It was the end of the week. Gryffindor, along with winning the Quidditch Cup, had also won the House Cup. Even with all the points all the pranksters in Gryffindor lost, all the brilliant minds and winning Quidditch pushed them ahead of the other houses.

While most students were happily chatting about their summer plans, Ursula was sitting in front of the fire in the common room all by herself. She was waiting for Sirius so they could turn in their luggage together so it would be easier to find.

"Hey Ursula," James said as he walked down the stairs, "Sirius said to started heading down. Peter tripped and knocked his trunk off the bed. Everything is everywhere so he is going to be a while."

Ursula tightly smiled, "That's what the bang was earlier."

James walked over to where she was and he sat down in an adjacent armchair, "You know; I'm not as unobservant as I look."

She raised an eyebrow, "Really?"

He nodded, "You're upset about going home."

"You don't say," She scoffed at him, getting annoyed at his know it all attitude at the moment.

He either didn't pick up on her annoyance or he decided to ignore it.

"I had an interesting conversation with Sirius about three weeks ago. Found out some interesting things about you and a house elf named Mitzi."

Ursula's widened in surprise, "Mitzi is in the Hogwarts kitchen? Are you sure?" She asked. She remembered the poor little house elf that was abused beyond belief. She had just witnessed an extremely brutal beating so she decided to do something about it. She took off her dirty socks and hid them behind her. When Mitzi appeared in Bellatrix's room to offer food, Ursula took her chance. She threw her dirty socks at Bellatrix. Luck was on her and Mitzi's side that day; Bellatrix caught the socks, looked at them and when she realized what she had in her hand, she threw them at the house elf. Unbeknownst to her, even children had the power to free a house elf. Mitzi gave Ursula a hug before she disapparated out of the Lestrange manor. Bellatrix in a fit of rage practically threw Ursula into a mirror. She was only six and for about four years after that had small scars on her side until they finally faded away.

James smiled at her happily surprised face, "According to Sirius, she's perfectly healthy in the Hogwarts Kitchen."

"That's good." Ursula leaned back in the couch and got lost in her thoughts again.

James cleared his throat, "Listen, I know that your family ignores you except for Sirius. I'll owl you over the summer and if you ever need to get out of there, the floo is always open. Honestly, my mother would have no problem with you showing up in the middle of the night. She loved having you and Elyse over for Christmas because she had girls in the house. Seriously, I think that she would actually prefer you and Sirius both spend your summer at my house. I know you don't want to say anything to worry the others but I'm not stupid and I know there is something seriously wrong at your house, more so for you than Sirius."

Ursula had to physically pick up her jaw from the ground; "Wah?" was her intelligent response.

James smiled, but it wasn't a smirk. It was like the smile when she showed up at his house the day after Christmas. He stood up and put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a small hug,

"I know; I have these moments of pure non-git-ness. I don't know where it comes from, but no one is ever there to witness them. Just me and you, usually. Occasionally, Elyse or Remus. Sometimes Peter. Never Lily. Or McGonagall. Or anyone really for that matter; it sucks."

He looked wistfully into the fire and then back at her before he turned back to go upstairs.

Ursula looked at his retreating back and she could only shake her head. She highly doubted he would ever stop surprising her. She only got a moment's peace before there was a shout from up the girl's dorm staircase.

"Ursula!"

Making her way through the throngs of students saying goodbye, Ursula walked up to her dorm. But it was completely empty. She stuck her head out into the hallway and looked up. She nearly jumped a foot in the air when Annabelle's head appeared around the curve.

"There you are, come on up," She motioned with her hand for Ursula to follow. She led her all the way to the top of Gryffindor Tower; past all the dorms. Ursula thought they were never going to stop when she saw sunlight above her head. A few seconds later, Ursula looked out to the most amazing sight she had ever seen. The tower looked over the Forbidden Forest to the left and the Black Lake to the right. The mountains straight ahead were covered in flowers and lush grass and Ursula swore she saw a river running on the other side.

"This is – I don't,"

Annabelle laughed at her inability to form a proper sentence. "It's amazing, isn't it? But I didn't just bring you up here to show you this place. It's been tradition since at least I was a first year that each of the seventh year girl picks a first year and gives her a little bit of advice."

Annabelle looked out across the magnificent view of Hogwarts with a forlorn face and suddenly spun on punched the stone wall. She started pacing and Ursula wisely stayed quiet, unsure of how to talk to Annabelle when she was like this.

"Damn it, Ursula," Annabelle began with a desperate look on her face as she knelt down so she was eye level with Ursula, "you have to follow your heart. Things are going to get really bad in this world. There isn't any way for me to sugar coat this, but everything is going to be going to hell. But if you love, by Merlin, love the hell out of life then maybe things won't be so bad. God knows how long it took me to figure that out. That's my advice, get in trouble, have fun, pull pranks, fall in love. Then maybe you will be able to escape from this goddamn war unscathed. Because the war's going to happen, it's just a matter of when people are going to realize it."she asserted.

Annabelle stood up and walked back to the railing over the balcony after she finished her little speech. Thousands of thoughts and emotions seemed to running through her mind and across her face at the moment. Ursula fleetingly wondered how she was able to put on such a brave and carefree face all the time.

Ursula gathered up her courage and asked, "Are you going to be alright?"

"I'll be alright," Annabelle said softly.

Ursula, realizing that Annabelle needed to be alone for her last hours at Hogwarts nodded. She was about to start walking down the stairs when she turned around,

"Annabelle?"

Annabelle turned around and asked, "Hm?"

"I think you figured it out pretty well, for what my opinion is worth. "

She smiled sideways and said, "Thanks Black."

"No problem White."

With that she turned down the stairs and left the soon to be auror to her thoughts.

It was close to ten hours later, around nine at night. Ursula and her friends were sitting with her friends in the compartment they got their first time on the train; number 7 in car 7. Elyse had pointed out the irony in that number since all seven of them became friends. The rest of the ride had been loud and boisterous, but now their energy was gone.

James had fallen asleep against the wall, his glasses crooked. His mouth was open slightly and he would occasionally rock back and forth with the train. Elyse was asleep across from him, her back rested against the wall. Her legs were crossed across Remus's lap and came to rest just on top of Ben's legs. Sirius was right next to James, sitting between him and Ursula. He too was asleep, his head resting on his twin's shoulder. Remus was out cold, but it seemed to be not by choice. His book he had been reading was loosely clutched in his hands and it looked like a good jostle would knock it right out. Peter had wanted to stretch out so he decided to lie on the floor.

Ursula was resting her head on top and Sirius's and was nodding off when she heard a whisper in the dark compartment,

"Ursula, are you awake?"

She groggily opened her eyes and tried to focus on the book across from her. The moonlight was the only light in the entire compartment was the moonlight so Ben's skin looked sallow and translucent like.

"What?" She asked exhaustively.

"I can't sleep."

She groaned and sat up as much as she could without waking her brother up, "Let me get this straight; because you couldn't sleep you decided to wake me up when I was almost asleep?"

Ben laughed a little, "Exactly."

Ursula glared at him, "Twit." She practically growled.

"What are friends for?" He asked with an easy smile on his face, not really expecting an answer.

"Not this." She shot back with a smirk.

This was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that Ursula left him with no words. It was infuriating.

So I would highly appreciate some reviews here people. Honestly, when you think people don't like your story enough to say they like it, then you think they hate it. When you think they hate it, you stop writing. When you stop writing, it sucks. So please please please please review. It will take only a couple seconds. I don't care what you say, just REVIEW!