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two back to reality
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KIERA IS NOT HAPPY. She and Travis finish their daily run and come back home to find that, whilst their Dad had obviously been trying to sort out whatever chaos Tate had caused, Snuffles had escaped - and was now missing.
The young Marley insists on putting missing posters up everywhere around the village, but as Snuffles technically isn't their dog, Maximilian states that they can't - after all, he might have escaped to go and find his rightful owner. There's nothing they can do, now.
And so, Gianna Marley - mother of the three Marley children and wife to Maximilian, has had to come home and attempt to round up Kiera, Tate and Travis for tea, which is like trying to herd cats - especially with Kiera's outrage about losing Snuffles.
"I just think families should always eat together," says Gianna, as the rest of the Marleys gather around the table to sit down.
"Yep, the Borgias always ate together," says Maximilian sarcastically, receiving a glare from his wife. "No, your mum's right," he adds, quickly, nodding at the three children. "We should eat together,"
There's a short silence as everyone begins eating. Kiera's still sulking.
"Did you know what the loudest bang ever recorded was?" Tate speaks first, assumedly about to give his family another line of useless facts he's discovered that day. This is a common occurrence at the dinner table.
"You shutting the front door, I imagine," says Maximilian.
"Yeah, why do you always have to slam the door when you come home?" says Kiera.
"I do that?" Tate frowns.
"Yeah, the neighbours probably all think it's thunder, it's so bloody loud,"
"Anyway," Gianna interrupts, before Kiera and Tate can continue anymore with what would probably soon turn into a bicker. "How was everyone's day? Anything exciting happen?"
"Yes!" Kiera grins, her entire face brightening up. "I got Quidditch Captain for Ravenclaw!"
Gianna's face lights up with pride, and she grinned.
"Really? Well done, Ki!" she says excitedly. "That'll be brilliant! Oh, we'll have to get you a new broom, or something, so you can have a fresh start-"
"I never got a brand new broom!" Tate interrupts.
"Yeah, because you broke my old one and it's replacement by whacking Bludgers all over the place," Travis speaks up. "Serves you right,"
"Exactly," says Maximilian with a nod. "And anyway, you two have never been as enthusiastic about Quid...Quidditch..." he has to pause for a moment (he still finds the strange wizard sport difficult to pronounce) "...as Kiera. Travis always wanted something to do with dragons, and you, Tate, always wanted to blow something up, so we weren't sure what to get you, half the time - we still don't. All we know is that firework kit was a huge mistake..." he trails off, his face filling with regret at the thought.
There's a pause, in which the family continue eating.
"The Weasleys came back today," says Travis after a moment's silence.
"Oh, did they?" says Gianna, with a look of interest. "Did you see them?"
"Some of them," says Travis, sending a smirk Kiera's way. She scowls at him. "George, Fred and Ron, I think it was,"
"Oh..." Gianna says, knowing perfectly well how much Kiera despises the Weasley twins (especially that George). "Did you see them to speak?"
"No," says Kiera. Thank god. "They were de-gnoming, and we were running, anyways,"
"Does that mean you'll be going back to Romania soon?" Tate asks his brother.
"Yeah," Travis nods. "This Monday coming,"
"Awe," Gianna says, giving her oldest a sad look. "We've loved having you back, we'll miss you,"
"Will we?" says Kiera. "I'm looking forward to it,"
"That's what you said last time," says Travis. "Yet, I seem to remember you being the first to run and give me a hug when I came home,"
Kiera's not sure how to reply to this, and so stuffs her face with food instead so she physically wouldn't be able to speak. Tactics.
"The house is gonna be so quiet with you two gone," says Gianna, nodding to Travis and Kiera.
"Um..." Maximilian said, raising an eyebrow. "We've still got Tate and his explosions, I wouldn't exactly call that quiet,"
"Yes, but it'll only be the three of us!" Gianna says. "It'll feel so strange, again. I've only just gotten used to having you all back,"
"Maybe if you went out and found Snuffles, then it wouldn't be so quiet," says Kiera - Travis rolled his eyes.
"He's not even our dog-" The oldest son begins, but their mother cuts him off before another argument can begin.
"Kiera, lovely, I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do," She says softly to her daughter, with a sympathetic glance. "Snuffles wasn't our dog - we can't put missing posters up and go looking for someone else's dog. It's like your Dad said, for all we know, he could've gone back to his owner!"
"But then why didn't the owner claim him when we did put up posters saying we found him-?"
"Look, Ki, I don't know, but we can't do anything, because he's not our dog," says Maximilian.
Kiera sighs, and pushes her food around her plate with a fork. As painful as it is to admit it, her parents are right - Snuffles was never actually theirs. And he was eventually going to be put up for adoption, so she knew she wasn't going to keep him, anyway. She'll have to get over it.
Perhaps for Christmas, if she keeps nagging, she might be able to get a pet of her own. Maybe the Snuffles situation was a blessing in disguise for her parents to see how much she wanted one. She could get a cat, maybe, and then she could bring it to school with her...
