A/N: ANOTHER MARAUDER ERA FIC WHAT IS SHE THINKING? I know. I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. Please forgive me and just enjoy the damn story, okay? ;) Love you guys. BTW, add me on Pottermore, seriously, I'm PixieAsh14915. HUFFLEPUFF POWER! (Although all my besties are Ravenclaws, so y'all get a shoutout toooo!) This starts in Susanna's POV.

-J

I chewed nervously on my lip, actually peeling away the dead layers of skin with my teeth and rubbing the skin cells between my teeth as I thought. Leah would be awake soon. Then we would pack up the car for her final year at Hogwarts.

I knew that in a lot of ways she was really looking forward to it. Gryffindor was apparently primed to take the Quidditch Cup for the sixth year in a row, third year under the direction of Captain James Potter, and she was one step closer to her dream of going into Healing.

Of course, it was a highly competitive field, like Aurors, taking one or two of the most promising students from each class.

Leah was good, but her class was one of the best ones Hogwarts had ever seen. She was likely to be competing for a spot in the program with James Potter himself.

In all honesty, while Leah was amazing a much of what she did, it wasn't just the multitude of magical geniuses in her own year that frustrated her, and I knew it. Being my sister wasn't fun.

Ever since I was born, literally as I was coming out of the womb, I was doing magic. I actually saved myself from choking on my own chord and then cleaned myself off and the Healers who delivered me were shocked. Apparently nothing like it had been seen in over a hundred years… Albus Dumbledore, in fact.

So it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that I was difficult to have as a younger sister. Leah wasn't a prefect, Lily Evans beat her to it. In any other year she would have been, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I was, though, and my parents were so proud they actually threw me a party, which they hadn't even done when Leah made the Quidditch team, and she's one of the best Beaters I've ever seen. My parents weren't playing favorites. Not consciously. They would have done the same if she'd been a prefect and I'd made a Quidditch team, but it just so happened that she didn't and I had no athletic interest whatsoever beyond spectatorship.

We were less than a year apart, too, so she never really got to appreciate her brief period as an only child. Literally less than a month after our mother had her, I was conceived. She doesn't even remember me not being there.

I was sitting up, starring at the wall across from my bed, wondering if she was still sleeping. One might think I was waiting for Christmas or something, but I could never sleep the night before travelling, especially on the train, and it drove my family absolutely up the wall.

I checked my clock. Half an hour until I was supposed to be awake. Unable to stand it anymore, I climbed out of bed, careful not to make too much noise and purposefully not turning on my light, I tiptoed across the room to my closet, trying to remember the weather report as I searched for something to wear. Sunny? Yes, I thought it was actually supposed to be a nice day in Scotland for a change. I pulled out a light blue sundress and pulled it onto my body.

It looked good, I decided in the dim light of my bedroom. Really good. It was one of my favorite dresses.

But then, this was the first day of Leah's last year. She ought to be the prettiest girl on the platform, and since Lily Evans was going to win that contest no matter what, the least I could do was make sure she was the prettiest Papp girl on the platform. I was not going to be that bridesmaid trying to outshine the bride. Tucking the dress carefully in my trunk for another day, I went through some of my older clothes from back when I absolutely no fashion sense.

Baggy jeans, a threadbare Sex Pistols tee, and I tossed my perfectly brushed hair (for what else was I going to do all night?) into a messy bun and daubed on some foundation, a bit of lip gloss, mascara, eyeliner, and just a hint of gunmetal eye shadow. Then I stepped back from the mirror.

This was the sort of look I would have done back in my O.W.L. years, back before I cared what I looked like, and my mother had always told me I looked absurd. Maybe she was wrong or maybe I had grown into it finally, but I couldn't help cursing when I looked at my reflection and realized that it had done nothing to make me uglier. Hastily, I washed away the makeup and daubed on a bit of foundation, slicked on some lip balm, and didn't even bother with eye makeup, hoping it would make me look washed out.

A little worse, but not worse enough.

"Damn it, Suzy," I hissed at my reflection. "Why can't you be ugly like you used to be? God, even hiding the curves. No," I said firmly. "There's nothing for it. I'll just have to force Leah to let me do her makeup this morning. It's the only way to compensate for my lack of ability to be ugly."

Leah had long said that I didn't even need a wand to do magic if I had even the simplest Muggle makeup kit, and I was always very proud of the fact. Ever since I was twelve (when I first started breaking out and needing foundation) I had been working on the art of makeup and making it look as fun, interesting, and fresh as possible. Professor McGonagall hadn't always been a fan of my artistic expression, and Professor Sprout finally helped me navigate the waters of when was an appropriate time to flex my artistic skills and when I should stick to more traditional uses for makeup.

