Disclaimer: The Harry Potter World belongs to J.K. Rowling.
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Chapter 5
Ardelle was the first one in the entire class to successfully transfigure the toucan into a goblet.
Which was a rare occurrence, since Ardelle, while quite smart in other areas of school, was very, very bad at Transfiguration.
"Well done, Miss Potter. Ten points to Gryffindor," Professor McGonagall said with a small smile, "Excellent work."
"Thank you," Ardelle said, slumping down in her chair with a relieved sigh.
"How'd you do it?" Lily asked from beside Ardelle.
Ardelle turned and smiled, "It's quite easy, actually. You just have to be sure to get your wand movements right. Then, it's just a matter of saying the spell."
Lily nodded, "Right. Could you demonstrate?"
"Of course I can." With a skilled movement of her arm, Ardelle had transfigured her goblet back into a toucan, which squawked and flapped its wings in irritation.
"Erm...alright, let me try," Lily's eyebrows furrowed with concentration as she mimicked the the wand movement that Ardelle had just demonstrated, and her Toucan turned into a half-formed goblet—a silver cup with toucan wings still sticking out of the sides.
Lily's cheeks reddened with embarrassment, but Ardelle just gave her an encouraging smile, "Try again. That was close."
Ardelle flicked her wand and changed the half-formed goblet back into a toucan, which seriously looked annoyed now.
"Oh, whatever," Ardelle said playfully when the toucan tried to bite her finger, "You can deal with it. You're not getting hurt."
The toucan gave an irritated squawk before ruffling his wings and sitting still, waiting almost expectantly for Lily to cast the spell.
"Go on," Ardelle encouraged, and Lily gave it another go.
Sure enough, the toucan turned into a goblet, and Lily let out a delighted laugh.
"That's it!" Ardelle grinned, giving Lily a hi-five. "Excellent work, Miss Evans."
"Indeed," Professor McGonagall said with a smile, "And excellent teaching, Miss Potter. Twenty points to Gryffindor."
The two girls smiled at each other.
***
"Sirius," Ardelle grumbled, "You should really be more careful with your inkpots."
She waved her wand and cleaned up the spilled ink and turned to glare at a sheepish Sirius Black.
"Sorry, Ar," Sirius said with a nervous grin, "I, erm, I—,"
"Whatever," Ardelle cut him off, "Just don't touch my ink. Especially not while I'm trying to do my Transfiguration Essay, alright? Especially not when the said essay is due in less than half a day."
"You really should've done it earlier, Ar. Even James and I have done it already."
Ardelle groaned, "You really don't have to remind me, Sirius. I already know. And it's not my fault I'm terrible at Transfiguration."
"Well, actually, you were the first one to—,"
"That was one time," Ardelle sighed, "Just a stroke of luck. Could you offer me some help with my essay?"
"Erm..." Sirius took the essay from her hands hesitantly and scanned through it quickly.
"Well, it's pretty good, aside from the fact that it's three inches short of the assigned length," He said, passing the parchment back to her, "Erm..."
"Right. I'll talk to Professor McGonagall about it tomorrow, I guess," Ardelle groaned, "She's going to take so many points from Gryffindor..."
"Yeah, she probably is," Sirius shrugged, and gave her a grin, "But there's nothing you can do about it, right? So just move on. Next time, maybe try to find some help earlier on."
"I did! I got Remus to help me, but we just ended up eating candy and reading for an hour and a half—,"
"Good for you two," Sirius rolled his eyes.
"No, bad for us," Ardelle sighed, "I didn't get much of my work done at all."
Sirius shrugged, "Whatever. At least you have something. Peter couldn't even finish his essay on werewolves."
Ardelle let out an amused laugh, "Seriously?"
"Hmm, yes, I'm Sirius, but—,"
"Seriou—ugh, honestly, you've been saying that pun since first year," Ardelle rolled her eyes.
Sirius grinned haughtily, "Well, I'm only stating the truth, aren't I?"
"Where's James?" Ardelle asked, slipping her parchment, ink and quills into her bag.
"With Evans," Sirius said with a roll of his eyes, "He's been hanging out with her more than he's been hanging out with me, I think."
"Yeah, well, I mean, it's seventh year already," Ardelle said with a little wistful sigh, "He just wants to make sure that he and Lily have at least a friendship."
"Uh, please," Sirius scoffed, "Since second year, we all knew that Lily was secretly fond of him."
"That's true," Ardelle admitted, "She's always clearly liked him. Even though she was rather harsh to him at times."
"Can't blame her. The idiot is pathetic."
"Uh, you think?" Ardelle laughed, "He's the most pathetic being on Earth."
