A/N: And here it is! The not-so-long-awaited arrival of book 2 of my James S Potter series. If you are wondering what I mean by that, then go check out my Author's page and read James S Potter and the Heart of Hogwarts before you read this, otherwise you will be confused and ask silly questions. For now, I hope everybody has packed their trunks and made their trip to Diagon Alley, because year two at Hogwarts is about to begin!


The now-familiar rush of warm air which whipped over James' face as he raced in front of his family through the barrier was the most welcome breeze he had felt all summer. The familiar crowds were back again, and he let the madness of a thousand conversations wash over him in tandem with the thick heady smoke furling lazily from the bright scarlet steam engine where it squatted fat and laden on the tracks.

He saw Uncle Percy off in the distance, and made to duck over and say hello as he heard him mention broomsticks. Sadly, the next two words out of his mouth were 'regulation' and 'control'. Not a conversation James wanted to unwittingly stumble into, so he veered sharply to his left and made a beeline to the train, leaving many a sore toe its disgruntled owner in his wake.

On the way he passed Lilian Wood, one third of the famed and fabled Gryffindor Chasing Trio known as the Hydra. She, like the other two members, was in her seventh and final year of Hogwarts this year, and her father, Oliver looked to have her in a tight huddle, offering some last-minute advice. James gave her a friendly wave, and caught a few words of their hushed conversation as he pushed past.

'…last year, this year Lils,' Oliver Wood was saying. Referring to winning the Quidditch Cup, James assumed. 'You really need to make a move, before it's too late. Hair up, right? He likes it like that. Here. This is his favourite shade of lipstick.'

James frowned to himself, puzzled, and slowed down his mad rush to the train a little so as to hear the conversation. Lilian was looking absolutely mortified.

'Just look, Lils. Look at him, he's the perfect specimen, the perfect Chaser. Think of the kids you'd have! There'd be an entire English team of Woods!'

'Da-aad,' Lilian whined.

James turned his head to see where they were looking. Of course: Ryan O'Flaherty.

He smiled to himself, glad to have something to cheer him up for once in what seemed like forever.

His summer had been an absolute nightmare. Much like his Christmas holidays the year before, he had quickly began a countdown to when he could get back to school. Things had oscillated repeatedly between angry and weird all summer long, and it had taken a toll on his spirits.

It had all started the moment he had disembarked off of the train. He had been scooped up by a flustered Ginny Potter, given a hasty meal of take-out and sent to bed together with his siblings at six p.m. because his mother wanted some 'peace and quiet'. Hardly the welcome home that he had been expecting.

From there, things had never really picked up. The whole my-half-brother-might-be-a-rampaging-murderer thing had really cast a shadow over the entire vacation. All of the Potter-Weasley extended family had, much to their credit, dropped whatever was going on in their lives and began to campaign for Teddy's freedom, as there was no evidence for him actually having been the Desecrator, and the Ministry had been unable to prove that he had done anything except get hit by an Imperius Curse.

James had been unable to see what the problem was, up until a very exhausted Aunt Hermione had explained it all to them one evening at a family gathering (marred as was now usual by the absence of several members of the family).

She had told them that the Ministry had touted Teddy's capture as a great success, and the Steelhearts and Miss Renshaw were the new heroes for capturing him and stopping any further harm from coming to the students of the school. The wizarding public were joyous at such news, and lauded the current Minister as a hero. Terms like re-election were thrown around, and Aunt Hermione explained how the time to choose the next Minister for Magic was fast approaching, and a success such as this one was great for his campaign.

This had meant that, even though they all knew that Teddy was innocent, the Ministry kept telling the public that he was guilty, and Aunt Hermione, Uncle Ron and Harry had had to spend incredibly long hours at work fighting against this decision, getting them to release Teddy. It had taken Aunt Hermione leading a court case which lasted an entire week, to finally divest Teddy of any blame in the situation, and to clear his name.

In the time since then, the Ministry had begun to exact its revenge upon them, for upsetting their apple cart.

Aunt Hermione had been given a 'promotion' to Non-Executive Chief Liaising Officer to the Head of Department of International Magical Cooperation. A role which, according to Uncle Ron, the effing Minister had made up overnight and shifted Hermione into to take away any real power which she once held. True enough, she told them, she was now all but redundant within the Ministry, and was expecting to be laid off any day now. The pressure was beginning to show, with both her and Uncle Ron, sometimes both of them, showing up at James' house looking like they might have had a bit too much to drink, and passing out on their couch in the living room.

