Taste of Youth

The blush on my face caused by Sirius’ parting words was creeping up to my ears in the middle of the day just before we were to be let loose for lunch. It kept running like a record no one wants to change, over and over. The boys luckily enough sat all the way across the Potions class room. They had already made some poor Slytherin’s cauldron explode and were howling like hyenas over it. In the course of the first forty minutes of the double class they had lost a meager twenty points and I was sure their actions would have under normal circumstances cost even more. Lily at least had earned us thirty-five to make up for it.

“Well done, Ms. Rein! Well done!” Slughorn boomed as he passed on his rounds his mustache hiding his lips and moving like some sort of creature.

I ducked my head quickly toward my cauldron and Slughorn boomed his admirations to Lily as he passed. The girls cheeks flared blending into her hair with ease. We shared a look over our boiling cauldrons and Slughorn continued about chattering to his favorites. I watched him stop at Remus and peer into the boys cauldron.

“Tut tut, Mr. Levey. The potion should be blue now, not purple!”

I covered up a laugh at his mistake on Remus’ name and earned a amused look from the boy. Slughorn called for us to clean up and everyone did in a rush to leave the blasted room. Lily and I waited for Alice and Remus to come around their table and the other boys soon joined us. Almost instantly James and Sirius took to teasing Remus about his new last name.

“Alright, alright we get it you two.” Remus told them waving them away as we headed up for the Great Hall.

“Let’s eat already.” Alice whined and caught sight of something up ahead, “Frank!”

Lily and I laughed racing after her the boys trailing behind. Lunch was a wild affair with pranks flying across house tables mostly toward what I assumed to be the Slytherin table. Sirius had taken to turning pieces of my hair various different colors and Remus had keep changing it back. Fabian and Gideon had taken to prodding Alice about my hair color. It was an easy going deal that I was barely getting used to.

“Luce, what time do you leave tomorrow?” Lily asked leaning away from an eager James.

“It takes over my first class, so nine I think.”

“How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

I shrugged, “No idea, guess I’ll find out tomorrow.”

Sirius pushed against my shoulder, “Find what out tomorrow?”

“None of your business, Black.” Lily told him sticking out her tongue.

He snorted, “I wasn’t asking you, Evans, I was asking Luciana.”

Lily pulled a face, “Since when do you get to call Luce by her first name.”

“Since I decided to.” He tossed back at her throwing an arm over my shoulder, “Right?”

I waved a hand at the arm smacking it off and munching on the mile high sandwich that I had created for lunch. Sirius laughed at me as I ate it and I swatted at him. The easiness of the lunch was wonderful, the laughter and the teasing that hurt no ones feelings. I liked it here with friends that I would have never dreamed of having before. Lily and I had made little sumo wrestlers out of our napkins that were fighting between the goblets.

A couple of Slytherin’s came in snickering and casually looking toward our group. One of them lifted a finger to point at Sirius and said something the whole group bursting into laughter. I narrowed my eyes and the pointing girl’s robes promptly lit on fire. Lily burst out laughing at the sight of it having turned to see what I was scowling at. The fire flickered and died one of the professors dashing over to check on the still screaming girl.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say that was you.” Sirius whispered into my ear.