- Chapter Seventeen -
"I'll take your word for it."

"I DIDN'T START IT, IT WASN'Y MY FAULT AND IF THIS WERE AMERICA, I WOULD SUE."

Sherry Opal stormed into the headmasters office with so much vigour that the door slammed against the wall and rattled some cabinets that were propped against it. She had a hard scowl on her face, arms crossed over her chest and weight put all on one leg as she stopped in the middle of the office and stared at Professor Dumbledore who sat calmly and somewhat amusedly in front of Potter who had the same scowl as Sherry but was looking down at the floor.

"Miss Opal, how lovely of you to join us." Dumbledore greeted and looked towards a clock he had hanging on the wall above the door that Sherry had just stormed in from. "Approximately ten minutes late but at least you're here. Now, if you would please exit the office and make yourself known appropriately meaning, knock. I'd say that storming into my office without knocking would be like me apparating into your private home chambers without prior warning."

Sherry rolled her eyes at his small smile and walked back out of the office, her heels making hard thuds on the floor as she did so. She grasped the handle and pulled it shut behind her before turning to face it and knocking her hand heavily on the wood, pissed off and angry.

"Who is it?" Dumbledore called from inside and she rolled her eyes once again, grasping the handle and walking in again with an incredulous look on her face.

"Jesus Christ!" She exclaimed, shaking her head in disbelief at her headmaster who still sat calmly behind his desk.

"Oh, how lovely." He smiled at her, sitting up slightly. "We were under the impression that it'd be at least a couple more years before you arrived on our earth once more as a mortal."

Sherry stared at him for a couple of moments before pointing back at the door. "I swear to you I'll leave right now, I have chess game to win."

"I'm sure the game can wait for you to finish your business here." Dumbledore cleared his throat and gestured to the second chair opposite his desk, the one next to Potter. "If you would please take a seat, Miss Opal."

Begrudgingly, she did so. She knew what this was about, it had been the only thing everyone had been raving about for the past couple of days and she knew that they weren't going to get off without any kind of punishment. After McGonagall had caught up to them in the hall, they had both practically been dragged out by the ear and having given separate scolding's for the sake of McGonagall's mental health. Professor Flitwick had joined in on Sherry's telling off, his squeaky voice ringing in her ears though she didn't pay much attention as she tried to squeeze the juice out of her wet hair as he was talking.

The two stars of Hogwarts as of the last couple of days only greeted each other with glares or crude hand gestures when they passed each other through the halls, Remus was getting tired of keeping the both of them away from each other and without the help from Sirius who actually wanted to see the two of them fight again, it was a hard job. Sherry had no reason to be as horrible to Remus as she was to James so she wasn't, she also didn't want to risk the chance of getting kicked out of where she was staying.

But no matter how much she admired Remus for his patience with her, she couldn't help but want to pry into his business about why he went to visit Hope every month when Sherry hadn't been told anything in Lyall's letters about his wife being sick. When she asked, he waved it off with a simple 'we don't want to worry you' but Sherry was not convinced in the slightest and was always brainstorming ways to force it out of him.

"I suppose you know why you're both here." Dumbledore said bluntly, surveying them over his half-moon spectacles, he watched as the two sat in front of him turned to each other with small scowls before immediately shooting things out at him.

"It was all his fault-"

"She poured peas down my back-"

"- I had my right to revenge -"

"- and threw a gravy-filled Yorkshire Pud at me -"

"- just like I have a right to a lawyer -"

"- and then she threw pie at me!"

"- get my mom to send in one of the good ones."

As they both finished, they settled back into their seats with small breaths; Sherry was refusing to look at any of them and James was using his eyes to try and plead with Dumbledore. The Headmaster looked between the two of them, amused yet thoughtful at the same time as he revelled in the tense silence of the office.

"A lawyer will not be needed, Miss Opal." Dumbledore finally speaking up, she glanced at him for a moment before looking away again with her jaw clenched. "I have just the solution for the matter that will hopefully clear up all the fighting and the...mess." He picked up a piece of paper from a folder and turned it so it faced them.

It was a moving picture that someone must've taken in the hall of the two of them flinging food at each other angrily, a clear visage of Sherry sticking her middle finger in his face as she smashed the dessert that had come up into him. Potter was reaching back for something on the table that Sirius was reaching out to give him and Remus was trying to pull the boy back. It was a three second sequence and was very amusing to Sherry, her mouth lifting up into the tiniest smirk.

"Taste nice, Potter?" Sherry looked over at him tauntingly and he snapped his head over to her, smiling sarcastically back at each other as they stared into each others fired up eyes.

"Delicious." He retorted and with two more bitter smiles, they both turned back to Dumbledore who had his hands clasped in front of him as he looked at them once more. "Sir, with all due respect, I have training in like...ten minutes."

"Oh don't worry about that, Mr. Potter." He said serenely, taking the picture away and putting it back in the folder named 'SO'. Sherry craned her neck slightly and saw a small glimpse of a picture that looked like her mither with her arms around some man that she couldn't make out before Dumbledore had slipped it away. "I'll tell you what we're going to do and then you can be on your way to practice and Miss Opal can go to her chess match."

"Was that my father?" Sherry said with an involuntary sneer as he pointed at the folder he had slipped away.

