With a sharp breath I pull myself out of the pensive to look around and check the time. It's still late at night, couldn't even be twelve yet but he's snoring away. We hadn't promised not to watch our memories once more, it had simply been more or less understood that it would only make him upset to see them over. I on the other hand had to, for one last time; relive what we'd all gone through to reach this point in time. Tomorrow could be our last day, who knew? The wars were starting again, he was back, and here we were cramped in this cell of a house. It was driving me mad pacing around the way tigers do in their cages, knowing she was out there and I couldn't protect her. I turn to check once more if his breathing is even, telling me he's asleep, before I plunge down into the memories we've left for her.
"How many times a year do penguins do it?", I hear someone ask from the seat beside me, shocking me out of my doze and stopping me from falling face first into my oatmeal. Half of me was grateful but the other half wanted to throttle the person next to me once I saw who it was, seeing as they had successfully kept me up until the crack of dawn with their chattering.
It was Cor naturally, and this wasn't an unusual morning greeting from her either. I think I would be more worried if she'd come in and said a typical salutation, it usually meant she was feeling down and I should be prepared to punch someone's face in (it's happened on occasion). Normally I'd be amused by her daily, usually sexual orientated, odd question of the day. Unfortunately for her she had kept me up the entire night before discussing Alexander Wood, her latest and greatest object of affection. He wasn't so bad, I'd actually half fancied him once so I was pretty happy for her, but that didn't change the fact that I was going to fall asleep in double Transfiguration this morning
"Well how many do you think?" she asks impatiently.
I was too busy planning her demise via a prank to really care but my sarcastic "Enlighten me" was enough to set her off in explanation.
"Well you'd figure they'd be at it all the time; if only for the reason that it's bloody freezing up there and they have to need some warmth. Plus I mean what is there to do besides hunt for fish? They only do it once a year though, I guess if you suck the first time you get no redo's.", she grins and waggles her eyebrows at me before grabbing at the toast pile and jam jar.
The girl next to me, Aria, who was in our year dating Xenophilius Lovegood looked up sharply from her dazed dreaming at this, "I think I may be dating a penguin." Poor dear was absolutely horror struck at the thought you could tell by her facial expression, a mix of disgust and realization.
Plans of pranking my pervert of a best friend disappeared as we both glanced to one another and promptly burst out in peals of laughter, clutching our sides with all we had. It wasn't much of a shock from Xeno, it had to be hard for his somewhat loopy girlfriend, she didn't strike me as the once a year type. I had actually managed to fall off my place on the bench and drag Cor with me thinking of him even attempting to do it, he was just too Xeno. Him being remotely sexual was borderline ridiculous; it was almost too hard to imagine him snogging at most. Aria was staring down amused at our forms wallowing on the floor in tears, before she threw the bacon she'd been holding at us, and turned back to the table to save her dignity. We'd given her a lot of grief when they had first started dating; she had to know she'd never hear the end of this one. We were still in a heap of hysterics when none other than the Marauders breezed into the hall.
My face was an interesting shade of scarlet, the laughs wouldn't stop no matter how I tried, and I was half on top of my best friend in a rather awkward position when Lupin waved over beaming at the sight we made. It didn't worry me too much even if it was embarrassing, with the way girls got hexed around here he'd seen worse before.
Resituating myself at the table I hauled Cor up as best I could and started to search the crowd at the entrance for Frank. Our schedules were about to come out and I wanted to make sure we still had classes together. He was there with Alice of course, stuttering out something or another to her, becoming increasingly agitated. Whoa was that guy having trouble with what he was saying, I could almost see him shaking from where I sat.
Rolling her eyes Alice does the boldest thing I think I've seen that girl do, she reaches up, throws her arms around him and plants one on him right there where anyone entering would have perfect front row seats. She disentangles herself moments later to trip over to her friends, leaving a dazed Frank behind to sleepwalk to our place at the table. You'd of thought he'd just learned he owned Honeydukes by the way he acted, his face was in the most comical expression I'd ever seen, his brown eyes were shining and staring off into space.
With a sigh quite unlike him he plops beside me propping his chin on his hand. "I take it you finally asked her then? It looked like a yes to me in any case." Cor grins.
