Chapter Text
chapter one: the arrangement
Monday, 1 November 1976
James stares down at the parchment, the red ink bleeding into his vision like an open wound.
T. Troll.
The letter at the top of the page swims mockingly before his eyes. It makes no sense. Everywhere else, James excels. He’s a top student — quick with a wand, instinctive with magical theory, praised by professors who use words like promising and exceptional. On the Quidditch pitch, he’s a prodigy, destined for the pros. Teammates look to him for leadership; girls want to shag him; peers admire him, envy him, or both. He’s good at things. Brilliant, even.
And yet this one bloody subject remains stubbornly, humiliatingly incomprehensible.
It hasn’t always been this way. Back in third year, everyone had told him Muggle Studies would be an easy elective. And for three years, it had been. Professor Woolsey had been permanently checked out, drifting through lectures as though his mind had wandered off sometime in 1954 and never bothered to return. He recycled the same anecdotes year after year and handed out O’s like sugar quills to anyone who could properly spell television.
Then Woolsey retired at the end of last term. Enter Charity Burbage.
Her name, James quickly discovered, is wildly misleading — there’s nothing charitable about her at all. In reality, she’s sharp-eyed and relentless, with the air of someone who has been underestimated her entire career and intends to make it everybody else’s problem. Her lessons are demanding, her exams merciless. Diagrams. Essays. Practical applications.
Explain the mechanics of the internal combustion engine.
Describe the risks and benefits associated with X-rays.
Analyze the effects of television on Muggle attention spans.
James can duel, fly, and transfigure with effortless precision, but ask him to explain how a fucking automobile works, and his mind goes infuriatingly blank. Pistons? Fuel? Who knows — not James Potter, apparently.
Suddenly, three years of learning absolutely nothing about muggle life are coming back to bite him in the arse — hard, and decidedly not in a fun way.
“Bad luck, Prongs,” Sirius says lightly, leaning over James’s shoulder to peer at the parchment.
James doesn’t respond. He folds the exam once, twice, then crumples it into a tight ball and shoves it into his bag with more force than necessary. The weight of his future settles over him, heavy and unmistakable, pressing down between his shoulder blades.
“You didn’t get another T, did you?” asks Peter, his voice tight with concern. “I thought McGonagall said—”
“I know bloody well what McGonagall said,” James snaps.
After his last T, McGonagall had summoned James to her office, delivering a clipped lecture over the rim of her spectacles. As Quidditch Captain, he was expected to maintain a certain academic standard; if he didn’t get his Muggle Studies mark up before the next match, she’d said coolly, she would have no choice but to bench him.
Peter twitches nervously. “I’m just saying, the Puddlemere scouts are—”
“I know,” James cuts in again, jaw twitching.
He doesn’t need reminding. Scouts from Puddlemere United are slated to attend the Gryffindor–Slytherin match in a few weeks. Being Quidditch Captain isn’t just a badge of honor — it’s supposed to be a stepping stone, the final push toward the professional career he’s been chasing since the first moment his feet left the ground on a broomstick. Now, his entire future — his captaincy, his career, his carefully cultivated legacy — hinges on passing a ridiculous class about engines and electricity.
In other words, he’s doomed.
“Sorry, mate,” says Remus gently. “I suppose my mum doesn’t know quite as much about X-rays as we’d hoped.”
“It’s not your fault,” James mutters wearily, dragging a hand down his face.
With a heavy sigh, his gaze drifts across the Gryffindor common room, unfocused. It skims past clusters of carefree students, a pair of third-years arguing over a chessboard, discarded robes slung over armchairs, half-finished homework abandoned in favor of gossip. The fire crackles merrily, as though unaware that James Potter’s future is collapsing in slow motion.
Then his eyes land on Lily Evans.
She sits near the fire, a book open in her lap, red hair spilling over the back of the armchair, the light from the flames catching it like glowing embers. She looks calm. Focused. Entirely untouched by impending academic and aspirational ruin.
A thought slices through the fog of his panic, sudden, sharp, and unmistakably desperate: Lily Evans is Muggleborn.
Abruptly, James pushes himself up from his seat and crosses the common room, scarcely registering the noise around him. Laughter, conversation, the crackle of the fire — all of it fades to a dull, distant hum as he weaves between armchairs and tables. He stops in front of Lily’s chair, his shadow falling across the open pages of her book.
“Alright, Evans?” James greets with as much charm as he can muster.
