Chapter One: Returning & Tales of Trouble
"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
-e.e. cummings
Monday, September 1st, 1977
I can't believe this is our seventh year already. Our very last. It seems like just yesterday I was a first year. This year will have to be better than before. I'm Head Girl, Remus is Head Boy, Sarah is currently crush-free, and this is the last year of horrible tests to go through. Now, if only that insufferable toerag Potter would behave and maybe deflate his ego, it would be even better. Lily thought as she stared out the window of the Hogwarts Express. She looked up as a brown-haired blue-eyed girl sat down on the seat across from her and sighed.
"What did you do to your hair?" Lily asked the girl across from her.
"What you don't like it? I think it makes me look…sophisticated," Sarah, Lily's best friend answered, searching for the right word.
"If you say so," Cassidy said from her spot next to Lily, tucking her light blonde hair behind her ears.
"I think it does," Lane said and gave Sarah a smile from her place aside of her. "Who were you with?" Lane asked her.
"I was helping the sixth years along a bit," Sarah answered her.
"Doing what?" Lily asked warily, not sure if she really wanted to know.
"Ah…nothing," Sarah replied with a certain glint in her eyes. "Oh no! I forgot! Celia still has my necklace that she 'borrowed' from me last year. I'm going to go find her. Go with me Lane?" Sarah said.
"No, you go ahead," Lane said shaking her head no.
"Aw, you're no fun," Sarah said hitting Lane playfully on the arm as she stood up and exited their compartment.
"Geez what was that for?" Lane asked, rubbing her arm a bit.
"Sarah is so violent," Cassidy commented.
"Don't say that, she is not," Lily scolded as she whacked Cassidy on the arm with the back of her hand.
"Lily!" Cassidy exclaimed.
"Sorry Cass," Lily apologized.
"You are too now. Sarah's rubbed off on you too much," Cassidy said. "It won't be long now before you go crazy like her too."
"She's not crazy, just a bit…out there?" Lily tried to defend her friend.
"Sure Lily," Cassidy said, not agreeing with her at all.
"AH-HA! I HAVE RESCUED THE MISSING JEWEL OF THE AMONTILADO FROM THE DEEP BLUE OCEAN SEA!" Sarah said happily as she entered their compartment with a necklace in her hand.
"Just 'out there'?" Cassidy asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Ah. I see you've all been talking about me again when I was gone! Did you miss me? Were you talking about my beautiful hair? Or my amazing good looks? Or my charm and wit? So many things to choose from…" Sarah joked with them. She sat down again across from Lily. "And Lily, I think your dear Potter might be looking for you. I think he knows you're Head Girl," Sarah warned her, knowing how much Lily disliked him.
"Again? And I haven't even set foot off of the rain yet. Why does he care that I'm Head Girl?" Lily said. "It's none of his business."
Sarah stared at Lily, but then remembered quickly. She hadn't told her. She exchanged a glance with Lane who has a look of disbelief on her face.
"No wonder," Lane said quietly, barely above a whisper.
"What Sarah?" Lily asked irritably.
Sarah twirled a strand of her hair around her finger as she usually did when she was nervous or thinking. "Nothing Lily. It's nothing," she assured her, even though she inwardly groaned. Lily is going to kill me later once she knows I knew and I forgot to tell her. Sarah thought, not looking forward to that time.
Cassidy adjusted her watch and quickly stood up. "Come on Lily, we have to go to the prefects meeting or we're going to be late!" Cassidy exclaimed dragging Lily out of the compartment with her.
Lane turned to Sarah. "She doesn't know, does she?" Lane asked her. Sarah was laughing.
"This will be interesting," Sarah said between laughs.
"What will be?" Sirius Black inquired as the their compartment door opened revealing him leaning against the doorway with Peter behind him. They entered and Sirius sat down next to Sarah with Peter opposite him.
"Lily finding out that only her favoritest person in the whole world, James Potter, is Head Boy," Sarah said with a large grin upon her face .
"She doesn't know?" Sirius asked her.
"Nope," Sarah said shaking her head back and forth.
"It will be then," Sirius agreed.
"Didn't anyone tell her?" Peter asked.
"Well…I was supposed to, but I sort of…forgot," Sarah said sheepishly.
"Good going," Sirius commended her.
"Lily will not be happy when she finds out. And I bet she'll be even madder when she finds out that you knew and didn't tell her," Lane said.
"Ugh, I know. Don't remind me," Sarah groaned.
