Chapter 25 -- It's Not Called a 'Ride-On-Me-and-I-Won't-Hurt-You-at-All,' Ray!
Dear Diary,

Today's the day I go back to school. For some reason, I woke up at six o' clock this morning and I cannot fall back to sleep, no matter what I do. So, I gave up and owled Lily, I'm going to meet her in a few minutes in some Muggle food place by King's Cross, we're going to have a very early lunch before we get on the train; as much as I love sweets, I'd rather not have to eat myself sick on sugar the entire day.

I'm SO excited to see everyone again, even though it's only been a week since I've seen Lily. As much as I miss them, I am really dreading N.E.W.T year. Knowing me, I will explode from too much work within the first week. I REALLY hope it ends up okay.

Love,

Adriyana

Mrs. Potter walked in to the kitchen, where Sirius and James were eating breakfast, or, more specifically, playing "Who can eat the most sausages at once without choking or burning the inside of his mouth?"

"Boys! That's disgusting, cut it out before one of you needs to go to St. Mungo's!"

"'orry, 'um," James said through a mouth full of sausage. He swallowed. "Sorry, Mum."

She ruffled James' hair, and he grunted in protest, though he made no effort to smooth it back down again. "These are for you boys. Hogwarts letters." She handed them each a thick, cream-coloured envelope. James' had a rather obvious bulge in it.

"What the…?" James poked the bulge. "I'm already Quidditch captain, what could this be, eh?" Sirius shrugged, opening his own letter and glancing at it quickly, before throwing it aside without a second glance, re-focusing his attention on trying to finish his breakfast before James did.

James pulled out the couple of sheets of parchment the envelope held. His eyes scanned the first one with the same careless ennui as Sirius' had, but they practically bulged out of his head as he held the next page closer to his glasses to get a better look. "Head Boy?"

Sirius looked up from his plate, a piece of sausage sticking out of the corner of his mouth. He cocked his head in a very dog-like manner and raised his eyebrows. "Mmm?"

James flipped the badge over and over in his hands. "I think Dumbledore might be going senile, Padfoot."

Lily waited, somewhat impatiently, as Adriyana finished her sandwich. "Come on, Agie, we're going to miss the train if you don't hurry."

Adriyana looked at Lily dryly, and pointed to the clock on the wall of the café, which read 9:30. She took another bite out of her sandwich.

"Still, we can't be the last ones there, I'm Head Girl, how would that look?" Lily protested. Adriyana just shrugged and kept eating. "Agie!"

Adriyana grinned and reluctantly finished her sandwich. "There. Happy?" she said, after the entire thing was gone.

"Yeah, let's go," Lily said

Once their food was paid for (which took a while, because Lily didn't quite have enough, and Adriyana had exchanged some at Gringotts the other day for just this occasion but lost it, and Lily was having a nervous fit by the time she remembered it was in her shoe), they headed to the door. "Are you sure you don't want to walk around a bit? The way I see it, the less time we have to sit on that train, the better." Adriyana asked.

"Fine, but I really don't want to be late. Let's walk towards King's Cross, at least." Not waiting for an answer, Lily headed in the direction of the platform.

About a block later, Adriyana yelled, "OI!" right in Lily's ear.

Lily jumped about a foot in the air and cupped her hand over it to stop the ringing. "Ow! Agie, What the—" Lily asked, but Adriyana was running towards the next intersection, trunk bouncing behind her ridiculously. "Wait!"

Adriyana stopped halfway down the next block and scanned the road. "Sorry, Lily. I thought I saw…never mind. Let's go to the train." Adriyana resumed walking, this time at a normal pace. Then, she squinted. "HEY! Sirius, James!! Wait up!" And she took off again. Lily grinned as she watched Adriyana go, her huge trunk bouncing along behind her.

After a few moments, Lily realized she was alone on the street and went to follow Adriyana.

"Sirius, James! Wait up!"

Sirius' head whipped around when he heard his name. A gigantic grin spread across his face. "Prongs, look! It's Agie!" Sirius jumped up and down to see better over the heads of the people on the street, pointing wildly towards the mess of brunette waves bouncing towards them.

Sirius heard Adriyana's voice coming closer and closer, until she nudged a pudgy kid with a chocolate ice cream cone out of the way, stepping around him, and they were finally face to face. "Hey, Agie."

"Hi," she said breathlessly.

He leaned in, pressing his lips to hers firmly. The kiss warmed Sirius up like drinking hot chocolate after hours of being outside in the snow.

"Eew!" The pudgy kid said. "That's gross. You're going to get coo—"

Sirius opened his eyes and, without breaking the kiss, knocked the kid's ice cream cone to the pavement. Adriyana made a discontented noise against his lips.

"Sirius, that wasn't nice!" she said, as the kid tearfully asked his father for a new ice cream cone.

"But…he was…and I," Sirius stuttered.

She laughed, resting her forehead against his shoulder. "I missed you, too."

James made a wise decision in looking at the ground when Sirius and Adriyana 'reunited,' if the "Eew!" uttered by one of the bystanders was anything to go by. He kept his eyes trained on his feet until he heard the two of them talking again.

When he finally looked up, Adriyana was rifling through her bag, and pulled out a wad of Muggle money, handing a couple notes to a crying boy, and apologising about something. She turned back to them and slapped Sirius' wrist jokingly. "You're lucky I don't need this anymore!" she held up the money in her hand.

