Wow, it's been a while! Sorry for that, and hope the next update doesn't take too long.

At breakfast the next morning, James felt exhausted. He'd gotten next to no sleep, thinking about his father and the last time he'd seen him. James was just pouring some pumpkin juice when Fred came over, his usually happy and carefree face worried.

"Hey," he said, perching on the bench between Lucy and James. "How are you?"

It was clear he was talking about in the aftermath of the funeral, how James was coping. "I'm fine if I don't think or talk about it," James said. "New subject please."

"Okay," Fred said, his serious expression fading into his normal smile. He took in a breath to speak, but they were interrupted by the post owls arriving. James looked up for Farley, but he wasn't there. Not that he expected a letter, but it still felt a little disheartening to know that no one wanted to communicate with him. Fred on the other hand was taking a newspaper off of the leg of a smart brown owl. He put a few knuts into the pouch on the owls leg and he flew off with a low hoot.

"You have the Daily Prophet delivered?" James asked in surprise.

"Only on days after the Montrose Magpies have played," Fred said, flicking to the Quidditch pages at the back of the paper. "I want to know the score."

James looked at the discarded front section of the paper and swallowed uncomfortably. The cover showed a massive picture of his father. The photo was recent and rather uncomfortably, Harry's photographic self was moving slightly. The headline read "Respects Paid to Murdered Hero." And beneath it "The hunt is on for the killer."

James didn't want to read it. He had heard stories about the mess the Prophet had helped create in the year after Voldemort's return. It did not endear him to the paper, even though the writers had mostly retired since then.

He screwed up the offending pages and then poked his wand at them, willing them to set on fire with a spell he hadn't yet learnt. Lucy saw what he was doing and muttered "Incendio," under her breath, making the paper smoke then burn and quickly disappear into a pile of grey ashes on the table. "We haven't learnt that yet," James said, making her smile.

"I was practising," she said with an easy grin. "It's why I've burnt half of my socks."

"The house elves will be devestated," he said, rolling his eyes.

"What?" Lucy asked confused. James didn't explain because Fred interrupted.

"Yes!" Fred said. "We won. Two hundred and ninety to One hundred and seventy."

"While on the subject, aren't Quidditch tryouts this weekend?" Lucy said. "It's on the Hufflepuff notice board," she added to the other twos blank stares. "Are you going out for it?"

"I don't know," James said. "I might. I don't want to be a disappointment. Especially now that…"

"How about you?" Fred asked Lucy, interrupting.

"Are you joking? Up until about two months ago, I had no idea that magic even existed. I thought I was just weird. Now you're suggesting I be suspended in mid air on nothing more than an enchanted stick? I think I'll skip that." James laughed, he couldn't help it.

He only stopped when the bell rang, and there was a rush from the tables as people got up to go to class. "Where are we?" James asked.

"Potions," Lucy said quickly.

"Perfect," James replied. "Lets see what damage we can do this time."

As it turned out, not much damage at all. It seemed that Tabitha Edwards didn't trust them to make anything more complicated than what looked to be soup. And completely unmagical. James was tempted to use one of his uncles Puking Pastilles which was floating around in the bottom of his school bag. But then thought that skipping out would be unfair, especially as he might need it in the future. He didn't want to use his free pass so quickly.

When the lunch bell rang, there was an audible sigh of relief through the class. There was a battle at the door to get out first, but James could feel Tabitha's eyes on him the entire way. He hadn't given their mystery potion a lot of thought with what had happened since, maybe he should. All they'd done was follow the instructions on the blackboard. What had gone wrong?

After both he and Lucy wolfed down some lunch, they went outside and walked around the grounds. Lucy had seen almost nothing of them, and heard even less, having been raised by muggles. She was fascinated by the giant squid, whose tentacles were lazily playing with floating oak leaves, just beginning to fall off of the trees in the first signs of Autumn.

They walked around the perimeter of the forbidden forest too, seeing nothing more threatening than a few birds or spiders crawling under the canopy of trees. James was in no rush to delve deep into the forest. More dangerous things than he could cope with at the moment.

They didn't go into Hagrid's, because he was teaching a Care of Magical Creatures class. They both watched from a distance as two unicorns were being shown around, one pure white, and a younger one which was silver. Beautiful creatures which shone and glittered in the afternoon sunlight. "Oh they're so pretty!" Lucy said eagerly. "My wand's got a unicorn hair in it." James said nothing, just watched Hagrid with interest.

He was the one person in this school who realised what it meant that Harry Potter was dead. They were friends. Had been ever since Harry was eleven. McGonagall had known him that long too of course, but somehow it was different with Hagrid. He found that for a few moments it didn't hurt to think of his father, having tea with Hagrid in his free time over the years. But then he shook the thought aside.

Fred came up to them, running flat out, a look of happiness on his face. "Wanna practise Quidditch?" he asked.

"We don't have brooms," Lucy said simply. "You might, but we don't." Fred grinned happily and threw something to Lucy. A key to the broom shed.

"Just until we're good enough to unlock doors with our wands," Fred said with a grin. "Come on James, you must be up for a bit of flying."

James looked at Fred blankly for a moment then grinned happily. "Hell yeah."

Both boys turned to Lucy who frowned slightly. "Okay, I'll do it. Just don't let me break my legs," she said. "Agreed?"

"Agreed." The three of them rushed towards the Quidditch pitch, eager to be up in the air.

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