Oh, no. Please let this be a dream.
The early morning sunlight was passing through Jacinta's window, from the gap in the curtains.
Please may it not be the day she thought it was.
"Come on darling, time to get up!" called her mother's voice from the kitchen. No denying it now.
It was time to go back to school.
Well, Hogwarts wasn't all that bad; she had grown very attached to the place over the years. She just wished the summer didn't have to end.
Jacinta pulled herself out of bed, and dragged her feet as she dressed, got breakfast, finished packing and everything else she needed to do. Soon enough, it was time to leave for the station.
Well, she was definitely looking forward to seeing her friends again- Victoire, Teddy, and all the rest of them. They all lived so far away from eachother that she could see hardly any of them through the summer. Well, except for Maggie.
Maggie was a family friend she had gotten close to in her years at Hogwarts. They were constantly staying at eachother's houses through the break. As for the others, they kept in touch by owl.
Speaking of which, her owl Isis was unusually perky about the trip. This barn owl was almost always asleep when she wasn't needed, but today, she was hooting happily from her cage, and didn't stop until she fell asleep on the train.
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"Anything from the trolley, dears?"
"Yes please!" chorused the five friends, all finally comfortable in the compartment. They were quite an odd group, really.
There was Rowan, with his feet on the wall, sketching the cabin ceiling from an up-side down perspective; Maggie sitting cross-legged on the seat, trying some new meditation technique; Victoire, redoing her hairstyle and peering into a compact mirror using Teddy as a back-rest; and Teddy, ruffling Victoire's hair every time she finished, getting her very annoyed.
Then there was Jacinta, with her nose in the Quibbler, half-reading, half-commenting on humourous famous wizards' photographs, constantly distracting Maggie from her meditation.
Whatever anyone was doing, nothing interrupted their junk feast when the trolley came round. All five got up immediately and filled their arms with treats. They stared at the piles before them.
"Look, I REALLY don't think we'll get through all of this food-" Maggie was interrupted by a few 'don't be ridiculous' remarks from the boys, as they all dug in...
Well, except for Victoire.
"I want to keep this figure, rather than lose it to junk food," she protested, sounding too much like her mother.
"Come on, you bought half of it!"
"I bought it for YOU-" Victoire could not finish her sentence, as Teddy had smirkingly popped a chocolate frog in her mouth. She swallowed, and huffed,
"Well, I suppose a few more couldn't hurt.."
..
An hour later, everything was gone. Victoire had a rather large pile of wrappers in front of her. They were all groaning in pain.
"Figure... gone.." from Victoire.
"Savings... gone.." added Rowan.
"Now, there's the Hogwarts spirit!" bounced Maggie.
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Soon, they were changed into their robes, and later they arrived at their destination. They all squashed into a thestral carriage, and nerves started to kick in for the year to come.
"Nervous?" asked Jacinta.
"Nervous, who me?" joked Rowan, looking up from his notebook.
"It'll be the same as any other year, I suppose. All the exciting stuff had to happen when our parents were at school," sighed Victoire, feeling a shudder from Teddy sitting next to her. She realised what she had said, and put a comforting arm around him, which he shrugged off.
They passed through the stone entrance arch to their school, seeming especially ominous by the dim moonlight.
"Whatever happens, we'll have each other," said Maggie quietly. There was a silence.
Teddy spoke for the first time in a while.
"Well, that was the corniest line ever."