Laughter and many muddled voices filled the air in the halls of Hogwarts as Amity Lawson sat beside her best friend, Lissette Dumas, against the stone wall outside of the Great Hall. It was their first day back; first day of fifth year. Amity was nervously raking through her bag looking for her new quill.
"Am, calm down! It'll show up, and if it doesn't, you can borrow one of mine." Lisette happily waved a bright orange quill in Amity's face, causing her brown hair to fan over her eyes.
Amity huffed at her friend and shut her bag. "Fine. I just don't need this kind of..." what was the word... "omen on my first day of classes." How could someone neglect to put their quill in their bag on the first day of classes? It had to be a bad sign.
Lisette laughed. "Omen? Really? I swear, Am, it's not a big deal!"
Lisette continued to ramble on about Amity's lack of problems as she twirled a luscious blond curl over and over. To be fair, Amity knew that Lissette was right, but she was still upset. Her mother, a muggle, had purchased the quill for her in a specialty shop and Amity loved the small gift. She sighed as she began to pay less and less attention to Lissette. Her mind wandered all around with no apparent destination. She thought about Potions class, what would be for lunch, what they'd study in Herbology, when she would see...
And there he was. Amity's heart fluttered and her breathing became irregular. She brushed a clump of stray hair away from her eyes and tried to look casual. A group of sixth year Gryffindors was sauntering by, and HE was with them. Of course he was. All summer Amity had day dreamed about this moment - the moment when she would speak to him. She would say hello to Sirius Black.
Only she didn't. She stared at him as he strutted past, laughing with James Potter, but she said nothing.
"Hello! Amity!" Lissette's voice snapped Amity back to her senses. "I was saying that James Potter was looking rather nice..."
"Oh," Amity stammered, "right. Well of course I only noticed him because he was talking with Sirius..."
Lissette laughed and let out a squeal. "I had forgotten you had a thing for Sirius! You know, he's way better than that Hufflepuff. Archer? Yeah. He was cute, but he was not very interesting." Truthfully, Amity had loved Sirius since her first day at Hogwarts, but she had not told her friend until the end of last year about her interest. Sure, the Hufflepuff was nice looking, but he was no Sirius Black and Amity certainly never held any real feelings toward him. He had asked her to join him in Hogsmeade for a butterbeer and she had agreed. Lissette and the other girls in their year made a big fuss over the two, but Amity was only ever interested in Sirius. As were most girls at Hogwarts.
Amity rolled her eyes and pulled herself up from the floor, and as she did, the pearly white quill slipped out of the pocket inside her robes. She let out a relieved sigh as she reached to pick up the trouble causing quill, then joined the flow of students walking hastily to their first lessons. Lissette followed suit and they made their way towards the Potions classroom with the other fifth year Ravenclaws.
"Wonder what Slughorn has for us," she mused as they walked together. As Lissette rambled on about love potions, Amity's mind went back to Sirius Black. He would never notice her, the brown-haired, blue-eyed Ravenclaw, but she could always hope. She could always hope that her path would cross his. Then she could say hello. Then, she realized, she would possibly find out new ways to mess up a simple hello. She quickly shook the thought from her mind and decided that she would concentrate on one thing this year - schoolwork.
