build me up buttercup [s.black]

[1] Introductions

***

I've always loved you

Even had I not met you

Love you I would still

Not ever to forget you

Desired I have to be real

To quinch mine heart's fire

Love for you always still

'Soulmate' by Max Brackett

***

It was a bitterly cold Sunday evening, and Aisling McCawley sunk down further into her jumper to protect the back of her neck from the draught coming through the cracked window panes in the library. As she did so, she flicked a long, dark curl out of her face with her wand.

"A wit-sharpening potion," she repeated to herself for what felt like the hundredth time, "is a moderately difficult potion. If prepared improperly, it can have disastrous consequences. Ingredients include ground scarab beetle, sliced ginger roots and armadillo bile."

She paused, rubbing her eyes, and stared at the half finished essay lying next to her open copy of 'Magical Drafts and Potions' by Arsenius Jigger. She sighed. The essay was due tomorrow and she wasn't anywhere near being done.

She hadn't meant to leave the essay this late, but the fifth years had been receiving such enormous piles of homework recently that the Potions essay had simply slipped her mind until a few hours ago. The truth was she was actually very annoyed at herself for getting into this situation, and her mood was not helped by the incessant whispering she could hear a few feet in front of her. She looked up to locate the source of the noise and was simultaneously shocked and unsurprised to see who it was. James Potter, Sirius black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew were all sitting around a circular wooden table, hunched over a book and whispering excitedly. Obviously she wasn't surprised to see that they were the ones making the noise, she was well used to them causing disturbances. The surprising thing was their presence in the library at all.

Aisling was a frequent visitor to the library and she couldn't recall seeing Black, Potter or Pettigrew in there at all during their first four years at Hogwarts. Come to think of it, that was the third time she had seen them in the library that week. She remembered thinking, as she did now too, how weird it was that they were all reading one book between them. She noticed the title of the book, it was the same book each time; 'A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration' by Emeric Switch. She didn't even bother to wonder why her fellow fifth year students were revising N.E.W.T. level Transfiguration.

She had to admit, the group of boys intrigued her. It wasn't like she didn't know them, of course. It was impossible to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry without being aware of James and Sirius. You could barely have one conversation without somebody bringing up the latest prank they had pulled. Most recently, they had managed to sneak a litter of Nifflers into the building. Of course, the beasts had promptly torn up every room they got into, searching for shiny objects. She did rather suspect that quiet, seemingly rule abiding Remus probably had more to do with the mischief than he let on. He was far too clever not to be involved.

And then there was Peter, Aisling had always felt a bit sorry for him. She imagined that it must have been difficult for him, being friends with three people as intelligent and popular as Remus, Sirius and James when he himself was painfully average in most lessons, and found it far more difficult to speak to people and make friends than the other three.