Chapter 3.
When their friends have gone to the Prefects' compartment, Lou and Sirius carry on walking through the train, trying to find an empty compartment.
"Sirius, Sirius!" calls a voice from behind them, and the both turn to see Peter Pettigrew running breathlessly towards them. Small, dumpy, watery-eyed Peter, smiling gratefully to have found Sirius. The two boys greet each other with the fondness and awkwardness that accompanies most friendships between teenage boys.
"Hi, Peter," says Lou, hardly looking at him, too busy peering through compartment windows.
Lou may be tall, but Sirius has a couple of inches on her, and Peter didn't see her at first. He colours, trying to think if he's said something stupid in the past minute or so. He always gets nervous around her. It's partly attraction - she's not as gloriously pretty as her friends, so he thinks he might have a chance. Little does he realise that anybody with the force of personality that Louisa Reece has will always be out of his league. Another reason for his nervousness is that, while she's never been unduly mean to him, he senses that she could be quite cutting if she chose, and he doesn't want to be on the receiving end of her admittedly rather sharp tongue.
Smiling, Lou finally finds an empty compartment. She opens the door rather forcefully, easing her trunk on to the rack and sprawling on to a seat. Sirius grins, pulling his own belongings into the compartment. Peter quickly follows, and soon all three of them are sitting in the compartment. Sirius and Peter talk contentedly, Lou occasionally looking up from her Daily Prophet to add a word or two.
"Anything in the paper, Lou?" asks Sirius.
Lou shrugs. "Mostly nonsense about You-Know-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, or whatever ridiculous thing they're calling him now."
"Nonsense?"
"Trying to be reassuring, but the panic in their tone is palpable."
Sirius looks at her shrewdly. "You think there'll be a war?"
"Yeah. I mean, I don't know, of course, but from stuff I heard my dad say, and my mum, before….well, before, I reckon a war can't be helped. It's just a question of when, and how bad."
The three of them sit silently, worried and thoughtful.
Shortly after this, a dark, slight figure enters the compartment. Lou looks up from her newspaper with an expression of delight. "Anna!" she exclaims. "Come and sit down for a bit, how were your holidays?"
The girl comes in with a smile. "Alright, thanks. Where's James?"
"In the Prefects' compartment."
"What?!"
"He's Head Boy!"
Anna smiles. "Is that why he sent that bizarre letter? Was he trying to be grown-up? I felt like he expected me to spend all Summer flying."
Lou bursts out laughing. "Don't worry, I told him what I thought of him. I don't know what he thought he was playing at, but it was before he found out about being Head Boy, so it wasn't because of that."
"I expect he was just trying to be a good Captain," says Anna solemnly.
Lou casts her a sly look. "Have you been taking notes?"
"What?"
"Well, it'll be your turn next year, won't it?"
"Don't be ridiculous!" Anna is bright red now.
"Honestly, who else d'you think it'd be? You'll be the oldest -"
"- Frank was the oldest last year and James got made Captain."
Lou's withering look is impressive. "But Frank only had one year left, and he was working flat out for his NEWTs because he wanted to go into Auror training - it wasn't fair to expect him to take on Quidditch, too. You'll be a sixth year next year, and everyone apart from you will be fourths and fifths. Even if whoever we get to replace Frank is your age or older, they're not going to make someone Captain when they've only been on the team for a year, it wouldn't be fair. I'd bet my whole vault at Gringotts that you'll be the next Captain. Don't you want to be?"
Anna looks uncertain. "I don't know. It's a lot of work."
"But 'Anna Webster, Quidditch Captain' sounds cool, right?"
Anna nods shyly. "But I don't really know anything about any of the positions other than Seeker."
"Don't worry about it. I'll have a word with James, make sure he involves you in tactical talks and everything, you'll soon be more confident."
Anna looks grateful. "Thanks, Lou. How have you spent your Summer, anyway?"
"I spent a little while at home, then I spent the rest of the Summer with Lily. Helping prepare for her sister's wedding, stuff like that. I managed to break my bat, though, which was a total nightmare."
"Have you got a new one?"
"Yeah, James bought it for me for my birthday. It's a really good one, too. It only really needs to last a year, it's not like I'm going to be practicing all the time after I leave school."
Sirius looks up from his conversation with Peter. "Aren't you going professional? I thought James said last year that you had an offer from the Wimbourne Wasps?"
Lou's cheeks become pinker. "That was supposed to be a secret. I don't think I'm going to accept their offer, anyway."
Peter's eyes widen. "Why not?"
"The Wasps have Bagman. He has to play on their team or he'll take his talent elsewhere - you're not supposed to break contracts like that, but a name as big as Ludo Bagman can do whatever he pleases. They've got four other Beaters of varying skill and experience, but without exception they're all really good. So they've got five Beaters, and only four regular team places - two on the first team and two on the Reserves. I'd never get a game."
"But you could train with them, couldn't you?" asks Sirius. "For the experience?"
