Magic (5sos/l.h. Hogwarts AU)

Chapter 56

~A/N~ How's everyone doing in quarantine? I've had a week of exams and I'm about to have another in a couple of weeks. I've also been watching videos about the American exam system and absolutely losing my mind at how unnecessarily difficult things are in England.
Enjoy the chapter!
Leila xx

Smoke billowed out of the scarlet train, floating onto the platform where we were saying goodbye to Liz, Andrew and Ben Hemmings. Jack had already wandered off to a group of surly looking sixth year Slytherins without bidding farewell to the family, causing yet another glance to be exchanged between us.

The familiar hissing noise alerted me to the fact that it was time to board the Hogwarts Express, so I quickly nudged my friends and we headed off with the sea of other students to dash through the corridors, trying to find an empty place for us to sit.

Every time I stood in the train, breathing in the dusty scent and ignoring the overwhelming dizziness from moving so quickly, I thought about the first time I journeyed to Hogwarts. Had I not bumped into Hermione on that fateful day, things could be completely different. I would never have made friends with the bushy-haired girl, or come to know Neville and Lavender as I did.

Perhaps I would never have made it into Gryffindor, as I had learned about the houses from Hermione before we arrived at school, and I wouldn't have had any biased views to change the Sorting Hat's decision.

I often wondered where I would have sat if Hermione didn't offer me a seat in their compartment, what I would have done. Having already met Calum and Michael, would I have travelled further until I reached them, and therefore have changed nothing? Would Fred and George have invited me to sit with them if I met them on the train?

Or would I have gone further? Sat with Malfoy, or Pansy Parkinson, and be a completely different person with a green and silver heart instead of the red and gold I so proudly embraced? Would I have met some Ravenclaws, and be sitting in their common room with a book instead of curled up in an armchair with Michael by the roaring fire? Had I sat with Hufflepuffs, would I spend my summer researching Herbology by the Black Lake?

"Look, Ginny and Neville have saved us a seat!" Luke said in my ear, shoving open the glass door and pulling us all into the compartment where I could once again embrace my friends, realising that I couldn't imagine a world where I wasn't Gryffindor, where I hadn't bumped into Hermione on the train.

And maybe I didn't want to.

***
"SNAP!" Five people screamed at once, followed by a loud bang that you wouldn't experience in a muggle game of Snap. But in the wizarding world, this was deemed normal.

"Is that Exploding Snap I hear?" A friendly face popped up from behind the glass, and Hermione's smile was a welcome sight.

"How did you guess?" Ashton chuckled, getting up to hug her. I had forgotten how close they had become during the third year, but now all the memories were rushing back.

"I don't know, maybe the loud bangs or the swearing," she said. "Then again, maybe not. Anyway, I just came in to say hello, Harry and Ron will probably be waiting for me."

We all quickly bade farewell before she continued her journey down the train.

"How close are you three now?" Calum asked, referring to the three way friendship between Hermione, Ginny and I. "Because you two are obviously like, best friends, and you don't seem to go around with her that much."

"No, we still chat in the dormitory," Ginny said. "It's just because she's got Harry and Ron, and we've got you four, so we don't spend loads of time in the day together."

"Hm," Michael made a noise of agreement, then raised his eyebrows. "But-"

"Is that Michael we hear?" A loud voice echoed from the corridor, and Ginny sighed loudly but the rest of us perked up as the door slid open to reveal the twins.

"It is!" Fred exclaimed jovially. "What a surprise, the rest of you are here too!"

"That's not really a surprise..." Ashton said, but Luke cut him off.

"Sarcasm, bro."

"Oh." Ashton turned red and ceased to be part of the conversation once again. The rest of us just smiled, though, and continued.

"Where's Lee?" Michael asked, referring the twins' best friend, Lee Jordan, well known throughout the school for being the commentator for the Quidditch matches. His commentary was always hilarious and generally quite informative, albeit he had a tendency to be incredibly biased towards Gryffindor and go off topic a lot, infuriating Professor McGonagall immensely.

"Saving our seats," George said.

"We just came to say-"

"-we're continuing Weasley's Wizard Wheezes-"

"-and we might need a hand with some stuff-"

"-like market research-"

"-and making the products."

"Sounds exciting!" I giggled, thrilled at the prospect of new havoc to cause, already anticipating the adrenaline rush I got from trying new things and sneaking around making mischief.

"As long as Mum doesn't find out," Ginny said. Mrs Weasley was rather - unsupportive - of the whole thing.

"She won't. We've got our tracks covered," said Fred. "Now, we'd best be off. Don't want to keep Lee waiting for too long. Toodles!"

But their place hovering at the doorframe was quickly taken by Lavender and Parvati, wearing more makeup than I was used to but it seemed their skill level had increased over the holidays, and they could pull it off quite naturally.

"Hi Leila! Hi boys!" Lavender squealed, deliberately ignoring Ginny. The good patch in their relationship that they had had last year had clearly worn off, and the two girls were back to hating my best friend for no apparent reason.

"Hi," I said without much enthusiasm.

"You two look different," Ginny had also caught onto their change in appearance, but voicing it was clearly the wrong idea.

"No one asked you!" Parvati spat, the atmosphere of the room clearly changing, tension quickly rising.

"She was just making a harmless comment," said Michael quietly, his voice full of meaning. "Why are you calling her out on it?"

"She was attacking us, so we need to defend ourselves," Lavender said, and as Luke stood up in a threatening manner I sensed a fight brewing. However, this was one I definitely did not want to see as I had developed a soft spot for the two girls, so quickly intervened.

"Well, it was nice of you to drop in! See you at school!" It was abrupt, but did the job, and they took the hint, strutting down the train at high speeds.

"Look, I get you were trying to stop a fight but they were really unnecessarily aggressive to Ginny," Luke said.

"It's nothing I'm not used to," she scoffed, glaring round at us all. "It's been going on since I got here."

"Bullying?" Ashton asked. "Shouldn't we tell someone?"

"Are you stupid?" I said. "Tell someone?"

"It's not like Malfoy's bullying, just a little comment here and there," Ginny said.

"Well, if you need me to beat them up, I'm not opposed to punching a girl," Calum said, and just like that the tension dropped and we were back to our game of Exploding Snap.