Apparently using Muggle makeup to create fake injuries isn't appropriate in the middle of the Halloween feast. My housemate, Catrina Landau, had said it was "hilarious" and "brilliant" but nobody with much authority seemed to think so, so I was forced to wash it off and return to the feast when I had done so.

"Suzy?" Leah said, knocking on the door. "I know you're awake. Can I come in? I need help deciding what to wear."

I sighed.

"Yeah, sure, it's unlocked," I said dismissively, crossing my room to find a pair of trainers.

Leah came in carrying a few outfits, eyes still bleary with sleep, blinking down at me.

"Why are you dressed like that?"

"Felt like it."

Leah frowned, suspicious, but she didn't ask any more questions. She probably knew exactly why I was dressed the way I was and had too much pride to thank me but not enough pride to make me change into something more flattering.

"Let's see what you've got, then," I said quickly crossing over to her and pulling the clothes out of her arms. Not bad choices, all. There was one dress in particular that I adored on her, a white number that managed to make her look angelic rather than just washed out. It also fell at a flattering part of her calf. Leah was very pretty, but she had a Beater's figure, and that just wasn't in fashion. Truly, I envied her strength and the way she just didn't seem to care, but I worked hard to be as thin as I could manage without doing anything crazy. It was one of the many reasons I had not followed her advice and tried out for Quidditch. My own legs weren't naturally as lean as I had managed to keep them, and there was no way I was going to let flying drag me off course, as much as I knew my father would have loved to have both of his girls be Quidditch players.

Besides, deep down I didn't want to constantly lose to my sister, and there was no way I would be able to block James Potter. It was bad enough Hufflepuff lost the House Cup every year. Thankfully, my parents understood this quite well. It's not that Hufflepuffs aren't incredibly capable, it's that the Gryffindors lately have been so incredibly capable it puts my poor house to shame.

"Put it on, then," I said, holding out the white dress. "Let me do your hair and makeup today?"

She sighed.

"Do we have to do my hair? It's not like it's a wedding or something."

I sighed.

"Fine, we'll put it up, then. I'll do your makeup how you like it, okay?"

"Sure."

I looked in the mirror when Leah left the room. My mother wouldn't be pleased, but Leah seemed grateful, in her little way, and that was the important thing.

She came back in and brushed her hair as I began to do her makeup, giving her the dewy, fresh look that made her look like fairy princess, or at least, that was what our mother said whenever I did it. It was my favorite look for her and she thanked me, dropping down onto my bed and looking around the room.

"This is the last time we get to do this together," she said sadly.

I nodded.

"Can I ask you a question?" she sighed.

"Absolutely."

"Do you have a crush on Remus?"

There was no point in trying to hide my blush. I knew Leah had seen it from the smirk on her face. Was I that obvious?

"How did you know?" I whispered, trying not to be too embarrassed. After all, Leah knew things about me nobody else did. She was my sister, after all. Her figuring out my deepest secret was no guarantee anyone else had.

"Oh, I didn't," she said casually. "Sirius keeps saying, 'Remus goes on and on about how smart Susanna is, which is Remus-Speak for wanting to shag her brains out, of course.' And I was curious if you returned the sentiment."

My eyes widened, shocked. Had he really said that? Did it really mean that? Did I really want that? I certainly found Remus to be handsome, intriguing, but… but… shagging? I'd only kissed my last boyfriend twice. Granted, I'd been thirteen and it lasted a week, but still. Perhaps this was Sirius Black elaborating on things that weren't quite as intense as he seemed to think they were.

But then, perhaps he was right.

I could feel a bit of the flirtatious beast my last attempted conquest had killed rearing up in me again, and I knew it was going to be an interesting train ride.

Betsy would join me, of course. She'd had a thing for Sirius for as long as anyone could remember, and if she was coming with, That meant Brigitta and Iris would either avoid the Marauders on their own or come along for the ride, reluctant though they would be. Brigitta had her boyfriend, so maybe she would be busy with him, and there was a rumor that Iris had started seeing somebody over the holiday.

I had been trying hard not to be bitter about my friends having someone and me not, but it was a lot easier not to be bitter when I had the prospect of a chase in front of me. I had to remember to thank Sirius if I ever caught my prey.

"I'm hungry," I sighed, falling back on the bed. "When will they announce breakfast already?"

"When it's breakfast time, idiot," Leah replied, rolling her eyes, and swatting me playfully. I swatted back and we laughed.

