A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing [4]
Title: A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing [4/?]
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 2185 [this part]
Pairings: Teddy/James II eventually, James/OMC, Rose/Scorpius
Warnings: A boykiss.
Author's Note: The Prophet headline credit goes to moonypads, because I am terrible at coming up with that sort of thing. Very little Teddy here, which makes me sad. Also a horrible middle name for Rose.
Disclaimer: The characters and world belong to JK Rowling.
“ROSE NYMPHADORA WEASLEY!”
Rose snickered. “Knight to F6,” she directed, taking Lily's bishop.
“You convinced Gabe to ask him out, didn't you?” Lily grinned. “Queen to A8.”
“Convinced him to take a mouthful of Felix first, too,” Rose smirked. “Bishop to A8.”
Lily sighed and narrowed her eyes at the board. “I need your dad to teach me to play Wizard's Chess,” she tipped her King over in defeat, which made Rose pout, as she couldn't use her favourite checkmate. “Where did you get Felix Felicis?”
“Remember James' extra credit project for his OWL Potions class?” Rose couldn't wipe the smirk off of her face.
“You terrify me sometimes,” Lily said conversationally, sweeping her pieces into a silk bag.
Rose patted her cousin's arm. “I terrify myself sometimes.”
“ROSE!”
“Hullo, James,” Rose looked up at her dark-haired cousin, as Lily took the opportunity to flee. “Have you had a productive time in the library? How are your Defence and Transfiguration essays coming along?”
“You should have been sorted into Slytherin,” James announced, his hair messier than normal. “What did you do to me? Did you confound me?”
“I did no such thing,” she said indignantly, placing her chess pieces into their case. “Things are simply going as nature intended them.”
“I don't like men!” he said, slightly desperately. “I like girls!”
“James,” she sighed, but made the effort to speak slowly, patiently. “How long were you and Rachel dating?”
“Just over a year,” James responded, a suspicious edge to his voice.
“How far did you go?”
“Excuse me?” he spluttered. “Please don't tell me you are asking about my sex life. This is a bad dream. It's bad enough when I walk in on you and Scorpius in the bloody dungeons.”
“No, I'm asking about your lack of sex life,” Rose grinned, but shook her head. “That's not important. Give Gabe a chance. He's a nice guy, and I think you'll like him.”
He scowled at her before sighing, his shoulders sagging. “Well, it's not like I can take it back, now,” he leant back against the wall, fixing her with a look. “What do you do on a date with a bloke, anyway?”
“Madame Puddifoots?” she said innocently, expecting the smack that came to the spot where the back of her head had been a few seconds earlier.
“Rose. You got me into this mess...” he let the threat hang, unsaid, in the air.
“How do you know that?”
He gave her a look. “You're within a thousand yards of it,” he replied. “What does he like, anyway?”
“Looking to impress him?” Rose snickered, and ducked another violent swing of his arm. “Well. Do what you and Teddy do together.”
“Teddy and I don't go on dates,” he muttered darkly.
She looked like she wanted to say something, but settled on “I know. But you guys are relaxed around each other. Just get to know each other.”
James groaned. "This is a mess," he muttered. "This is a horrible, twisted mess."
- - -
"Not into Quidditch?" Gabe bent over to take a shot in pool and James was suddenly was very interested in the depths of his Butterbeer. "Not like your brother, then."
"Or my god brother," he drained his mug and didn't flinch as his and Gabe's fingers brushed when he took the cue.
"Lupin, right?" Gabe leant back on his elbows. "Plays Beater?"
"Yeah. Flew as a reserve for England this year," he glanced up and noticed the odd look on the blonde's face. "What? You looking at my arse or something?"
"Wasn't, but if you're going to bring it up..." Gabe's look vanished, replaced by a leer which quickly dissolved into laughter. James rolled his eyes but couldn't help but laugh too, bopping Gabe on the head with the cue.
"I'll go get us some more Butterbeer," he offered, getting only a distracted nod in return. As he ambled up to the bar, he couldn't suppress the smile that curled at his lips. This had been one of the better first dates he'd been on, all in all. The awkwardness, surprisingly, had come that they only knew each other through Rose rather than the fact they were both men. He'd taken Rose's advice, actually, and tried to treat him like Teddy. Just like a mate. And Gabe was unreasonably easy to get along with. He was probably the wittiest Hufflepuff he'd ever met, and the nervousness had dissolved completely between the awkwardness in the library and when he'd walked into the Three Broomsticks. It was nice.