Couch-sleeping seemed to be a theme of the holidays, James mused as he lugged his trunk up the step onto the train, knocking over a weedy-looking first-year in the process. He offered a vague apology in his general direction, and set about exploring for the best available compartment.

Harry and Ginny both, as well as Teddy, had spent their fair share of time sleeping on that living room couch. Teddy, despite being exonerated, was still not allowed to return to duty at the Ministry; his Auror career had been put to an end, despite Harry's best efforts. The edict had come from the Minister himself, and so there was nothing that Harry could do to circumvent it. He and Ron had both argued and lobbied until they had been thrown out of the offices one evening. The resulting scuffle had sparked a Ministerial Investigation into Uncle Ron's performance, which Hermione had explained to them was basically their way of trying to find a reason to fire him.

Harry himself had been given more work than was reasonable, but fewer resources with which to accomplish it. The hunt for the Desecrator had sparked up again, but this time the Steelhearts were the spearhead, with the Auror office being publicly ridiculed in the Prophet for having returned a series of false leads and dead ends all last year. Harry was reduced to managing myriad minor altercations and scuffles which usually would fall well below his notice. And all the while the Department of Mysteries was recruiting his top Aurors, bundling them away, with or without consent, to join the ranks of the ever-growing Steelhearts.

The minister had made his intentions more than clear over the past few months: the direction forward for the wizarding world held no room for the Potters and Weasleys, and they ought to get used to it.

James aimed a kick at an innocent carriage door, sending it crashing open to reveal a group of stunned Hufflepuff third-years. This time he didn't even bother apologising, just grunted and continued tugging his trunk along behind him, brushing firmly past any of the students too slow to get out of his way.

All of that, the arguments and the fights, and the yelling. The infighting and bickering, that had only been the angry part of his summer. There was still the whole weird side of things, that he was having trouble coming to terms with.

The weirdness had begun shortly after Teddy's release from Ministry custody. Without a job, or any form of reliable income, he had moved back in to the Potter household, where Harry and Ginny had both insisted that he was welcome. That alone was fine; James was happy to be reunited with his almost-brother. It was all the extra baggage that came with it that had started to weird him out.

Three days after Teddy's release, once Harry and Ginny had both left the house for the day, there came a knock on the door. James answered, and still remembered the way his jaw had dropped to see Professor Meadows standing there, wearing thigh-high heeled boots so you couldn't even see her fake leg, a very small skirt, and a top that showed bits of her that James had only ever seen once before by accident and had hoped he would never ever see again.

Thankfully, she had had eyes only for Teddy, and the pair of them had locked themselves away in the guest room, sparing James the discomfort of having to try not to look at all of that.

A lot of angry yelling had followed. James and Albus had snuck up to the landing to try and listen in. Close, but not so close as to be caught. James had experience enough in that department to last him a lifetime. They were unable to make out many of the words, but the angriness eventually died down, and was replaced by something that sounded a lot like Professor Meadows yelling in pain, interspersed with a lot of four-letter words that Ginny told them they were never allowed to say. James and Albus both were about to bust down the door and make sure everything was ok when they heard the professor yelling for Teddy to 'keep going' and 'right there'. Al suggested that Teddy must have been helping her with her leg, perhaps massaging it to work away some of the pain. James certainly didn't want to walk in on that scene, so the two boys had happily trotted off to carry on with their days.

The angry-yelling and the leg-yelling had continued in cycles from that day onwards, with angry yelling predominating during the night time, and the leg-yelling happening mostly during the day, when Harry and Ginny were out. James just found it so weird having a professor practically living at his house, using his bathroom, his shower, eating from their fridge.

Between that, and her propensity for walking about the house in her underwear – claiming that putting on trousers was a nuisance with her leg – James was beginning to think he might go mental before the summer ended.

Mercifully, Harry had come home early from work one day, to spend a rare afternoon with the kids, and walked in while there was some very vigorous leg-yelling going on. He had walked into Teddy's room, promptly sprinted out again, and then started up with some of his own angry-yelling at Teddy and Professor Meadows.

James didn't hear what he had said, but Professor Meadows stopped coming around their house after that.

Strangely, cousin Victoire started coming over for dinner much more often from then on.

The whole, sheer craziness of all the adult world and all their problems was driving James insane. He was sick of being snapped at and yelled at. Having things thrown at him, or spells cast at him because everyone else was so on edge all the damn time.

