Jamie did know this particular girl's name right off – he just hadn't said it right away. If he gave out her name then he was submitting himself to being asked about her for the rest of his days, but he decided to anyway, because this was Julia, not some shrewish, harpy-like gossip who was likely to hound him about her. If he'd left her as 'some bird from church' then she could have been anyone, but a name was specific. There was accountability with a name. This was Mallory, who lived at the south end of the city, went to  Gateacre, and had been chosen for every soprano solo the choir had ever had. Her voice gave him tingles. He'd always thought she might have fancied him, but he'd never asked her. There had been a brief period of time during which he'd ridden his bike to her house every so often to see if she was home, but it was a hike, and he never knocked if she wasn't already outside or at the window.  “Mallory,” he repeated again, right after Julia had. 

”And Mallory is a witch?”

“Don't you reckon you'd have heard of her before now if she was?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. He knew for a fact that Hogwarts was the only magical school in the UK, because if there had been one nearer to home then he wouldn't have chosen to attend a school that was all the way in the Scottish wilderness. If the muggle girl attended Hogwarts then he wouldn't have needed to mention that he knew her from home, would he? He couldn't blame her for the misunderstanding, though – he had, after all, just said he liked witchy girls. His Mal was witchy in her own way, though. 

”Have you spoken to her much? Or just admired from afar?”

“All the time. Of course, I haven't seen her since the summer,” Jamie explained. It was weird talking to Julia about a girl who was, more or less, a different version of her living in an alternate universe. Well, they weren't much alike, really, except they were both girls who hung around Jamie when he was in their respective necks of the woods. Like Julia, Mallory's family was noticeably more affluent than Jamie's. They both sang, though Mallory couldn't play the piano. Of course, Mallory wasn't the sweet and saintly sort. Just because she sang like an angel didn't mean she acted like one. He kind of liked that, though. She was gutsy. She reminded him a bit of Emma Briar, in fact, and these days they had the same color hair, too. He wasn't going to admit to fancying Emma, though. He wasn't sure he did, for once thing, and he definitely didn't want to get mixed up in the sort of gossip he'd only recently been warning Julia about. They were talking about Mallory now. 

“I bet I could get her to kiss me,” he said with a grin. It wouldn't be hard - She was that type of girl. She liked being dared to do things. “Care to hold me to that? I'll have at least three shots to see her over hols, maybe as many as five or six.” He didn't know how much kissing he could get away with in church, but he wouldn't have been the first to try it. They had a nice big car park out back. It was doable. “You need a challenge, too, of course. Yous should try to get a lad to kiss you before we're back  in January. You'll have the advantage, seeing as any lads you'd be kissing are all here and you can start any time yous like.”