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Just Know It


“You know that feeling when you just sort of know something’s about to happen?” Sirius said, “That’s how you’ve got to make yourself feel about the spell. Just know whatever spell you think is going to be cast and then you think it while you’re knowing that and the next thing you know…” Sirius waved his wand and sure enough, what was left of the bicorn horn rose up from the counter in the Secret Room and floated about in the air as he guided it along with his wand tip. He looked at James, “It’s simple. So simple it’s hard, really. Funny how things get that way, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, super funny,” muttered James.

It had been three days since Sirius and Peter had finally figured out how to cast spells silently and they were getting incredibly good at it - but James had yet to do it even once still and it was frustrating him. Every time Peter had managed to do it grated on his nerves like an insult to his smarts. If Peter could do it, then there was no reason why James couldn’t, and yet he was still struggling with it. A struggling and frustrated James made for a cranky James and he’d been snapping left and right at everybody and Sirius had decided the only way to cure the incredibly grumpy attitude was to get him to finally be able to cast the spell. And so he’d dragged James out of bed and up to the Secret Room to practice during the night.

The Draught of Change had turned a brilliant green shade. This, the book said, was the sign that it had passed the stage of being mere Polyjuice Potion and was on it’s way to maturing and becoming the Draught. This was an important stage because soon they would be able to split the potion into three separate cauldrons to prepare for the mandrake leaves, which they would need to carry in their mouths for one month before putting it into the potion overnight… and then they would bottle it up and they would be able to become animagi as soon as the conditions were ready to drink the potion.

Sirius stared into the bubbling pot. “We need to knick some mandrake leaves tomorrow in Herbology,” he said. James’s face was screwed up tight and red from concentration on the feather before him. Sirius laughed. “Mate, I’m telling you, you don’t have to work that hard at it. You look as though you’re constipated!”

“I feel as though I’m constipated!” James complained, “Magically constipated. It just won’t come out!”

Sirius laughed and climbed down from the stool he was kneeling on. “Seriously, though, you’re trying too hard. It’s never going to happen if you’re doing all that. That’s what’s been messing us up all along. You’ve got to just know it’ll happen and --”

“I know you’ve said that about a hundred times already,” James snapped.

Sirius laughed. “Alright, I’m sorry, okay? I’m just trying to help.”

James sighed, “I’m sorry,” he said, and he sank down to the floor, lying on the tile. His wand rolled out of his fist and a couple feet away. “I feel like such a failure.”

Sirius went over and laid down, too, so that their heads were side-by-side but their bodies were going opposite directions - a yin-yang on the floor of the Secret Room. He turned his head so he was looking over at James. “You aren’t a failure.”

“I am,” James said, voice barely a mumble, his eyes closed. “I’m the worst wizard in all of history.”

Sirius rolled his eyes at his friend’s dramatic exclamation. “You’re right; you’re practically a squib! You might as well give up and just go home and become an accountant or something. Clearly you aren’t cut out for the wizarding world.”

James opened his eyes and looked over at Sirius. Sirius smirked back at him.

“You’re not helping,” James laughed.

Sirius turned to look up at the ceiling of the Secret Room. “We’ll need to come up with a plan to do this,” he said, eyes moving over the ornately painted ceiling tiles, “Sometime that all three of us can get together on a full moon night… The potion will be ready, but not in time for the full moon next month and school will be out before the full moon in June.”

James nodded. “We’ll just have to make plans with Peter, I s’pose.”

“But what about everyone’s folks?” Sirius asked.

“Well, you’ll be at my place, won’t you?” James pointed out, “We’ll just tell my parents we’re visiting Peter and Peter will tell his parents he’s visiting us and we’ll actually all be going -- I dunno, some place else.”

Sirius said, “But where.”

“What if we did it in September? In the forest here?”

Sirius frowned. “I hate to wait that long. Remus needs us. Every full moon it gets worse and he comes back with more and more bruises and cuts and… and I can tell he’s more upset about him and Lily breaking it off than he’s letting on.”