"You've lost, Potter," Gabe gestured to the pool table, where five of James' balls remained alone.
"How do I know you didn't cheat while my back was turned? And you sound bloody weird calling me Potter," James set the pitchers on the table, running a careful eye over the green felt.
"I'm a Hufflepuff, we don't lie," Gabe's mock innocence was priceless. "And yeah, I do, don't I... James."
"You forget I've met Scorpius Malfoy," James pointed out.
"Point to Gryffindor," Gabe conceded, glancing at his watch. "Ugh. It's getting late."
"Got someone else lined up, eh?" James tried for 'light and joking' but got the distinct impression he failed rather horribly.
"Most decidedly not," the intensity of Gabe's gaze made James look down at his Butterbeer once more. "What about you?"
James stood abruptly. "No," his tone was sharper than he intended. "Let's go, yeah?"
"But you-" Gabe caught sight of James' flashing brown eyes, so like Rose's, and wisely shut up, nodding. He followed James out of the pub, and down the main street, before he veered unexpectedly into an alley, which was distinctly not in the direction of school.
"James, I'm sorry. I don't know what I said, but I didn't mean to make you angry," Gabe said softly, sliding down the alley to lean on the bricks next to him.
"I-It's not you," James mumbled, refusing to look Gabe in the eye.
"What is it, then?" Gabe's tone was insistent rather than angry.
James exhaled softly. "How did you know?"
Gabe seriously considered acting obtuse, as this was not a fun conversation and the date had gone so well until this moment, but the Hufflepuff side of his brain won out. "Girls never interested me. Not when I was five and the kids at school played catch and kiss, not when I was eleven, not when I was fourteen and Scorpius discovered soft porn magazines, not when for my last birthday Scorp tried to set me up with Harriet from Ravenclaw. I never really... came out, so to speak, because there was nothing to admit. Nothing changed. And people figure it out, eventually."
James' lips quirked into a smile. "Especially when you ask them out in front of their little brothers?"
Gabe let out a huff of laughter as some of the tension in the air melted away. "Sorry about that. Not sure what came over me."
"Felix," James said simply, and Gabe stiffened, looking like he was going to apologise before James waved his hand. "Thing is, it wasn't a love potion. You didn't force me, you just tipped the scales in your favour. If I wasn't bent," he stumbled over the word but ploughed on regardless. "I would have told you to march your pretty arse back to Hufflepuff."
Gabe's heat beat quickened. "You wanted this, then?"
With great effort, James nodded.
"Want to test that theory then?"
"Huh?" the Gryffindor looked genuinely confused as Gabe stepped in front of him.
"The one that you're bent," he whispered, and closed the distance between them to capture James' lips, in an insistent kiss. When James made a noise in his throat and clutched at his jacket, Gabe made a mental note to thank Rose.
...Later.
- - -
Sunday mornings were the time that the Potter-Weasley clan of Hogwarts told the House tables to go take a running jump and sat together. The eight cousins would eat too much, gossip about the goings on at Hogwarts, and trade secrets about professors that might get them a few extra marks, or in the case of Hugo and Rose, a few less detentions.
This particular Sunday morning, though, all eyes were on James, who was carefully eating his eggs and ignoring the wide “I told you so” grin on Rose's face. The silence was starting to irritate him, though, and he couldn't help but groan when he looked up and even Louis had that nosy bloody look on his face.
“Can't a bloke eat his breakfast in peace?” he muttered, pushing his eggs around with his fork.
“Not when he went on his first date with another bloke the previous day,” Albus pointed out. A week had mellowed him, what with the realisation that it was prime “giving his brother hell” material - the fact that Rose had admitted to having a hand in it had helped, too.
“I didn't interrogate you after your first date,” James grumbled and Rose snorted expressively.
“When has Albus ever had a date?” she asked, copping a piece of buttered toast to the side of the face for her question.
“I've had dates,” Albus said defensively.
“Groping a girl behind Greenhouse Three doesn't count as a date,” she shot back, sending the toast back to his hair.
“That was once!”
“A-HEM. We're forgetting the matter at hand,” Lily pointed out, and James narrowed his eyes at her. He was enjoying the teasing of Albus, mainly for the fact that it had stopped the looks he was getting.
“I am not giving you the run down of my date with my twelve year old cousin at the table,” James said grumpily.
“Go away, Lucy,” Molly said simply.
“Make me,” Lucy pouted. “I know what dates are.”
“I have no real desire to give my extended family the run down of my date, for that matter,” he mused.
