a dustland fairytale, the killers / vienna, billy joel / every little thing she does is magic, sleeping at last / songbird, fleetwood mac / ordinary world, joy williams / california dreamin’, sia / dreams, bastille ft gabrielle aplin / across the universe, AURORA / only the good die young, billy joel.
The heavy sigh that bursts from Mary’s mouth is almost enough to make James laugh; a small smile of amusement already playing at his lips. Her normally placid and kind expression had crumpled with exacerbation and James only wished he was doing this on purpose so that he might stop.
In all truth, Mary had offered to do something exceptionally kind for him, and he hated that he was being such a bother about it. She was, after all, trying to prepare him for the Muggle world the best she could.
James knew that he could have always asked Lily, who had a far more interesting way of rewarding him for correct answers, but the whole point of such an exercise was to surprise Lily. James wanted to increase his knowledge of Muggle things and ideas so that he might make a good impression on the Evans’. He knew that his natural charm should be enough to win them over, but he was nothing if not an overachiever.
And that was where Mary had come in.
The last thing that James wanted to do when meeting his girlfriend’s parents was to embarrass himself, or them, or Lily with his lack of knowledge. Nor, he supposed, did he want to give her sister any more reason to hate his guts.
(Though with the way Lily spoke about Petunia, he had a feeling she would hate him regardless).
So with that in mind, James had set his plan in motion.
𝕾𝖙𝖊𝖕 𝕺𝖓𝖊: 𝕲𝖊𝖙 𝕸𝖆𝖗𝖞'𝖘 𝖆𝖙𝖙𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓
This had been simultaneously the easiest and hardest part of the whole endeavour. How could he get Mary alone without arousing suspicion from just about every single one of their mutual friends? He liked Mary, he really did, and he knew he could probably call her his friend, but there was no pretending that she wasn’t Lily’s friend first.
This wasn’t like with Marlene, who had always been equally James and Lily’s at the same time, nor was it like Sirius, who James was pretty certain still didn’t trust Lily completely, despite the fact James was head-over-heels. Not that he’d acknowledge it to his best friend’s face, but James had a feeling Sirius was behaving rather like a small child who didn’t want to share a toy.
Instead, it was more like Mary had always been on the peripheral of James’ world. She wasn’t practically family like Marls, nor was she the centre of his fascination like Lily. She was just...Mary. Solid, dependable Mary and someone James was pretty glad he was getting to know.
But growing friendships aside, it wasn’t like he could just be like “Oi, Macdonald, need to speak with you” without arousing suspicion and Merlin apparently forbid she ever study alone.
So desperate times called for desperate measures.
He jinxed her shoes.
Not drastically. Just enough that she would trip over her shoelaces and drop her belongings everywhere. And okay, maybe he had timed it right before Lily had a meeting with McGonagall and when Remus was out sick, so that James was the only one around that could swoop in like a true gentleman and save the day.
It was hard not to pump his fist in glee at how well it worked.
Mary, however, seemed less than pleased.
“Tell me you had nothing to do with this,” she had said suspiciously as he ducked down to scoop up the scattered pieces of parchment. James tried his best to look as innocent as possible, but there was a strong chance he just came off mildly constipated. His attempts lasted only a few more seconds before he gave in with a deep sigh and a crooked grin. He’d only just convinced Mary that he wasn’t as much of an idiot as she thought he was; they didn’t need to be taking backwards steps.
“I need your help,” he said, not bothering with her question. They didn’t really have to get into the logistics of the whole tripping jinx, did they? Mary’s whole face seemed to crumble with confusion and as he clamours to his feet, James began to explain, his hands already waving a mile a minute.
“I need you to help me not make an utter prat of myself in front of Lily’s dad.” he spluttered finally, and realisation slowly sank into Mary’s expression. It seemed to take a fair bit of convincing to win her around - although James had a feeling she was just prolonging it to stir him up - as well as at least two strange looks from Sirius when they finally emerged from the classroom, but James was pleased with the progress.
𝕾𝖙𝖊𝖕 𝕿𝖜𝖔: 𝕷𝖔𝖌𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖎𝖈𝖘
If James had thought trying to get Mary alone long enough to seek her help was hard, it had nothing on their attempts to actually hold their secret Muggle Studies meetings. Sure, Mary could have just thrown a textbook at his head and told him to read, but James had liked the thought of being taught by someone with actual experience, and he had a feeling that Mary liked the idea of getting to boss him about for a bit.
The trouble was, of course, they had quite possibly the neediest group of friends he had ever seen. James loved his friends, he did. He would die for Sirius and Remus and Peter, had done many an illegal thing for them, and obviously, Lily and Marlene were the lights of his life in romantically and platonic ways, but did they all have to be so up in his business all the time?
(Thinking such a thing caused many a restless night of guilt in the weeks following).
