Black // Marauders

2. The Letter

The train ground to halt about twenty minutes after Ava had finished her Cauldron Cake. Persie's Chocolate Frog Card was Dumbledore again so now she had four of him, beating the amount of Helga Hufflepuff's she had.

"I swear every time we get off this train it's raining?" Persie exclaimed, trying to cover her hair with her robes as she grabbed at the black material.

"I think you're right. Now, where are the carriages?" Ava said, craning her neck to look around for the red velvet, as every one moved in a crowd to the left, "Ah! Over there!"

They all huddled around trying to stay as dry as they could as they headed for the deep red coaches lined up against the night sky.

"Right, all in!" Persie shouted, jumping in the carriage first and fixing her hair and after everyone, unfortunately including Miranda, piled in, the carriage started to pull itself up towards the castle.

"I hate the rain." Lily stated, looking at her long red streaks of hair that had turned into tendrils in the rain before just sighing and giving up. Persie laughed at her sad expression before opening her mouth to speak when her words were stolen by Miranda.

"Oh don't worry Lily, you look gorgeous anyway!" She said, stroking her arm as if she was in physical pain.

"Aww! Thank you Miranda!" Lily replied, beaming at her.

"Call me Mimi. Everyone else does."

At this point, Ava looked across at Persephone and could tell she wanted to stab her she thought she was that annoying but she decided against saying anything and just kept looking at her every once in the while to make sure she hadn't jumped on her yet.

Persie gave Ava a look before she shrugged and turned back to their friends. The carriages pulled up in front of the Entrance Hall as everyone made a dash for the Great Hall and seated themselves at their house tables.

"Aye up. Miranda, Adams is waving at you." Ava said poking her in the arm and then gesturing over to the Ravenclaw table, where, low and behold, Justin Adams was waving and smirking over towards them.

"Oh my god!" She exclaimed before waving her hand frantically in return. His smile faltered a little as he waved back half heartedly now, before Dumbledore's booming voice made all their heads turn.

"Hello students and welcome back to Hogwarts. Now, let the Sorting begin." He said, seating himself back down until the Sorting had finished. Traditionally, they stood and cheered and danced for the new Gryffindors. Sirius and James had masterminded a new chant for the first years, as per tradition, which Peter and Remus happily sung along too. This went down well with everyone, except the Slytherins, as per tradition. Persie had never seen Regulus, Rabastan and Barty look so unimpressed.

By the end of sorting, all of Gryffindor was ready to eat. Dancing and chanting really took it out of you. The tables were filled with food and after everyone had finished, dessert took its place. After everyone had done eating so much that they were about to burst, Dumbledore took his place at the head of the staff table and addressed everyone again.

"Now that we've all eaten, it's time for the beginning of the year reminders. Now, Mr Filch has asked me to say that the Forbidden Forest is still forbidden to any pupil in any of the years and that last year, there was a series of pranks set out by the one-eyed witch statue and on the third floor corridor. I would like to ask for there not to be a repeat of that this year." Dumbledore finished, directing this comment especially towards James, Remus, Sirius and Peter. Promptly, Sirius and James began snickering, attempting to keep a straight face as they made eye contact with each other, "Now, I'm sure you are all extremely tired so it's time you got to bed. Prefects, please show the first years where to go."