The summer before fourth year I received an owl from James telling me that Sirius was now living at his house. I resolved to save up to buy an owl so I could write to them. In the last week of August I did buy a small barn owl in Diagon alley. I'd had the owl a total of two days when it decided to develop the annoying habit of nibbling on my ear. Gen thought that was funny, which I suppose helped alleviate some of her jealousy since I had an owl and she didn't.
Now I think back on it that was probably my least eventful year at Hogwarts. We won the Quiditch cup again for the fourth year in a row, which if anything made the Slytherins hate us even more. Slytherin won the house cup this year, which made them insufferable for the last week of school.
"We've got to win that house cup next year," said Sirius on the train ride home.
"Yeah, especially since it's our last year," said James.
"If you guys didn't get in trouble so often and get house points taken off we'd win the house cup," Gen pointed out.
"Aww come on," said James, "you're worse then Remus."
"Leave me out of this," Remus muttered. He was leaning against the window and looked ill. Then again tonight was a full moon and he always disappeared when there were full moons, which lead me to believe he was a werewolf. The thing I couldn't figure out was the other three always went with him and returned fine which was impossible. But it gave me a problem to try to find an answer to over the summer.
By the end of summer vacation I thought I had the answer, a seemingly impossible answer, but an answer none the less; James, Sirius and Peter were Animagus'. Seemingly impossible because becoming an Animagus was strictly controlled by the ministry, and was also very hard, but not impossible because James and Sirius were two of the best and brightest students in the school. I planned to get up early after the first full moon to catch them coming in so I could ask.
Gen was worried because this was OWL's year. Personally I wasn't too concerned, exams are all overrated anyways. Thought part of my lack of concern probably came from the fact that I aced most of my classes with very little effort.
I still clearly remember getting up early the morning after the first full moon and tiptoeing down the stairs so I didn't wake anyone else. I didn't have to wait long in the common room before the four of them scrambled though the portrait hole.
"So you're back," I said.
They all jumped.
"Hey," James said looking nervous.
"How long have you three been Animagus' for?" I asked.
They looked shocked.
"How did you know?" Peter blurted out.
"More importantly how long have you known?" Remus asked.
"I've known you're a werewolf for about a year now," I told him. "But I've only known you three are Animagus' for a couple months."
"You're not going to tell anyone, are you?" Remus asked.
"Why would I?"
He shrugged, "I don't know."
"Relax, your secrets safe with me. I'd just like to know why you didn't tell me sooner." I looked at Sirius as I said this and he looked at his feet.
"Err…" said James, but he was saved from answering by the arrival of a few other students in the common room.
I never did find out the reason though by the end of the year I'd decided I'd rather not know.
We were down by the lake after exams when it started dawning on me that Sirius, James and them wouldn't be here next year. James was sitting a few feet away from us with Lily – who had finally agreed to go out with him, and much to everyone's surprise they'd been together almost the entire year – Remus was sitting against a tree with his nose buried in a book, which was hardly unusual and Peter was pulling up the grass looking bored. That's when it occurred to me that I hadn't seen Gen since we'd finished our last exam this morning.
"Hey guys, has anyone seen Gen?"
"Not recently," Remus said looking up from his book. "Why?"
"I haven't seen her since we finished the exam and I was wondering where she was."
"Apparently over there," said James pointing towards the Forbidden Forest. "With Snivellus."
I sat up and looked, sure enough he was right.
"What's she doing with him?" Sirius asked.
"No clue," I muttered.
"Ruth, tell your friend that I'm offended she'd rather spend time with that grease ball then us," said James.
"Ha ha, funny," I replied. Truthfully I was shocked to see her with him, the only time I knew they'd spoken to one another was when he'd taught our potions class for a week because Professor Tragally had to go somewhere. Strangely enough he'd actually helped her make her potions. I'd ignored him for the entire week, I certainly didn't need help – not that he'd have helped me anyways given that I was Sirius' girlfriend – and I certainly wasn't going to try to have a conversation with him. Regulus on the other hand, had loved having Snivellus teach us since they shared a common hatred for his brother, which just discouraged me further from trying to have a conversation with him.
