Semele Perdita

*ducks* I'm soooooooooooooooo sorry. I feel so bad about not being able to write for this, but let me tell you I've gone through a lot of crap to get this out to you all. My computer recently crashed and I lost absolutely everything so I've been having to use my mother's laptop to type anything, so you can imagine the trouble that presents…*sigh* The world is conspiring against me, I swear.

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Semele Perdita

Chapter 25: Returning to Normalcy

Author: LadyAkako

Rating: PG-13

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[ James ]

It was a dreary morning in September when we were due to go back to school. The typical rain had darkened the sky to a brooding gray and the world outside, as a result, was withdrawn and almost sad. The small slits of light that usually slid into my room in the early hours of dawn were suspiciously absent as I cracked open my eyes and I groaned to see the weather outside.

It seemed like each year, the first day of going back to school was a little harder but I cheered myself with the though that this would be my last first day of school. I smiled as I lay lazily in bed, unwilling to leave the warm sheets behind for my cold house. I knew that downstairs there would be warming charms alight in the kitchen but the journey from my bed to the kitchen seemed impossibly long as I lay there contemplating it.

All three of the others were still snoring when I finally worked up the nerve to roll myself free of the blankets and pad down the hallway in search of the hot breakfast my mother had promised she'd leave for us.

Both of my parents had been called into a meeting of some sort at the Ministry. They were tight-lipped about it as they told me they wouldn't be here to take us to the station today, but I knew better then to question them when they both had the ashen looks of barely concealed grief written on their faces.

It had become almost routine over the summer for me to only catch glimpse of the two of them. My mother rarely became involved in causes at the Ministry, usually preferring to stay at home but with current events in the tumult they were almost every available witch and wizard was needed to run operations at the Ministry.

A darkly mysterious figure was gaining power and the Ministry was beside itself because of its lack of knowledge of this specter's doings. Newspapers stacked on my father's desktop screamed out the latest headlines full of mysterious disappearances and unexpected murders. Everyday an even more disturbing image joined the rest and the gray pall that cast itself over my parents' faces had sufficiently thrown its shadow over the summer as well.

I drug myself sleepily into the kitchen where four plates were laden with sausage and eggs that my mother had made for us. I took one of the plates that was still pulsing the heating charm she had placed over it and dug into it gratefully. I filled my head with thoughts of food, doing my best to banish the gloomy thoughts of the past summer.

Eventually, the other boys filtered downstairs one by one, each enticed out of their beds by the thought of a hot plate of food. After we had eaten, it took us almost an hour to get ready and packed, as Sirius was notorious for waiting until the last minute to pack or really do anything. I think he half expected a house elf to pop out of nowhere and do it for him.

We were flooing to the train station, so we had more time than usual. My parents had left the cracked, decrepit looking pot brimming with Floo Powder for us sitting on the mantle of the fireplace. Once we had all been packed, Remus and I began to lift the trunks and put them in the fireplace to prepare to leave. Sirius directed us from the couch, a safe distance away from the actual work. He insisted that he knew the exact art of arranging things in the fireplace and he could only see the perfect position for each trunk by lounging on the couch. Peter was in running in and out of the kitchen, packing away the last of the food and occasionally bringing a muffin in to shut up Sirius for us.

After Remus and I had finished placing all the trunks in the fireplace, I tried to dust myself off a bit even though I knew I was about to get even dirtier. I sighed and looked around the room with a last searching look.

“We ready to go?” I asked, looking at the others for their opinions.

“I reckon so…” Peter answered thoughtfully, assessing the room as well. Remus nodded, glancing at the clock that ticked away on the wall and winced.

“Yeah, we'd better get going. We only have a few minutes more to go,” he added and looked to Sirius who was still lounging lazily on the sofa. Sirius yawned dramatically and rose, stretching himself.

“Well, what are we waiting for then?” Sirius asked with a smile and stepped with a sudden burst of energy into the fireplace. The rest of us followed with me grabbing a handful of powder on my way in. We all crammed together trying not to get in the way of the trunks as we positioned ourselves. Once I had ascertained we were all ready I threw down the powder and yelled out our destination as King's Cross.

