Fallen Star || James Potter

25. Normality Returns

Hello my loves,

I love this chapter sm and I hope you all do.

Also have to say thank you to my fab friends itsqueennik and lovettvalley for their help with my writers block this chapter. They both have Harry Potter stories too so ya'll should check them out.

Anyway, enjoy <3

Song: Killer Queen (Queen)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Normality Returns

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

September 1st 1972, Friday.

The Great hall bustled with loud chatter as the eager students waited for the sorting ceremony to begin. Astra took her seat at the Slytherin table, Ivy to her right and Daphne opposite her, the bench at her other side empty for the arrival of the new first years.

Bellatrix Black could be heard a few seats down, complaining at how she had been passed up for head girl by blood traitor Molly Prewett. Astra grimaced at even the possibility of Bellatrix being head girl, the words she had spoken to Cosette Dumbledore only a few months earlier etched into her brain. Thankfully, although she had been made a prefect in her fifth year and remained one to this day, no faculty member had been deficient enough to actually make Bellatrix head girl.

Astra could have sworn that the grand room that seated all of Hogwarts' students had been larger than what was currently surrounding her. Maybe it was a sign that she truly had grown over the summer, not just in height but in maturity too. The prospect of school was not nearly as daunting as when she had first stepped foot into the Great Hall exactly a year earlier.

Had it really been a year to the day since she reunited with Remus? A year since Sirius had loudly declared across the hall 'secret brother'. Astra could laugh about it all now, how one of her greatest worries used to be whether Remus would even speak to her. Of course, he still refused to refer to her as his sister, still refused to at times even acknowledge their familial relationship, but that didn't bother her as much as it used to. Remus being her friend was more than enough. The rest, she could only hope would come with time.

Another thought however had been looming over her since she had entered the Great Hall. The second she had a moment to herself, her mind instantly went to her brother.

She had made it further than Atlas.

Astra was now a second year student, almost thirteen years old and she had officially outgrown her big brother.

It did not seem fair.

The sound of the thick oak double doors opening broke her away from her thoughts, the loud patter of nervous first years making their way into the room.

Immediately, she could spot Iris amongst the crowd, clearly looking so strikingly similar to her brother who had shot a thumbs up of encouragement her way. However, she had been too engrossed in the enchanted ceiling above to even notice.

Dark clouds lapped the ceiling reflecting the weather outside. In-between the large floating candles, constellations of the night could be seen, each star looking more beautiful than the last.