Most girls swoon when he flashes them that grin, but Lily simply looks up, her green eyes cool and unreadable.
“Potter.” The word is clipped.
“I need your help,” he says, bypassing any preamble. “With Muggle Studies. I need a tutor.”
A flicker of something — surprise, or maybe suspicion — crosses her face before it’s masked again by indifference.
“No,” she says simply, then turns her attention back to her book as though he’s no longer standing there.
He blinks — he’s not accustomed to being dismissed. “Please?” James tries again.
“No.” Lily doesn’t even bother looking up from her book this time.
His jaw tightens. “I could pay you?”
For some reason, that only seems to irritate her more. “No.”
James lets out a frustrated huff. “Why not?”
“Because,” her tone drips with mockery, “I have my own studies to worry about, and I don’t need to waste my time coddling some privileged pureblood who thinks he’s too good to waste his time learning about another culture.”
“That’s not—”
“Sorry, Potter.” Lily snaps her book shut and stands up, nudging past him and not actually sounding sorry at all. “Find someone else.”
Then she’s gone, disappearing up the staircase to the girls’ dormitories without sparing him another glance.
* * *
Thursday, 4 November 1976
After Lily had made it abundantly clear that she had absolutely zero interest in helping him, James spends the next few days scrabbling for alternatives.
On Tuesday he asks Melody Humphrey, a Hufflepuff Muggleborn with a perpetually sunny disposition. She readily agrees to meet him in the library, all smiles and warm enthusiasm, but their study session derails almost immediately. Melody spends more time twirling a lock of hair around her finger and complimenting his Chaser stats than she does explaining the mechanics of the internal combustion engine or the cultural impact of color television. Though he gets a decent shag out of the deal in a dusty alcove off the Charms corridor, James can’t say he’s learned anything more about Muggle culture beyond the fact that Melody prefers strawberry chapstick to cherry, the educational value of which seems negligible.
So on Wednesday he asks Callum Shepherd, a Gryffindor Muggleborn in the year below, hoping a lack of sexual interest might improve his odds of learning.
It categorically does not.
Callum turns out to be far more invested in dissecting Quidditch strategy than discussing Muggle technology, and somehow the conversation keeps circling back to formation changes and opposing team weaknesses. James leaves the study session no wiser about engines or electricity, and though he does walk away with a new offensive formation that he’s eager to try at his next practice, that formation won’t do him any bloody good if he can’t even play in the fucking match.
Wednesday night is spent sneaking out to Hogsmeade to celebrate Sirius’s seventeenth birthday, and somewhere between the third and fourth round of drinks, James reaches a reluctant conclusion:
Lily Evans is his best — and possibly only — option. As far as he can tell, she doesn’t give a single fuck about Quidditch, and she’s one of the few birds in the castle who has never shown the slightest interest in shagging him.
In other words, she’s perfect.
James can’t quite pinpoint where he went wrong with her, can’t identify the misstep that earned him her immediate refusal. They’ve never been friends, exactly, but he’s never sensed any real hostility, either. Whatever distance lay between them has always seemed incidental, the natural drift of two people who travel in different circles.
The only explanation he can land on is her long-standing friendship with Snape. That greasy git has never wasted an opportunity to advertise his contempt for James to anyone within earshot; it isn’t difficult to imagine Snape whispering a few choice opinions in Lily’s ear until James became a villain in a story he hadn’t even known he was part of.
Maybe that was all it took — not a single, dramatic blow, but a slow, patient drip of poison.
And yet, the theory falters under scrutiny. Lily and Snape don’t seem close anymore. She barely even acknowledges him at all these days, while Snape lingers at the edges of her orbit like a thundercloud heavy with unspent emotion. If her loyalty to Snape has frayed, or broken entirely, then why does she still look at James as though she’s already decided the worst in him?
Perhaps it doesn’t matter; speculation won’t solve his problem. If Lily is his only chance, then he’ll have to find a way to change her mind — to prove whatever she thinks she knows about him is wrong.
And he’ll have to do it quickly.
Despite a mild hangover, he awakes early on Thursday morning with newfound determination. After Quidditch practice, he uses the Map and spots Lily alone in one of the greenhouses. The grounds are quiet at this hour, the kind of hush that settles in autumn when the air is sharp with the scent of damp earth and crushed leaves. A thin mist clings low to the grass, curling around his ankles as he crosses the path. The greenhouse glows faintly from within, its glass panes fogged and luminous like a lantern in the dark.
