Andante - R. Lupin

1.

"I'll come!" Oberon shrugged "I won't turn down free food and we can get you some books for the new year?" He added

"I promised Reggie I'd go there, I'll tell him you passed though Cece," Caspian said squeezing her shoulder

"Perse?" She asked with a hopeful smile

"Sorry darling but father has asked me to stay behind. I will meet you there later if you're still out. I really am proud of you, Alcyone," he said kissing her forehead

"Just us three then," she shrugged

Atlas held out his arm so that Ally could side along apparate, she hated the sensation but their father rarely topped up the floo powder and for some reason or other the boys always forgot to grab some when they were leaving the ministry. It was such a pain as Ally much preferred travelling via floo but there wasn't much she could do, at least not until she learnt to apparate by herself.

They arrived at Diagon Alley and Ally couldn't help but hold her arm out to stop the sick sensation in her stomach, both Atlas and Oberon laughed at her as they pulled her through the busy streets. They arrived in the Leaky Cauldron and found a booth in the middle of the restaurant.

The family always loved coming to the Leaky Cauldron. They had told Ally that it was because their mum would always bring them here when they would get their books for school. Estrella would love to do this ever since Perseus' first year and the boys had often done it with Atlas, Caspian and Ally to make them feel included in the tradition as Atlas had been just too young to go to Hogwarts when their mother was alive and the latter two had been babies.

Ally liked looking around the place, she was a people-watcher. She wasn't very intuitive or observant but she liked making up stories about the people's lives and her favourite thing to do was guess whether people were on a date. She never found out the answers so she made them up — so far she's had eleven right and four wrong — it was just something silly for her to pass the time but she had loved it.

Currently, she was looking at a 'couple' who she recognised to be a few years older than her, she couldn't help but notice they were having a very heated discussion and Ally was sure they were about to break up. Her suspicions were confirmed when the woman threw her drink in the man's face and shoved his face into his dinner. She didn't understand why she hadn't just hexed him but she really thought that way of getting the point across was extremely effective. The man then sat there all red and embarrassed as he tried to get the spaghetti out of his t-shirt, Ally wanted to point out the fact he could use his wand; they were wizards and witches after all.

Atlas arrived at the table with two fire whiskies and a butter beer. Ally couldn't help but scowl at the fact her brother had gotten her that drink but considering she was only just sixteen, which was not even of age, she couldn't blame him for not getting her fire whisky. Oberon and Atlas were deeply engrossed in conversation when she saw James, Sirius and Remus walk in with James' parents.

Ally's eyes widened and she held up her menu to cover her face. She hadn't seen any of them since her little incident before the first exam and she definitely wanted to keep it that way now because she felt extremely flustered around Remus Lupin as he was the sweetest person and wasn't like James or Sirius who knew they were charming!

She also had an undeniable loyalty to Regulus who had been writing letters to her over the summer explaining how tough it currently was at home with Sirius gone. Ally had truly believed Sirius would have gone back for Regulus but he hadn't and Ally didn't know what she would do if her brothers didn't return for her. She would be gutted and that's the nice word for it.