"Ready?" James asked, looking at his best friend.
"Ready," Valerie replied, taking the initiative and pushing her luggage through the barrier, James following closely behind.
James Potter and Valerie Lopez had been the best of friends since they were six years old. They did everything together, and didn't plan on stopping anytime soon. They were each other's first friend, meeting the first day that Valerie moved into her great-grandmother's estate. James' mother Euphemia had encouraged James to go befriend the seemingly shy, nervous little girl sitting on the steps and blowing the fuzz off of dandelions. Ever since the fateful moment of Valerie offering James a dandelion to blow on and proceeding to shove it in his nose, the two had been attached at the hip. The two knew everything about each other, down to the last thing they had eaten.
Valerie is quite the character. Long, curly brown hair which was always left hanging down or half was clipped back. Much to her dismay, she had inherited her father's wide milk chocolate eyes rather than her mother's sparkling grey ones. She has a small button nose, full lips, neatly groomed eyebrows and olive toned skin. She's a rather short girl for her age, only 4'10 at age 11. Her mother and father were both Puerto Rican, but had lived their lives in America. Valerie's great-grandmother Rose had purchased an estate in Great Britain in 1950, while her daughter and granddaughter stayed in the United States. When Valeries' father left her mother and her grandmother passed away, Valeries' mother Harmony decided it best for them to inherit Rose's estate.
James Potter knew every one of those things about Valerie, and could easily list them off at any point in time. He also knew that his best friend is outgoing, independent, always smiling, and truly a fun person to be with. James was rather protective over Valerie, as any best friend would be. So when they found an empty compartment together, James was quite relieved. Both of them had admitted to being afraid of making new friends and going their separate ways. James hadn't yet experienced another person attempting to be friends with his Valerie, so he wasn't quite sure how to respond to the stars in Valerie's eyes or the blush in her cheeks when another boy walked into the compartment.
"Hey," he said cooly. "Mind if I sit here?" he asked. Valerie was the first to speak up.
"Not at all! I'm Valerie Lopez, and that's James Potter," she answered excitedly. The boy simply nodded, his long ebony ringlets gently moving. His grey eyes examined the smiling girl, and he decided to sit with her rather than James. She looked at him expectantly, tossing her long hair behind her shoulders. Not having changed into her robes yet, Valerie was dressed in her usual attire of hippie-inspired clothing. A long, flowing maxi skirt that began just below her bellybutton and a Mexican peasant blouse which she had tied in the back to tighten and end just where her skirt began.
"I'm Sirius Black," he finally said. James shot a sharp look at Valerie, who he had filled in on all the pureblood mania. While Valerie was a pureblood, blood status wasn't so much of an issue in Salem's wizard community. Valerie had taken James warnings about the Blacks seriously, but decided that it wouldn't cloud her judgement of anybody. So the brunette simply smiled at Sirius warmly.
"Nice to meet you, Sirius Black," Valerie said. Sirius looked slightly taken aback, but immediately regained his cool demeanor.
"Nice to meet you too, Valerie Lopez. Are you a pureblood?" he asked curiously. James immediately rolled his eyes. Sirius' voice seemed to always have a haughty, regal tone to it. Perhaps it was his accent, Valerie noted.
"Yes, but my family is from Salem, Massachusetts. I only moved to Britain when I was six. Blood purity isn't really a huge deal over there," Valerie clarified.
"It is here," James finally piped in. "Shouldn't you be sitting with Malfoy?" he asked. Sirius looked quite irritated.
"Salem seems quite nice. Not too obsessed with blood purity myself," he said, partially ignoring James' snide remark. James let his guard down a bit after this comment.
"What house do you think you'll be in?" James asked, knowing the answer.
"Slytherin, as the rest of my family was," Sirius answered. "I expect you're hoping for Gryffindor?" he asked.
"Of course. It's for the bold, just like me and Val," he said with a grin.
"Yeah," Valerie agreed with a smile. "I don't think I'd really fit in anywhere else, honestly," Valerie admitted.
"The bold, eh? My family doesn't really speak of it so fondly," Sirius noted.
"Well, of course!" Valerie immediately said. "They're all Slytherins. Gryffindor is for the brave, the bold, the chivalrous," she described. Sirius seemed to quickly take a liking to how Gryffindor sounded.