He entered the fifth carriage back, still trying to find an acceptable compartment that would fit all of his friends. By now he was glaring thunderheads, and a small boy who looked closer to seven than eleven gave a frightened shriek and dived out of his way. Finally, right down the back of carriage five, he came across two adjacent empty compartments. He peered into the one on the left, shoving his trunk onto the seat to save the space, making sure his initials were facing the door, in the hope that his friends would find it and join him.

As he stepped back out to say his final goodbye to his family, he cast an eye into the compartment opposite, double-checking that it, too, was vacant.

And there was the prince of all weirdness himself: Teddy Lupin, lying flat on his back on the bench seat, with none other than Victoire Weasley straddling him from above, their lips locked together fiercely, his arms pushing up the folds of her dress.

He really had had just about enough of weird to last him a lifetime. His almost-brother kissing his definite-cousin after spending the entire summer doing who-knows-what with his Defence teacher definitely classified as weird. It might just take the crown.

Forging on with the only reasonable course of action, James slid open the door to their compartment.

Teddy shot up from where he was lying, sending Victoire crashing to the floor in a heap and giving James a mortifying look at his cousin's very pink and very frilly underwear.

'I wasn't- I- Oh, James. It's you. What the hell are you doing? I'm a little preoccupied,' he gestured down at Victoire, who was glaring daggers at James and very huffily pulling her dress down around her to try and retain some modesty.

'I, err… I don't really know,' James said truthfully, 'sort of just came to say hi. I was wondering what you were doing; it looked gross.'

'I was just… seeing Victoire off,' Teddy offered, 'saying goodbye before she goes back to school.'

'But you said you weren't coming in today, that you felt ill.'

Victoire shot Teddy an arched-eyebrow look at that revelation.

'I felt better. I hadn't said goodbye to everyone yet, thought I ought to do the rounds, you know.'

James squinted at the pair of them suspiciously.

'If that's how you say goodbye at the train station I'm definitely fine with the hug I got this morning.'

Victoire let out a single peal of melodious laughter, and Teddy rolled his eyes.

'I don't- James, why don't you go find your friends, or Al. I'm sure he's looking for you.'

'Good thinking. I'll warn him to stay away from this carriage. I think he was happy with his goodbye from this morning as well.'

With that James slid the door shut, turning to run off and tell Al the news, mindlessly colliding with a much older and much larger student on his way. He stumbled backwards, before pushing past him towards the exit, ignoring the indignant cries which chased him from the train.

He shoved and elbowed his way through the press, which was easily as thick as last year. The smog hung low and heavy above their heads, and several of the taller witches and wizards were forced to draw wands to blow it away with a gentle wind charm. He eventually spied his family, not too far from his own carriage, and called out to them.

'Hey!'

He sprinted up to join them all, momentarily having to gather his breath before continuing.

'Teddy's back there,' he said breathlessly, waving an arm vaguely back over his shoulder into the thick, roiling clouds of steam encompassing the train. 'Just seen him! And guess what he's doing? Snogging Victoire!'

Well, James thought, from the diagrams that Tristan had showed him last year, he was reasonably certain that that had been snogging.

Nobody so much as raised an eyebrow. It was like everyone had already known.

'Our Teddy! Teddy Lupin! Snogging our Victoire! Our cousin! And I asked Teddy what he was doing-'

'You interrupted them?' Ginny asked, incredulous. 'You are so like Ron-'

'-and he said he'd come to see her off! And then he told me to go away! He's snogging her!'

How had nothing exploded yet? Ginny and Lily were staring, with faraway dreamy looks in their eyes. Albus was just shifting nervously from foot to foot, too busy being caught up in worrying about Slytherin house, no doubt. After all of the drama accompanied with Teddy and Victoire the first time around, after he had spent practically the entire summer with their Defence professor – James' favourite professor – he was now snogging Victoire. How were they all missing the gravity of the situation?

When nobody was looking, he threw up his hands in exasperation. His family was just weird. Maybe it was in the blood.

A loud burst of laughter caught James' attention, and he looked over to see his cousin and best friend; Fred Weasley II leap up into the train over the heads of several students, courtesy of the latest and greatest Weasley Wizard Wheezes product, no doubt. Following Ginny's insistence that James give Professor Longbottom their love, he said his goodbyes and dashed away to catch his friend, carelessly throwing a parting comment Albus' way about Thestrals that was sure to get his knickers in a knot.

