13

Not So November:

The party had gone on until very late and most of everyone had cleared out around two in the morning. Doe helped Remus and Peter clean up most of the mess, seeing as James and Sirius were passed out drunk, and ended up staying the night.

She woke up the next morning against Remus' chest. He was still sleeping, his eyes closed and a small smile on his lips. She tried to shift slightly so she didn't wake him up, but he started to stir and pulled her closer to him.

" Don't get up yet" he said sleepily.

" Good Morning" she said kissing him quickly. His eyes were still closed but he smiled widely.

" Morning" he said as his eyes opened, " how is my beautiful girlfriend of three years"

She smiled remembering their conversation last night, " She's good, what about you?"

" Great, I slept brilliantly. I always do when I'm with you"

" I do too" Doe told him letting her hands run over his shoulders.

He leaned over and kissed her forehead leaning over her slightly.

Remus' door burst open and Sirius stood in the doorway " MOONY ARE YOU AS HUNGOVER AS-"

Sirius stopped when he saw them, a large grin on his face.

Doe yanked Remus' blanket up to her chin.

Remus leaned back against his pillows, slightly embarrassed.

" Well look at what we've got here, resident good boy and girl of Hogwarts caught in an indecent moment" Sirius said with a grin.

" Get out" Doe said grabbing a pillow off of the bed and throwing it at him.

Sirius caught it and tossed it back.

" I'll leave you two to it" he said closing the door with a wink.

Doe rolled over to look at Remus.

He started to chuckle. She frowned at him.

" You've got to admit it was a little funny" he said quietly.

" That is what I get for staying over at your bachelor pad" She said shaking my head and pulling off the t-shirt she had borrowed from Remus the night before, and putting on her clothes from yesterday.

Remus dressed quickly too.

" Well," he said coming towards her and cupping her face, " I'm glad you stayed, It would've been boring without you here"

She rolled her eyes, " At least Lily has the decency to knock"

Remus chuckled, " Sirius is one of your best friends, he doesn't care. In fact he probably finds the whole thing humorous"

" That's what I'm afraid of," Doe told Remus as they left his room, " I'm sure he has an arsenal of jokes from which to embarrass me"

James, Sirius, and Peter were all sitting on the couches of the living room, looking much better than they had the night before.

" Oh, you two finished already?" Sirius asked grinning.

Doe ground her teeth together, " I'm not in the mood, Sirius"

Sirius laughed, " Honestly, it's comforting, with how long it took you guys to finally do it to begin with"

" Stop talking about my personal life" Doe said crossing her arms.

Remus laughed lightly, " Don't cross her Padfoot, she can be vicious"

Sirius smiled, " Oh trust me, I know. She's a scary little thing"

" Don't you forget it" she told him.

" Doe, can you tell Lily I'll be over later, I just have to drop something off at the ministry" James asked.

Doe nodded, " Yeah I'll tell her"

She turned to Remus, " I'll see you" she said leaning up to kiss him and then she apparated home.

" Focus, Meadowes, How what would be the first thing you did if you discovered a home with the dark mark above it?" Moody asked her a few days later in Stealth & Tracking.

She looked up at him, she had read this a few hours earlier from the massive amount of pages he had had them read over the weekend.

" Well first I would make sure to have my wand drawn, and check to make sure there were no lingering death eaters before I entered the home" she told him.

" Correct" Moody said, " Now Longbottom, what would the correct spell be to secure the area?"

Ever since the recent murder of the ministry employees, their classes had become much more focused on death eaters and Voldemort more than the general 'dark witches and wizards' that they had focused on before.

They spent countless hours reviewing protocol for how to handle situations where they would encounter death eaters and several dueling sessions looking for the easiest ways to capture them rather than kill them.

In fact, their classes had become so intense that she rarely had a free moment. Every second she wasn't in class, she was either reading from the massive textbooks or studying to make sure she knew all the information that the aurors had taught them the day before.

Lily often scolded her for 'overworking' herself. She brought her textbooks with her everywhere and she spent far too much time immersed in them.

Even Sirius, who hated to study, found himself with several hours of studying every night.

It was as if their teachers had decided to speed up the program. They now had to work twice, and sometimes three times as hard as they thought would.

Doe came home every day mentally drained from all the studying and physically exhausted from all the dueling.

Dueling was the only place where she didn't have to concentrate as hard. She had an inclination for it. As exhausting as it was, whenever she was doing it, she was completely focused. It was one of her favorite parts of auror study so far.

They were in Dueling one day when Moody had decided to take the class time to discuss the recent events and how it looked like a war might be in the future.

" You know, it's not like this in America" Sarah whispered to Doe.

Sarah had gone to the Salem School in America, and was always giving us information about what the wizarding world was like there.

" Does Voldemort have a presence there?" Doe asked her.

She flinched as Doe said the name and then shook her head firmly, " I had never heard of You-Know-Who until I moved here, actually my roommate Mary told me about him once, I think that was why she moved"

" Mary Macdonald?" Doe asked Sarah quickly.

" Yes, actually. Did you know her?" Sarah asked.

" She was one of my best friends when she lived here" Doe told her earnestly.

Sarah smiled, " What a small world"

Part of her missed Mary even more after hearing about her, but another part of her was happy for her.

She was able to live a life untouched by the tragedy that was occurring here. Doe just hoped she was happy.

With their classwork and homework load increasing, Sirius and Doe were desperate to do anything that didn't require a textbook or a dueling partner. So when the Daily Prophet announced that the Quidditch World Cup was set to take place here in two weeks they were thrilled. It was exactly what they needed.

" We should all go, we can get a tent, it'll be great!" Sirius said happily at lunch.

" Yes, let's go" James said earnestly.

" I really want too" Doe agreed.

Doe had never gone to a Quidditch World Cup before, her dad wasn't interested in Quidditch and her mom had never condoned it. Sirius told her they were great fun.

" Who's playing this year?" Remus asked.

" It's England V. Romania" Sirius said proudly, pointing to the picture in the prophet.

It was the first time in many years that England had qualified for the Quidditch World Cup, so most everyone they knew wanted to go to support the country.

" Well, then I think I'd like to go too" Remus said.

" Me too" Peter added, as Lily nodded in agreement.

So they settled it. Sirius was going to procure the tickets and Peter was going to get a tent from someone named Perkins who worked in his office.

The excitement of the impending match was the only thing that was getting Doe through the work that was piling up from the program. Every night before the match Doe came home exhausted and fell asleep with her face in her textbooks. She was desperate for the distraction.