Bound to the Heart

Involuntarily Conscripted

Early morning light seeped in lazily from the window in to the Gryffindor 7th year boys' dormitory where there lay slow even breathing boys. The world and all its problems not yet rearing their ugly heads. In the bed to the right of the window was a boy who was 17, his head pressing in to the pillow. His hazel eyes opened slowly with the now steady flow of light in to the room. James propped himself up in his bed. He looked around the room where there were four other four-poster beds with red hangings and red blankets, their occupants still asleep.

James took in a deep breath and sighed, the memories of the previous night flooding back to him. It was shocking, to say the least. He couldn't even fathom the idea properly. He wished that he could remain in his extra soft bed and plush covers, without the world asking any more of him than to just lay there and sleep. But his world was not his own, that was for sure. So he pushed back his covers, and swiveled with like a snail to the edge of his bed, placing his feet on the stone floor. He shivered a bit when the cold came in to contact with his foot, but pushed forward anyway, getting out of bed and walking over to the bed to the left of the window. Where the sleeping form in the bed appeared to be sprawled out, taking as much space on the bed that he could.

James woke up all of the other boys in the room, and after taking a quick shower he got dressed and went down to the common room to wait for his friends. He sat on one of the red plush couches his bag sat next to his knee. He grabbed a piece of parchment from his bag and took out one of his pencils and began to doodle.

"James?" He looked up to see David, who was tall with blonde hair and blue eyes walking towards him. The other Gryffindor 7th years following suit.

"Ready to face the world?" Patrick Finnegan, who was an average height with a stocky build and reddish in tone curls that fell over his face, said in as an upbeat tone as he could.

"Ready as I'll ever be." James sighed as he crammed his paper and pencil in to his bag and hoisted it over his shoulder.

Together the five boys walked through the common room together and out of the portrait hole. They took their regular route to the great hall. Taking twists and turns and stairs and long hallways. Mostly to avoid certain portraits, who were either too annoying to bear or disliked the Gryffindor lads too much, and also to wake themselves up. It was an unspoken rule that they all believed that walking an extra few steps in the morning helped to wake them up. Of course they had never talked about such a thing, but no one ever protested the extra walking in the morning. It also gave the boys a chance to talk in the morning before they parted ways and went to class. However, this morning there was not a lot of chit chat, instead the boys walked in

"What do you boys think about the new law?" David asked, after a long period of silence.

"Well, I think that it's completely bonkers to force us to marry so young." Anthony Chambers, the boy stood an inch taller than Patrick and had dark skin and hair that was cut extremely short. "I mean, who do they think they are, bloody matchmakers?"

"Well obviously they act like we have nothing better to do than to get married." Michael Rogers, was slightly shorter than James and had dark hair and was the son of Padma Patil and her husband who was a muggle (his dad had told James that his mother and he had gone to school together in his day).

"Just what I wanted to do, get married at 18, you know it was on my bucket list." James smiled, trying hard to make a joke.

"Hardy, har, har, James." David punched him lightly in the shoulder, earning a few snickers from their other companions. They walked in to the great hall and headed for the Gryffindor table.