Once back on the train, James made his way to his previous compartment, elbowing and shoving his way through the students, older and younger alike. The press of bodies along the corridor was so thick that James was now having trouble moving. Chaos was reigning all up and down the carriage as students tried to find friends and available seating, in either order. There were shouts of greeting, cries of recognition, and a colourful expletive from an irate sixth-year witch upon laying eyes on a sheepish-looking Gryffindor seventh-year in front of whom James was standing.

He hastily squeezed himself out of the path of danger, feeling a pang of sympathy for the poor fellow as he stumbled into an ebb in the flow of students. He could see his compartment, blessedly now almost within arm's reach. He stretched out to slide it open and cut himself off from the madness, but froze as he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder from behind.

Instinctively, he turned to face the owner of the hand which was still resting on his shoulder.

Rain.

She wore long socks which came up above her knees, almost all the way up to the bottom of her high-waisted shorts, into which was tucked a long-sleeved, pale blouse, buttoned all the way up to her throat, and concealed by a thick scarf, despite the heat of the day. A small necklace fell down across her chest, set with a brilliant blue sapphire in the shape of a teardrop, easily as big as his own eye.

His mouth worked silently for a second – no words able to come forth through the logjam that had formed somewhere at the front of his mind. Greetings, apologies, questions, all were frozen solid under the scrutiny of that sea-green gaze.

'James Potter are you going to say anything, or just stare? You do remember me, right?'

She quirked an eyebrow at him, and James now realised that he was having to look up at her to make eye contact – she had clearly been doing some growing over the summer. Slowly, haltingly, the gears began to turn, and he finally forced some words out past that unseen barrier.

'Rain! I- how are you? I'm so sorry I didn't come see you over summer. I went to go, and they told me that nobody was allowed to see you. Then everything was so busy at home by the time I came back you were gone and nobody seemed to know where you had left to. I'm sorry, I-'

He was cut off as she gave a very girlish, very un-Rain-like giggle and pulled him into a hug. The close proximity meant that an excruciatingly familiar sense of nausea began to creep up on him, and as he breathed in a lungful of her earthy, floral scent, he began to feel more than a touch light headed.

That was right up until her chest pressed up against his own, and he felt something so cold it was like an icy dagger pressed against his breast. He recoiled involuntarily, and saw a flicker of irritation pass across Rain's features as he broke off the embrace.

'What…' he looked down at her strange necklace, which was glowing softly in the dim confines of the carriage.

He looked quizzically back up at Rain, who was simply regarding him with an arched brow, and a slightly cooler expression on her face.

'I'm sorry-' he began, before Rain was shoved aside from behind by an unfamiliar older Slytherin girl. She collided hard with the side of the corridor, but before James could reach out to her, his path was blocked by two burly older girls, and Odette Mansfield strode in to face him.

Great, just what he needed.

'Potter! I've been looking everywhere for you. How has your summer been, darling. Give us a hug, there's a good lad.'

She spoke with an awfully posh accent that he wasn't sure she had possessed the last time the talked. Her vowels didn't quite make the same noises as James' and she drew out some strange syllables in the words.

Before he could even protest, she had engulfed him in a very firm hug, nearly lifting him clean off the floor. She set him down again, and adjusted a stray lock of her artfully-arranged dirty-blonde hair. James squirmed a little beneath her gaze; he very much felt like he was being weighed and measured.

'A pity, I thought you'd have grown a little over the summer. Not to worry though. I am so looking forward to seeing you out there… straddling that broomstick this year, Potter.'

James felt a little dirty the way she was looking at him as she said that last sentence. Up close he noticed that she was wearing a lot of makeup.

By this stage Rain had disentangled herself from the clutches of one of the bigger girls, and pushed through to grab James by the arm. She shot a venomous look at Odette, and tried to pull him away into their nearby compartment.

'Oh, not so fast, dearie,' Odette tittered, 'why the rush? I've been meaning to catch up with you. Auntie Mia works at St Mungo's you know, she told me all about you and your little secrets. She also said you have the most interesting little-'

With an unannounced flourish, Odette drew her wand and jabbed it aggressively at Rain, who had been taken unawares, still busy straightening her hair after the scuffle, and looking haughty.

The force of the spell knocked her back slightly, so that for the second time that day she was sent crashing into the wall of the corridor. By now a few other students were beginning to complain, as their little group had blocked the thoroughfare, but James hardly even heard them as his eyes turned to Rain in horror.

Odette's spell had not only knocked Rain against the wall, but it had also tore open the front of her blouse, popping all the buttons nearly down to her waist. Her scarf had been thrown back, hanging down desperately from her shoulders, and dragging on the floor, exposing the entirety of her chest and stomach.