“Tough,” Louis spoke up. “Cough up, Potter.”
“Louis!” James looked scandalised. “You're meant to be the sensible one, I was relying on you to back me up here.”
“You forget who my father is, don't you?” Louis snorted. “And I'm studying for my NEWTs, I need a good laugh.”
“Glad you think it was horrible,” James snapped.
“So it went well, then?” Rose smirked. He rolled his eyes and flipped her the bird, but it didn't wipe the smirk on her face - in fact, if anything, it made her smirk wider.
“Yes, it went well. Yes, we'll probably be going on another one. Yes, I suppose that means I do like men more than I like women,” James said, after a pause. He looked away from Rose, who he knew would accept it, to Lily, who gave him a smile, Lucy, who looked slightly confused but nodded, and the rest of his cousins, who seemed to be on the whole, rather accepting.
Now there was just the rather sticky question of his parents.
Lily nudged him under the table, reading the look on his face when he turned his eyes back to his place - as usual. “Mum and Dad will be fine, James,” she said softly.
“Of course they will be, you daft git,” Albus rolled his eyes and elbowed his brother. “If Uncle Ron dealt with Hugo being a Slytherin...”
“After breaking the vase Mum's parents gave them for the wedding,” Hugo added cheerfully, his green robes a beacon among red and blue and Molly's yellow.
“Yes, thank you Hugo, we needed to think of my father breaking things,” Albus said sarcastically. “Look, James, they'll be fine. And if Dad isn't, Mum will beat him about the head with a broomstick until he is.”
James started to relax, and he nodded, before looking up for a chance to change the subject. “Oh, look, the mail's coming in,” he said, pointing to the swarm of owls that had started to make their way into the Great Hall. He recognised Teddy's owl, black amongst the mainly tawny school and Prophet owls, and he frowned as it landed in front of him, nipping at his finger. Shaking his head, he fed it a piece of toast as he untied the letter.
James,
I was going to tell you, I'm so sorry. Please tell me you don't hate me.
Teddy.
His frown deepened as Rose choked on her pumpkin juice beside him. His eyes were drawn to the front of The Daily Prophet, where the headline read “CHASERS KNOW HOW TO SCORE”, and the black and white but very obviously Teddy Lupin pulled out of a kiss with another man, a look of horror on his face at the camera.
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 2185 [this part]
Pairings: Teddy/James II eventually, James/OMC, Rose/Scorpius
Warnings: A boykiss.
Author's Note: The Prophet headline credit goes to moonypads, because I am terrible at coming up with that sort of thing. Very little Teddy here, which makes me sad. Also a horrible middle name for Rose.
Disclaimer: The characters and world belong to JK Rowling.
“ROSE NYMPHADORA WEASLEY!”
Rose snickered. “Knight to F6,” she directed, taking Lily's bishop.
“You convinced Gabe to ask him out, didn't you?” Lily grinned. “Queen to A8.”
“Convinced him to take a mouthful of Felix first, too,” Rose smirked. “Bishop to A8.”
Lily sighed and narrowed her eyes at the board. “I need your dad to teach me to play Wizard's Chess,” she tipped her King over in defeat, which made Rose pout, as she couldn't use her favourite checkmate. “Where did you get Felix Felicis?”
“Remember James' extra credit project for his OWL Potions class?” Rose couldn't wipe the smirk off of her face.
“You terrify me sometimes,” Lily said conversationally, sweeping her pieces into a silk bag.
Rose patted her cousin's arm. “I terrify myself sometimes.”
“ROSE!”
“Hullo, James,” Rose looked up at her dark-haired cousin, as Lily took the opportunity to flee. “Have you had a productive time in the library? How are your Defence and Transfiguration essays coming along?”
“You should have been sorted into Slytherin,” James announced, his hair messier than normal. “What did you do to me? Did you confound me?”
“I did no such thing,” she said indignantly, placing her chess pieces into their case. “Things are simply going as nature intended them.”
“I don't like men!” he said, slightly desperately. “I like girls!”
“James,” she sighed, but made the effort to speak slowly, patiently. “How long were you and Rachel dating?”
“Just over a year,” James responded, a suspicious edge to his voice.
“How far did you go?”
“Excuse me?” he spluttered. “Please don't tell me you are asking about my sex life. This is a bad dream. It's bad enough when I walk in on you and Scorpius in the bloody dungeons.”
“No, I'm asking about your lack of sex life,” Rose grinned, but shook her head. “That's not important. Give Gabe a chance. He's a nice guy, and I think you'll like him.”
