Cassie grinned at Lily as they watched the Sorting, feeling excited but, at the same time, sorry for the first years that had yet to go, all of them looking as if they wished the ground could swallow them up.
“They look terrified,” whispered Lily to her from across the table as they watched a small girl join the Hufflepuff table.
“I remember how scared I was when I was waiting,” said Cassie, almost nostalgically. “Absolutely terrified, thought I’d end up in Hufflepuff!”
“Cassie there are good things about Hufflepuff!” Lily remonstrated.
“Not as many good things as there are about the other houses.”
“Willinson, Restortia.”
“What a brilliant name!” laughed Cassie. “Oh, she’s a Slytherin,” she said as the girl headed off towards the far table. “Maybe it’s not such a brilliant name… well I suppose I can still mock her for it…” she mused.
“You and your aversion to Slytherins! I’m sure she’s perfectly lovely.”
“Yeah perfectly lovely like a deathly illness; most of them are. Anyway, you know I’d never… you know,” Cassie muttered. “I’m not like Potter or Black,” she said, grimacing. “Plus I’d get in trouble for it.”
“I know Cassie, don’t worry!” Lily rolled her eyes heavenwards as if praying for the strength to continue. “Shut up and eat your food,” she said as the meal magically appeared in front of them, the table buried under the mounds of food.
“Ah roast potatoes my old friends, how I’ve missed you,” sighed Cassie as she emptied the bowl onto her plate.
“Leave some for everyone else!”
“I can’t put them back in the bowl now; they’ve been on my plate. They’re mine!” she said evilly as she cackled.
“Cassie, you aren’t just going to eat potatoes are you?”
“No Mother, I’m going to save room for my pudding as well; don’t worry, I’ll have a balanced and healthy meal,” she replied sarcastically. “Now where’s the gravy?”
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“Oh how I missed History of Magic,” said Alice sarcastically as they sat down in the classroom.
“It’s so convenient that this classroom’s desks are best for sleeping on,” said Cassie as she lay her head down in her arms.
“Cassie!”
“Mmhmm?” she mumbled.
“It’s the first day! Surely you’re not going to begin by doing no work?” said Lily sharply.
“Well I might as well start the year as I mean to go on,” she said sleepily. “Besides Lils it’s only Professor Binns,” she said as he walked through the blackboard, shimmering slightly in the faint sunlight. “And we have three years until our exams!”
Even in autumn the classroom was stiflingly hot and soon the only person who was listening to Professor Binns drone on about the origins of the International Statute of Secrecy was Lily, whose notes were now covered in a number of doodles, mainly ugly faces which Cassie had labelled, ‘This is Lily’, before promptly falling asleep.
Suddenly a crash resounded throughout the room, waking everyone up and disturbing James and Sirius as they bewitched a parchment dragon to fly around the room, which fell to the floor in front of Professor Binns who continued on with his lecture oblivious.
“What was that?” said Cassie, her eyes wide as she looked around the room.
A girl called Emily who was sitting a couple of rows ahead turned red as she levitated her books off the floor and back onto the table, mouthing apologies to everyone as she did so.
Having discovered the source of the noise Cassie immediately went back to sleep, and woke an hour later to Mary poking her shoulder. “It’s the end of the lesson,” she said as everyone packed up.
“Oh right, thanks.”
“It’s okay, Lily wanted to leave you here as punishment but I thought that that was a bit harsh.”
“Did she now… sometimes I wonder why I’m even friends with her.”
Mary laughed as Lily glared at her, receiving only a sickly sweet smile from Cassie in return. “I heard that.”
“I hope you did. Find yourself a new best friend.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“I’m going now.”
“Well I’m going first.”
“Not if I can help it,” said Cassie as she pushed Lily over and trapped her between two desks.
“Need some help Evans?” said a voice from behind Cassie.
“Not from you,” said Lily as she picked herself up and marched past James Potter without a backwards glance.