"Change your mind yet?" James asked with a laugh.
The trio quickly became friends, talking the whole train ride. When the sorting ceremony finally did happen, Sirius was the first of the three to be sorted into Gryffindor, much to their surprise. James and Valerie followed suit. Valerie had taken the seat that Sirius saved for her, across from him naturally. So the girl immediately placed her foot on the empty seat next to her, and intended to hold it there until James was sorted. However, a first year who had just been sorted into Gryffindor approached the table. His appearance wasn't one you forgot, his face had a long scar on the left cheek and he had several more scars on his hands. Valerie wasn't quite sure why, but as soon as she saw the boy she felt compelled to put her foot back on the ground. Or rather, let it dangle down from her chair. She was too short for her feet to touch the ground on this high stool. There was another seat next to her anyways, so she had no problem with removing her foot from this one.
"Hey, sit here," she called to the boy quietly. She didn't want to be rude and interrupt the sorting. The boy who she had been so intrigued by smiled gently and accepted the seat.
"What's your name?" she whispered as more students were sorted.
"Remus Lupin," the boy answered in the same hushed tone. Valerie smiled.
"That's a wicked name. I'm Valerie Lopez," she introduced herself. "That silly looking kid across from me, who's just staring at us and not introducing himself? That's Sirius Black," she said jokingly, noticing Sirius' gaze.
"Yeah, that's my name," he said proudly, snapping out of the staring.
"James Potter is getting sorted right now. He's my best friend," she said as the hat yelled "Gryffindor!".
"How do you two know each other?" Remus asked curiously.
"We've been neighbors since we were six. Thank the heavens for that, or I wouldn't have had any proper friends before coming here. Right James?" Val said as he approached the table.
"Yup," he said with a nod as he grabbed a seat next to Sirius and across from Remus.
"You got any friends yet, Remus Lupin?" Valerie asked. Remus looked taken aback by her friendliness. He shook his head.
"I guess not," he replied. Valerie smiled.
"You do now! I pride myself as being Remus Lupin's first friend," she said, sitting up a bit straighter.
"You were my first friend first," James teased.
"I suppose my first friend second, then," Sirius said with a grin.
"Shh!" whispered a slightly obnoxious, feminine voice. The four friends instantly looked over to where it had come from. A girl with fiery red hair and gentle green eyes had shushed them, as a boy with dark, greasy hair approached the sorting hat. He was almost instantly sorted into Slytherin, much to the red-haired girls' dismay. Sirius rolled his eyes.
"Next time you shush us, could it maybe be for a more interesting reason?" the onyx haired boy said with a chuckle. The girl shot him a dirty look in response. The rest of the dinner went along these lines- casual conversation, lots of jokes, and Sirius, James, Valerie and Remus growing to become friends. There was one point in the dinner where Valerie shot James an excited look. They'd both made friends while remaining friends with each other. It was their first day at Hogwarts and they'd already found their group of friends.
After dinner, Valerie learned that she would share a dorm with Lily Evans (who she discovered was the girl who'd shushed them at dinner), Dorcas Meadows, and Marlene McKinnon. The three girls seemed nice enough to Valerie. Lily seemed weary around Val, however. Assuming it was due to Sirius' comment earlier, Val apologized on his behalf.
"He's a bit of a jerk, but he's cool, really," she said. "Just don't take some of the more rude stuff he says to heart,". Lily nodded and seemed to have accepted this, but still stated that she didn't like her first impression of Sirius. Valerie shrugged at this, it wasn't her job to make Lily like her friends. With that, Valerie decided she'd get to bed a little early with a good book to keep her company.
The next morning, Valerie proudly walked to the Gryffindor table, where all her friends already sat. There was a new addition to the group, however. A pudgy blonde boy with baby blue eyes and a slightly nervous demeanor. Valerie sat next to Remus, across from Sirius and James, with the unfamiliar boy next to James. James introduced the boy as Peter Pettigrew, who they shared a dorm with. He'd been sitting at the opposite end of the Gryffindor table the night before. Valerie gave James one of their "best friend telepathic communication" looks. James nodded to confirm that Peter was alright, and she relaxed.