James gasped in terror, Rain looked too stunned to move, and Odette Mansfield gave a small little chirp of a laugh, her gaze, along with that of everyone else in the vicinity, fixed on a spot above Rain's pale pink bra, just above the tiny swell of her left breast.

There against her creamy skin sat, in glaringly stark contrast, a twisted midnight scar, roughly the size and shape of a Galleon. It was so alien, so foreign and wrong that James couldn't help but stare. The more he looked, the deeper and richer the blackness became, until the corners of his own vision began to haze over. It seemed to suck the light out of the carriage around them, and in those few, fleeting seconds, everyone around was frozen in shock. Even as he watched, the scar seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat, and with every pulse, a flash of thick, black ichor shot out from the centre of the weal, radiating outwards and through her veins.

His eyes began to widen. From the corner of his eye he saw Odette Mansfield, her mouth agape, staring dumbly. Rain was beginning to gather her wits once more, and was looking absolute murder at Mansfield, a verdant fire raging behind her eyes. James, finally jarring into motion, swooped forward, bundling Rain up and away, into the relative privacy of their awaiting compartment. Before he slammed the door shut and pulled down the blind, he shot Odette the most evil look that he could muster.

Inside the carriage, James released Rain as she pulled away from his touch. His fingers brushed accidentally against the skin around her scar, and he felt that same biting, numbing cold as it lanced up his arm, sapping the energy from his fingers.

This time, somehow, he didn't flinch back, but only stood transfixed, staring at his friend. She returned his gaze unflinching, and after a brief second gave a modest cough, before gesturing at her current state of undress.

His cheeks immediately bloomed a brilliant red, and he hastily spun around facing the wall, muttering a rapid-fire set of apologies.

So that was it; that was the scar, the damage left behind from last year's ordeal. That was the mark left on her by… whatever it was that had occurred up there. James still hadn't been able to work out whether his own recollections of the events were truth or not. They seemed so hazy, so distant now, and they offered up too few explanations, too many holes to leave him feeling anything but a sense of cloying unease any time he tried to think about it.

'You may turn around, James Potter,' came Rain's voice, eventually. When he did so, he was startled to see her looking as she had just stepped out of a dressing room, impeccable and unflustered. Of course she was; this was Rain he was talking about.

'Listen to me when I say, that one day I am going to kill Odette Mansfield,' she stated matter-of-factly. Her deadpan tone and icy gaze meant that James was having a little trouble not believing her.

He ran a quick mental calculation, and found that he had roughly in the order of thirteen million questions he wanted to ask her, but again they seemed to all jam up before they could find their way forth to be spoken. It was clearly writ plainly across his face, for Rain raised a perfectly manicured hand as she sat down.

'I think, James Potter, that you and I are long overdue a conversation. That you have many questions which I shall seek to answer. You have my word that I will try my best to do so, wherever possible. Now, however, is not the time. Please, I have just been accosted and embarrassed in front of a horde of students, and find myself close to tears. Before the others arrive I implore that you cheer me up, as only you seem to be able to do.'

Once again, James found himself scrambling to gather his wits. He had fallen into the trap – as had many others, no doubt – of assuming that Rain simply possessed no emotions. Her cool, implacable façade had rarely cracked, save for her violent mood swings and magical outbursts whenever she succumbed to the effects of the myriad potions that she had to take to remain healthy at Hogwarts. Other than that, she was the most even keel, almost purely emotionless human being that James knew. To think of her being about to cry seemed obscene. To actually see her cry would probably be more unsettling than watching his almost-brother make out with his definitely-cousin on his school train.

'Did you know Victoire has purple underwear with little mermaids on it?' He blurted out.

The tiniest hint of a smile quirked the corners of Rain's full lips upwards.

'Just how many items of girls' undergarments have you seen today, James Potter? Ought I be concerned? I wonder if I shouldn't inform a teacher...'

James froze up for a moment, before realising that she had said it in jest, and burst out laughing. He even saw her give an actual smile in response. As the crowds in the corridors outside their compartment began to thin, and the train started to pull away from the station, the conversation began to flow a little easier. Rain was very interested in Teddy's fate, and seemed largely out of touch with the goings-on of magical Britain over the past summer, hinting that between her time in St Mungo's, and some time "abroad" that she had well and truly remained out of the loop.

Shortly after that, and just as James had told an outrageously inappropriate joke about a mermaid, a hag and a centaur which had gone so far as to make Rain blush, the door to their compartment burst open, and in piled Tristan, Fred and Clip.

