CHAPTER 25
Walking into class Sirius took out his hair from his face and said "Sleazy Snake alert."
"Sirius…" Remus warned weakly.
"What?" he wolfed sheepishly, staring at the morbid boy at the front of class. "You think I'd do something in Minnie's class? If it wasn't packing night before Christmas she'd have me at detention tonight too."
"I bet Roxanne kicked his arse last night." James commented, glaring at Snape with evident dislike. "Thank Merlin he's not staying this year during Christmas."
"He stays every year Prongs, you know that." Remus said tiredly.
Despite their assurances to Remus they won't attempt anything both James and Sirius took out their wands when he rose and walked to the front of the class.
"Hey!"
"Relax Moony its self defense!" Sirius said.
"Yeah he'll probably pull a quick one after last night." James agreed.
As the three passed near him Sirius said "All right Snivellus?"
Snape turned at once, however unlike the response they were expecting he simply measured them, then seemed as though they weren't worthy of a detention, and left back to his seat.
"Odd." James frowned.
"Strange." Sirius agreed.
"Peculiar"
"Astonishing."
"Unheard of."
"Abnormal."
James was about to say 'atypical' when Remus broke their rounds.
"Er- I don't think Roxanne battled him for the mirror. Otherwise he'd already be shooting hexes." Remus said, taken aback.
"So what?!" James demanded. "He gave it out of the kindness of his heart?"
"You're blocking the way Potter!"
James rolled his eyes and moved aside as Alice and Mary came to the front desk as well, submitting their papers to McGonagall.
"Off to class to be supervised by McGonagall were you?" Alice told them sarcastically as she and Mary passed them.
Unwilling to speak of Peter the three ignored her, taking out their own essays to submit.
As they handed their essays to McGonagall she surveyed them through hawk like eyes, giving James the impression that she could tell they nearly started a fight in her classroom.
Hurrying to their seats Roxanne burst out at them "Where were you three?!"
"Why, miss us?" Sirius asked bitterly.
There was zero chance of any of them telling Roxanne they went to see Peter.
"Just shut up and keep Lily away from me!" she whispered.
"Alright class is starting…" And then all attention was on McGonagall.
"Is it just me or are classes getting harder?" Marlene complained after class was over, as the Gryffindors made their way to Charms.
"It's just you." Sirius told her, and then spent the rest of the walk avoiding Marlene's jinxes.
Bidding Mary and Alice goodbye, they entered Charms class, where Flitwick was already waiting, standing on a stack of books behind his desk.
They spent the class practicing the Patronus Charm. Thankfully, Roxanne's class in her time was at the same materiel schedule.
"Does Hogwarts change its class materials only once a millennium?!" Roxanne whispered to James. So far, all of the classes she attended were at the same pace as hers back home.
"Honestly, it's like they were expecting somebody to time travel or something." he mock whispered back.
She glared at him.
At the end of the class, which was unsuccessful for each and every student, Lily and Marlene had already left to their next class.
Walking to their last class Roxanne was about to tell the guys that Lily may be on to her- or at least suspicious of something. Yet the strangest thing happened. Instead of Lily she said "Brown."
The three guys stared at her.
"Er-" she blushed, surprised. She didn't understand why this was such a big deal for her, why this was itching at her, eating at her, bothering her, on her mind…
"That's adorable; did he strike your fancy?" James smirked, laughing at her pout. Sirius frowned.
"That's not it you idiots." She rolled her eyes. "He's just bothering me."
"He's bothering a lot of people." James shrugged. "Hasn't woken up late once in six years, the bastard."
Ignoring James she said "Like I know him, and yet I'm sure I've never met his before… umm…yeah…" she finished, unsure, mumbling.
The guys looked green.
"What?!" she demanded.
"Please, don't mumble." Remus said.
Sirius looked like he felt a shiver up his spine, and James said "Had enough of that."
Roxanne shrugged. Guys were so strange.
She never met Brown, or saw him, so what was it..?
Crap.
"Roxanne?" Remus asked, confused.
The boys turned around again. Roxanne was pale white.
"You alright?" Remus asked, looking more confused.
Slowly, Roxanne whispered "Lavender… Brown."
"Hu?" Sirius asked.
Without a word Roxanne ran to the nearest bathroom. She entered the first cell she saw and locked the door behind her. She opened the lid and puked. She felt so sick.
Neville's parents, Uncle Harry's parents and Godfather, McKinnon, Teddy's dad, and now Lavender Brown's father. How many more? How many more deaths will she recognize? Note? See? Know? It was making her sick; she kept edging off between accepting and dealing with all of this coolly, and feeling sick to her stomach.
She remembered; her Aunt Hermione once showed her a picture of all her dorm mates during school. There she was- she was really pretty, and she looked the opposite of Roxanne; she had white pale skin and blond wavy hair.
Unlike her Aunt, she looked like a teenager should look like- carefree, happy, if a bit ditzy.
She was killed during the last Hogwarts battle, Aunt Hermione saw her fall from one of the towers all the way down to the grounds, and then mauled by Greyback the werewolf brutally.
She tried to save her, but was too late.
Did this kid she just met will become a father asked to identify his beloved Lavender's body, only eighteen at the time?
It was no secret that Voldemort murdered many wizards as well as muggles during the two wars; perhaps he was already dead by then.
