✮˚. ᵎᵎ 𖦹彡⋆｡˚

Sirius looked mildly uncomfortable. Everyone else had sat in silence. I stared Sirius down.

"Um, well we've been talking since the ball and have been...like hooking up since." He shrugged.
"I like her, it's just casual though nothing more."

I swallowed, a bitter taste was forming in my mouth. I decided to not let it bother me for the night, this was time with my friends.

"Good for you guys." I nodded, plastering a smile. Then Charlotte was the first to speak,

"Remus, truth or Botts?" She giggled, everyone smiled at them as Remus looked at her.

"Truth." He said simply, gazing almost lovingly at her. My heart melted, my best friend found love.

"When did you start to have a crush on me?" She asked, as if she already knew the answer. Remus blushed,

"Probably at the end of third year." He said.

He pecked her cheek and Charlotte smiled. Everyone didn't know what to say, they were too in awe of this new match.

"What's that noise?" Reece asked, taking a bite of a chocolate frog. There was a rustling in the trees behind Sirius, Charlotte frowned and moved closer to Remus.

Elise smiled when a creature had emerged, a tall, dark, winged horse. It was a thestral.

"That's Moonshine, he's harmless as long as you don't piss him off." She said, jumping up and reaching to pet him. He easily complied and reached his neck down. "Easy peasy."

Sirius stood up to pet him, Elise stayed by Moonshine while each of us took a turn petting him. Charlotte looked confused,

"Guys I don't see anything..." she murmured, Remus took her hand.

"It's okay, thestrals are invisible to anyone who hasn't seen death." He explained. She frowned,

"You've all seen death?" She asked. We all looked at one another and nodded.

"For me it was my grandmother." Elise said, looking down. Reece took a few steps and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"You don't have to talk about that." He muttered, then looked at Charlotte, "For Ruth and I, it was our pet kneazle."

I nodded, quickly helping to change the subject. "Yeah, remember when he died? I think it was first year actually."

We didn't talk much after that, Elise kept her mind on Moonshine. While Sirius and Remus talked about classes,

"We have Care of Magical Creatures tomorrow right?" Sirius asked me, I nodded and reminded him it was with the Ravenclaws. Then we all agreed it was late and we should get some sleep.

The next morning was the next thing I remember, we slowly gathered our things and snuck back into the castle. Then I went to my room to shower and get ready for classes.

I had Care of Magical Creatures with Ravenclaw first, then Potions with Slytherin, and finally Astronomy with Hufflepuffs later tonight. It normally wouldn't be so bad, but I woke up with an awful pain in my abdomen. It felt like period cramps times a thousand.

I got down to the meeting place for Care of Magical Creatures. I was one of the first people there surprisingly, however shortly after more people started to gather.

Remus, James, Sirius, and Peter all came up to me first. I looked shocked at Peter,

"Hey Pete, how've you been lately?" I asked, I haven't seen him all year besides in the halls or the Great Hall. He only grunted in response. James spoke up next, explaining how he couldn't go on the camping trip because he and Lily had to go to Head Boy and Head Girl meetings with McGonagall. Both of them had signed up to be picked for next year.

The Ravenclaws all filed in together, but I saw Leia went for Sirius. I watched her talk to him until Kettleburn started class.

"Good morning! I see everyone made it alright?" Kettleburn smiled cheerfully. "Today, we will pairing off and assigning one Occamy egg to each pair."

He then went on to explain the logistics of this project. I shifted from foot to foot looking around for a partner, Reece and Elise already seemed ready and so did everyone else.

"The catch is you can't partner with your own house. We need some unity in the houses lately, and I believe that some of our best friends can be from different houses." He added, now everyone seemed to be scrambling for a partner.

"Ah ah! No need to search, I've made a list." He tutted, pulling out a slip of parchment and his reading glasses. He began pairing people off.

I knew since my last name was a W I would know last. But I still watched as others started to find each other, Sirius was with Barty Crouch jr, Elise was with Emmeline Vance, Reece was with Dirk Cresswel, and I was with...

"Ruth Wilson and Leia Monroe."

Kettleburn's voice bounced around in my head, of course this would happen to me. I watched Leia scan around searching for me, she finally spotted me and trudged over.

I side-eyed her, she was uncomfortably shifting from foot to foot, making weird eye contact with Sirius. I tried to focus on not breathing too loud while the rest of the names were called.

Kettleburn began starting to explain these creatures, they are plumed, two legged winged creatures with the body of a serpent. They can reach as long as fifteen feet (he warned us that we would only be observing them as babies), they eat mainly rats and birds, and are very protective of their shells and can be very dangerous if messed around with.

Such an aggressive creature, I hope Kettleburn knows what he's doing.

I focused my attention on Kettleburn and not on the girl beside me. Although I had this goal in mind I did not achieve it. I kept taking small peeks at her.

She wore small gold hoop earring, and gold studs as her second piercing. Her hair pulled back with a Ravenclaw headband.

She looked over at me, "So I guess we're working together." We both walked up to collect our egg before she spoke again, "I'll be taking the egg first." She declared.

I scrunched up my face, "Shouldn't we both get a chance to decide? Or at least come up with a plan?"

She sighed and carefully placed the egg in her bag, and surrounded it with her scarf. She bit the edge of her lip as she wrapped the egg.

"We'll do fifty-fifty. Starting next week on Sunday, you'll get the egg and we'll trade off. Sound okay?"

I nodded. Then I collected my things and took off.

✮˚.  ᵎᵎ 𖦹彡⋆｡˚
ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝟙𝟠 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕤𝕠𝕠𝕟
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