“Yeah,” James said.

“And also then we’ll have all the staff wondering where we’re at. A full moon class would have only Lily in it if we lot were gone, too,” Sirius pointed out.

“Yeah,” James said.

Sirius slipped his arm up under his head as a pillow and closed his eyes. “I can’t believe it’s this close to the end of term already, and in our second year, too; can you?”

James shook his head. It seemed like only yesterday he’d been waking up in his bedroom, excitedly tying his Gryffindor-colored trainers and packing Bubo up in his cage to head to King’s Cross Station for the very first time. Yet at the same time, it seemed like eons ago. Quite a lot changed since then, he reflected. It seemed as though he had been hanging out about the castle with Sirius, Remus, and Peter all his life.

“Remember how scared we all were on the train that first time?” Sirius laughed, “And how ickle and small we all were? Crowded into our compartment on the Express, talking about which House we all thought we’d be sorted to?”

James smiled at the memory of it.

“And the trolley came and we loaded up on sweets and annoyed the bloody hell out of Remus?”

James laughed outloud, “He was trying to read,” he added the detail.

“But we were busy playing Quidditch with the Bertie Bott’s we’d gotten off the trolley,” Sirius guffawed, “And jumping bench to bench like a couple of lunatics! Blimey it seems about a hundred years ago now, though. You wanted to be Seeker on the Gryffindor team then, remember? And now here you are, finally a Seeker, despite all doubts that anybody had ever had.”

“I knew I’d be Seeker,” James replied, grinning. “I just knew it.”

A smile spread across Sirius’s face at the words. “I knew it, too. Knew eventually you’d get the chance.” He looked over at James. “You know what else I know?”

James looked at Sirius.

“I know you can do a silent spell. And I know you know you can, too. I mean, if you can go from catching Bertie Bott’s beans on the Hogwarts Express to playing Seeker on the Hogwarts All Start Tourney team, then… I think you’ll be brilliant at anything.”

James saw the sincerity in Sirius’s eyes and, with a fresh wave of confidence, he jumped up from the floor. Sirius sat up quickly and scooted ‘round so he was watching as James waved his wand and --

The feather lifted up from the table it had been resting on and James directed it about with his wand through the air, grinning. “Look, I’m doing it!” James shouted, and in his excitement, the feather dropped to the floor. But it didn’t matter - he’d done it - and that was enough.

“Good one, James!” said Sirius.

James turned to Sirius, “Thanks, mate.”




Next morning, Sirius and James were bleary eyed and quiet at the Gryffindor house table for breakfast, while Peter was going on about the upcoming exams that he’d completely forgotten about until he’d dreamed that he had failed them all. Lily was comforting him, telling him she would help him study. It was under the cover of Lily entertaining Peter that Remus turned to James and Sirius, who were sleepily sloshing about their porridge. “Why are you two so tired? Did you go out with the cloak last night?”

James looked at Sirius. Sirius replied, “We had some stuff we had to do.”

“Homework?” Remus asked skeptically.

“Well… sort of,” James said. After he’d managed to get the feather to fly about, they had done their Charms revisions as practice for doing silent spellwork.

Remus would have kept pressing further, had it not been for the fact that at that very moment Meg Johnson and Dawn Gleason appeared, carrying plates. The boys’ conversation was not the only one interrupted by the surprise of the girls’ arrival. Peter stopped mid-sentence as Lilyl ooked up and Bilius, who had been busy talking to Derek silenced suddenly and kicked Derek’s shin to get him to turn ‘round.

Derek stared up at Meg and Dawn with expectant eyes. “Yes?” he asked.

“We’d rather sit with you lot,” Meg said. “Is that okay?”

Derek glanced back to the Slytherin table, where the rest of the Ilvermorny team was seated. Mulciber and Avery and Horan were all talking animatedly to Jack Scout and the rest of his team. A couple of the Slytherins were glaring over at Meg and Dawn and the Gryffindor table. Derek quickly moved to make room for the girls between himself and Frank Longbottom, who’d been talking to Ali Prewitt. “Have a seat,” Derek said, “Welcome back.”

