In short, he was a seventh-year. The school was like home.
Better than that, Hogwarts was his native domain. Unlike home, where the rules were his parents’ and they made the decisions, Hogwarts school existed for him, belonged to him nearly as much as it belonged to its teachers and administrators. And as he passed through its halls between classes, laughing with his friends, soaking up the camaraderie that he had so missed throughout the summer, the younger years did (as McGonagall had predicted) seem to look up to him and his fellow seventh-years as sort of minor demigods. As James and his friends walked by, the youngest and most timid students even backed up against the walls to watch, their eyes wide and somber with awe, like rowboats rocking in the waves of passing yachts. James didn’t feel quite entitled to such attention, but he enjoyed it nonetheless, knowing that even those shy first-years would someday be in his shoes.
According to James’ class schedule, Mondays were light, but brutally rigorous. His morning period included a double Arithmancy class, which was quite the marathon, considering that Arithmancy was one of James’ weakest subjects. Fortunately, he navigated to a seat next to Rose, who, like her mother, was a natural at the subject and had tested into the advanced classes during her very first year. Unlike her mother, however, Rose felt no obligation to assist James and Ralph in any way, and in fact did her best to shield her fastidious notes from their prying, sidelong glances. At one point, near the end of class, Professor Shert called Rose to the chalkboard to illustrate a particularly lengthy equation, and James, in a burst of inspiration, had quietly drawn his wand.
“Geminio!” he rasped as quietly as possible, directing the spell at his cousin’s notes. With a tiny puff, he conjured two identical copies of the parchment and quickly, triumphantly, distributed one to Ralph and jammed the other into his knapsack.
It wasn’t until after class, when he and Ralph paused in the halls to examine the copied notes, that they noticed that each neat, back-slanting paragraph of Rose’s handwriting had transformed into a single sentence, repeated over and over:
This content protected by ROSE WEASLEY’S PATENTED ANTI-DUPLICATION JINX, meant exclusively for JAMES POTTER, who is a lazy Niffler, and maybe ALBUS POTTER, too, except I don’t think he even knows the Gemini spell yet, even though that’s first-year magic for morons.
Without a word, James and Ralph balled up the copied parchments and tossed them into the nearest trash bin. Rose passed them with her chin raised in the air, smiling smugly.
The remainder of the day was devoted to History of Magic with the ghostly Professor Binns, which was perhaps even tougher than Arithmancy. James knew that the subject was very important for potential Auror training. Unfortunately, he had barely avoided a (D) Dreadful on the subject’s most recent N.E.W.T. examination. He determined to be resolute in paying painstaking attention to the famously boring Professor Binns, to take copious, detailed notes, and to study steadfastly at every opportunity.
Ten minutes into the class, however, he was leaning on his elbow in the first row, his eyeglasses abandoned on the parchment before him, staring blankly at the mish-mash of chalk notes on Professor Binns’ blackboard as the professor droned patiently on.
Even Rose took fewer notes in Binns’ class, although James suspected that this was because she, unlike him, already knew the material frontwards and back. She doodled idly on the corner of her parchment. James slid an eye toward the scratching of her quill and was both pained and annoyed to see her completing a drawing of a fat heart around Scorpius Malfoy’s name, written in looping cursive. She completed the heart, stared disconsolately at it for a moment, and then scribbled it out, pursing her lips silently.
Dinner in the Great Hall cemented the day happily, with James, Graham, and Deirdre completing the beginning-of-term ritual with a round of de rigueur complaints about the assigned homework and essays.
Rose, as usual, had completed hers in her free library period and merely raised her eyebrows primly. None of them truly minded the homework, at least not yet. James’ would be easily finished by the time ten o’clock rolled around, bringing the appointment with Argus Filch and the other Seventh-years. He saw the anticipation on Graham’s and Deirdre’s faces, but resisted the urge to discuss it, even in whispers. The tour of Hogwarts’ most clandestine areas was a secret, of course. If Rose had any clue about it, she would find a way to get the information from James somehow or other.
As he made his way back upstairs to the common room for the evening, he wondered how many of the school’s secrets he already knew about. In truth, he expected quite a lot of them. He knew about the underground passage between the statue of Lokimagus and the Quidditch shed—had learned of that one during the first night of his first year, in fact. He knew about the Chamber of Secrets, of course (although pretty much everyone knew about that by now). He knew of the Room of Requirement, and its sister space, the Room of Hidden Things. He even knew of the passage that connected the Whomping Willow to the old Shrieking Shack outside of Hogsmeade. And yet perhaps—hopefully—there would still be a surprise or two on Filch’s surely grudging tour.
Perhaps there would be something that not even his dad knew about. The thought made James smile a little mischievously.
James’ dad, of course, had never had the seventh-year experience, instead spending his final school year camping, refugee-style, on the run from Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and battling them by turns. He had received his diploma, of course, granted by Headmaster McGonagall the following year, in lieu of actual classwork “for actions illustrating an effective grasp of all magical principles and practices in the honourable defence of life and civilization against terrible powers.” As a result, however, unlike all of James’ other years of schooling, his father had been unable to provide a primer on what to expect during his seventh year.
Secretly, James was rather content with that. He had long since shrugged off the shroud of living under his father’s legendary shadow.
But still, not having any such shadow to live under for his seventh year was remarkably freeing.
That evening, he could barely concentrate on his History of Magic book, musing instead on the upcoming meeting, watching the clock on the mantel as its minute hand crawled infuriatingly slowly around the dial. Gradually, the common room crowd thinned as, one by one, the younger students went to up to their dormitories.