No Body No Crime □■ Hermione Granger

Chapter 4

After Arlene's mother dropped the bombshell, she gave her and Sage each a hug and a kiss, then left.

Arlene sate on the right side of the compartment, legs crossed with her hands on the table as she stared out the window, watching the rain drops as it hit the glass.

Sage sate on the left side, back against the wall as she stretched her legs on the other two seats with The Daily Prophet and a muggle newspaper in her lap, a sharpie in her hand as she circled important sentences and wrote some notes.

Ever since Arlene could remember, Sage absolutely loved three things, Lee Jordan, voicing her opinion (thus co-comment in with Lee) and writing.

As a matter of fact, when she was nine years old, Sage decided that one day, she would have her own office in the TDP headquarters, which meant she knew what she wanted in life, another reason why she was Arlene's foil character.

"So, we're calling off the plan?" Sage concluded after Arlene finished telling what her mom said.

Arlene frowned "What? Why?"

Sage stared at her with a horrified expression "Because, your psychopathic serial killer uncle, who is the first ever to break out of Azkaban, has a murder agenda to kill you and the boy who saved the Wizarding World before he could even talk!?"

"We don't even know he was talking about us!" Arlene exclaimed "For all we know, 'they' could be his old friends. I mean, mom said there were Aurors going to be placed at Hogwarts' entrances"

The only time Arlene could recall Sage showing any signs of anger, was back in first year when Pansy had made Arlene hang out with her and the other girls, she was just happy to be making friends and agreed.

It was a mistake.

Turned out, when Pansy said 'hang out' she meant 'let's go make fun of Harry and prove how much of an asshole a Slytherin could be'.

Eventually, Arlene started making excuses to not hang out with them and eventually, Pansy saw her with Sage, rambling to her about how Fudge should have changed his name because 'Mr. Fudge' is what a stripper would be called.

Pansy marched over to her and bluntly asked how she could turn down the honor of being her friend to be with a 'Hufflepuff Mudblood'.

As a witness of the incident, Arlene can say with full honestly that seeing a badger get angry is never ever pretty, seriously, she had nightmares that night.

And she was sure that eleven year old Sage didn't even know what mudblood meant and was angrier about the Hufflepuff part.

Sage slammed her hand on the table as she stood up.

"Arlene Evelyn Black-Burke, I know being a reckless piece of shit is your thing, but this is too far! We have to leave the impulsive, stupid ass decisions to the Gryffindors!

"Because we actually think before making a decision! And I don't care that you're totally okay with endangering yourself, if you step a foot outside castle ground, I swear to every god there is or was or ever will be, I will shove that slip so far up your ass, you'll be choking on it!"

Taking a deep breath and sitting down, Sage cleared her throat as she looked down and muttered "Pardon my French."

Arlene stared at the other girl with shock written all over her face and her face was red from embarrassment.

"Okay"

Sage lifted her head "What?"

"I said okay, I won't go to Hogsmeade, you're right, if Sirius Black is smart enough to escape a high security Azkaban cell, and dangerous enough for Minister Fudge -Merlin that name cracks me up- to warn the muggles, I shouldn't go"