Carina McGonagall is named after the constellation containing the second brightest star in the sky - and it just so happens one Sirius Black is named after the brightest. They've always had an interesting relationship throughout the years - pranks...
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25th July 1976
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
The week of Sirius being at James' flew by. The correspondence between all of the Marauders and Carina was daily at least and it was good to know Sirius was out of that house.
Remus had arrived first on that Sunday morning. Hope and Lyall already knew the way to the McGonagall residence quite well as Remus had been staying over in the holidays since second year.
Of course, he had never stayed more than a week or two and Carina had never understood why, seeing as the Hogwarts summer holiday was almost twice as long as the regular six weeks Muggle schools got off. But, of course, she had then found out about his lycanthropy and it had all made sense.
Carina had run to the door the minute she had seen the Lupins' familiar car coming down the little path up to the house.
She and Remus had sent plenty of letters over the previous weeks but Carina still realised as she saw his grinning face for the first time since they had left Platform 9 and 3/4 that she had missed Remus dearly.
They had hugged each other as soon as he got out of the car, but as Lyall carried Remus's case inside, the pair of teens rushed to help Hope Lupin out of the vehicle and into the McGonagall residence.
Minerva already had tea and biscuits out for the Lupins as they often sat in the kitchen with her, talking, as Carina and Remus went upstairs to sort out the bedrooms, but this time it was immediately different as it was obvious Hope was worse than she had ever been before.
As the teenagers helped Hope to a chair in front of the fireplace, Minerva offered her and Lyall, who had just come back into the kitchen, a cup of tea each, with worry in her eyes. When Lyall saw the concern in everyone else's eyes, he sighed and brought a chair up next to his wife.
"I told her it was a bad idea for her to come all this way in her condition..." "Condition! I'm sick, not paralysed, Lyall and you damn well know that!" Hope's Welsh accent seemed to flare as she became irritated. "I'm perfectly capable of sitting in a car, whatever the distance, to spend some time with my husband and my son."
Lyall sighed once again and rubbed his face as his wife turned away from to address Carina. "Hello, dear. My, you've grown since I saw you last! Such a beautiful young lady! No wonder Sirius took such a fancy to you! So smart and so pretty, honestly I'm glad Remus has a friend like you to keep him out of trouble. Not like the others, I can tell you that. But I suppose he's rather like his father in that regard, intelligent yet always getting into bother. Can talk themselves out of it, mind you and don't I have some stories about that..."
As Carina giggled, Hope launched into some animated story telling, Lyall grinning in remembrance as she recounted it. Minerva was amused by it all too, as she watched her daughter and her daughter's best friend as the sweet Muggle woman went on recounting her tales of baby Remus, younger Lyall and magical creatures.
Hope only stopped when the doorbell rang again. In her fascination with Hope's stories, Carina had forgotten to check outside for her other guests. As she rushed to the front door and swiftly unlocked it, Carina was greeted by all three of her remaining guests: James, Sirius and Peter all grinning at her.
She embraced each one of them in turn, ushering them and their parents into the house. When Sirius came through last, his face split into the widest, most Sirius grin Carina had seen as he watched her face. She narrowed her eyes at him as she saw the amusement in his eyes. The pair stared at each other for a full minute, before Sirius broke first. "Sweet Merlin, I've missed you, Curls."
His arms wrapped tightly around her and she allowed him to lift her off of the ground in his embrace as her own arms snaked around his neck. While Sirius had grown over summer, so had Carina and both stood at about the same height so they walked shoulder to shoulder into the living room, holding hands. Everyone else was congregated in there, the adults discussing things like how their summers had been and their jobs, while the other Marauders danced around the room, poking fun at one another as they went.
Once everyone was all together, Minerva immediately went into teacher mode. "There is only one spare bedroom. I'm fairly certain you can all fit into that room, but whether that will be without incident..."
"Don't worry, Professor. We can all fit into a small room together just fine. One time at Peter's we all had to share just one bed and that turned out... moderately non-disastrous, so..." James piped up.
Peter giggled at the recollection of the incident and Remus rolled his eyes. "Well, Carina will show you the way up and you can drop off your bags, gentlemen. You can head out to the lake, or into the village, whenever you like, but don't get into any bother, ok?"
With a giant smile spreading across her face, Carina nodded and bolted up the stairs, the boys right on her heels.
And just like that some of the best few weeks of their lives had begun.