Though thinking back on it there had been times when Gen hadn't been with the rest of us and I simply hadn't thought anything of it because last year there had been times when she hadn't been with us but instead hung around with Lily. This year Lily had been with us so who knew where Gen had been.
Much to Sirius' and James' delight Griffendor won both the Quiditch cup and the house cup this year. This called for a massive party in the common room on the final night and was the reason it seemed that all the Griffendors were sleeping on the train ride home.
I wasn't quite sure what to say to Sirius as we stood there on platform 9 ¾ suddenly he reached into his pocket and pulled out a necklace with a silver key attached to it.
"Here," he said putting it around my neck. "I know you hate rings so I figured I'd get you this instead. I'll be waiting for you when you get out of Hogwarts, I promise."
I pulled him into a kiss.
"Grosse," Regulus exclaimed. And just because he could Sirius hexed him.
Halfway through the summer I received a letter with my OWL results. I'd got six, outstanding in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfigeration, Charms and Potions and exceeds expectations in Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology. I'd received poor in both Divination and History of Magic, which was not really a surprise.
Gen only got three owls, outstanding in Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology and acceptable in Defence Against the Dark Arts. She'd received poor in everything else except Potions where she'd got dreadful.
I was promoted to captain of the Quiditch team and after assessing the new talent I picked two new chasers and I moved into the seeker position since we didn't have anyone good enough to take over the position of seeker now James was gone. Truthfully I had a lot to live up to since James had been team captain for the past two years and we had simply slaughtered every other house team, even Slytherin with their superior brooms.
The team got off to a rough start in the game against Slytherin and truthfully the only reason we won was because I beat Regulus to the snitch.
The schoolwork had only gotten harder now I was past fifth year. Since we had to have passed our OWLs to get into the classes the teachers forced more work on us at a faster pace, the more classes you'd passed the heavier and harder the work load was.
"How do you do it?" Gen asked me one night. "I mean I'm barely surviving my three classes and you're handling six no problem."
No problem was probably the understatement of the year since I often let my Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures homework slide until the last possible moment so as a result I wasn't doing nearly as well as I could have in them. "Natural skill," I told Gen, which wasn't entirely untrue since that was what allowed me to handle the practical part of the courses so at least I didn't have to practise the spells and could just do the reading.
Personally I had never been quite so relived to have Christmas come for the two-week breather so I could catch up on sleep. Coming out on the other side of Christmas, however, end of year exams and Quiditch only looked closer.
From the moment the snow melted I had the Quiditch team out on the pitch practising and it paid off because we swept both Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw to give the Quiditch cup for the seventh year in a row. If we got it next year we'd set a record in the school for the house team who had won the Quiditch cup the most consecutive times. Seeing as we'd have the same team back next year I didn't see why we wouldn't set a new record. The Slytherins, on the other hand, were furious because up until now it had been their undisputed record.
"We're going to do it," I enthused to Gen. "And prove once and for all that Griffendor is better then Slytherin will ever be."
"It's a year off," Gen pointed out. "We have NEWT's to worry about first."
I rolled my eyes, "NEWT's are more then a year off."
"Do you ever worry about anything?"
"Sure, just not to the extent you do."
I passed all my exams that year with flying colours, much to the frustration of Professor Tragally who really, really didn't want me in her class any more.
"So what are you planning to do after school?" I asked Gen on the train ride home.
"I'd like to work training creatures," she said. "Kind of like what Hagrid does with the Threstrals around the school."
"I wonder what Threstrals look like," I said.
"I don't. Personally I'm not that interested in seeing what something looks like if I can only see them if I've seen someone die."
I remained silent. I had no doubts that as an Auror I'd see tones of people die, especially with someone like Voldemort on the loose. At the time I had no idea how right I'd be, only I wouldn't have to wait until I was an Auror to see Threstrals.
A/N: yeah ok, that chapter was long and kind of slow moving, it'll pick up in the next one I swear