He scowled at her before sighing, his shoulders sagging. “Well, it's not like I can take it back, now,” he leant back against the wall, fixing her with a look. “What do you do on a date with a bloke, anyway?”
“Madame Puddifoots?” she said innocently, expecting the smack that came to the spot where the back of her head had been a few seconds earlier.
“Rose. You got me into this mess...” he let the threat hang, unsaid, in the air.
“How do you know that?”
He gave her a look. “You're within a thousand yards of it,” he replied. “What does he like, anyway?”
“Looking to impress him?” Rose snickered, and ducked another violent swing of his arm. “Well. Do what you and Teddy do together.”
“Teddy and I don't go on dates,” he muttered darkly.
She looked like she wanted to say something, but settled on “I know. But you guys are relaxed around each other. Just get to know each other.”
James groaned. "This is a mess," he muttered. "This is a horrible, twisted mess."
- - -
"Not into Quidditch?" Gabe bent over to take a shot in pool and James was suddenly was very interested in the depths of his Butterbeer. "Not like your brother, then."
"Or my god brother," he drained his mug and didn't flinch as his and Gabe's fingers brushed when he took the cue.
"Lupin, right?" Gabe leant back on his elbows. "Plays Beater?"
"Yeah. Flew as a reserve for England this year," he glanced up and noticed the odd look on the blonde's face. "What? You looking at my arse or something?"
"Wasn't, but if you're going to bring it up..." Gabe's look vanished, replaced by a leer which quickly dissolved into laughter. James rolled his eyes but couldn't help but laugh too, bopping Gabe on the head with the cue.
"I'll go get us some more Butterbeer," he offered, getting only a distracted nod in return. As he ambled up to the bar, he couldn't suppress the smile that curled at his lips. This had been one of the better first dates he'd been on, all in all. The awkwardness, surprisingly, had come that they only knew each other through Rose rather than the fact they were both men. He'd taken Rose's advice, actually, and tried to treat him like Teddy. Just like a mate. And Gabe was unreasonably easy to get along with. He was probably the wittiest Hufflepuff he'd ever met, and the nervousness had dissolved completely between the awkwardness in the library and when he'd walked into the Three Broomsticks. It was nice.
"You've lost, Potter," Gabe gestured to the pool table, where five of James' balls remained alone.
"How do I know you didn't cheat while my back was turned? And you sound bloody weird calling me Potter," James set the pitchers on the table, running a careful eye over the green felt.
"I'm a Hufflepuff, we don't lie," Gabe's mock innocence was priceless. "And yeah, I do, don't I... James."
"You forget I've met Scorpius Malfoy," James pointed out.
"Point to Gryffindor," Gabe conceded, glancing at his watch. "Ugh. It's getting late."
"Got someone else lined up, eh?" James tried for 'light and joking' but got the distinct impression he failed rather horribly.
"Most decidedly not," the intensity of Gabe's gaze made James look down at his Butterbeer once more. "What about you?"
James stood abruptly. "No," his tone was sharper than he intended. "Let's go, yeah?"
"But you-" Gabe caught sight of James' flashing brown eyes, so like Rose's, and wisely shut up, nodding. He followed James out of the pub, and down the main street, before he veered unexpectedly into an alley, which was distinctly not in the direction of school.
"James, I'm sorry. I don't know what I said, but I didn't mean to make you angry," Gabe said softly, sliding down the alley to lean on the bricks next to him.
"I-It's not you," James mumbled, refusing to look Gabe in the eye.
"What is it, then?" Gabe's tone was insistent rather than angry.
James exhaled softly. "How did you know?"
Gabe seriously considered acting obtuse, as this was not a fun conversation and the date had gone so well until this moment, but the Hufflepuff side of his brain won out. "Girls never interested me. Not when I was five and the kids at school played catch and kiss, not when I was eleven, not when I was fourteen and Scorpius discovered soft porn magazines, not when for my last birthday Scorp tried to set me up with Harriet from Ravenclaw. I never really... came out, so to speak, because there was nothing to admit. Nothing changed. And people figure it out, eventually."
James' lips quirked into a smile. "Especially when you ask them out in front of their little brothers?"
Gabe let out a huff of laughter as some of the tension in the air melted away. "Sorry about that. Not sure what came over me."
"Felix," James said simply, and Gabe stiffened, looking like he was going to apologise before James waved his hand. "Thing is, it wasn't a love potion. You didn't force me, you just tipped the scales in your favour. If I wasn't bent," he stumbled over the word but ploughed on regardless. "I would have told you to march your pretty arse back to Hufflepuff."