"How was your vacation Peter?" Lane asked him.
Peter swallowed hard. He wasn't about to say the truth, it hurt too much. Instead he settled for a little half-lie. "I mostly took care of my mum. She hasn't been feeling too well lately," he said, refusing to look Lane in the eye as he said this.
"Oh I'm sorry. I hope she feels better," Lane said, hoping she didn't offend him.
"It's alright," he answered quietly.
"What did you do all summer?" Sirius turned to Sarah as he asked her.
"Oh lots of interesting stuff," Sarah said evenly, wanting him to asker her more.
"Like what?" he asked.
"Oh, the usual, shopping with Lane and Lily, partying nearly every night at that club in London, and nearly getting arrested…everyday stuff you know," Sarah told him.
"Nearly getting arrested?" Peter asked, eyes widening. "What did you do?"
"Lane and I were going shopping in the muggle place and we were trying on sunglasses. I pushed a pair onto my head, and well, I forgot about them," Sarah said.
"Like something else I can think of," Lane said.
"Oh shush!," Sarah told her. "It's not my fault. Anyways, when we went out of the store this awful alarm went off! I didn't know what was going on, until two cops appeared before us. I was scared! I thought they were going to lock us up like they did in that one movie we saw!"
"He wanted to," Lane said. "But then Sarah started flirting with the younger looking one and he talked the older on into letting her off with just a warning, which is all she got luckily. My mum would've had our head if she would've had to bail you out of jail," Lane told Sarah.
"I know, thank Merlin that didn't happen," Sarah said thankfully.
"Then what happened?" Sirius asked.
"We went home," Lane said simply.
"Oh," Sirius said, obviously quite disappointed with their ending.
"Well, to Lane's home. We were listening to music, and we turned it up a bit, and before we knew it Lane's mum was banging on the door. We turned the music off, and her mum and the same old copper was standing in her doorway! Can you believe it!" Sarah exclaimed.
"No," Peter said in disbelief.
"Yes," Sarah reassured him quickly.
"And he was yelling saying one of our old neighbors complained about the noise. He said he thought he saw us before but I had to reassure him that he didn't. I didn't tell my mum about earlier that day and she would've been furious with me. Sarah disappeared somehow and left me to deal with the cop and my mum afterwards. I swear if the whole block couldn't of have head the music, they definitely heard her screaming afterwards," Lane said.
"Two run-ins with the cops in one day?" Sirius asked.
Sarah nodded.
"Almost beats me and James'."
"How many have you had in one day then?" Lane asked a bit hurt that they had more.
"Five," Sirius told them smugly.
"Five?" Sarah, Lane, and Peter all asked at once.
"Five," Sirius repeated.
"How did you manage that?" Sarah asked him.
"Well, over the summer we decided to wander out of Diagon Alley. We found this great big glass shop, and so we went inside. James found a little glass ball and we were fooling around with it until the shopkeeper saw us and yelled at us, we her shouting scared James and he dropped the glass ball. She started having a fit, and demanded that we paid for it. As it turns out, the little money we had exchanged at Gringott's wasn't enough to pay for the ball. She asked for our parents' number so could ring them up, and we gave her a fake number. She told us to stay where we were. So when she went behind her little desk to call, we slipped out of the store. She was talking on the phone to the police, I heard her. We made our way down the street. There was terrible yelling coming from one of the houses, so we peeked inside and there were two people fighting. James and I were fighting for the better view, and he fell off of the crate we were standing on. Needless to say, the two people saw us and one of them yelled to the other to call the police. We ran from that place like crazy. James saw a park and suggested that we go there so we did. He laid down on the grass to catch his breathe and I sat down next to him. Supposedly it's illegal to be on the grass in a park, and this cop started yelling at us, waving his arms over his head as he ran towards us. We didn't stay long enough to find out what the consequences were."
"Then what happened?" Sarah asked, fully enraptured in his story.
"We walked around the town a little, until we found a candy store. We ate some of the stuff, which isn't half as great as the stuff at Honeyduke's, and apparently you're not supposed to do that. So when we tried to apologise and pay for the stuff we'd eaten, the police were rang up. But then all we had left were knuts and sickles, no muggle money, and the man wasn't too happy with us. We had to run out of that store, but the police were just arriving and luckily we out-ran them or else we wouldn't of have been able to explain ourselves and our lack of money and parents. We got lost and had to ask for directions, which if we just would've followed my directions, instead of James', we would've been there half an hour earlier without any help. Luckily the lady we asked knew where the Leaky Cauldron was. We took a booth and ordered, but then the police showed up at the door, but we ran out the back and into Diagon Alley. James parents had asked us where we were when we found them, but we didn't tell them. They wouldn't of have been to happy with us," Sirius finished.