Then again, she's still trying to save for tickets to the two World Cups happening next year - Quidditch and Football. Kiera wants to go to both, having being a massive fan of both the wizard and Muggle sport.
Anyways, on the bright side, over the next couple of days the family take a trip to Diagon Alley in order to collect all the school supplies - and, as promised, a brand new broom for Kiera, considering she was made captain. She browses the shop with her mother for a while, before being finally bought the Nimbus 2001 which has her practically over the moon. She also buys herself a new broom kit to keep it in shape, for she's never had a broom this expensive and freshly made, considering it had only come out last year.
The only problem is, the Marley house have a miniature garden with no room fit for flying - and so, Kiera would have to wait until she got back to school to be able to test it out. She'll have to drag her best friend Taylor onto the pitch with her to practice - which won't be too hard a job, anyway, considering Taylor herself is a Chaser on the Ravenclaw Team.
Travis leaves to head back to Romania with his co-worker the following Monday, and before Kiera knows it, it's time to head back to school.
Kiera's now in her fifth year, and if there's one thing she knows about this particular school after four years, it's that trying to find your best friend amongst the bustle of the Hogwarts Express is like trying to find a needle in a haystack - very tricky, and hard fucking work.
The young Marley finds herself being shoved in all kinds of directions, accidentally bashing into compartment doors every now and again, and giving those who had shoved her dirty looks. Can they please, just chill out? It's the Hogwarts Express, not the standing pit to a Take That concert. Of course, she'd completely understand the aggression trying to get to the front of the stage whilst bellowing 'A Million Love Songs' to try and see Robbie Williams... not that she's done it, or anything...
Okay, that's a complete lie. She did do it, but it was worth it. She and her best friend discovered that Robbie Williams is even more gorgeous in person. But, back to the point - bashing everyone like it's life or death to get to a school train compartment is nowhere near as fun.
Thankfully, Kiera finally catches sight of a short girl having a go at someone who'd called her 'tiny mouse' for probably trying to push them out of the way. She smiles. There she is.
"Tay!" Kiera yells, lifting her arm and waving to catch her attention. "Tay!"
The brunette turns, and her face brightens.
"Ki!" Taylor grins, immediately ignoring the small argument she'd been having with whoever it was, and pushing forward.
"Hey!" Kiera grins. "It's fucking rammed, any sign of a free compartment?"
"I had my eye on one back there, I think it's still empty," Taylor says, frowning slightly and looking over her shoulder, as though trying to retrace her steps and find where the empty compartment had been.
The two girls do their best at shoving past the crowd of students, all packed in the train corridors. Getting to the front of the audience at that concert had certainly given them some practice for the Hogwarts Express.
Kiera and Taylor sigh, once finally reaching their own compartment, and happily lean back in their seats as they watched the bustling flock of students pass by.
"I swear there's more first years this year," says Taylor. "You should've seen the amount of people lingering around the wall to get onto the Platform, those muggles must've thought we were lunatics,"
Kiera snorts. "Bet you loved it,"
"Yeah," Taylor nods with an unamused expression. "Adored it."
They're interrupted by a rather loud smack, and both girls turn their heads to see a red-headed boy being bashed into the glass of their closed compartment door - Kiera scowls, once realising who it is.
"Of course, it's him, probably attention seeking," she says, as he himself turns to look in to see who's compartment he'd accidentally crashed into - his expression practically mirrors Kiera's upon realising she's one of its inhabitants. She gives him the bird. Taylor suddenly becomes very interested in the floor.
The two glare at each other for a split second, before the path in front of George clears, and he's able to move on past her compartment. Kiera turns away, still with a clenched jaw.
"Prick," she says. Her best friend snorts.
"OK," Taylor says, giving Kiera a weird look, as she drags out a copy of some kind of magazine with a strong scent of some kind of fragrance drifting out of it, assumedly advertising some sort of perfume inside.
Taylor's used to her best friend's rivalry with the Weasley boy, but she still can't understand how a pair could hate each other so much because of Quidditch. Like, sure, she's on the Ravenclaw team too, and she could be competitive - but she keeps her rivalries on the pitch. Kiera's nuts for bringing them into the rest of her everyday life, Taylor can't imagine the amount of added stress into her school day. Absolutely batshit.
"You're not still annoyed about that dog, are you?" Taylor asks, turning a page of her magazine over as Kiera scrambles around in her own bag for a newly purchased issue of Seeker Weekly.
"It's shit!" Kiera complains loudly. "Snuffles just ran off, I don't know where he is - but he's only a dog, he could be lost or scared,"
Taylor gives her friend a sympathetic glance, as a small tap on the door sounds. Behind it, stands a brunette girl and her two friends, all smiling in as the first girl slides the compartment door open carefully.
"Hey!" The brunette greets, wandering in. "Everywhere else is full, so you have the pleasure of sharing with us again, this year,"
"Alright, Bex?" Taylor grins, moving her bag to the floor to make room for the three girls to sit down. "Talia, Ambs?"
