The Last Peverell

Chapter 66

The two Marauders sized each other up, the other students moving out of the way. Jasmine wanted to stop them from hurting each other. Their professor sure wasn't going to break them up. Moody just seemed amused by the turn of events. Severus had taken Jasmine's elbow and led her to a seat against the wall. She still felt a bit winded from the fall. "That was rather low of the professor to attack you like that. It wouldn't have felt like a fair win if he had hit you with that stunner."

"No, I should have been paying more attention to my surroundings. Moody noticed I wasn't paying attention to everything in the room."

He tutted, tapping along finger against his crossed forearms, "Peverell, you can't know everything going on in a room at once. Not even Aurors go into a fight without their partner to watch their back. As much as I hate to say this, you were lucky Black was there to help you. Otherwise you might be in the hospital wing from an even harder fall."

Moody's stunners had been known to knock people off their feet and into walls. She had seen them in the future against Death Eaters.

Jasmine's attention turned back to her Gryffindor friends, who were still throwing spells back and forth at each other.

"Why didn't you say something, Padfoot?"

James opened his mouth to say something else before Sirius cut him off. "We aren't going to talk about this here, Prongs," Sirius ground out through gritted teeth as the bell signaled for the end of the lesson.

The two prats hadn't said a word to each other since then...well they had shouted at each other that night, but she hadn't been able to make anything out from the bottom of the boys' staircase. Their door had apparently been spelled with muffling charms. Remus had ended up dozing on the couch by the fire after being locked out.

Which led them to a frosty situation on the train ride back to Kings Cross.

"This is absurd. What the hell is wrong with you two?" Jasmine snapped, drawing the attention of all three Marauders. Remus' cheeks pinked and he bashfully fingered the page his way on.

James ran a hand through his disheveled hair before drumming his fingers against his leg. "Sirius has been lying to us about his marriage contract. His family is pushing for someone else."

Jasmine rolled her eyes. Was that really what all this nonsense was about? "James, we knew that Sirius had removed people from the list. He told us that he removed his family's first pick. This isn't anything new to us."

Her cousin scowled, reminding Jasmine of the way that Euphemia looked when faced with a complicated problem .

"No, but Moody had speculations on who it was," James grumbled, arms crossed as he glared at his best friend who was glaring out the window.

Jasmine pined the bridge of her nose. "James, Moody isn't a member of the Black family. He wouldn't have that knowledge and speculating isn't a guarantee. I have my own theories on who his family wants him to marry, but until Sirius tells me on his own who it is, I'm not going to go digging for answers. You shouldn't either," she replied, pointing an accusatory finger James' way.

Honestly, Jasmine was nearly positive she knew who the first-choice bride was, but she wasn't going to say something until her friend did. It was his life and his marriage.

"Thank you! I've been saying the same thing all week! Moody is just trying to mess with you! I know that you want to know about the potential suitors I took off the list, but I just really don't want to talk about what my family is planning for me. I'm looking into the brides. Jasmine has that nice one from Japan coming over in August."