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The four of them were doing their homework in the common room when three of the Marauders strolled past, Peter Pettigrew looking as if he was about to cry with excitement. “You’re going to be amazing James, you’re so talented!” he said as they came down from the stairs to the boys’ dormitories. Sirius was already lounging in one of the chairs by the fire, doing his homework for what looked like the first time in his entire Hogwarts career. “Where are you going?” he asked casually. “Anything exciting? Bit of trouble for the Slytherins?”
“Nah I’m going to Quidditch trials,” said James as he brandished his broom at Sirius.
“Is that the one you got for your birthday last year?”
“Yeah, my parents were going to send it to me but our owl got ill; it’s brilliant, I spent all summer on it.”
“Looks it,” said Sirius as he examined it. “What position are you trying out for?”
“Chaser,” answered Peter before James could say anything.
“Cool. Well good luck; I might come and watch in a minute but I’ve got to finish this stupid essay.”
“Do it later, or don’t do it at all.”
“Can’t, McGonagall will have my head if I don’t. She’s already threatened me with a term’s detention because she says she know I can do it.”
“Only a term’s detention!” said James incredulously. “She’s getting soft!”
“Or you could just get no detentions at all,” suggested Remus.
“Ah Remus, that’s easy for you to say. Me and Sirius we’re just not as good as you, not as… perfect. We have to try not to get into trouble.”
“And however hard we try-”
“We always fail,” finished James sadly. “It’s a pity and a shame.”
“But luckily we have you to keep us on the straight and narrow.”
Remus laughed. “When I can!”
“I think you’re doing a remarkable job,” said Sirius. “We’ve only had three detentions this week.”
“Four,” corrected James. “You’re forgetting cleaning the trophy room.”
“Ah cleaning the trophy room. How on earth did I forget that? I miss those gleaming silver cups already,” said Sirius with a mocking sigh. “But that was on Monday and Monday doesn’t really feel like it was this week. I mean, I had a day without detention in between then and now and that throws my timings off a little.” Cassie coughed as she tried to stifle her laughter, acutely aware of her friends watching her and Sirius’ puzzled glance in her direction. Unfortunately the friends were rather funny for arrogant bullies, making it a little – only a little mind - bit harder for Cassie to hate them passionately.
“We should go James or we’ll be late.”
“Oh yes let’s go James! I can’t wait to see you play!” squealed Peter as he followed them out of the common room.
After a while Sirius left to follow them and Mary, Alice, Cassie and Lily were still doing their homework, struggling with a particularly complicated list of reasons why the spells they learnt in Transfiguration were necessary, when they returned later that afternoon, a triumphant smile on James’ face.
“Didn’t I tell you you’d get on the team?” said Peter excitedly as they collapsed on the chairs.
“Well done mate,” said Sirius languidly. “You weren’t half bad and from what I saw it looks like we’ll have a pretty decent chance of keeping the Cup to ourselves this year.”
“The only thing is that now I have to keep up with doing none of my work, making hell for the Slytherins, keeping Snivellus in line and all our detention dates plus Quidditch practice. And there’s so much pressure on because we won it last year.”
“Yeah I’m surprised about that with the number of points you two lost; it’s amazing that we managed to win both,” said Remus.
“You’ll be fine James, we’ll support you through this hard time,” said Sirius, completely oblivious to the girls who were eyeing him up approvingly from the other side of the room and giggling incredibly loudly in an attempt to catch his attention.
“He’s so gorgeous!” they squealed once the boys had left.
“My sister said that she would go out with him and she’s in fourth year!” said another excitedly.
“I wish he would look at me,” sighed another as she doodled a heart on her hand. “Imagine if you could tell everyone that your boyfriend was Sirius Black,” she said dreamily.
“James Potter is so hot too and now he’s in the Quidditch team so we can go up to him and say well done!”
“You first then,” said her friend.
“I might annoy some Slytherins so that they’ll jinx me and James and Sirius will rescue me,” said another pensively. “Imagine that! And then they’ll ask me out and then…” she said, as she trailed off into a longwinded story about how she was going to marry both of them.
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