Becca Hyland is a good friend of Kiera and Taylor, being that they shared a dorm. Her best friends Talia Montez and Amber McAdams are Slytherins, and so Kiera does not see them too often, apart from when she shares one or two classes with them. All five had grown to become quite close, over the years.
"How's Nic?" Taylor asks, giving Amber a teasing look.
Amber's currently in a relationship with one of Hogwarts' very own golden boys, Nicholas - Nic, everyone called him - Miller. Everyone had practically rooted for them getting together, and when they finally did, it was like a weird accomplishment for everyone that had gotten involved - even though the two lovebirds had really kept it as private as school relationships went, when they both got together. But, whatever. Kiera likes them both together, they're cute.
"Oh my god, don't," says Talia, jokingly. "You don't want to make me feel even more single, do you?"
"Embrace it, T," says Kiera.
"He's good," says Amber with a shy grin, as her friends give her teasing glances. "But anyway, how was your summers? I haven't seen you in ages! We promised we'd meet up and we didn't, honestly, we're hopeless,"
"I got Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain!" Kiera announces happily, before receiving a series of gushes and grins at the news. "I got a new broom, it's so gorgeous, it's a Nimbus Two-Thousand and One, I'm literally in love,"
"I bet your brothers were happy," says Becca. "Neither of them got Captain, did they?"
"Well, we know Tate didn't," says Taylor with a snort, referring to his great battle with the Bludgers.
"Where was it you said he was working now, Ki?" Talia asks. Kiera gave her a knowing look.
"I'm not telling you," she says with a grin, poking the girl in the side. "You're not becoming my sister-in-law, Talia,"
"He is fit, though," Talia grins.
"He's disgusting," says Kiera. "When he was seven, he kept dead cockroaches in a jar just to see which ones would decompose first,"
"He was seven?" Talia says, raising an eyebrow, as though that gave Kiera's brother some justification.
"Exactly. He's gonna turn out to be a psycho - probably the next Sirius Black, or something," says Kiera.
Talia opens her mouth to respond, but the train gives a huge jolt, causing all five girls to yelp and swear at the sudden odd movement.
"What was that?" Taylor frowns.
The train began to slow, and Kiera checks her watch.
"We can't be there, yet," she says.
"Then why're we stopping?" says Amber with a confused tone. Kiera shrugs, before standing up and heading to the door to look down the corridor. All along the carriage, heads stick curiously out of their compartments. She can see George Weasley down the far end and so gives him a quick glare, before focusing her attention on anything else.
The train comes to a stop with a jolt, and distant thuds and bangs suggested that luggage is falling out of the racks. Then, without warning, all the lamps go out and everyone is plunged into total darkness.
"Oh, shit," said Kiera. "Now I need to get back to my seat..."
She uses the top of the girls' heads to feel her way back to her seat by the window, as everyone mutters worriedly, completely clueless as to why the train had come to a sudden halt.
Taylor presses her nose to the window, after wiping a patch clean, to try and get a glimpse outside.
"I can't see anything," she says. "Literally nothing,"
A squeak sounds and all five of the girls' heads turn towards the compartment door which is opening, and a figure slowly walks in, careful not to trip up on anyone's feet.
"It's me," he says, clearly recognising the fact that the girls cannot tell who on Earth it is.
"Oh!" they all chorus in realisation.
"Ced, do you know what's going on?" Becca asks.
"Nah, we literally just came out of the Prefects' carriage, and then the train stopped," he replies. Kiera can just make out the figure of the boy sitting himself next to Taylor.
"Someone ask the driver what's going on?" Talia suggests.
"I'm not doing it," Taylor says immediately.
"I'm not either," Becca says.
"Nor me,"
"Nor me,"
"Well, I'm not doing it," Amber says.
Suddenly, a small light seems to light the corridor a couple compartments down. Kiera slowly gets out of her seat and heads back to the door to see what it is. A cloaked figure glides past just as she pokes her head out, and she yelps with surprise, backing away slightly.
Talia swears.
"What was that?" Cedric's voice speaks.
Kiera edges her head back out of the compartment door again, and discovers the silvery thing illuminating the corridor in fact belongs to a man she has never seen before, standing outside a compartment.
"What is it?" Taylor's voice says from right next to her, causing Kiera to jump again. Her best friend had made her way over to the door without her realising.
"Fucking hell, Tay," she swears under her breath.
It wasn't long after the silvery wisp disappears that the lights come on and the train begins moving again. Kiera turns around to meet her friends' baffled expressions.
"Did you see that cloaked thingy shoot past?" Cedric asks the girls. They nod, frowning.
"And that man," Taylor adds.
"What man?" Becca asks. She's still sitting down, as is Amber, Talia and Cedric.
"There was a man at the end of the corridor," Kiera explains. "Shot out a wispy thing, that's why the cloaked thing went flying,"
"Nice description," says Taylor.
"Maybe it's our new Defence teacher?" Amber suggests. Kiera shrugs.
She and Taylor resume their seats, still wondering what exactly had just happened.
But, whatever it was, they're sure to find out soon enough, for Hogwarts isn't far away, now - and news often travelled throughout this school like wildfire.