The door is ajar, and Lily is inside. Her sleeves are rolled to her elbows, freckles standing out stark against pale skin as she works with careful, practiced precision. She’s harvesting mooncalf moss, snipping the silvery strands and laying them neatly into a shallow tray. James folds the Map away and approaches cautiously, the crunch of gravel under his shoes announcing his arrival before he reaches her.
“What do you want now, Potter?” Lily says with a weary sigh, not looking up from the plant she’s tending.
“Will you please tutor me?” His voice is stripped of its usual bravado, replaced by a raw sincerity he only shows his closest friends.
“I know the word is probably unfamiliar to you, but I’m quite certain I already said no,” replies Lily, unmoved. “Multiple times, in fact.”
“But I need you, Evans.” His tone borders on begging. “I’ve tried to find another tutor, but it’s not working. There’s another exam in less than two weeks, and if I don’t pass, I’ll be benched for the next match.”
“That sucks for you,” Lily says flatly as she snips another clump of moss, “but I fail to understand how that’s my problem.”
“It doesn’t just suck for me, it sucks for the whole team. The whole house, really. The Cup’s on the line.”
“And they can’t win without you?”
“I’m Captain, Evans. I need to play.”
Lily sighs again as she straightens, brushing soil from her hands. “Why don’t you just drop the class?”
“My parents won’t let me,” James admits. “They don’t want me pinning my entire future on Quidditch, so I’ve got to take a full courseload. And McGonagall said it’s too late in the term to switch electives, I’ve already asked. I’m stuck.”
“That sucks for you,” Lily says again. “And again, I don’t see why you need to make this my problem. Just study. You seem to manage well enough in other subjects.”
“I know, but I just can’t figure it out, alright?” His frustration boils over. “I’ve read through the textbook a dozen times, but none of it makes any fucking sense. How do muggles make cars go without propulsion charms? The mechanics of an engine don’t make any bloody sense, and don’t even get me started on electricity — it’s just…lightning in a wire? It’s mad! And how does that power the televisions, or the telephones, or—“
“Potter,” she cuts him off. “I don’t care. Goodbye.”
She turns and starts walking toward the door, and his mind scrambles, grasping wildly for anything that might make her stop.
“What if I could help you get a date with Bertram Aubrey?” James calls out desperately, the words flying from his mouth before he can stop them.
Lily freezes mid-step; she slowly turns around, eyes wide. “What did you say?”
Well, at least he got her attention.
“You fancy him, right?” James says quickly, pressing his advantage. “I could help you.”
Her mouth opens, then closes. Bewildered, she stares at him for several seconds before asking incredulously, “How the hell do you know that?”
James shrugs. “Peter’s dating Bertha Jorkins — I know who everyone in this bloody castle fancies.”
She bites her lip, clearly weighing the offer despite herself, then exhales. “How could you help with Bertram, exactly?”
Hope surges in his chest. “You’ve never talked to him, have you?” Lily hesitates, then gives a small, reluctant shake of her head. “I could arrange an opportunity. Put you in the same orbit, so to speak. Give him a reason to notice you.”
She folds her arms over her chest. “How?”
“There’s a party next weekend. He’ll be there. Come with me.”
“I have no interest in going out with you, Potter,” she scoffs, eyes narrowing.
“I know,” James says hastily. “But if you show up with me, Aubrey will notice you. Blokes are stupid like that. Trust me.”
Lily studies him, her expression a complex tapestry of disbelief and suspicion and a flicker of something that looks unnervingly like hope. The offer hangs in the air between them, absurd and tantalizing.
“Trust you?” Lily finally says. “I barely know you.”
James’s smile doesn’t falter; if anything, it sharpens with confidence. “It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement, Evans. Simple quid pro quo — you help me, I help you.”
Lily lets out another long exhale, resigned. He’s got her.
“If your exam is in two weeks, we’ll need to meet every day,” she says with the tone and expression of someone negotiating business terms; it’s oddly charming. “And you’ll have to do whatever reading I give you. And—”
“I’ll do whatever you say, Professor,” James agrees before she can change her mind.
“Don’t call me that,” Lily snaps, but there’s less heat behind it. “I’ve got patrols tonight, but meet me in the library tomorrow after dinner.”
His relief is immediate and so overwhelming he could kiss her. Instead, he says, “I’ll be there. And…thank you, Evans.”
“Don’t be late.”