“Thank you so much,” Meg said, and the two of them put their plates of food down on the table top and sat.

Dawn shook out her long blonde hair and Sirius, suddenly more awake than he’d been seconds before, was transfixed by the way it flowed through the air and fell back across her shoulders. His eyes were wide as he watched and James elbowed him to get the hungry look off his face before Dawn saw tit. “They were total idiots over there,” she said, rolling her eyes. “They think they’re better than everybody else in the world, like they’re royalty or something. It’s so stupid. They kept reminding us how long their families had been pureblood lines, and talking about greatness and power and -- ugh.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a Slytherin for sure,” said Bilius with a snort.

“We’d much rather sit with you,” Meg said.

“Even though some of us are muggle-borns?” Lily asked, having heard about the Americans’ preference to avoid no-maj. She looked solemnly at the girls with wide, expectant eyes. Remus reached under the table to squeeze her hand and she squeezed his back.

“Yeah!” said Meg, “We aren’t prejudiced, us two. We’re probably the only ones that have our heads on straight, except maybe Eric. He’s alright, too. But the Horned Serpents -” she rolled her eyes, “They’re the worst.”

“Sounds like the Snakes and the Serpents all belong together then,” said Bilius. “We’re glad to have you back.” He looked at Dawn with a grin on his face, “You brighten our table immensely.”

Dawn flushed.

The post owls flew in before Bilius could continue on with complimenting Dawn Gleason and everyone looked up at the fluttering of their wings and hoots and calls as they flooded through the high windows overhead. Meg’s eyes were filled with wonder - despite having seen the arrival of the post each day since they’d arrived to Hogwarts, she couldn’t help but be amazed by the beautiful chaos of it each time. The birds all knew precisely where they were going and none of them ever collided with one another or anything, it was rather mesmerizing to see.

The owl sent from the Daily Prophet with Bilius’s copy of the Daily Prophet landed on the table and Bilius untied the paper, dropping a few knuts into the owl’s coin purse before he flew off. He shook out the paper as the others untied their packages and letters from their owls legs. Meg had gotten a letter from her brother back in Seattle and James had a package from his parents. The wrap was nearly torn off the box, which a note tied to the front had informed him was filled with his mum’s butterbeer cookies, when a shout went up from Bilius at the end of the table.

“Bloody hell!” he shouted, “Bloody hell!”

“What is it?” Derek looked up, wide-eyed. “What’s the matter?”

“There’s been a giant sighting,” Bilius said and he turned the newspaper to show them the picture on the front cover. It wasn’t much to see, just a retreating back, but the head and shoulders were clear to see straight over the rooftops of a little village.

“Blimey! A giant? A real giant?” James’s eyes were wide.

Lily looked utterly perplexed, “Giants are real?” she asked incredulously.

“Oh yes,” said Derek, nodding. “Just you wait, you’ll be learning about them soon enough in History of Magic. There’s been quite a lot of trouble with giants over the centuries…” He looked at Bilius. “Where was it at?”

“It was in Ottery St.Catchpole,” Bilius answered, “My brother Arthur’s place is right over that hill there,” he said, pointing to a spot on the right of the photo. “He and Molly and their little ones, Bill and Charlie.”

Remus asked, “What was a giant doing in Ottery St. Catchpole? They don’t usually venture away from the mountains.”

“Looks like he might’ve been headed south,” Bilius said.

Derek frowned. “What’s the article say?”

“Only that the Ministry’s working on capturing it,” Bilius replied. “It doesn’t really say much.”

Sirius asked, “Could it be working for Voldemort?” Peter’s eyes widened at the thought of it, and James looked frightened. Lily squeezed Remus’s hand again.

“That’s what I was thinking, too,” Frank murmured, “I didn’t want to say it, though.” He looked at Derek and Bilius, the apparent authorities on the subject.

Derek shrugged, “Maybe,” he said, “But either way, I doubt very much that it’s just out for a joy walk about the country.”