The fire sprang up a bright green and the strange twirling sensation that the tunnels caused swept through me with a rush. I shook as we all flew in spirals through the complicated network of fireplaces and was immediately grateful as we were dumped into the expansive portal that marked the platform of King's Cross. We lugged our stuff away from the portal and shook the ashes off of our clothes as best as we could. I dug in my pocket for the shiny badge that I had been loath to put on for fear of dirtying its shiny veneer in ash-laden tunnels of the Floo Network.

The platform was flooded with cries of goodbyes and parents hugging their children with sad faces. It even had a few Muggle parents looking completely terrified in the midst of so much magic. As the four of us pushed our way through the masses, the looks of shock upon a few faces didn't fail to reach me. I knew they were gaping at the badge I now sported on my jumper. I grinned slightly to myself, they had no idea how much their shock enforced my will to impress them. As we passed through a cloud of first years, the shock of the older students transformed into utter terror on the small children's' faces. Sirius, seeing this, couldn't pass up the opportunity on commenting to me about it.

“Prongs, I've been thinking that this whole Head Boy thing might not be so detrimental to your reputation after all. Inspiring terror to the masses of ickle firsties is no small accomplishment, it should be monopolized on. I've got it…we'll call it the `reign of terror'!”

I shook my head in disbelief as he punctuated his statement with an elaborate hand gesture. His grin spread ever wider on his face as he saw my skepticism at his remark.

“You know…like the French Muggle one…” he said excitedly. He had taken to reading a few of my father's Muggle history books over the summer when he had nothing else to do for “possible inspiration” in his future pranks. “Only…” he added as an afterthought, “much less bloody and a lot more laughing at other people's expense involved.”

“Do you have a quota for stupid remarks per day or something, Padfoot?” Peter asked dryly, mirroring my own disbelief at Sirius' proposition. He was helping Remus lift the last of the trunks into the compartment we were claiming as our own for the trip when he had apparently heard Sirius talking with me. His pudgy face peered at us from behind the corner of the door and we heard Remus' barking laugh behind him.

Sirius scowled at him and pushed past him to throw himself down on the plush red seat of the compartment.

“It was just an idea,” he muttered darkly.

“A bad one,” Remus pointed playfully and for the first time all summer, broke into a smile in Sirius' presence. Sirius looked up in surprise at the light-hearted remark from Moony and his cloudy expression cleared into a pleasant grin. He flipped his hair out of his eyes and laughed a little, consenting to Remus' remark.

“Maybe just a little…” he agreed after a length. Sirius leaned back in the seat and the rest of us took our seats around him, continuing on with our conversation jokingly all through the train ride back to school.

[ Lily ]

We were running late the morning we were supposed to be at the train station. Richard had insisted on accompanying us and arrived, as usual, almost an hour later than he said he was going to. Meara and I fidgeted uncomfortably all the way there, both of us convinced we were going to miss then train.

The second the car pulled up to the curb of the train station Meara and I bolted from the car and grabbed our trunks hurriedly. Barely stopping to hug Richard goodbye, Meara raced in front of me muttering to herself about her `stupid brother'. We reached the train just as its horn screamed the final warning for its students.

Struggling with our trunks we pulled ourselves on board without further mishap and turned around to look through the window just in time to see Richard laughing at our pains. We searched through the train for an empty compartment and finally found a tiny little alcove at the very end of the compartment. I sighed after we had settled in; knowing the ride ahead was going to be long.

The time passed fairly quicker than I had expected but not by much. When we finally did arrive at Hogwarts, it was late and the sky was dark with an impending storm. Sensing this, all of the older students pushed their way to the front of the lines waiting for the carriages not wanting to be caught in the rain.

“Lily! Meara!” We both turned at hearing Marlene's voice piercing the air and headed towards her frantically waving arm, ducking into the carriage she had already secured. Another Gryffindor girl, Katie Greene, sat next to Marlene and smiled congenially as we climbed into the small chaise. I had never formally met the girl but she seemed nice enough and the four of us chatted about our summers all the way to the castle, finally splitting ways when we arrived at the Great Hall.

Meara and I sat down quietly at our table amidst the greeting of our classmates and the occasional congratulations directed to me for getting Head Girl. I smiled and nodded to everyone, even the people I had never spoken to before and could barely remember seeing them before much less their names. Every time I struggled to find an errant name floating in the back of my memory, Meara snorted back an obvious laugh and could barely restrain herself from alerting the whole Hall that I couldn't remember sixty percent of Hogwarts' students' names.

