{.22. Expelliarmus}
James potter couldn't believe that Remus Lupin had rejected Alcyone Montague. He felt sorry for the girl as he knew what rejection felt like all too well, he had been rejected by Lily enough times. However, he knew that Ally was a little ball of sunshine and he couldn't imagine the hurt she must have been feeling when Remus rejected her and it wasn't even a good rejection. Why would Remus Lupin have a date when he had asked his mother to knit Ally a cardigan?
It made no sense, none at all but James didn't have time to think of the ins and outs as the full moon was now only two days away. He needed to talk to Ally before she sat moping the whole night, especially because she was probably under the impression that Remus was going on a date and he'd been stringing her along the entire time. He hadn't even seen her on her own at all, she had either been with Caspian, Regulus or Toby and Luke.
When he finally managed to catch her on her own it was when she was on her way to her lesson with Minnie. He grabbed her hand and pulled her into a broom cupboard, not really giving her a chance to protest.
"James get off me and let me out if I'm late for Professor McGonagall she will have my head on a stick!"
"Let me come with you and I'll talk to you about what I want to after? It's urgent Ally," James pleaded
Ally huffed but nodded anyway, she didn't want to be in a broom cupboard with James any longer than she needed to be. It made her feel very uncomfortable and she really didn't like the thought of getting caught by someone in there. She pulled James out and he followed her to the transfiguration classroom.
"Miss Montague and Mr Potter... what brings you here with Miss Montague tonight?" Professor McGonagall asked
She had noticed the budding friendship between Ally and the marauders and wondered where it had come from but she had always known that James and Sirius were social butterflies and while she thought that they were incredibly loud and troublesome, the marauders had a special place in her heart. She could see why Ally would be friendly with them, she too was an angel and Professor McGonagall thought that maybe her calmness would balance out the crazy of the marauders.
"Moral support, heard she can do the stupefy spell now and I want to experience it first hand," James teased
"Very well then, duelling stances," Professor McGonagall smirked
Ally and James both took ten big steps and bowed towards each other. James kept his wand behind his back ready to cast 'expelliarmus' and Ally was excited to see if she could still cast the spell. She hadn't practiced it since she had performed it with Toby before Christmas but now she was excited to show James up.
"After three," Professor McGonagall started counting
She got down to one and as she finished, Ally shouted stupefy before James could get a word out. He went flying back and ally squealed in excitement as Professor McGonagall gave her a high five. James stood up and ruffled his hair before cleaning his glasses in his shirt. He let out an excited squeal.
"Bloody hell Ally! You fierce bloody queen you done it!" He said wrapping his arms around her picking her up to spin her around
Ally laughed and she felt so incredibly proud of herself. James set her down and looked at her with a proud grin. They both looked to Professor McGonagall who was just smiling at the two. She proceeded to tell Ally now was a perfect chance to practice her expelliarmus spell as they hadn't done it for a few years and James was a master at the spell.
Ally felt slightly flustered at the thought of doing the expelliarmus spell, the last time that they had done this was when she had a panic attack and Atlas had to be called in. James stood at the other end of the room ready as he explained the wand movement to her. She nodded and got ready to cast the spell.
"Expelliarmus!" She shouted
She felt slightly deflated when absolutely nothing happened. She tried again and again, getting more frustrated when absolutely nothing was happening. She let out a frustrated groan and James walked up to her and smiled kindly.
"Ally, I think you should practice the wand movements without your wand first and then try it like that. Can you do the spell wandless?" He asked
"Expelliarmus," she muttered disarming James with her hands
James grinned, he knew she could to it. He knew that she was able to because it was the same wand movement, she was just flourishing her wand way too much. She passed the wand back to James feeling deflated and she tried again with her wand just practicing the movement. Professor McGonagall gave her tips on how to stop the flourishing of the wand and Ally took them in. The end of the hour came quite quickly but Ally and James promised Professor McGonagall that they would practice it so Ally could show her next time.
They left the room and James followed Ally as she headed over to the Hufflepuff common room. It wasn't the direction he wanted to go in so he swiftly pulled her back towards Gryffindor tower. Ally was fed up and she didn't want to see Remus Lupin. After she had cried to Toby about being rejected she brushed herself off but had ranted to all the boys in her life how absolutely rubbish they were.
Caspian said he was glad that Ally took this viewpoint but was incredibly concerned as she had been blushing over boys during the holidays so why now had she completely u-turned. He had hoped that she didn't get rejected but as she hadn't said, Reggie and Casp could only come up with their own conclusions.