"Who's pathetic?"
"Jamesie!" Sirius said with a playful pout, "Are you discarding us now that you've got Evans?"
James sat down beside them by the fire.
"It's Lily, Pads," James corrected, "And I'm not discarding you."
"Yeah, Sirius," Ardelle said mockingly, "Didn't know you knew such difficult words. Our little boy is growing up, Jamesie."
Ardelle ruffled Sirius' hair playfully, and Sirius crossed his arms in irritation.
The Potter twins shared identical grins.
"Oh, Merlin," Sirius muttered, "That can't be good."
"And you would be right," James said with a mischievous smile, "Just you wait, dear Siri."
"Oi!"
Ardelle and James just laughed.
"Anyway," James said excitedly, and Ardelle looked at him—really looked at him—and saw the excitement and ecstasy in his eyes.
"What?" Sirius and Ardelle said simultaneously.
"Yeah, so, Lils and I were—,"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Ardelle said, raising a hand, "She lets you call her Lils now?"
"Well, yeah," James shrugged, "Anyway—,"
"No, not 'anyway'—,"
"Oh, like you don't call Remus 'Remmy'. He doesn't let any of us call him Remmy," Sirius retorted.
"Sirius, do you want to call me Remmy?"
Remus came and sat down beside the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common Room with all of them, nibbling on a piece of chocolate.
"I think he does, Rem," Ardelle said with a grin, "Sirius, unfortunately, the nickname Remmy is reserved for me only."
Remus rolled his eyes, "I never allowed you to call me 'Remmy', alright? You just sort of did it."
"I don't need your permission, Rem," Ardelle said with a shrug.
"Anyway," James cut in loudly, and the three of them turned to him.
"What?" All three of them said expectantly.
"Lily and I were studying in the library, and then we were having a really good conversation about the Charms assignment—,"
"Yeah? And then what?" Sirius said.
James glared at him, "Stop interrupting me. Anyway—,"
"I'd be a millionaire if I got a galleon every single time James said 'anyway'." Ardelle commented, and James shot her a glare.
"Anyway—,"
"See? Exactly my point," Ardelle said, and she laughed at the annoyed expression on James' face.
"Whatever. So Lily and I were talking, and then I asked her out to go to Hogsmeade on Saturday—all polite and everything, just like what you told me to do, Ardie—and then she turned to me, smiled and said—,"
"No, you arrogant toerag?" Remus suggested.
"What about, 'Go away and run off to your friends, Potter,'?" Sirius added.
"Or, 'How many times do I have to tell you? I'm never going to go out with you, Potter!'" Ardelle said, shooting James an amused grin.
But James looked unamused.
"No," James snapped, adjusting his glasses with a mock offended expression, "She said 'yes'."
"We know she had said 'yes', James," Remus informed, "If she had said 'no', you wouldn't be telling us."
"But congrats, twin brother," Ardelle swung an arm over James' shoulders and added, "Lils is really awesome."
"I know," James said with a grin, "Though I expected you guys to be more supportive of my success."
"Yeah, well...we sort of didn't know you were asking her out today, so..." Sirius trailed off with a raise of his eyebrows.
"Whatever," Ardelle said, "Scrap homework. Let's go to the Kitchens."
"That's more like it," James grinned, and Remus just quietly got to his feet and offered Ardelle his hand and helped her up, before the four of them climbed out of the Portrait Hole to go to the Kitchens.
"Erm...should we invite Peter?" Ardelle said.
"He's probably already there, don't worry about it," Sirius said dismissively, "He literally lives in the kitchen."
"Uh, hmm, yeah," Remus said sarcastically, "Just whenever Peter isn't around, assume that he's at the Kitchens. That makes sense. He clearly doesn't go anywhere else, am I right?"
"Very right," James said with a playful grin, "As always, Moony with his smart brain."
"To be fair, all of us are pretty smart," Remus pointed out, and the others nodded in agreement.
"True," They said absently.
"Wow, I love how humble we all are," Ardelle said with a smile, "Clearly, we're just as humble as we are smart."
"Uh-huh," Sirius said.
"That just proves my point," Ardelle laughed, "We're so humble, aren't we?"
"Not really," Remus admitted, "We're not all that humble. At least, you three aren't. I'm just...erm..."
"Come on, Moony," Ardelle said playfully, slinging an arm over Remus' shoulders, "Stop denying it. You're just as strange and special as us."
"Mm-hmm. So humble, Ardie, as always," Remus smirked.
"Of course. Always a Marauder—always a humble Marauder," Ardelle said with a grin.
Author's Note:
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