"I wouldn't be able to live on the wages they pay players who don't make the teams. And if I'm going to be a Quidditch player I want to play Quidditch, not just train every hour available with nothing to show for it."
"Why did they offer you a place, if they've got so many good Beaters?" Peter voices both his own and Sirius' confusion.
Lou shrugs. "It was speculative. If I'd said yes it could really pay off for them in a few years if I got really good, and even if I didn't, the wages they pay rubbish players are beans to them, really."
"Would you not consider playing professionally, then?" asks Anna, who rather hopes that one day she will be a professional Quidditch player.
"I don't know. I'm flattered by the offer, obviously, but I'd only want to play for a team where I could make a difference - where I was guaranteed a Reserve place, at least. Hanging around waiting for star players to get injured isn't really my idea of a career."
"I think you're very good," says Peter uncertainly. Unlike his friends, he has no interest in Quidditch. He watches the matches with them, to keep them happy, but he hardly pays attention.
"Thanks," says Lou. "Of course, we're a team, and everyone's important." She looks at Anna, who smiles.
"I'd better go," says Anna. "James'll be back soon, and I don't really want to spend the whole train journey talking about complex tactical theories. Say hi to him for me, will you?"
And with that she leaves the compartment.
Smiling, Lou returns to her newspaper. Before long, James, Lily and Mary arrive at the compartment, accompanied by one Remus Lupin.
Remus is seventeen, like his friends, but there's something about him that makes him look older. It's the tiredness, mainly. The faint hints of lines on his face, the prominent circles under his eyes. But to the whole compartment, he is a dear, dear friend, and Sirius, Peter and Lou stand up in delight. Remus greets Peter and Sirius first, and then turns to Lou, who flings herself into his arms.
Lou's friendship with Remus is very different to her friendship with James. She's more obviously close to James, on the whole - they have Quidditch, of course, and he appeals to her sense of fun, and her love of having someone to look after, someone to advise and tease. Remus is quieter, more serious. From around their third year, Lou tutored him in Potions, in return for his help with Ancient Runes, before, after passing their OWLs, they each abandoned their dreaded subject, rejoicing. They understand each other quietly, understatedly, as opposed to how she and James understand each other - shouting, laughing and causing mayhem.
The Head Boy and Girl, and the two Prefects, squeeze into the compartment. Lily finds herself, to her displeasure, squashed between James and a wall. James, determinedly trying to seem nonchalant, turns his attention to Lou, who's sitting on his other side, herself rather squashed against Remus. James squeezes her knee playfully. She flicks his hand. He sticks out his tongue. She crosses her eyes. Both of them laugh softly, and the rest of the compartment look on, slightly bewildered.
"Good meeting?" asks Sirius generally of the Prefectorial body of his friends. James pulls a face.
"It was very informative," says Remus.
They laugh. "I saw Anna earlier, why isn't she a Prefect?" asks Lou.
James shrugs. "I don't know. Most people in most years have the potential to do the job well, but obviously they can't make everyone Prefects."
"True. Anyway, what did being a Prefect every do for anyone? I mean," - realising that more than half of her present friends are Prefects - "it's, erm….good."
Lou is the first person to laugh at this - she laughs at herself more than at anyone else - and the compartment is filled with laughter for a short while.
Talk quickly turns to the hideous prospects of the next academic year, and slowly, these seven teenagers begin to relax. When the witch with the food trolley visits, Sirius insists on buying enough confectionary to feed an army, and sharing it with the whole compartment.
"Aren't you supposed to be a runaway?" asks Mary, biting into a Cauldron Cake. "Aren't you supposed to be poor?"
"Sirius never does anything he's supposed to do," says Remus, half mocking, half affectionate.
Sirius grins. "I've been saving up for ages. Then my Great-Uncle died and left me…well, a fortune. That's how I bought the flat."
"The brilliant, brilliant flat." adds James.
"We get the picture, stupid. You don't need to tell us how much you want to marry Sirius' flat every time it's mentioned," says Lou, throwing a green Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Bean at him. He catches it deftly and puts it into his mouth.
"Mint!" he says triumphantly.
Silence. The whole compartment watch him, his expression impressively passive.
Still they watch.
James screws up his face.
"Alright, alright, I think it was snot!" he says, spitting the bean into a tissue.
The laughter that ensues is raucous, to say the least, and, as Lou says, "completely inappropriate considering we have the Head Boy and Girl and two Prefects amongst our number."
"We may have to be responsible on the train, but personally," says James, "I refuse to be grown up until I'm actually there."
"True," says Lily. "We need to make the most of our freedom while we can."
Should anybody feel like dropping a pin, it would definitely be heard. James looks like he's gone to heaven, and Lily looks shocked at her own audacity - agreeing with James and shunning responsibility in one sentence. Lou elbows James repeatedly, enthusiastically. He finally turns to look at her, questioningly. She widens her eyes, grins, and nods in Lily's direction.
James can't suppress his smile.