Taste of Youth

The common room was filled with students. Most of them were sixth and seventh years but fifth and fourth years were scattered about, many had worried almost scared expressions about their faces. I had settled on the steps watching the groups of students and listening to Lily be interrogated about Mary. I kept my head down the wariness that Lena and Moody had been expecting me to feel yesterday finally kicking in and making me feel incredibly tired. The voices in the common room usually so loud it was a bother had dropped into whispers of outrage. I put my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands.

“Are you okay?”

I lifted my head and looked at Sirius, “I’m fine. Shouldn’t you be over there helping fuel the anger?”

“Shouldn’t you?”

“I’m not into creating more prejudice. This world is full of enough of them as it is.”I motioned to the piece of stair next to me, “Take a seat if you want.”

Sirius settled on the floor next to my feet and grinned at my raised eyebrow, “The stairs become a slide when guys go up.”

“Even just one stair?”

He shrugged tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling, “Maybe. I’d rather not relive the experience.”

I snorted and leaned my chin in my hands, “Of course.”

“Hows your arm?” Sirius questioned nudging my leg.

“It doesn’t hurt and I trust the person who healed me, so I’ll be fine.”

“Sounds like you have respect for this person.”

I gave him an odd look, “She’s my boss. She’s taught me everything I know about Healing, of course I have respect for her.”

“She?”

I smiled a little at that, “She. Lena Delano, she’s one of three female’s with high standing the Auror department. She’s the Head of mine.”

“Delano.” Sirius shook his head, “Should have seen that coming.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s a long story but the short version is that the Delano family is distantly related to me. Lena in particular was somewhat hard to digest for the pureblood families. Her and the Weasley family are the biggest,” He lifted his hands to make quotation marks with his fingers, “blood traitors around.”

I laughed aloud, “Blood traitors. That is what I mean, that is why I don’t want any part of this outrage meeting.”

“I know what you mean.” Sirius shook his head tiredly, “My family breathes that stuff. Pureblood this and pureblood that.”

I looked at him for a long moment, “But you don’t.”

“No. I don’t.” He smiled a little.

I cleared my throat, “How is Remus doing?”

“He’s fine, I think. He doesn’t like talking about it much.”

“I bet.” I pulled out my wand and summoned the reading Lena had given me, “There should be something in here that’ll help him out.”

Sirius stared at me and shook his head laughing.

“What?” I demanded scowling at him.

“It’s nothing. I just wasn’t expecting you to go and do that is all.”

“Remus is my friend, why wouldn’t I do this?”

Sirius just smiled a little wider and shook his head, “I don’t know. You’re just…different.”

I gave him an odd look and turned back to the room. We didn’t talk much after that, Sirius only sat with me as I watched the people slowly leak out of the common room. Soon it was only Lily, James,Alice, Remus, Sirius and me and the group of us didn’t talk about Mary at all. We talked about Cormack’s essay and the possibility of the training starting up again. We kept the topics as far away from war as possible for a while until the subject of what we’d do after our last year was over came up.

Alice wanted to go into full Auror training and wouldn’t consider another job out there. Remus didn’t really talk about what he wanted to do and I offered my own career choice quickly to help him avoid the topic. Lily, James and Sirius all admitted to having no idea as to what they wanted to do. Lily talked about being a stay-at-home mom. James and Sirius wanted to fight full time and that got us all talking about what was happening around us.

I wouldn’t have said any of us were afraid of what was coming, we knew this fight as a fact. It was more like a sort of resignation to this fate and a worry as to who wouldn’t be here this time next year or the year after. McGonagall came in that late and spoke quietly asking for Mary’s friends and let us know that she would be back to normal in a few days. Lily pestered the professor about Mulciber’s punishment and got no answer only a look on McGonagall’s face that said whatever it was she didn’t agree.