” Andrew adds.
I raise my eyebrows at Molly.
“Oh, she’s his bestfriend.”
It’s a good thing I’m not holding anything in my hands, because it would have shattered. There’s nothing lovelier than hearing that you’ve been replaced. It’s one of those things that really shouldn’t bother you, because theoretically you’re over it and in theory it’s the past. The thing is the past is a bitch and it likes to crop up in the present and slap you on the face.
Author's Note: It gets to the point where I run out of excuses. It's always fascinated me how long it could possibly take some author's to update, until I became one of them. One of the awful updaters.
So, yeah, it's short. I hate long chapters, they emotionally drain me. Next chapter has a drunk Connie, I've never written intoxicated characters, so it'll be an interesting one.
excuse the nasty grammar, syntax and punctuation. this needs heavy editing.
Feel free to tell me what you thought of Connie, Molly and Andrew in a review in that empty box below. and thank you so much for all the support on this story, wasn't really expecting it ♥
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