Accio Evans

Chapter 2: Head boy

The four girls were for once, dumbstruck, speechless. Lily couldn't get her head around it, James Potter Head Boy? Was Dumbledore on drugs? Was he mad? What on earth could have possessed him to make James Potter Head Boy?! Fair enough, he had matured over the last year and he was more responsible, but responsible enough for Head Boy? Lily doubted it, after all last year he had inflated Bertum Aubrey's head...

Sirius flopped down in the seat next to Lily, and chuckled at her apparent confusion and then flashed her his best movie star grin.

"What? Who did you expect, Remus?" Sirius asked, grinning again. James stood, somewhat awkwardly in the middle of the compartment, obviously wanting to leave, however Sirius was now settled and it was obvious they would share the train ride with the girls in their compartment. James sat down on the seat closest to the door, as Remus entered and took the seat next to Jessica who was blushing profusely.

"To be quite honest, yes." Lily answered. "But you weren't even a Prefect?" Lily added, now aimed at James, it sounded slightly harsher out loud than it did in her head. She recoiled. "Sorry, that was harsh." She blushed slightly as James somewhat winced. He nodded and shrugged slightly.

"I don't know...I was just as confused as you when it arrived." James spoke, his eyes directed straight at hers. As much as he had calmed down his antics and concentrate don being her friend, Lily knew from the look in James' eyes that he was most definitely not over her, despite what he said, she saw the disappointment in his eyes, he felt like he'd let her down, and Lily felt the butterflies return to her stomach, drills and hammers at the ready. Damn it! She thought, she was hoping they'd found someone else to bug. Lily tried to look away, however her eyes kept being drawn towards James and his Head Boy badge.

"So Lily," Remus asked, tearing Lily's eyes away from James. "How was your summer?" Lily forced a smile; she noted Remus looked tired, purple bags hung under his eyes; their usual sparkle however was not missing.

"Great." Lily grimaced. Alice raised an eyebrow, she'd been the one on the end of Lily's ranting letters about her sister, however she said nothing. "How was yours?" Lily asked to distract Remus from her summer, she had glossed over the details of her summer in her letters to Remus, she trusted him 100%, but she didn't feel like relaying the information again, sometimes it was too painful to explain.

"Not too bad." Remus replied. "Went on holiday with mum and dad, spent a bit of time at Potter Manor, a lot of time doing nothing." He smiled and his whole face seemed to light up.

"Where's Peter?" Hestia asked a minute or two later, she asked her question of everyone, but her gaze drifted over to Sirius. The group looked towards Sirius; but he seemed increasingly engrossed with the sleeve of his robes, leaving Hestia in somewhat awkward silence, so Remus cut in.

"Haven't seen him since we were on the Platform, hey maybe he missed the train!" he suggested, James chuckled slightly but Sirius ignored any evidence of conversation. Lily elbowed him and he looked up to her, flashed her a grin and then returned to fiddling with his sleeve. Hestia sent Remus a silent thank you, and he nodded appreciatively. Remus understood something had obviously gone on between Hestia and Sirius, the two of them had grown close towards the end of last year, they insisted that they were just friends, although everyone knew it was more than that by the way the two of them beamed as they cuddled together on the sofa in the common room while watching James and Peter play Lily and Remus at wizards chess. Now, something serious seemed to have happened for Sirius to be ignoring her. Hestia hadn't mentioned anything in her letters Lily noted, but having said that Lily hadn't mentioned the full details of Petunia's news to Hestia either, she had wanted to tell her best friend face to face, so maybe that was it, she was waiting to tell her later, Lily hoped...

James who had been uncharacteristically quiet up until this point offered Hestia a sympathetic glance after sensing the change in atmosphere, Hestia smiled weakly and stared out the window disappointedly, it seemed some things didn't change.

Awkward silence ensued, no-one spoke for a few moments, the only noise was from peals of laughter from the next door compartment and the train as it clicked along the tracks. Even the resident chatterbox Jessica held her tongue.

The silence was only broken around five minutes later when Peter's face appeared at the compartment door. Sirius released a deep laugh, Peter was a sight! Scorch marks covered his robes, his eyebrows appeared singed and his face was blackened with soot and the ends of his hair glowed with an orange light, as if they had recently been on fire.

"Peter, what happened?!" Alice exclaimed, seemingly the only person who didn't find the whole debarkle thoroughly amusing, bar James who looked torn between disapproval and amusement. The group collapsed into quiet giggles as Peter entered the compartment. Closing the door behind him, Peter looked sheepish.

"Exploding snap, the third years forced me to play with them, only thing was they enchanted the cards to always explode on me..." he explained, blushing slightly. "Two Ravenclaw prefects had to come to put me out," he gestured towards his hair, "One of them owled Professor McGonagall, I'm guessing I'll have detention when I get to school." He concluded glumly as he slumped into the empty seat next to Sirius.

James looked physically annoyed, Lily noted, she'd been watching him from the corner of her eye; she knew James had noticed her gaze but he had not said a single word which Lily found strange; even last year he would have made a sarcastic comment to which Lily would roll her eyes and try to hide a smile.

"Good, you should know exploding snap is banned on the Hogwarts express. Five points from Gryffindor for stupid behaviour" James replied, attempting to put on a stern front but his eyes betrayed him. Jessica didn't know who looked more shocked, Lily or Sirius who were both staring open mouthed. Peter nodded solemnly and somewhat annoyed. Sirius didn't know what to say... all he could stammer was "Prongs?" the Marauders had nicknamed themselves sometime in fifth year, Lily didn't know why though, she guessed it was a secret code that no-one else understood, if you asked her, they just sounded silly.

"I'm Head Boy Padfoot, I'm taking this seriously." He replied, a small smile creeping across his face as Lily nodded approvingly. James caught Lily's eye and they shared a smile for a second, then she looked away and silence once again fell upon the group.

After a few minutes Jessica had, had enough.

"Kumquat!" she announced loudly, everyone turned to stare at her confused, but a determined grin appeared across her face.

"Excuse me?" Sirius asked, although he too was now growing a smile.

"I don't know, it's something dad does when there's a silence. He says a random word to stimulate conversation and break the ice." She added with a giggle, Peter began to laugh out loud.

"That's such a strange idea." Alice managed to squeak in between laughs.

"Works though doesn't it?" Remus asked, too beginning to laugh.

"Looks like it worked." Remus concluded "The random word thing." He added, a few minutes later when everyone had started up their own conversations. Lily was chatting animatedly with Sirius, James and Peter about something or the other, Peter didn't seem too interested, however James was listening intently, and Alice and Hestia were comparing the shades of nail polish that the two of them were wearing.

"Seems so." Jessica beamed, blushing slightly at the compliment from Remus Lupin and feeling her heart rate increase rapidly. Out of the window Hogwarts castle became a tiny spot on the horizon, standing out against the pale blue of the sky. Maybe this year won't be so bad after all she mused as she continued her conversation with Remus, still smiling.