"Now," Dumbledore disregarded her question and she just sat back in her seat with pursed lips, she didn't care about him anyway, he was gone and he never cared for her so why should she care for him? "You two are going to listen and not say a word until I am done speaking, understand?"

"Understand." Both replied in unison, taking a moment to glanced heatedly out of the corner of their eyes at one another.

"Due to all the fighting and arguments you two seem to engage in with one another, the atmosphere at Hogwarts has turned severely tense. Students never seem to know what will come when and what it will be, it is also safe to say that this mood has been taken on by the staff too. For an example, a couple of goblets fell over in the staff room yesterday and Professor Flitwick screamed a very high-pitched note in fear that you, Miss Opal, had turned on him for scolding you."

Sherry smirked, tilting her head slightly.

"To amend this situation, I have come up with an idea that I am certain you both will not like but it is mandatory and there will be no arguing." He gave them both a look from over his glasses. "Every Friday evening, starting with this Friday, the two of you will spend your evenings together in this office whilst I attend to other matters-"

"What?!"

"Sir-!"

"You will only be permitted to leave when I come back from wherever I have been." Dumbledore spoke louder, holding up a hand to them to attempt an order of quieting them down. The two of them had sat up in their chairs and their jaws had dropped as they looked at him in disgust. "There is a bathroom just through that door and I think you'll find I have a large variety of my favourite Honeydukes sweets if you should start to get peckish."

"If you think for a second that I am spending my Friday evenings with him then you are sorely mistaken!" Sherry argued ferociously, shaking her head rapidly. "Believe it or not, some of us actually have plans with friends that we don't want disrupted because of your stupid attempt to smooth things over!" She exclaimed.

"Yeah, like, I have things to do this Friday!" James said, nodding his head.

"Me and Amber were going to watch the full moon rise! I can't do that if I'm not in the common room where the telescopes are!" Sherry said, gaping at her headmaster with an incredulous laugh. "Also, I can't just chill out in my pyjamas like I do every Friday with my friends, not some James Bond wannabe!"

"Who's James Bond?" Potter turned his head to stare at her, furrowing his eyebrows but she ignored him with a disgusted roll of her eyes. He then turned to Dumbledore. "Who's James Bond?"

"I'm not doing it." Sherry refused, cutting of Dumbledore's answer if he was even going to give one. He looked at her with a hard stare and adjusted his glasses so they were on his nose.

"I believe I said it was mandatory." He told her.

"Not like it's compulsory." Sherry scoffed, shaking her head.

"They are synonyms, Miss Opal." Dumbledore told her and she scoffed once more, shaking her head and standing from the chair before grabbing her bag she had brought into the office with her. "Miss Opal, if you do not attend, I will contact your mother."

"Oh you do that." Sherry said on her way to the door, not looking back as a sour feeling settled in her stomach. "While you're at it, ask her to contact me too, huh?"

"If you are not here, you're going to be very confused when you randomly appear." Dumbledore said as she pulled open his office door.

"I'll take your word for it." She smiled back at him sarcastically before slamming the door behind her and running back down the stairs that she had said the password for. It had been on the slip of paper she had received from a first-year when about to start a chess game with Oliver, it pissed her off because she was already dressed comfortably and had to go get changed as quick as she could to go up to the office again.

As she descended the stairs and made her way past the stone Griffin, she saw Remus making his rounds as a prefect. He was standing around with his hands in his pockets and Sherry, with one hand on her bag strap, crept up as quietly as she could behind him and put her hands on his shoulders forcefully.

"Boo!"

Remus let out a small scream and whirled around to face her as she laughed at his reaction, she furrowed her eyebrows at his appearance as her laugh trailed off. His eyes looked tired, his hair was even more dishevelled than usual and his face looked paler. Sherry didn't have much compassion for people that weren't her friends but as much as she hated to admit it because he was part of Potter's gang, Remus was slowly creeping up to be more of a friend than an acquaintance-that-she-lived-with.

"You okay?" She asked, tilting her head to one side as he puffed some air into his cheeks and breathed out with a tired nod. "You sure? Not gonna faint on me?"

"You'd be the last person I faint on." He told her before smirking slightly and narrowing his eyes at her. "You'd be a terrible person to have a medical emergency near."

"Can't all be winners." She shrugged and eyed him suspiciously once more, Remus returning the narrowed eyed stare as they slowly began to move past each other. "I'll find out what's up with you." She pointed at him before turning and strutting away around the corner.

Remus stared after her and gulped slightly, running another hand through his hair, making it even more messy.

"Hope you don't." He murmured after her with a frown.

"Mate," James Potter's voice came from behind him and his heart nearly jumped out of his chest for the second time in the past five minutes. "You'll never believe what I have to do."

Remus sighed quietly at the look on his friend's face and prepared himself for a rant about the girl who had just passed him and vowed to find out the secret that he knew he couldn't keep from her for long, especially in the summer. So James began his rant to Remus and ended up being five minutes late to Quidditch practice with more drive than ever to play this season like he never had before because there was a certain Keeper that he was determined to beat.

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A/N: yes, that was a wild child reference at the start, i couldn't help myself but...weekly sessions with Popal 🙌
omfg that's a terrible ship name, if you have a better one, please give it to me