One More Chance
All I want is one more chance
To be young and wild and free
All I want is one more chance to show you you were right for me
You were right for me
-Reunion, Stars
"Evans."
"Well sir, once the sample is in the open air for more than 24 hours, it is no longer viable and they would need to collect another."
"Very good, Ms. Evans. You've done your work as usual. Now, since they will have to collect another sample, is there any valid reason for…"
The professor continued his lecture, but Lily Evans wasn't paying any attention. She was staring at the doodles on the corner of Sirius Black's paper. They weren't the usual ones, quidditch fantasies and big, black dogs. They were real pictures. Impressive pictures. That boy could draw! Of course, that still wasn't what distracted her about them. What distracted her about them was that they were of Charlotte Potter.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Potter was miles away, trying not to doze off in the middle of NEWT level transfiguration. McGonagall's voice just made her so drowsy. She forced herself to stay lucid though, for James and Elise's sake. Elise still had 4 years of school, and James was already pushing himself too hard. She needed to get a good job. That or access to her trust fund.
She knew the latter was improbable. And she wished her mother would be reasonable about this. Heather should realize that James was not responsible for David's death. And she should realize that even if he was, that was no reason to cut a seventeen-year-old girl off from all her money. Well. Seventeen was better than thirteen.
Elise, the thirteen-year-old Potter, was in the Hogwarts library. All her free periods these days were spent studying. She looked out the window and saw Stefan flying on the quidditch field, carefree and slightly careless. She mentally scolded him, then herself as she snapped back to her work. She and Charlotte were both hopeless at Transfiguration. She'd have to ask James to help her this weekend in Hogsmeade.
James, in contrast, was staring into a window. He was spying, to be exact.
"Potter! Don't get careless! I can see you clear as day!" barked Moody from inside the room. Both his eyes were fixed on James.
"Of course you can," James thought bitterly to himself. "You see all of us, constantly, that's why none of us will ever be real aurors." It was better than Remus though. Remus couldn't even get a job.
That's why he was lying on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. It wasn't his fault he was a werewolf. It was his fault he had no girlfriend and that one of his best friends wouldn't speak to him, maybe. But it wasn't his fault no one would give him a job, or that most people didn't even talk to him. "I don't deserve this." He thought. But his conscience wouldn't leave him alone. "Sirius didn't deserve what you did to him either."
Sirius, as mentioned before, was doodling Charlotte. Lately it seemed she was all he thought about. It was a bad thing to think about, his best friend's sister. Especially when you considered she was three years younger than him, and still in school. Of course, he was
technically still in school as well, just a different school. St. Mungo's academy for healers in training. Yes, and he was sitting next to Miss Lily Evans, who was currently staring at his paper.
Small world.