⚯͛ Sweet Caroline - Sirius Black ⚯͛

-7-

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. .**.☽ .*

"Timetables! Here, Miss Greengrass," Flitwick passed Eloise her timetable, before turning to Caroline and passing hers, "and Miss Rutherford, congratulations on getting prefect, by the way. You and Mr Goldstein will be a great pair."

"Oh thank you, Sir," she smiled at him before diverting her attention to her timetable.

She had Charms, then Potions, then Advanced Arithmancy Studies, then lunch, then a free period, then lastly Herbology. It wasn't a bad day. Altogether, Caroline had chosen to take nine NEWTs subjects, a lot more than the average sixth year. She knew it would mean she might be more stressed, and the work might be a slight over-burden, but she knew the more NEWTs she got the more career opportunities she would have once she became a healer.

She worked too hard, everyone always told her that. But if she didn't work hard, she knew she would never be successful!

She took one last sip of green tea before standing up, "El, you coming with me to the Hufflepuff table to see Tyler?"

Eloise looked up at her for a moment before shaking her head, "nah you're alright, mate, I'm just gonna finish my breakfast. I'll meet you in charms?"

"Okay," Caroline smiled, "see you in a bit then."

She walked over to the Hufflepuff table, before realising that Tyler wasn't there but was at the Gryffindor table chatting up Alice Fortescue. She rolled her eyes and decided they would be best left alone, so adjusted her bag round her shoulder and walked out of the hall to her first lesson, knowing it was always ideal to be early.

She walked down the corridor but stopped when she saw Peeves near the end trying to unlatch a painting from the wall, but was having no success. The clown-like poltergeist had an unusual look of concentration on his face, and Caroline thought it bared a lot of similarities to a look of constipation.

As she began to walk closer she realised that it wasn't coming undone because it was magically binded to a hook, but the hook was coming loose from the wall. If Peeves was only to get the hook out, he could take the whole painting with it.

"Do you need any help?" She voiced, causing the poltergeist to fly away from the painting in surprise, his large jester's hat almost falling off his head.

And then he shrieked with laughter, "YOU? Help ME? LITTLE RAVENCLAW PREFECT?! BWAHAHAHAHA!"

He flew around in circles for a few moment, giggling gleefully as Caroline just stood there, unimpressed. She sighed and pulled out her wand, focusing all her attention on the hook and - with a clean flick of her wand - the painting came flying off the wall and into Peeves who saw it just in time to catch it.

"Oh," his jaw dropped as he looked from the wall to the painting to Caroline and then back to the painting and then back to Caroline...

"You're welcome," she nodded, before walking closer, but he stood in her way, "excuse me, I need to get to Charms."

"Classes don't start for ages, eager Ravenclaw," he snorted an unnecessarily loud snort of laughter

"I like to be early..." She began to try to walk past him and he stepped out of the way this time, but remained flying by her side.

"What's your name, clever girl?" He asked.

"Caroline," she said plainly, not looking at the poltergeist beside her.

"Pleasure to meet you," he grinned a devilish grin, throwing something in front of them.

It exploded in a firework, and when she looked to where he was...he was gone. Strange.

She carried on walking to Charms, an odd feeling of pleasantness in her stomach from the encounter.

Despite being a prefect, one couldn't deny the thrill of doing something bad.

Walking upstairs to the third floor - where the Charms classroom was - she felt her mind wandering. A lot of people took charms as a NEWT subject, even though there were no subjects that were mandatory for NEWTs (but students always did 3 or more). Charms just seemed like an obvious class to take.

To be a Healer, Caroline would need NEWTs with Outstandings or Exceeds Expectations in Potions, Transfiguration, Herbology, Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts. On top of those five, Caroline had decided to take Astronomy, History of Magic, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes. She found them all interesting and simple enough for the most part, and felt the more NEWTs she took the better.

She got into the Charms classroom and was surprised that she was the fifth person there, assuming she would be the first. She shrugged and, figuring there were no assigned seats,  sat down in a random chair and pulled out her charms textbook.

She was busy re-reading the non-verbal spells section of the book (which she had gotten the hang of in the Christmas holidays of fifth year for a bit of fun, she had become quite the master at it) when Eloise came to sit beside her.

"Hey," the blonde greeted merrily as she pulled out a pot of ink and a quill from her bag.

"You alright?" Caroline murmured, turning the page.

"Never better," Eloise sat back in her seat and grinned at nothing in particular.

Tyler sat down on the desk to the left of the girls, and turned to look at them both, "did you hear about Sirius Black?"

Caroline stayed looking down and reading as Eloise asked, "no, what's happened?"

"He was kicked out of his house in the summer, disowned and everything," Tyler said.

Caroline looked up, "really? Where did you hear that?"

"I overheard him and his mates talking about it when I was sitting with Alice," Tyler told them.

"Poor guy," Eloise frowned, "I wonder what happened."

"Yeah..." was all Caroline could say.

Just then, Black and his friends entered the classroom, looking jovial as ever. She wondered how anyone could look as happy as that if their own family had just disowned them? She knew she wouldn't be able to live with herself.

After they had sat down together near the back of the classroom, Professor Flitwick came in, squeaking, "okay, sixth years! Hello! Welcome to NEWTs level charms. I hope you're all prepared...?"

Caroline took out her ink, quill, and a spare roll of parchment.

"Today we will be studying the art of non-verbal charms..."

Suddenly Caroline couldn't help but grin. She was good at this.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. .**.☽ .*