Their first day of classes was simple enough, with Valerie getting "Wingardium Leviosa" on her first try. She briefly remembered Ollivander telling her that her wand being made of willow signified a knack for charms. She had found Transfiguration slightly more difficult, but James seemed to breeze through it, she noted with a bit of jealousy. Potions was easy enough for her, as they were mainly copying notes the first day. Herbology and History of Magic weren't very interesting to Valerie, but she still found them rather easy. Flying lessons had been somewhat difficult for her. James and Sirius' brooms had come up on the first try, but Valerie's didn't. It took her two more tries for the broom to come up, much to her dismay. Valerie, however had spent too much time stealing James' broomstick and practicing in her backyard to let this get to her. She figured the broom didn't come up because she was simply afraid that it wouldn't.
Time seemed to fly through the first two months of school. Valerie, James, Sirius, Remus and Peter all grew closer and got to know each other. James had noticed that Valerie seemed to grow quite fond of Sirius. The two would often be seen absentmindedly touching in some way, whether it be hugging, fixing the others tie, or Valerie playing with Sirius' hands as he did something. It wasn't until Valerie's birthday in November that James really noticed this, however. An owl flew in the great hall during breakfast with a medium sized package for Valerie, who seemed incredibly excited by it.
"What's with the package, Sugar?" Sirius inquired. The nickname had stuck after the boys discovered that Valerie was very easily affected by sugar, getting "sugar high" after only a few sweets.
"Oh, um, today's sort of my birthday," Valerie answered, tapping her fingers on the parcel. Sirius broke out into laughter.
"What's so funny? It's her birthday," James confirmed, confused. Sirius stopped laughing.
"You were serious?" he asked.
"Uh, yeah," Valerie said, starting to open the letter from her mother tied to the package. "Why was that funny?" she asked.
"Today's my birthday," Sirius explained.
"It's both of your birthdays and nobody decided to tell us?" Remus asked.
"It never came up," Valerie said. "Now, would you all like to see what my mother sent me?" she said, ready to tear open the package. The group nodded excitedly. Valerie tore apart the wrapping, gasping once she saw the gifts.
"It's a camera! Oh my gosh, you guys," she exclaimed. "and there's a scrapbook for all of the pictures I take… and some muggle pens for us to label the pictures with!" She instantly began opening the box and pulled out the contraption, which already had magical film inside.
"We've got to get a picture. James, can you take one of me and Sirius? Get the birthday people in a picture," she said excitedly. James laughed.
"Sure thing. Get close together, you two," he said, aiming the camera at the pair, who were now sitting close together. Sirius had his arm slung across Valerie's shoulder, and while James took the picture the two smiled. However, Valerie turned her head to kiss Sirius on the cheek while the moving picture was still being taken. Plenty of people were looking, but only James appeared slightly shocked by the event. Sirius himself looked a bit taken aback, but didn't seem to mind all too much. Wanting to quickly move attention away from the event, Valerie got up and took the camera from James. The picture slid out of the camera, and she gently shook it while the photograph began to get clearer. The young witch grabbed one of the muggle pens and wrote on the back of the photo, "Valerie and Sirius' birthday. November 3rd, 1971". She opened up the scrapbook and put it in the first available picture slot. She wrote the same thing on the side, where there were a few lines for describing the picture. The boys watched as she did this, and apparently, so was Lily Evans. The redhead grabbed the camera before anyone could notice.
"What are you doing with her camera, Evans?" Sirius asked immediately. Lily rolled her eyes.
"Getting a group picture for you guys, of course!" Lily exclaimed. Valerie smiled. Her and Lily had grown somewhat closer after sharing a dorm for the past two months. So James, Sirius, Valerie, Remus and Peter all stood in a line together. Valerie was in the middle, with Sirius and James on either side of her. Peter was next to James, and Remus next to Sirius. James put his arm around Valerie before Sirius could. James didn't mind their growing friendship one bit, but Valerie was still his best friend. Lily snapped the picture while Sirius made bunny ears over Valerie's head, causing the rest of the group to laugh. Valerie knew it would make for a good picture, and snatched it as soon as it started to come out of the camera. She looked on at the people she called her friends in the photo admiringly, and took out a pen. Without thinking, she knew what to write.
"The Marauders. November 3rd, 1971 till the end of time".