'I hear somebody has been stripping,' Tristan blurted out before even any greetings were offered. 'Father told me I ought to go and get the "full Hogwarts experience" and investigate. Whatever that means. I think mother almost knocked him out cold with her handbag, so I sort of ran away at that point.'

James shot an awkward look at Rain, whose face had reverted back to the icy mask of indifference.

'Nothing that either of us saw...' he offered. 'Though you'll never guess what I caught Victoire doing with Teddy!'

The others eagerly filed in, pulling the door closed behind them. It didn't escape James' notice that they all chose to sit on the same side of the compartment as him, and away from Rain. But he was too lost up in the retelling of his tale, and Freddy's noises of disgust and fake vomiting to pay much heed.

The bright sunshine of London began to give way to ominous steely-grey clouds almost as soon as they were outside of the city limits. Greenery whipped past in brief, lush bursts of colour, prominent against the faded dull brown of the dry fields. Tristan complained at length about the duress of his summer, and how his father had had him working on their sizeable farmland from the day he had stepped foot off the train. It showed, James noted, as it was clear that Tristan had done more than his fair share of growing over the holidays. Outwards as well as upwards; showing off the beginnings of a solid, well-muscled frame. Someone who might come in very handy should Preston Lynch decide to show his ugly face from time to time.

Clip, as was his wont on these train journeys, had pulled out a book to read and promptly fallen asleep, snoring rather loudly for a boy of such slender build. Fred was having no end of fun poking him with what looked like a long green stick which, every time it touched Clip's clothing, would leave behind a small patch of bright blue fur. Not a half hour had passed before the poor boy looked like a giant blue Pygmy Puff.

Rain looked to be in danger of her head wobbling right off, with the amount of time she spent shaking it, her palm to her forehead.

As they crossed a narrow, rickety-looking wooden bridge that seemed far too old and decrepit to support the weight of the entire train, Fred nudged James slyly in the ribs, a very trademark mischievous look on his face, one hand reaching into that damnable bag of his, which appeared to be purring gently.

'You'll never guess what happened over summer. I have the best news. This year is going to be great. Check this out.'

He began to retrieve what looked like a small pocket notebook from his bag, when the door to their compartment slid open, revealing two more familiar faces.

Fred took one look at who it was that had entered and paled, hastily stuffing the notebook away again.

'Cassie!' James cried, leaping up to give her a hug. He ended up nearly full-body tackling her to the floor, as she buckled slightly under his weight. If anything she seemed to have gotten smaller over the holidays.

'Ugh, James Sirius Potter are we really going to do this for another year? Three syllables. That's all I ask. Cass-ahn-dRain!'

For Cassie had just seen her best friend, and darted through the press to practically flatten her onto the seat.

'Cassandrain.' James grinned, as Holly shuffled in for her turn at a hug. 'I suppose I can manage that.'

He hadn't even seen her bring the Dragon Book into the compartment, but he soon became very acquainted with it as it smacked him repeatedly across the back of the head.

Holly, who had thrown him away with a small 'squee' as soon as Cassie had started advancing, was giggling hysterically in the far corner of the room. A safe distance away. She appeared to be another one doing all the growing, and now stood tall enough to nearly rest her chin on James' head, as Cat could already do.

Fred managed to save James with the Fur Stick, jabbing Cassie once in the stomach and evoking a fit of hysterical shrieks, doubled down with some wild yelling as Clip was awakened and found himself in the same blue predicament.

James tumbled out of the way as Clip leapt for Fred, retribution in his eyes. Cassie had somehow found an even bigger book than the Dragon Book, and was waving it about with a surprising amount of gusto for one so small. He retreated fervently to take a seat in Rain's corner of the compartment, now the lone beacon of calm, as Tristan joined the fray, a great mass of blue hair sprouting from his forehead like some ludicrous unicorn.

The door flew open once more to reveal Kattala Lovegood. She wasted less than a second before gleefully jumping into the melee with a delighted 'whee' and latching on to Tristan's arm, where she was swung wildly about, her hair whipping through the air and slapping James in the face.

Rain nudged his foot gently with her own booted one, and gave him a small, private smile.

'Thanks,' she mouthed.

James grinned despite the blossoming madness in their compartment, and increasing likelihood of something – probably Fred's bag – spontaneously exploding. They were mental, the lot of them, but they were his, and now they were together. He couldn't wait for the year to start.