Chapter 2:
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine. Obviously.
Two months earlier
"Eli."
"No."
"Eli, get up."
"Burn in hell."
"Test me, I dare you. I've been dying to check out this wicked hex that makes you feel like you're upside down, that ought to be a laugh-"
"I'm coming, I'm coming, calm down!"
Eli Martin sat up, groaning. Stretching, he grabbed a white t-shirt and slipped it on. He was rather beautiful, was Eli, what with his sculpted face reeking of aristocracy and his dark hair falling in his eyes, eyes the color of fourteen-carat gold.
"Let's go to breakfast."
"I'm coming! Merlin Eddie, is there an emergency?"
"Ah, stuff it, Plato."
Eli laughed. Shaking his head, he followed his friend. Edward Trudeau could be his brother, with a similarly royal-looking face and sandy hair as thick and untamed as his friend's dark locks. His deep sea green eyes were still heavy with sleep. He clapped Eli on the back and gave a sadistic grin.
"Aren't you glad to be up this early?" His friend laughed as they stepped out of the common room, making the long trek down to breakfast.
The only answer was a groan and a muttered expletive in French.
Then Eli gave an even more terrifying grin.
"Did you do the Transfiguration essay? Eight inches on the principle of transfiguring inanimate objects into living things?"
"Oh, bloody hell!" The loud curse caused many younger students' heads to turn. Eddie winced. Many of the students laughed. Eddie was pretty well-known as an excellent tutor and overall nice guy, but they knew he was never at his best on Monday mornings, despite his seemingly chipper attitude.
Eli grinned. "Thought not."
...
"Get up, Grace."
Grace McCarthy jumped up as the voice of her friend cut through her sleepy daze. "I'm up."
Grace was rather beautiful too, really, with curly dark red tresses falling in a curtain down her back, silvery grey eyes dark and murky with weariness and stress.
She stretched and smiled as she saw the familiar face of Dominique Weasley as the other girl brushed her straight blond hair. Dominique had inherited the Veela blood from her mother, and most boys swooned when she smiled their way.
Most.
Excluding, of course, the one boy that had captured her eye. Thomas Finnigan.
Named after his father's best friend, Thomas had dark hair like his father and heterochromatic eyes like his mother, one a glittering hazel and the other a deep brown; he was a Ravenclaw, a sixth year like her, and a very good friend of the Weasley-Potter clan.
Thomas also happened to be one of perhaps three boys besides Dominique's family that was completely unaffected by her charms, the others quite fittingly being Eli and Eddie.
A pillow smacked Grace in the face as another of her roommates, Roxanne Weasley, attempted to get her attention.
"What?" Grace blinked.
"I said, hurry up. I need breakfast, it's Monday."
...
James Sirius Potter strolled into the Great Hall with one arm around Eli's shoulders, the other around Eddie's.
The strong, intimidating woman that sat at the head of the table that faced the four houses was suddenly hit with a wave of rather painful memories: memories of another messy-haired boy with glasses, who befriended another thin, sandy-haired, brilliant boy and another handsome, dark-haired Pureblood rebel. She smiled, eyes glistening, as she remembered the boys that had truly left the largest imprint on her of any students that she had taught. They died far too soon. They had so much more to give.
She wondered what it would be like if they sat with her, grey-haired and lined now, watching the boys that looked so much like them laugh and throw food at each other, reminiscing of their own Hogwarts days and each planning their own classes, joking with their favorite teacher, old Minnie McG.
A/N: So I felt like posting this along with another Unexpected Turn chapter because I couldn't stand keeping this parallel to myself anymore. That last part was uncalled for and probably just plain rude, I know. But what can I say? Salt in the thirty-six and a half year old wound.