As I left the train to look for Mary, Lisa, Ella and Courtney, I knew I was letting myself in for a year of utter hell.   

‘You can’t tell anyone, Lily. I mean it.’                    

   ‘All right, Miss Red, I dare you to kiss … me! And not like last time, when you cheated me out of a kiss. For a minute.’

  ‘What last time?’ Sirius asked me.
  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ I said, winking at him. But he and Courtney looked furious. 

‘Oh, Merlin,’ I groaned, because I knew exactly what it meant. He had somehow found out about the whole ‘Lily–James–Sirius–Courtney’ love square. Man, that guy is smart. 

I decided to finish off my Care of Magical Creatures essay on the correct handling of a wild Blast-Ended Skrewt. Wild ones and tame ones didn’t seem to have any difference to me.  

 'You can dance, I hope?' 

'Yeah, of course -'

'Well, duh, Minnie -'

(Neither of us can dance)

'This is my Flobberworm leash and this is the racetrack for mine and Sirius's Flobber-lympics.'

‘If you’d said something, we might not be in this mess! This could all be your fault, Mary!’

‘Hey!’ Ella snapped, stepping between Mary and James and shoving the latter hard in the chest. ‘Who do you think you are? It’s not her fault, so stop taking your anger out on her!’