the Horcrux Thief, james potter

ix. makeshift magic lessons

But her pity soon went away, because instead of pestering her and trying to help her, they spent the rest of the weekend nagging her anyway, trying to look over her notes to the point she had to ward her desk off, which nearly broke Sirius' nose when he tried to walk through them.

Peter and Remus were less bad, or at least less obvious in their attempts of trying to figure out what she was doing. The latter seemed drained though, and the former just gave her chills, his magic bothering her for some reason despite the fact that he seemed as nice as the others—which still made him a prat because they all were.

The two of them also seemed more curious in a way that bordered on suspicion of her and that was the moment she'd realized why James had told her he believed her when he was drunk. They doubted her, and she understood that—to be honest, she understood that better than James' trust in her.

Additionally to spending their time trying to force their way into helping her (which stopped working fast after Euphemia had threatened to jinx them), the boys also dragged her along to have "fun".

Mostly they ended up on the Quidditch pitch and they'd teach her to play—James and Sirius were natural, Remus was a good flier but he didn't seem to care much about the sport and Peter was a bit clumsy but still managed to hold himself in a game. Safe to say she caught the hang of it fast, and by the end of the weekend she'd been able to steal the Quaffle from James a handful of times—and he was a pretty good Chaser.

Sunday after another pleasant dinner with the Potters (and their three extra children), she was sitting in her bed, reading the book she'd found in the bookstore—her favorite murder mystery of Agatha Christie that she'd only read in Spanish before—when she heard a knock on the door.

James poked his head with a grin—his friends must've gone home. He walked inside not waiting for her to invite him. "I'm ready for my class, Professor Santoro."

She was confused for a moment before remembering how he'd asked her to teach him the magic she'd learned. "Oh, I thought you weren't serious about that."

"I've never been more serious, and one time I had to pretend to be Sirius—don't ask."

"I wasn't going to." She sighed and gestured to her bed and James immediately sat down on the end of it, waiting for his class. "I'm not a good teacher," she warned him as she put her book down on the bedside table.

"I'm not a good student either," he told her with a wink and she rolled her eyes.

She heard of the Marauders (mostly from them) and they were apparently infamous at Hogwarts for having a knack for trouble and rule-breaking. They told her about their dares that usually resulted in multiple detentions, and the few pranks they'd done over the years, leaving out the parts she would've found interesting—if the looks they shared were anything to go by.

Not that she believed they were bad students—James and Sirius were going to start training to be Aurors in September and if that was anything like Guardas, which she knew they were, they needed to be pretty clever and adept to get in. And she'd also gotten a chance to talk to Remus when they both took a break from Quidditch and sat on the grass—they'd talked mostly about broad topics but she could tell the boy had a good head on his shoulders.

"Alright, first close your eyes."

He did, without hesitation. Though he peeked at her through one eye. "And?"

She scowled. "Close them."

"Alright. Merlin, you're moody."

She resisted the urge to hex him. "You have to control your breathing, and make sure you're relaxed, we're attempting to tap into your magical core so you need focus."