Frank just sighs again and nods a bit before going into dreamland once more, probably envisioning Alice babies and whatever else goes on in a teenage guy's mind that I didn't want to know. McGonagall materializes soon after as I'm forcing food into Frank's mouth so he'll remember to eat and then pounding his back because the genius forgot to chew. Our schedules are around the same except Frank being an overachiever had an extra class of Ancient Runes instead of a free period like Cor and I.
"What's first for today then? Plus when are we going to meet with the records today, I'm dying an excruciating death by lack of music here." I ask to neither of them in particular.
"We can just go to the guys dorm after classes for that oh mighty impatient one, and as for classes..", he breaks off as one Mr. Lupin walks our way from his place with the Marauders with his small half smile in place.
They don't notice their friend get up, or at least Sirius and James don't as they're engaged in an all out verbal war of some sort. Peter though noted it, eyes following Remus until he reached my part of the table and sat down across from me. It gave me the creeps how observant Peter was; he was terribly nice besides never getting recognition for his part in keeping the group together, but I had this uneasy feeling that it would get him in trouble one day.
"What classes do you have this year?" Remus asks from his place across from me without a hint of being timid, maybe he was more courageous than he appeared. I hadn't thought him the type to approach conversation first with people he'd only just met the night before while their foot was being suctioned into the depths of a Hogwarts stairwell.
"Let's compare the schedules and see for ourselves", I say trying to come up with something to say aside from the boring hum drum. Be clever you ruddy useless brain, this is a good time to get the gears going, any time now, no? I knew it. Forsaken by my own brain, it's a crying shame.
We had most classes together except he'd taken astronomy instead of divination, and had opted out of care of magical creatures while I'd decided to continue it. Surprisingly he hadn't taken Ancient Runes as I'd figured he would, "Have you ever seen what it looks like? It's martian speak I swear, if ever I want to speak with aliens I'll stick to clicks and hand gestures thanks." he'd laughed at my amazement.
We had just been about to launch into a debate over whether or not Jane Austen was a worthwhile writer, when his fellow Marauders decided to realize their friend was conversing with a female. They didn't need any more of an opening to antagonize him, James wolf whistled saying something about "Releasing his inner wolf instincts." whatever that meant, while Sirius winked and got a scary smirk on his face.
Calmly rolling his eyes at his friend's antics a somewhat embarrassed Remus moves his oddly honey light brown eyes back to my own. I'd been tracing the barely noticeable scars on his face while he had his guard down for once, not bothered by them so much as curious, and dropped my gaze when he turned back.
"Ignore my friends; they revert back to cavemen instinct when it comes to girls. I'm waiting for the day James drops the strutting and preening then moves onto clubbing Lily upside the head and dragging her away to his man cave honestly.", before he walks off back in their direction with mild annoyance showing towards them.
It was odd to think that in an alternate world I could have been part of their group of Marauders, after all my dad is close friends with his. That had ended in disaster long ago when we were five; it involved him lying, me not being able to control my five year old magic, and his pants catching on fire after I yelled "Liar liar pants on fire!" Needless to say I hadn't returned to the Potter home after that incident though they would forever invite me back over only for me to decline afraid of a repeat, in my defense it wasn't my fault he was the one who lied. I rarely visited dad in suburban hell though so I didn't have to worry about them much, I spent most of my time in mum's ever travelling van after their separation.
Shaking my head at what could have possibly happened I snap back into Cor's continuously running conversation as she makes eyes at Wood from across the hall. No one could ever accuse her of being discreet about what she felt that was for sure.
Frank was still in a daze when we decided it was time to get to class, normally we would have dragged him off with us but Alice was headed over so instead I simply said "Me and Cor are going to go make furious love in a remote broom closet alright lovey?"
He just nodded and grinned a little, humming a tune to himself. "He's hopeless; let's leave him to his lover to move before McGonagall has us cleaning the Great Hall with a toothbrush for being late."
I nodding walking off with her toward the West Wing, shuddering at the idea knowing how many people were in there daily messing up the floors. With the thought of how many people were in there I also came an idea of how to get back at Cor for the trouble I was bound to get into next lesson, and positively marveled at the genius of it.