The last thing James wanted was to be caught ‘sneaking’ around with Mary, even if their intentions were completely innocent. It was bad enough some of the wankstain Slytherins had already started suggesting James had a 'thing’ for people of a certain blood-status. He just figured that they weren’t smart enough to recognise what a friend was.
So James did what James did best: utterly bullshitted an excuse.
“I’m helping tutor her in Transfiguration. My Head Boy duties and all,” he spluttered one evening after they had run into Lily and Marlene in the halls outside the library.
Were looks able to kill, James had a strong feeling the one Mary had shot him in response would have murdered him at least four times over. It wasn’t like he could tell them she was tutoring him? A) That would give away the whole plan and B) everyone knew Lily was the one who ‘helped’ him.
“Nothing too huge,” he had continued to say, feeling the way Mary had twitched beside him, as if she wouldn’t mind clocking him upside the head if given the chance. “Just a bit of revision. But...erm...she gets...I mean I get a bit nervous if too many people are watching my teaching abilities, so if we could just get this done and all meet up for dinner later?”
James had waited a few moments to see if either girl in front of him was about to protest what really was a pretty shitty excuse, before he spun on his heel toward the library. Sure, Mary would probably be subjected to a bunch of questions when she got back to her dorm that night, and okay, James himself was certainly going to get interrogated by Marlene later, if not by Lily at the same time, but for that moment, they seemed to have gotten away with it.
(The unnecessarily hard poke Mary had delivered to his spine in response suggested that they had not).
And all of that had lead to:
𝕾𝖙𝖊𝖕 𝕿𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖊: 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕷𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌
Underneath his blase and too-cool-for-this attitude, James was a good student. A lot of it was his natural desire to show off or his need to prove something to Professor McGonagall, but he did genuinely enjoy his schoolwork for the most part.
Unofficial Muggle Studies, however, was not where his talents lay.
Mary, to her credit, was doing the absolute best she could. Their usual table in the library was regularly covered with every book on Muggle customs she could find, many of which were wide open to the relevant pages. What they both hadn’t countered for, though, was how complicated everything then got.
“So the televisor-”
“Television.”
“It shows pictures? And they move like wizarding pictures?”
“Almost. They’re a video, so they move and have sound. There’s different channels, so different things can be playing at once. Like the news might be on, or a film, like how the wireless has different stations or programs.”
“And the televisor-”
“Television.”
“Television. It uses ecclectrisity?”
“Electricity. And yeah. You plug the cord into the wall-socket, erm…”
There is a long pause as Mary flicks through the pages of a book, trying to find the correct diagram before angling it toward James, pressing her fingernail to each picture in turn.
“This is a wall-socket where the electricity comes from, and this black tube is the cord, and then this on the end is the plug. The prongs-” James smirks. “-stop it, not your daft nickname. The electrical prongs go into the socket, and the outlet sends electricity to power the television. Following?”
The look on James’ face, however, suggests that she had lost him at the mention of his aforementioned daft nickname, and was not following her at all.
Fighting the urge to roll her eyes and bop James on the head with a textbook at the same time, Mary chews listlessly on her bottom lip instead.
“I don’t really think you need to worry about knowing how the television works. Just don’t go all goggle-eyed at it if it gets turned on. Her family know you’re a wizard anyway, that you might not understand this stuff.”
James shrugs his shoulders in response. He wasn’t certain as to why he was so desperate to get their approval, other than wanting the Evans’ to understand that he wanted to be a part of their world as much as Lily was a part of his...of theirs.
“I s’pose,” he says listlessly, before shooting Mary a cheeky grin, one that she immediately seems to brace herself against. “How about instead of all this televisor and eccclectricty stuff, we go down to the pitch and practice that no-brooms Quidditch game you showed me?”
“I showed you two, and neither of them are called ‘no-brooms Quidditch’, James.”
“Fine. Please, oh wonderful Mary, can we please go down to the pitch and play soccer?”
“Do we have to?”
“It’s a teaching and learning opportunity.”
Mary’s facial expression does nothing but express how little she believes what was coming out of James’ mouth, but she stands up, shaking her head regardless, a small smile playing at her mouth as she does so. At least he’d learnt something, she supposes.
There’s an extra spring in James’ step as they leave the library, having neatly stacked their mess of books on the table behind them, and he can’t help but bump Mary’s shoulder fondly with his own as they walked. “What if we played soccer on brooms?” he asks eagerly, practically bounding down the stairs, much to Mary’s chagrin.
“James, that’s practically just Quidditch,” she splutters, moving to catch up, only to be greeted by a very wide and crooked James Potter smile.
“That’s exactly the point,” he declares, and despite the fact she still thought him to be a bit of an idiot, Mary can’t help but smile at his enthusiasm.
Maybe, she supposes, they could be friends without the Lily-factor after all.
I R E G R E T to tell myself
That it's N O T the person that I should become
So I’ll drink wine and think I T ’ S F I N E
I am comfortable with my limbs going N U M B
I ’ M B A C K where I started from