"Why do you have that, anyway?" Sirius asked.

"Lily," she began, and James' head perked up at the name, "and I went to buy something to eat. Look, she's heading over here now!"

James turned his back to both of them, surreptitiously pulling a shiny, golden badge out of his pocket and pinning it to his chest. He turned around just as Lily approached, thrusting his chest out so the badge caught the sun.

"Hey, Evans! Have a good summer?" Sirius asked.

"For the most part, yes," she said, somewhat stiffly. "Although I'm glad we're going ba—You're Head Boy, Potter?" Lily gaped.

James looked down at the badge in mock surprise. "Oh, yeah, I forgot I was wearing this. He shot a covert glare at Sirius, who was currently biting his sleeve in an attempt not to laugh. "I see you're Head Girl, eh?"

"Yes," she said, keeping her gaze on James' with an icy-cold stare he struggled not to break.

"I guess you're still mad at us for what happened with Prong's neighbour," Sirius deadpanned. "Don't worry, though, it wasn't obvious at all."

Lily rolled her eyes. "I was sure it would've been Remus, though."

"Well, Moony has his reasons." Sirius said, nervously skirting around the topic. "…So, how were the Balearics?" he asked, casually throwing his arm across Adriyana's shoulders.

Adriyana's eyes lit up and she jumped to answer the question for both of them. "It was so great, Sirius! There was this part of the ocean, where if you went out far enough, it was only halfway up your calves…and there were stingray there, and you could stand on them and ride them!"

"Agie, I told you not to do that. They didn't like it. Remember when they chased us?"

Adriyana waved her hand. "Oh, what could they do to us, anyway?"

"it's called a sting ray, Agie! Not a 'Ride-on-me-and-I-won't-hurt-you-at-all,' ray!"

Adriyana shrugged. "I'm still alive, aren't I?"

As they got closer and closer to the platform, their topic of conversation shifted towards Sirius and James' short (and disastrous) attempt at minding Bill and Charlie.

"You did NOT!" Lily exclaimed incredulously, the surprised smile on her face suggesting she was more interested than she was angry.

James' eyes bulged. "In my defense, it was a pretty normal reaction for someone to have when a three-year-old goes missing and you hear breaking glass."

Adriyana sighed. "I warned you about Bill, though. He picks up a lot of stuff by watching people. That's why," her eyes flipped from James to Sirius, "You two are the last people on earth who should be watching him."

"But I just have to know what Mrs. Weasley said when she found out," Lily said, eyes shining with excitement. James figured it was a good thing that she was interested in something he had taken part in, even if it was just because she wanted to her the result of him doing something wrong.

"Are you sure you want to know?" James asked. Lily nodded, her fiery red hair flipping up at the ends.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Bill now thinks 'fuck' is Charlie's…new name, or something. At any rate, he hasn't stopped calling him that yet. And he calls the new baby…his name's Percy, I think…" He looked at James, who nodded. "He calls him Charlie. Weird, huh? They can't convince him otherwise."

Lily laughed. "So, what did Molly say?"

"Oh, she was mad . We tried to explain to her that it was only because Charlie crashed through their bedroom window on Arthur's broomstick that I cursed in the first place, but that only made her angrier," James explained, his tone making it sound as if this was an incredibly unreasonable reaction on Mrs. Weasley's part.

"Arthur was more forgiving, though. Said it's okay about Charlie, that happens all the time, and he'd do a Memory Charm on Bill as soon as Molly was out of the house, because she wouldn't let him," Sirius added. "Here we are."

James looked up and realised they were already at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. He watched with amusement as Sirius leaned against the wall, the shaky steps backward making it look as if he'd toppled over and landed rather roughly. Adriyana followed him, looking around For Muggles and hastily going through the wall, pulling her trunk behind her.

James picked up Lily's trunk in an offer to carry it for her, but she reached out at the same time and their hands brushed, lingering for perhaps a few moments normal than was necessary.

James spent the entire train ride to Hogwarts trying to analyse what the blush that had spread across Lily's cheeks could possibly mean.

Diary,

Right now, I'm writing to you from that big armchair in Gryffindor Tower with a huge smile on my face. Oh, did I forget the brand new, shiny HEAD GIRL badge I'm wearing? I'm so excited that I got it, but Agie pointed out that, "You're the only one who's surprised, Lils. Everyone knew you'd get it." Also, everyone's pretty shocked about James Potter being chosen as Head Boy. I'm pretty shocked, too, scared actually, but not so much for the future of the young children of the school as I am for the fact that I'm going to have to spend time alone with him, now. We haven't talked at all since that night in the common room. Needless to say, our first meeting was really awkward.

Speaking of awkwardness, Agie and Black are practically unbearable to be around. Honestly, it's disgusting. I'd really, REALLY like to go up to them and just scream, "NOBODY WANTS TO SEE YOU TWO SUCK FACE! KNOCK IT OFF!" I doubt they'd listen for very long, though.

But they just came into the common room. Oh, crap. They might not stop, but it couldn't hurt, right?

-Lily

A/N: So, this is the last chapter I'm writing before finals…It'd be nice to have some kind of consolation when I fail all of them. ::looks pointedly at review box::See you all next chapter!