Gabe's heat beat quickened. "You wanted this, then?"
With great effort, James nodded.
"Want to test that theory then?"
"Huh?" the Gryffindor looked genuinely confused as Gabe stepped in front of him.
"The one that you're bent," he whispered, and closed the distance between them to capture James' lips, in an insistent kiss. When James made a noise in his throat and clutched at his jacket, Gabe made a mental note to thank Rose.
...Later.
- - -
Sunday mornings were the time that the Potter-Weasley clan of Hogwarts told the House tables to go take a running jump and sat together. The eight cousins would eat too much, gossip about the goings on at Hogwarts, and trade secrets about professors that might get them a few extra marks, or in the case of Hugo and Rose, a few less detentions.
This particular Sunday morning, though, all eyes were on James, who was carefully eating his eggs and ignoring the wide “I told you so” grin on Rose's face. The silence was starting to irritate him, though, and he couldn't help but groan when he looked up and even Louis had that nosy bloody look on his face.
“Can't a bloke eat his breakfast in peace?” he muttered, pushing his eggs around with his fork.
“Not when he went on his first date with another bloke the previous day,” Albus pointed out. A week had mellowed him, what with the realisation that it was prime “giving his brother hell” material - the fact that Rose had admitted to having a hand in it had helped, too.
“I didn't interrogate you after your first date,” James grumbled and Rose snorted expressively.
“When has Albus ever had a date?” she asked, copping a piece of buttered toast to the side of the face for her question.
“I've had dates,” Albus said defensively.
“Groping a girl behind Greenhouse Three doesn't count as a date,” she shot back, sending the toast back to his hair.
“That was once!”
“A-HEM. We're forgetting the matter at hand,” Lily pointed out, and James narrowed his eyes at her. He was enjoying the teasing of Albus, mainly for the fact that it had stopped the looks he was getting.
“I am not giving you the run down of my date with my twelve year old cousin at the table,” James said grumpily.
“Go away, Lucy,” Molly said simply.
“Make me,” Lucy pouted. “I know what dates are.”
“I have no real desire to give my extended family the run down of my date, for that matter,” he mused.
“Tough,” Louis spoke up. “Cough up, Potter.”
“Louis!” James looked scandalised. “You're meant to be the sensible one, I was relying on you to back me up here.”
“You forget who my father is, don't you?” Louis snorted. “And I'm studying for my NEWTs, I need a good laugh.”
“Glad you think it was horrible,” James snapped.
“So it went well, then?” Rose smirked. He rolled his eyes and flipped her the bird, but it didn't wipe the smirk on her face - in fact, if anything, it made her smirk wider.
“Yes, it went well. Yes, we'll probably be going on another one. Yes, I suppose that means I do like men more than I like women,” James said, after a pause. He looked away from Rose, who he knew would accept it, to Lily, who gave him a smile, Lucy, who looked slightly confused but nodded, and the rest of his cousins, who seemed to be on the whole, rather accepting.
Now there was just the rather sticky question of his parents.
Lily nudged him under the table, reading the look on his face when he turned his eyes back to his place - as usual. “Mum and Dad will be fine, James,” she said softly.
“Of course they will be, you daft git,” Albus rolled his eyes and elbowed his brother. “If Uncle Ron dealt with Hugo being a Slytherin...”
“After breaking the vase Mum's parents gave them for the wedding,” Hugo added cheerfully, his green robes a beacon among red and blue and Molly's yellow.
“Yes, thank you Hugo, we needed to think of my father breaking things,” Albus said sarcastically. “Look, James, they'll be fine. And if Dad isn't, Mum will beat him about the head with a broomstick until he is.”
James started to relax, and he nodded, before looking up for a chance to change the subject. “Oh, look, the mail's coming in,” he said, pointing to the swarm of owls that had started to make their way into the Great Hall. He recognised Teddy's owl, black amongst the mainly tawny school and Prophet owls, and he frowned as it landed in front of him, nipping at his finger. Shaking his head, he fed it a piece of toast as he untied the letter.
James,
I was going to tell you, I'm so sorry. Please tell me you don't hate me.
Teddy.
His frown deepened as Rose choked on her pumpkin juice beside him. His eyes were drawn to the front of The Daily Prophet, where the headline read “CHASERS KNOW HOW TO SCORE”, and the black and white but very obviously Teddy Lupin pulled out of a kiss with another man, a look of horror on his face at the camera.