Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series, despite what I may want. Any of the characters you don't recognize are mine. Anything you do recognize belongs to JK Rowling!
"Amelia?" I heard the familiar voice say, but I kept my eyes closed for one more moment of peace. "Wow, it is you. Where the hell have you been?"
I was sitting on the Hogwarts Express, just a few hours away from beginning my final year of education, with my back against the cushioned chair and my legs sprawled out across the seat.
"Home-schooling," I admitted, rather reluctantly, opening my eyes at the same time. "How are you, Roxy?"
I took my legs down from the seat and placed my feet on the floor but made no move to stand up, I placed my hands in my lap just as I opened my eyes, looking at the girl that stood in front of me.
Roxy seemed to be dumb-founded. In my humble opinion, this was understandable – she hadn't seen me in about a year and a half. She also hadn't heard from me in the same amount of time, for which I felt quite guilty but ic'est la vie/i.
"Are you seriously going to play it like that? I haven't seen you in, what, like, two years and all I get is a 'how are you, Roxy?'" She spoke with anger below the surface of her voice, complete with an awful impression of yours truly.
"It's been eighteen months Roxy, I left half way through fifth year," I said this slowly, trying to pacify the angry seventeen-year old Weasley.
"Why?"
It was possibly the worst thing she could have asked me, and one of the only questions I was not willing to answer truthfully. I closed my eyes for a long moment, partly hoping that Roxanne would leave, but the other part was begging her to just forgive me and sit down beside me as if nothing had happened.
She did neither.
"Why, Amelia?" Roxanne asked, her anger slightly dissipating. I'm assuming this was due to the emotions that were visible through my actions. They always seem to be; when it comes to me, people could always read me like a book.
"I couldn't deal with it." I began, closing my eyes again for fear of the look on my best friend's face. "It was all just too much, just one thing after another and you know what I was like at the end there…"
My voice trailed off with all of the things I couldn't say, but that I hoped Roxanne would try to understand. My eyes were still closed, and I was unwilling to let any of my tears fall. I had not expected it to be so emotional when I came back to Hogwarts and this was just the first hour of the journey to the great Scottish castle. It definitely seemed like this was going to be a hard year.
And then everything was okay because Roxanne's arms were around my back, pulling me into a tight embrace. I hadn't realised how much I missed the girl in front of me until I was standing up and my arms were around her too, pulling her tightly against me. We both knew that I was keeping things from her, things that she wanted to know, but it was okay because we were best friends and that means we stick together through it all.
"I've missed you, Dubois," she whispered softly to me
"Right back at you, Weasley."
We were both crying when we pulled a part, and we each looked a right state. I laughed at Roxy, and she laughed back, albeit a bit shakily. I wiped under her eyes, wiping away her tears and some smeared mascara, and then did the same to myself.
"We look like complete eejits," Roxanne said with a wink; nothing like bringing up an old inside joke to remind us of how close we were. "I'm going to go and get my trunk from my compartment and then I'll come and catch you up with everything that's been happening in the past two years. Scratch that, eighteen months."
I nodded and sniffled, going to my bag and pulling out my packet of tissues and wiping up my face completely. I threw a tissue at Roxanne and spoke up just as she opened the door to the compartment. "Rox, please don't tell anyone yet. I don't want him to know I'm back." She sent me a meaningful look and I replied, "Not until the last possible moment. I have a lot of explaining to do and I'm not ready to face him"
She nodded and exited the compartment.
I flicked my wand to close the door behind her and turned back to my bag. It had all of the necessities; I was fully prepared for whatever should arise. It was in my nature now to expect the unexpected, more so than it had been before. Which, to be fair, it was. Although, I do think it is a quality that many a Ravenclaw possesses. After all, we are a fairly intelligent bunch, are we not?
I waited patiently for my friend's return, lifting my knees up to my chest and then stretching them out across my seat, pulling my bag back onto my lap. This bag contained pretty much all of my worldly possessions that were not packed in my trunk and not school-related. I had my favourite book, uThe Great Gatsby/u, my classic magipod, my magiphone, my drawing pad and my photograph frame, containing around a thousand of the images most important to me and most importantly, my wand (11 inch, walnut with hippogriff feather).
"Okay, so can I tell Alexis that you're back?" Roxanne said as she put her trunk overhead. With one curt nod from me, she was off to find the last part of our trio. I assumed that they were still best friends, even in my absence, as we had all shared a dormitory for our five first years at Hogwarts.
Roxanne's placement caused a ruckus in the great hall when she was sorted into Ravenclaw and not Gryffindor. She was one of the first to deviate from the ordinary, but many of her cousins have followed in her footsteps and gone away from the 'Weasley Way'.
"Goodness, gracious me," I heard Alexis's voice before I saw her. I noted at this moment that she still refused to swear, unlike most our age. "We've missed you so much, Sweets. Where have you been? Are you back for good? Are you having to go into fifth year?"
The last question was joined by a sour expression from the girl before me, understandably. I let out a laugh and jumped up to hug Alexis, already feeling more comfortable back on the Hogwarts Express. I couldn't help but think that I could have used this pair's help over the past eighteen months. Roxanne joined our hug for a moment before snorting with laughter and sitting down on one of the seats. Alexis joined her and I sat opposite them. Alexis stared at me expectantly, waiting for me to answer her questions, I presumed.
"Erm, well, I was home-schooled for the past eighteen months," I began, "So I'm all up to date and I did my OWLs a month after I left, so I'm doing the NEWTs at the end of the year with you. I've been living on my own ever since my dad… you know. So I have my own flat outside of Glasgow now."
I watched their faces as they took in my words, nodding along to my story.
"Oh, wait. That was more of a half-truth. I have a flat outside of Glasgow and I just bought one in Hogsmeade. I'm going to be staying there for a week every month and Matt and Jacob are living there just now. I'm letting my aunt, Marie (do you remember her?)" they both nodded, so I continued, "live in the one in Scotland until she gets back on her feet. I'm sure you've heard about my uncle?"
"Yeah, we would've called, or written, but we hadn't had any contact so…" Alexis realised this was a touchy subject only after what I'm sure was a wince on my part.
"Wait. Why are you living there for a week every month?" Roxanne cut across.
"The same reason I left eighteen months ago," I replied shortly. It was the truth, it was just that we both thought that it entailed something different.
Roxanne thought it meant that I had trouble dealing with my father's death, which was partly true. But it was so much more than that.
Author's Note: If you're reading this then I love you. It probably means that you read this whole chapter. OR you're one of those people who skip to the end before they start reading something. Either way, thanks for being intrigued/interested enough to click on my story. Let me know what you think!
C'est la vie: that's life.