Finally, Dumbledore called everyone to sit down and the Great Hall was silenced. With the usual announcements done, he also mentioned the usual Prefects and Heads meeting that would take place after dinner that night. He briefly went through some new addendums to the rules and then we all settled down for dinner and the normal raucous started up again.

After dinner, Meara and I walked leisurely up to the dorm but I had to leave her almost as soon as we reached the entrance to the common room. I had to get to the Prefects' start of term meeting. I pushed aside my itching nervousness at seeing James Potter again and tried my best to pretend it didn't even exist. I rushed towards the Charms classroom where the meeting would take place this week and made sure my badge was still pinned on my robes. I was late and the meeting was about to begin when I hastily walked in and took my seat. Dumbledore nodded amusedly at my entrance and began to speak.

“Welcome, welcome, I'm delighted to see that everyone has made it back in one piece. Now, I suppose it's time for our new Heads to come forward.” He motioned vaguely towards me and then to a dark corner on the other side of the room. I started slightly when I saw James' tall figure suddenly materialize from the shadows.

I rose as well and met up with him at the front of the classroom, he nodded to me with a small smile of recognition. I swallowed as my heart jumped unexpectedly to my throat and instead of returning his nod turned to the Prefects sitting in the room and gave them a shaky smile.

“As most of you know, I trust, this is Lily Evans of Ravenclaw and James Potter of Gryffindor. They are your Head Girl and Boy this year, respectively. Now, I will turn over the rest of today's dealings to them and I will leave you. Good night, Prefects,” Dumbledore spoke softly and then bowed slightly, excusing himself from the room.

James cleared his throat and I tried to even my breathing before I glanced at him again. I looked out to the small group of Prefects clustered into the dusty desks of the room and smiled again.

“Let's start by everyone introducing themselves, starting with the new Prefects,” I finally said and waved toward one of the faces I didn't recognize on the first row. The flushed girl rose obligingly and unsteadily introduced herself as Emily Rourke of Hufflepuff. She promptly sat down and the kid sitting next to her stood up. It took almost ten minutes for everyone to introduce themselves, and I was ready to leave by then but forced myself to keep smiling and begin to ask who wanted to patrol when.

James and I ended up taking the leftover shifts which were Friday and Saturday nights of course, the nights when everyone would have rather hung out with their friends than do Prefect duties. I sighed at the verdict of sacrificing my Friday and Saturday nights, but then forgot it as I knew that the Heads always took those nights. On the other nights, we could do almost whatever we wanted though because none of the Prefects were bold enough to stand up to a Head breaking the rules. My mind flickered to the thought of how much James and his buddies would abuse that rule and an unexpected smile rose to my lips. My guess would be a lot.

When the meeting broke up, I was slow to leave in hopes that James would catch up to me and want to talk but he simply nodded, looking preoccupied, and left the room without a word. I sighed and shuffled out of the room back to the Ravenclaw common room where I found Meara sitting contentedly in a corner reading a large tome that had been assigned for Arithmancy.

I sank into a nearby armchair and pulled out a book from Meara's bag, flipping it open lazily and then shutting it again with a sigh. Meara's gray-flecked eyes flicked up to me questioningly and she put her own book down in her lap. Her brow quirked as she studied my face and she finally picked her book back up.

After a moment, she commented in a dry voice, “Stop moping.” I gave a small laugh and rolled my eyes, throwing my head back to rest on the chair's plush backing. I stared at the ceiling for another minute before stirring myself to get up and go up to the room that I had been given for being Head Girl. I said goodbye to Meara and then headed up to explore the new quarters I would be living in.

There were rooms like the one I was given in all four houses dorm hallways, one for both a girl and a boy in each. The rooms however were only accessible when a Head was actually in the House, so only the two that James and I would be using this year were even visible to the rest of the students. The room was small, but cozy enough with a desk neatly stocked with parchment and quills and a bed with the covers already pulled down. My luggage was sitting tidily in the corner ready to be unpacked, but I ignored it for the time, throwing myself across the bed, thankful for the soft surface.

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Next chapter is halfway written, I swear. You'll see it soon.

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