"Breakfast!" called our father's voice, and we laughed again, racing each other downstairs to the kitchen where our mother was setting out plates of eggs, sausages and toast.

"You look lovely, Leah," she said, and then she turned to me and sighed. "Suzy, is that really what you want to wear your first day back? It's not very flattering."

"At least it matches," Leah teased, winking at me.

"Everything matches jeans," my father said with a laugh, "even I know that."

Everyone laughed. Our father was colorblind and sometimes he came up with some… interesting outfits, if left to his own devices.

"Are you packed?" our mother asked. "You didn't leave anything for this morning again?"

"No," I said honestly, "but that doesn't mean I've remembered everything."

Leah loved to tease me because despite the fact that I spent all night packing and checking and repacking and rechecking, I always managed to forget something, and usually something important. Once we went on a weekend trip to Germany to visit family and I actually forgot to bring any nightclothes, so I had to borrow some of hers. It wasn't a catastrophe, but there was always something. Our poor owl spent half its trips bringing me things I'd left at home by accident.

"Is Mattia Head Girl?" our mother asked, pouring herself some tea. "You didn't mention if she said in her letter."

"Probably not," Leah said nonchalantly. "She didn't say she was, and I'd be a bit surprised if somebody beat Lily Evans to Head Girl. The real question is who's Head Boy? I can't decide if it'll be Remus or Claude."

"Maybe it'll be Constantin," I said with a smirk, watching Leah almost drop her toast at the mention of the boy she had been secretly seeing for nearly a year.

Why secretly? Partly because our father was only slightly joking when he said we couldn't date until we were married… Actually, his exact words were that Leah couldn't date until she'd gotten her Apparition license (which will probably be never) and I'm not allowed to date until Leah's married, so technically, according to prior regulation… never. So we've been dating behind our father's back for years, although usually our mother figures it out and then pretends ignorance.

The other reason is because Leah is best friends with Sirius Black, and there's little Sirius hates more than Slytherins and Snape, and as one can probably guess, Constantin is the Slytherin prefect and a close friend of Severus Snape. Needless to say, if Sirius ever found out there would be a minor disaster.

My father looked up at the clock.

"All right, girls, hurry up! It's going to be time to go soon, and we don't want you to be late. Are your trunks at the foot of your beds and ready to go?"

"Yes," we said together, quickly shoveling eggs down our throats and buttering several slices of toast to go.

"All right, finish your tea while I get them in the car and then we're leaving."

I quickly stirred a bit more milk into my tea than usual so that it would cool fast enough for me to simply pour it down my throat and saw Leah pouring spoonful after spoonful of sugar into hers before doing the same, and she normally never put milk in hers. We wrapped our buttered toast in napkins when we saw our father taking our trunks downstairs and out to the car, grabbed our coats, wands, and shoes and scrambled out the door after him. Our mother followed close behind, locking the door with a quick tap of her wand.

We climbed into the car as our father slammed the trunk, Leah and I crunching on our toast as we curled our legs underneath us and began merrily chattering about who we thought would be wearing what, what sort of shape various Quidditch players would have let themselves fall into over the summer, and most importantly, who was going to be Head Boy? It was a long drive from Leeds to King's Cross, but our father didn't like us taking the train all the way down and then all the way back up, and preferred dropping us off himself.

"Mum," I whined when we were halfway there, as I well knew, "how long until we get there?"

Our mother didn't even bother answering, just sighing exasperated.

"Suzy, why can't it be your last year instead?" our father said, surprisingly good-natured. "Leah was never this much trouble, even asked to carry her own trunk as a first year even though it weighed twice what she did."

"Because, Daddy," I whined, "I still have another long year to go after she's done. It's not my fault Mum couldn't just have both of us at once and call it a day!"

We all laughed.

It was the most common joke concerning Leah and myself, who were more like twins than just sisters in so many ways. Even though we were very different in our habits and our ways, we were hardly ever apart from each other, and Mattia Holmwood, a Ravenclaw prefect in Leah's year who was one of the best friends a person could have. We would spend nights together in the Gryffindor common room reading to each other, gossiping, doing each other's hair, and just generally avoiding our homework until Mattia insisted that we get down to work.

Finally, as always, I grew too bored to socialize, even with Leah, and I pulled out a book Professor Sprout had loaned me on the use of Runes in Herbology. It wasn't the most interesting text, but I knew she would quiz me on it, and I didn't want to be caught unawares. Over the top of the pages I saw Leah pull out the book Lily Evans had given her on the uses of Runes in Transfiguration. Like myself, Runes was Leah's best class and she framed everything she did through that lens.

Sisters, indeed.