Will she turn a corner at school and just meet another person whose death she's studied? How does one live like that? Or take another step like that?
Someone banged on the door.
"Oi! Open up!" Sirius voice came through the door.
Feeling like this was becoming too dramatic she flushed the toilet and unlocked the door.
Sirius, James, and Remus jumped back a little when she opened the door.
She walked to the sink. Sirius was about to say something but James elbowed him.
She had no idea how she looked like, but she was shaking like mad.
She washed her face, and someone stopped her when she made to the door.
"Are you okay? What's wrong?" James said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
'I didn't need to know that.'
"This is the girls bathroom." She said, avoiding his gaze.
He didn't remove his gaze from hers, probably waiting for a better answer.
Drops of water that didn't dry with the towel slowly fell from her eyelashes, making her eyelids feel heaver.
"It's none of your business okay? Let go of me." She said and brushed off his hand.
James looked offended but didn't try to touch her again. "You gonna go out looking like that we won't be the only ones with questions." He said bluntly.
Remus, who stayed relatively quiet until now, spoke gently- as though not wanting to fire anything up. "Roxanne,"
She winced, he sounded so much like his damn son.
"-is it something to do with the future?"
Not seeing a point in lying, she nodded.
Sirius' eyes widened, but he kept quite.
"Is it something you can't-or don't want to- tell us? Like me and Sirius' future?"
Roxanne felt something heavy on her chest.
"No." her voice was ruff. "It's because shit just got real, I guess." She laughed, but it was obvious she didn't find it funny.
She saw this wasn't making any sense to any of them, but she didn't care. What was she supposed to say? You were all just a bunch of dead people a few days ago? And you will be again a few days later?
She held her head in her arms- she was starting to feel sick again, she let herself slide down to the floor, hoping the cool wall will help her headache.
She heard a movement, guessing someone must have set next to her.
"Hey." It was Sirius.
Roxanne didn't even grace that with a response.
"I don't get it, but it looks like the future isn't all that great even after all the wars are finally over. You can talk to us if you want, no need to keep it all in. we'll forget anyways." He said the last bit very quietly, Roxanne nearly hadn't caught it.
Maybe he wasn't so annoying after all. Loud, yes.
She raised her head and leaned it on the wall. She looked at them. "Thanks. Really. But… It's just something a time-traveler has to deal with. I can't talk about it."
James opened his mouth to say something but Roxanne made up her mind, so she got up and left the loo, without really caring if they followed her or not.
At the end all four were late for their last morning classes by ten minutes.
After the last class ended, James found himself walking to lunch by himself when he caught auburn flowing near him.
"Hey James."
James looked at Lily, who was standing rather closer to him than usual.
He swallowed. "Er- hey?" it's only on rare occasions that James gets to be called by his first name by her- and it's also very recent. Afraid to mess this progress, he did his best to speak normally and not nervously, which turns quickly to rude.
Lily didn't seem to notice how hard he was trying to look at her eyes- and only her eyes.
"Can we talk for a minute alone?"
'We can talk forever alone.'
"Sure. What do you need?"
Lily dragged him off to an empty corridor, so they could talk privately. When she was sure no one was listening, she took a deep breath and began.
"Listen…is Roxanne really your cousin?"
"You want to talk about Roxanne?" James hoped he didn't sound too disappointed. "Eh, yeah. You can say she's family in a far away sort of… way."
James hoped to get her bored of the subject by mumbling nonsense; but Lily seemed strangely interested.
"You never mentioned you had a cousin."
'Is she serious?'
"You never asked Lily." James said, starting to feel angry, ignoring the little butterfly in his stomach as he called her name.
Lily looked a bit embarrassed now. "Oh. That's true… sorry."
"Can I ask a question now?"
Lily looked relived. "Yes! Of course!"
"What are we? I mean I don't think you still hate me-"
"I don't hate you James." She said softly.
"But we still pretend to fight all the time. So are we at least friends?"
"James after all these years together, of course we're friends!" Lily looked surprised by James' words, and partly insulted. "I mean, during the attack I was really worried-about all three of you! I was so relieved when you called out my name and I saw all of you were okay…I know that you guys are really nice people, underneath-well- underneath a lot of layers. "
"As nice as that is to hear," James said quietly, getting a little closer to her, like she had done earlier. "I didn't ask about all of us Lily."
Lily didn't step back, but she sighed deeply. "I know. But I need some time. I like this, where we are right now. I mean, things used to be so bad between us; but now we're getting along, you now?"
James remembered how bad things used to be perfectly. It was difficult to forget- it lost them the house cup plenty of times, and the girls and guys would just scream at each other all the time.
"Look, after seven years, I'm finally starting to get to know you. I'm asking you to give me time to see how I feel. Because right now, I'm sorry, I don't want to change things. We're seventh years James! Once we're out of Hogwarts we're going to need each other. I mean, the war is just a few months a-away… I don't want our group to be down to just girls and just guys again. We're stronger together. And I'm not planning on changing anything until I can be sure that it won't affect that."
James hated that he couldn't dispute anything she just said- because as always, Lily was right. But he's been waiting for seven years.
After a few minutes of silence, he said "Take all the time you need Lils." And he left.
-END CH.25-