"How come your wand doesn't always work?" James asked curiously
He always knew the wand chose the wizard so he was incredibly confused at how Ally's wand just did not work for her? Surely she had been to Diagon Alley like everyone else. Her family was mega rich so he actually couldn't imagine a reason that Ally Montague's wand just didn't work? She just blushed sheepishly and scratched her wrists nervously.
"So... I use my mums wand," she said quietly
"But, Al, you realise the wand chooses the wizard right? Like it's the wand law or something!" James exclaimed
"I know Jamie, I went with Caspian when he went to Mr Ollivanders for his wand. My dad just wanted me to use my mum's," she explained
"But ally, the wand isn't working for you love, which is probably why you're having difficulty," he told her
Ally knew this, she wasn't stupid but hearing James say it just made her feel very awkward. She was meant to ask over Christmas to go and get one but with everything that went on she never bothered asking but she was assuming going into NEWT level magic that she would most definitely need her own wand. One that picked her, she knew that Atlas was doing brilliantly with wand magic now despite being skilled with his hands so maybe it was a conversation she needed to have with him.
If any of her brothers would know best it would be Atlas. That's why she wanted schooling with him, he would be able to train her properly and she'd become skilled at her craft. Instead she was with Professor McGonagall who was trying her best, but it's just different when they were properly unsure on how being born with wandless magic works in comparison, Professor McGonagall openly said it was different to what she was used to but was more than happy to help ally.
James pulled Ally into Gryffindor tower when she made a move to walk past and she scowled at him. James said the password and wrapped his arms around ally's shoulders so she couldn't run away. She hated that she was scared to go into Gryffindor tower, she had never felt like that before.
She walked in to see Sirius, Remus and Peter doing their homework. Sirius wasn't doing his homework — not five minutes previous he had been badgering Remus to do his introduction for his essay before he started to pester him on why he wouldn't give Ally a chance — Peter was also eating sweets and attempting what Ally thought was a drawing of a plant for his herbology lesson.
She smiled at the three boys as they noticed her and they just nodded. Well, Remus just nodded, he didn't know how to act around the girl at the moment because he just felt so awkward. He didn't even know if it was possible to recover the friendship that they once had because of how abrupt he had been and he just didn't even want to try. He did notice that Ally had been wearing the cardigan that he had given her and that made him feel even more guilty. Especially as it was only a day until the moon.
"Al! What brings our little badger to the lion's den?" Sirius asked throwing his stuff to the side to go sit with Ally and James on the sofa's
"Nothing particular, James followed me to my lesson with Professor McGonagall and kidnapped me," she explained
Peter too had followed and offered Ally a sweet. She smiled and took one as she loved sweets and always thought Peter was incredibly kind. Peter was probably her favourite to be around sometimes, he always listened to her and gave her really good advice and it was just refreshing to see it from a different angle. She also knew that Peter was incredibly smart, he observed lots of things, it was something that Ally had thought was interesting if she was being honest.
"Well aren't you a lucky pup getting kidnapped?" Sirius teased
"I think you're the lucky pup Siri," she joked with a small smile
Ally still felt incredibly uncomfortable, she had wanted to speak to Remus but she 'had the hump' as regulus had previously called it. She didn't have a clue what it meant but Regulus had said he had used a Muggle born use it and he thought the phrase was really brilliant. He would never use it in front of anyone other than Ally and Casp though. He didn't like the thought of others knowing he used Muggle phrases.
The boys kept joking and teasing with one another and Ally just sat there in silence, for someone meant to be boycotting the Marauders she was doing an absolute rubbish job of it. She needed to get a grip of herself and just stop being so nice, she hated the fact that they were so bloody likeable because she just couldn't bring herself to be mad at them for very long. She was so annoyed at herself.
"That's a nice cardigan Ally," Peter commented
"Oh thanks Pete, I'm glad you like it," she said with a smile
"Is it new?" He asked
Ok, so Ally takes back what she says about Peter being observant because she clearly was pulling a face at him to stop talking and Sirius had nudged him three times to stop. It had even caused Remus to look over — he'd finished his essay and was debating whether to come over or not, he had decided to once he gathered his notes — ally just nodded her head and gave one last attempt at telling him to be quiet.
She knew it wasn't peter's fault but she didn't want to have to converse with Remus, she had to admit her confidence had been knocked. She felt as if Remus had been misguiding her with his friendship, and his pretty hair, handsome face and kind smiles. She knew she had just obviously read the signs wrong and she couldn't help just feel so incredibly stupid.
