I walked onto the Hogwarts Express, heaving my trunk along behind me, looking for my friends. Each carriage I poked my head into contained people I didn't know, or people I knew by face only, but not my friends. Until I got to the last one, that is. Trust them to pick that one!
Out of all my friends, I was the last one to get there. Lexy, Mia, Kitty and Shell all got up and hugged me.
'Hey – oh, it's so good to see you!' That was by BBF, BFFL, whatever, Lexy, since 1st year when it was just us two on our own. She is half blood, but Mia, Kitty and Shell are all pure blood. Me? Muggle born, through and through.
'Oh my gosh – what is that on your jumper, that badge? You're not head girl are you?' Shell gaped at the shiny red and gold badge pinned on and everyone else followed her lead.
'Yep,' I grinned. 'Complete surprise, I wasn't expecting me to get it considering I'm not the best behaved in the year,' everyone smirked and nodded.
Kitty piped up. 'It's probably 'cause you're really bright.' I shrugged and let that one pass and every laughed.
'So anyway, I have to go pretty soon -' I looked at my watch '- oops I have to be there now. Ok well I'll see you guys later, oh, and also here –' I dug around in my bag for a bit of money and chucked it at no-one in particular '- grab me some food would you? Thanks guys, you're all gems. Bye.'
As I walked down the corridor to the prefect carriage I started to wonder who the head boy would be. It had to be someone I could get a long with – I hoped it would – because, looking at the sheet they sent me, I had to work a lot with him. Plus, as this was my final year, I crossed my fingers that it wouldn't be a Slytherin. I wanted to enjoy my concluding year.
The grinning face I saw through the glass gave me more of a shock that any Slytherin would have given me.
I opened the door and stared at the figure lolling on the seat in front of me, messed up hair, a lazy smirk plastered on his mouth.
'Evans. Good summer?'
'Erm…yeah…? Um…Potter. Right. Potter…what are you doing here?' I couldn't get my words out; I didn't know what I was trying to say.
He spread his arms wide and shrugged. 'I don't know. All I know is that Dumbledore's given me this very glamorous badge with the words head boy on it and I'm supposed to wear it around school. Cool huh?'
I tried to work out what he was saying. 'Do you mean…you're head boy?' I asked in disbelief.
He grinned. 'Seems so.'
I looked at him for a few seconds, and then sat down on the seat opposite him. 'But why?'
'I don't know any more than you do Evans.' Then he winked at me.
I stared at him sceptically. This seemed like very familiar behaviour from him. 'Are you tricking me, Potter?' I demanded.
He looked at me innocently, square in the eye. 'No.' He suddenly smiled. 'I think that's the first time I've ever told the truth while saying no for the answer to that question.'
It could've been the fact that his smile was a real smile, not a smirk or because he didn't blink when he said it. It could have just been that the first words that popped out of his mouth weren't 'will you go out with me?' – but I believed him, just like that.
'Oh. Okay.' I suddenly felt very small and a bit bad for questioning his ability to become head boy. 'It's just that, well, you know, you're not really the best behaved in the year and kind of a troublemaker so I just thought –'
'I know what you thought. I was just as surprised as you are. Anyway, you're not exactly an angel in class yourself are you?' The smirk was back.
I glared at him. Then sighed. 'True. But you're worse.'
He smiled. 'True.'
Just then the door opened and eight small, nervous fifth years walked in – the prefects. I had completely forgotten about this – the speech we were supposed to give them. Our conversation had threw me off track; I quickly gathered my thoughts together.
'Hi guys. My name's Lily, this is James, and we're head boy and girl.' It didn't take long, half an hour at the most, just telling them their duties and how Hogwarts operated when you were a prefect in it.
Afterwards, they all filed out, and it was just me and James left in the compartment alone.
'So…that was interesting.' I half smiled at him – not too much; I didn't want him to think I was warming up to him.
'Yeah, yeah…' He laughed a bit and looked awkwardly at me; we hadn't had the politest of conversations in the past.
I just wanted to end this. 'Yeah, so I gotta go. Bye!' I moved swiftly past him and exited.
The rest of the train journey was uneventful and very long; I couldn't wait to get to Hogwarts and go back to reality. It had been a very long summer and, however much I hated my sister, I was surprised at how quickly it took me to realise that I couldn't take any more of her.
We got to Hogwarts finally and everyone sat down at the four, long tables, ready for a good meal to fill them up.
'So, Lily,' Lexy leaned forward and flashed me a cunning smile. 'What's going to happen with Potter then, this year? You know, with you two being head boy and girl you'll have to spend a bit more time with each other and you know what that might result in…' She waggled her eyebrows suggestively and the others agreed with her.
'Personally I think she's right,' a voice said behind me, and I looked up, breaking my glare from Lexy's amused face. Sirius Black, James's partner in crime, was grinning down from above. 'I'm speaking for James here by the way – he thought you might hit him if he said it – he was too scared.'
'He was right. Although, he wouldn't be the only one I'd hit.' I started rising out of my seat. However, he dodged away before I could reach him.
I sank back down, cursing under by breath. 'He is such an arsehole,' I said out loud.
'Tell me about it,' three of my friends agreed. Lexy said nothing.
'You alright Lex?'
'What?' She was staring in the other direction. In the direction of Black and his friends. 'Yeah, yeah, I'm fine…' I didn't say anything, just grabbed another handful of chips. That was the moment when Prof. Dumbledore decided to introduce the new head boy and girl. I stood up, distracted. Lexy wasn't clapping for me or James, just looking at him. James, I mean. A thought suddenly struck me and I stared at her for a while. I stopped when I sat down, though I couldn't stop thinking about it.