“All right, then,” Debellows looked down again, clearly reluctant but not quite invested enough to protest any further. “I suppose there is some… official parchment or other that I should sign.” He shook his head dismissively. “I shall look into it. For now, assume my general support of your endeavor. I shall inform you when something has been arranged.”
James backed away from the desk, pulling Rose and Ralph with him, anxious to escape before Debellows changed his mind. After a few clumsy backwards steps, the three thanked the professor, then turned and virtually ran from the classroom, threading past younger students who watched them go, bemused and curious.
“All three of us, eh?” James turned a sardonic look on his cousin as they hurried toward the stairs for lunch.
“You didn’t expect me to pass up an opportunity like that, did you?” she shrugged. “To skip out on Debellows’ annoying class and skive off to the Ministry of Magic to hob-nob with Uncle Harry and my mum? I doubt it’ll last long before somebody catches on. But it’ll be Professor McGonagall or Headmaster Merlin who do, not that mountainous lump, Debellows.”
“You really don’t much like him, do you?” Ralph commented as they turned to tramp down the stairs.
“If he taught the girls the same things he taught the boys I might feel differently,” she sniffed. “He thinks a woman’s best battle magic is a charm for cleaning blood off her husband’s robes. Believe me, I’ve learned more defensive magic watching a wizard chess match than sitting in his stupid class.”
James was familiar with Rose’s ongoing private feud with the current Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and knew enough not to debate her about it. She was right that Debellows divided his classes between boys and girls, ostensibly to make dueling practices fairer. As far as James was concerned, considering the competent fierceness of girls like Ashley Doone and Julian Jackson, he suspected Debellows might be exercising fairness more on the boys’ behalf than the girls’.
At lunch, James noticed Albus seated, perhaps for the first time ever, at the Gryffindor table. He was across from Lily near the very end, in the centre of a group of laughing fourth-and fifth-years, all leaning close and keeping their own confidences. Next to him, Lily’s friend Chance Jackson was watching him closely, smiling and blinking far more than mere physiology demanded. James wondered for a moment if Albus’ vaunted bachelorhood was being secretly challenged.
“Lily is a notorious matchmaker,” Rose commented, glancing toward the end of the table to see what James was looking at. “She’d just love to see Albus and Chance together.”
James scoffed. “Never happen,” he grabbed his pumpkin juice and drank it down in three quick gulps, standing as he did so. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and went on, “Albus will date from within his own house or he won’t date at all. Fiera Hutchins is more his type.”
“Hmph,” Rose replied, standing as well and gathering her things.
Somebody bumped James from behind, hard enough to make him fumble his glass as he leaned to place it on the table. The glass tumbled and sprayed the dregs of his juice onto his books. Annoyed, he wheeled to see who had been clumsy enough to bump him so hard.
A small, rather blocky boy, a first-year Ravenclaw, was standing there with another boy and girl. All three were watching James with smug, tight smiles.
“Ooops!” the blocky boy said with sarcastic emphasis. “Clumsy you!”
James frowned in stunned surprise. The boy, who was at least a foot and a half shorter, with a shock of greasy ginger hair and freckles so dense that they seemed to join forces in a single blotch around his nose, had clearly bumped James on purpose, and wanted James to know it.
James opened his mouth, not even sure how to respond.
“Whassa matter, Potter?” the boy challenged, “Hinkypunk got your tongue?” He crossed his eyes and gawped his own mouth up at James in childish mockery. “Gah-gah-bwa-bwa—duhhh!”
The boy and girl with him snickered and glared up at James, their eyes sharp, glinting with baffling malice.
Before James could even begin to formulate a response, the trio turned and walked away, unhurrying toward the open doors, laughing loudly and nudging each other with their elbows.
“What was that all about?” It was Ralph, approaching from the Slytherin table, apparently having witnessed the interaction from a distance.
“James was just bullied by a first-year,” Graham said, a disbelieving laugh coming into his voice. “Did that really just happen, or am I dreaming?”
Rose looked equally consternated. “What did you do to earn that, James?” she asked, glancing from the departing trio to James. “And who is he?”
Belatedly, a pulse of embarrassed anger arose in James’ chest. He felt it redden his cheeks. “I’ve never seen that little prat before in my entire life!” he said, wonder and surprise turning his voice into a low rasp. “I don’t even know his name!”
“Edgar Edgecombe,” said a small voice. James glanced aside to see Shivani’s young brother, Sanjay, still seated nearby, his eyes wide and serious. “He’s a first-year, like me. Are you, you know…” he paused and glanced around the table, as if reluctant to be the one to say it, “going to let him get away with that?”
“I’d practice every jinx I ever learned on him,” Graham nodded, turning serious and meeting James’ eyes. “All at once. Twice over.
Make an example out of ‘im.”
“James can’t just go jinxing first-years,” Rose said with a derisive glance toward Graham. “He’d just get hauled before the headmaster.
Maybe even expelled. What’s wrong with you?”
As a group, they began to drift toward the doors, following the baffling trio into the Entrance Hall. “But the little Ravenclaw prat just insulted James!” Graham insisted in a hushed tone. “And by extension, all of us!”
“It’s James’ problem,” Rose replied loftily. “He may not feel free to discuss his response in front of the Head Boy—” she glared aside at Ralph, who looked mildly affronted, “—but he will respond.” She turned her gaze meaningfully on James. “Won’t you.”
It was a statement, not a question. James blew out a breath and shrugged. This was the very last thing he needed—some inexplicable upstart berk embarrassing him during his final year. Whatever bee the little prat had in his bonnet, James mostly just hoped that the boy, Edgar Edgecombe, had gotten it out. James didn’t enjoy comeuppance the way people like Scorpius Malfoy did. He didn’t understand meanness, and was deeply baffled about how to respond to it.