Remus walked over and sat down taking a piece of chocolate from Peter and just smiled. James felt the tension rise and he coughed to clear his throat.
"Hey Ally why don't you show Remus how you've mastered stupefy now?" James suggested
"I thought you'd done it before Christmas?" Sirius asked
"No I went flying backwards before Christmas, I can stay on the spot now," she explained standing on the opposite side of the common room
Sirius grinned and put five sickles on her being able to master it without her flying backwards with Peter. He didn't think Remus would want to be involved so he just left him be because he knew that Remus was probably feeling incredibly guilty and because of the moon everything would be heightened.
Ally got her wand at the ready and she stood opposite James with a smirk. Even from afar James towered over Ally and Shem she genuinely felt that she'd be intimidated in normal circumstances. They bowed and Sirius counted down from ten, again, Ally didn't give Sirius a chance to finish the word one.
"Stupefy!" She bellowed — she decided to channel all the anger she felt towards getting rejected into the spell
James flew backwards and knocked himself against the wall groaning in pain, Peter groaned and mumbled something about getting five sickles from their room. Ally squealed and wrapped her arms around Sirius' neck for a hug and he squeezed her tight.
"Oh congratulations you little beauty! Always knew you were a bloody bad ass bitch in there," Sirius cheered
"Right well I best get going, I want to see Tobes and I didn't want to come here in the first place," she explained grabbing her things from the table.
Remus frowned because he knew that it was because of him she wanted to leave but he stayed quiet. Ally grabbed a bar of chocolate from her coat pocket and handed it out to Remus, he looked confused but she kept a frown on her face.
"You look like you need it more than me," she muttered before saying goodbye to the others and leaving Gryffindor tower
"Remus John Lupin if you don't go and apologise to that beautiful girl right now and reschedule a date I swear to get I'll get Evans to hex you!" James scolded "no, I've got one better, I'll tell the Montague brothers you've upset their baby sister!" He added
Remus groaned and grabbed his cardigan before trying to catch up with Ally. He felt so much deja vu in this moment but he tried to catch up with her despite his aching muscles. He caught her just at the bottom of Gryffindor tower and tapped her back. She turned around and held her wand to his neck, she opened her eyes widely before she stuffed it away quickly apologising.
"Merlin's beard Remus! Don't scare me like that when I'm already terrified walking the corridors alone," she fumed
"I'm sorry! James said—"
"So you're only here because James told you to?" She asked with a raised eyebrow
Ally felt hurt, she had thought that Remus came to her because he had wanted to not because he was told to. Did their friendship really mean that little to him? Remus had realised what he'd done and shook his head very quickly
"No, no, no," he said quickly and very flustered "I want to apologise Cece, James just told me to follow you,"
"What do you want Remus? You could have just told me that you didn't want to see the moon with me, not give me the impression we were close and then you blurt out that you're seeing someone else. That's horrible," she scolded
"I wanted to apologise, I don't have a date—"
"That's even worse! If you wanted to reject me because you didn't like me all you had to do was say instead of lie! I hope you feel better Remus I really do but it took me a lot of courage to ask you and for you to outright reject me.. it hurt so just leave me alone," she said before turning on her heel and walking away
Remus groaned and walked back up the stairs to the tower, he mumbled the password and slumped on the sofa leaning his head on Sirius' shoulder.
"What happened mate? You didn't get to the Hufflepuff common room and back that quick?" James asked
"I made it worse," he grumbled
James threw his head back and groaned Sirius just wrapped his arms around Remus and smoothed his hair but it wasn't good. They knew that if Ally Montague hadn't given Remus another chance, it definitely wasn't good.
Over in the Hufflepuff common room, Ally was raging to Toby and Luke. They listened to her rants closely and tried to understand what had gone wrong. They had both been incredibly certain that Remus had liked Ally and it's a reason Toby had felt so guilty that he had encouraged Ally to ask him but it seems they got their wires crossed and all Toby could do was cuddle her and listen to while she ranted.
Because Ally Montague was fed up of not feeling good enough for Remus Lupin, she would show him what he was missing out on and the first way to do that, was throwing a party after the Hufflepuff game on the weekend, Ally couldn't wait.
***
Do I hate this chapter? Yes
Did I write it as a filler? Yes
Will I ever re-edit it? No
Does it have relevance to the plot? Some
Please comment and vote, thank you all for 12k, I love the fact so many of you are reading but I'd also love to hear your thoughts too so please comment!
Thankyou see you next time
Rhi x