BOOK THREE OF THREE
Sirius and Cassio enter their last year at Hogwarts, filled with confessions, sarcasm, and (of course) mischief. But, as always, the war lurks just beyond the walls of the castle.
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It's about four in the afternoon when Lily and James return to the crowded compartment. Both of the seats were taken up with Peter, Remus, and Zoe on the leftmost seats and Marlene, Alice, Frank, and Sirius squished together on the other. I sit with my back against the curtain-drawn windows on the ground with Phae Larkin resting comfortably under my arm and Sirius attempting to keep himself in the extremely small cushioned area by holding himself up with a hand on my propped-up knees. Lily somehow manages to squeeze into the left seat, her back pressing against Zoe's and her feet against the wall forcing herself not to fall, while James stands in the doorway, leaving the door open carelessly and allowing our loud conversation and laughter to filter into the hall of the car.
"Well, well, well," begins Zoe with the practiced teasing that comes from years of friendship, "how nice of the Head Boy and Head Girl to grace us with their presence." Her head falls backward upon Lily's shoulder, and Zoe stares up at her, red hair falling in her face.
"Ya know what, Zo," Lily shoves Zoe's head forward into Remus', snickering as she does so, "I should take away house points just for that!"
Peter butts in, bringing the attention back to the matter at hand – grilling each other about internships. "Look, Moony what're you doing after school?"
Remus quickly licks his lips, his posture straightening as if he were a puppet on a string, his hands coming to rest on the slightly sticky table separating the rows. "I dunno yet ..." the last couple of hours of sunlight hit his brow just right that I can see sweat starting to form. "If everything goes well with my NEWTs, Dumbledore mentioned an internship next year." Remus drops that bomb with all the carefulness and calmness of a half-blind giant trampling through the woods.
"Dude!" Sirius shouts, his hand flying out to hit Remus on the chest but barely comes close before I have to catch him by the shoulders as this dumbass lifted the hand on my knee that was holding him in his seat. Gray and blue – raging storm and calming ocean – meet for a mere second before turning away. "That's bloody wonderful!"
"It'll be great if I don't fail!" Remus starts, giving us the beginning of a well-known rant we'd all heard many, many times over the summer. "Do you know how hard NEWTs are?" Marlene, who sits flush against the glass on the right row, begins mouthing the words to the rant, eliciting laughs that Remus seems not to notice. "I started revising last year and I don't think I'm anywhere close to ready!"
Luckily, Zoe cuts him off with a hand cupping his cheek and the affirmation of "you'll do great like you always do, honey", leaving James to pull himself deeper into the small space, shutting the door behind him.
"Well, I'm gonna see if Dad can pull some strings and get me an internship with magical law enforcement!" James is close to using the floor as a trampoline as he bounces up and down on his toes excitedly, the unbroken rubber of his new converses polluting the air with squeaks with each movement. "Ya know, they just opened them for grads and sixth years!"
