Knowing he had to beat Sirius to the bathroom if he planned on getting to class on time, Remus woke early on Monday, the first day of the new term. He walked down to the great hall for breakfast and ate alone, the hall was nearly deserted save for a professor or two that still needed to prepare things for their first classes. After about a half-hour, James joined him at the table. He had the frazzled appearance of a person who cannot get comfortable enough to sleep in an armchair.
"So how's life with Lily?" Remus asked.
"Hell… absolute and utter hell." James muttered as he half-heartedly picked away at his cereal. "She refuses to share the bed, hogs the bathroom and yells at me every chance she gets! I always seem to be doing something that annoys her. I can barely breathe without getting scolded for Gods sake!"
"Well why don't you sit down with her and discuss a few ground rules, maybe then you can co-habitate without problems." Remus suggested.
"She's already done that!" James exclaimed as he withdrew a long parchment from his book bag. "These are all the things I'm not to do" sighing, he handed the roll of parchment to Remus who examined it carefully. It was a full 4 feet long and Lily had small writing.
"And to think I used to envy your head boy status…" Remus said sympathetically as he rolled up the parchment and handed it back to James.
Sirius joined them shortly, wolfing down his food in an effort to finish before the morning bell sounded. Peter came following afterwards looking dishevelled. James and Remus looked on sympathetically; they'd both been victim to Sirius' more vain habits (like hogging the toilet) and understood. Peter only had time to butter his toast when the bell rang and the quartet parted ways and headed to class.
Remus noticed his NEWT Ancient Runes was smaller than it was last year. The old class of ten had been whittled down to six. "The smallest enrolment in a single class since the 1700's", the teacher had announced to them "But the up side is that I can give you more individual attention in your groups. Now, I want you to partner off with another student, you will work together for the remainder of this term."
Remus looked around; he was the only Gryffindor in the group. There were two girls from Slytherin and one girl and two boys from Ravenclaw in the class. The Slytherins paired up immediately, but the ravenclaws started debating who should get to stay within house lines. Remus decided to just wait for whomever they decided to exclude.
"Hi…" came a small voice from behind him "Remus right? I recognise you from the prefect meetings."
Remus turned. The girl from the Ravenclaw group was standing behind him. She had shoulder length wavy brown hair and coffee brown eyes. She was about 5'4" and was of fairly average build. Remus did remember her from the meetings, but her name escaped him. "I'm sorry, I can't remember your name" he said apologetically.
"Lindsay Aria, though everyone calls me Ophelia" she said.
"Why Ophelia?" he asked.
"Long Story, the short of it is I read Hamlet when I was 8, decided I loved the character Ophelia and demanded to be called Ophelia. If they called me Lindsay I'd run around screaming "hey nonny nonny" at the top of my lungs. I was an odd child…" she said smiling.
"Oh it is wonderful to see interhouse partnerships!" Professor Morgan beamed. "You lucked out Lupin. Ophelia had top marks in this class last year and third highest overall for the year!"
"Thanks Professor" Ophelia muttered and blushed embarrassedly. She sighed with relief when she saw Professor Morgan move onto the Slytherin girls group.
"I'm sorry about that…" Ophelia said apologetically "Morgan's an old family friend. She likes me but marks me harder, she wants me to apprentice with her after school ends. Personally, I'd rather eat my own hair, but what can ya do?"
"How can you be third in our year? That's what my deputy-head-boy letter said. James only beat me out by a half-percent."
"I tied with James percentage-wise, but he got a title and Head status and I did not, so he beats me in that regard. I still got the deputy position but it's not quite the same." Ophelia explained
"Yeah I know what you mean" Remus said as a small wooden box was placed on the desk in front of them. Professor Morgan called for their attention
"For the past 4 years, I've taught you all that can be learned theoretically in the field of ancient runes. For the better part of this year you will be breaking curses and wards set on object marked with runes. These boxes are your first assignments. All three are warded differently; your homework is to document your efforts in opening the box. You will have one period to do this task, but I assure you, this will take longer than one class, you will need to meet outside of this room. Class dismissed. Mr Lupin, Miss Aria can I see you both please?"
They moved up to the desk and Professor Morgan handed them two keys. "I know you two do not have the luxury of a shared house and cannot enter each other's respective common rooms, so I'm giving you use of a private study in the library. These keys open the door, ask the librarian to show you to the door."
"Thanks Gwen." Ophelia said smiling.
"No problem Filia, but you two had better get moving, class starts in ten minutes."
They said their goodbyes and headed to class.
Later Ophelia sat in Slytherin/Ravenclaw potions taking notes on the properties of various manticore organs and their uses in potions.
"So, how was Arithmacy?" she asked the boy sitting next to her as she scribbled away at her parchments.
"same as usual. What about Runes?"
"Runes went well. Oh shite…"
"What is it Filia?"
"I broke my quill, Do you have a spare I could borrow Sev?"
"Anything for you."
I think we can all guess who Sev is... right?
please do not flame this story, I appreciate constructive critisism... and if Ophelia seems a little sueish well I don't care. just deal with it. She's a well used RP character of mine and i'm not changing her. (and she's definately not perfect on the RP's...)