February 28th: A Deceptive Ending
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February 28th: Away - Alas, my friends, February Prompts are at an end. Our heroes worn, their lives wartorn, mayhaps to mourn, or make some porn, they walk away this morn'. Leave the "camera" for this in one place as they walk away from it.
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They undressed, slowly, from their school robes for the final time. When they were done, they sat in silence, the train chugging beneath them. The three of them—Dave, Aaron, and Emily—leaving Hogwarts how they'd entered it.
Together.
"Almost feels like we should be kicking a couple of Slytherins' arses," Emily said cheekily, flipping a familiar Ravenclaw scarf around her throat and slipping onto the seat by Aaron's side. He wrapped an arm around her, drew her close and inhaled the scent of her silky hair. "How things change…"
Dave said nothing, just hummed and looked out of the window, looking wistfully back towards where their castle school stood. Seventh year over. They were graduated.
The door thumped over, startling them, and people poured in.
"Is this where you lot are!" barked Derek, his arms full of bottles. "Oi, I flogged some butterbeer and smuggled it on. Come on, celebration time!"
Penelope and JJ just laughed, both taking a squished seat on either side of Aaron and Emily, mushing them all together. Behind them, Spencer slunk in with his face a dozy kind of toothy grin, his wand in his hand. Aaron eyed it, the intricately lined wood with the intersecting etches carved shallowly into it. The wolf that bounded alongside the hare, the owl's outstretched wing covering them both. The cat that ran ahead of the wolf but glanced back to it. Still hawthorn, at its heart, but not lonely anymore.
When he touched it now, since their experimental spell, the wand loved. And—just like they'd all known he would—Spencer excelled now that his wand allowed him to do so.
Things did change. Sometimes for the better.
In the train, together, Aaron knew this to be absolutely true. Far behind them, standing strong despite all the forces in the past that had ranged against it, Hogwarts settled back into a quiet, empty summer. No smoke drifted from the chimneys, no students darted past the windows or ate in the great hall or strolled the grounds. The silent surface of the lake broke once, a lazy tentacle seemingly flicking a weary goodbye at the receding train, and then slipped below the surface.
And time continued passing.