"That's a great story," Sarah said, laughing. "That couldn't of have really happened."
"It did!" Sirius exclaimed. "Ask James yourself!"
"Sure Sirius," Lane said, also laughing.
"It really did happen!" Sirius insisted.
The compartment door swung open to reveal a very upset Lily Evans.
"Uh-oh," Sirius said quietly as he saw her face.
"You two," Lily said pointing her finger at Sirius then Peter, "out." The two boys quickly scrambled out of the compartment as she paced in front of Sarah and Lane.
After about a minute of this pacing, she managed to say it. "James Potter is Head Boy," she said, stopping in front of them.
"We sort of knew," Lane said.
"What? You two knew? Why didn't you tell me?" Lily demanded.
"Sarah was supposed to…" Lane started to say.
"But I just…forgot. Sorry Lily," Sarah apologised.
"You forgot? You forgot to tell me that James Potter is Head Boy? I don't believe this!" Lily exclaimed in frustration, throwing her hands up in defeat.
"Where's Cassidy?" Lane asked.
"Patrolling with Remus. Don't try and change the subject. How could you forget Sarah? This is huge! I could've at least tried to prepare, instead of walking into the Prefects' compartment and asking what James was doing there. That would've saved me quite a bit of humiliation," Lily said.
"I'm sorry," Sarah repeated.
"Why him? Why not Remus? At least someone I could tolerate. What was Dumbledore thinking?" Lily said hopelessly.
"There has to be some reason that he picked him. We just don't know why yet," Lane tried to console Lily.
"I think Dumbledore's lost it," Lily said. "This is only going to encourage them to do whatever they want, whenever simply because James is Head."
"If he does that, then he'll lose his badge. He can't let them get away with murder and know about it. Dumbledore wouldn't allow it," Lane told her.
"That's true. He could always loose his position by not following the rules…"
"Lily, leave him alone. Don't try to make him loose Head Boy. I know what that pretty head of yours is thinking," Sarah warned her.
"Damn," Lily said, snapping her fingers. "There goes my plan."
"Calm down Lily. I doubt it'll be half as bad as you think it's going to be."
"Easy for you to say, Lane. You don't have to work with him."
"And live with him," Sarah added.
"What?" Lily demanded, glaring at Sarah.
"Remember? The Heads get their own rooms."
"Shit," Lily said slumping down in her seat. "This year can't possibly get any worse right now."
"If you say that it will," Sarah warned her.
The black clouds that had started to gather in the sky seemingly burst open and the rain poured down.
"Great," Lily said sarcastically. "Now it's raining."
"Oh, just think of the first-years. Having to cross the lake in the rain, poor Ali," Lane said staring out of the window watching the rain fall.
"Who's Ali?" Sarah asked her.
"My cousin," Lane said. "I left her with Hattie and her friend Melissa. Mum said that Hattie and I were supposed to look after her."
"How are you supposed to look after her?"
Lane shrugged, "I don't know. I hope she gets into Ravenclaw though so I don't have to put up with her. She gets annoying really fast."
"Aw. Does Hattie like her?" Lily asked.
"Yeah. Actually, Ali reminds me of Melissa a lot. They're both really talkative and annoying. I don't know how Hattie deals with either of them. I swear that Hattie isn't my sister. She has so much patience with people," Lane said.
"You do too though, I just don't think you realize it," Lily told her.
"Doesn't matter. I still don't want her in Gryffindor."
The compartment door slid open and Cassidy stepped inside and took a seat next to Lane across from Lily. "Hey guys."
"How was patrolling?" Lane asked.
"Boring. Nothing ever happens on the train," Cassidy replied. "I don't even see why we have to do it."
"Speaking of, who's patrolling now?" Lily asked Cassidy.
"The sixth years," Cassidy answered.
"I better make sure they're doing it right. That Carson is trouble I know it," Lily said and stood up. "I better go check and make sure Potter is ready to do rounds too. I can't believe my luck," she muttered as she walked out of the compartment, the door sliding shut behind her.
"Do you think this year they'll get together?" Lane asked.
"Most definitely," Sarah answered with a smile playing upon her lips.