Sequel: Loonar

Hand Me Downs.

Six weeks of detention.

I’d thought about how odd it would be without them.
But it was even weirder than that.

Not helped by the fact that everyone spoke continuously about their escape, stories grew wild, exaggerated but so was the overall school behaviour. I had people coming up to me, asking me if I could get them more snackboxes, more products.

I had to tell them all I couldn’t, I’d had a letter, saying they’d got there fine, to continue to encourage hell for her.
But in-between the comments, all Defence against the Dark Art lessons disrupted, either by people inside or outside. Umbridge and Filch had been run ragged trying to keep order.

And with Peeves officially on the loose, the Bloody Baron doing little to control him chaos roamed wherever Umbridge did.

But not for me, my brag in the hall that I hadn’t thought about had been heard by Millicent Bullstrode, that foul Slytherin girl in the year below and she had reported me to Umbridge, who needed no proof but gave me a months worth of detentions instantly.

It had been just over a week and my right hand was swollen and red, so she’d moved onto other things, making me work with Filch, order detention files in the offices, clean dust ridden trophies. She was waiting for my hand to heal a little before I would start lines again, I was well aware of her sadistic nature by now.

And I was losing enthusiasm, in work, although I was still scraping top grades.
However I was currently lounging on an armchair, Leanne leaning against my legs, asking me what to put in her Charms work.

I was escaping from Hermione, my offer to help her hadn’t just lasted throughout Easter, she was still approaching me, forcing me to go through spells multiple times, her hair was becoming ever larger, un-kept as she hardly slept. I’d tried to force her to bed the night before and ended up in a screaming fight.
So today I had avoided her carefully, although she kept glancing at me.

“I’m going to go speak to her.” I said carefully, nudging past Leanne and over to the three, teacups dancing. “Hey guys.” I offered, smiling and slotting in beside Harry, “How’s it going?”

“Can’t you tell?” Ron said grumpily, “My teacup is broken.” I glanced at it, pulling my wand out of my
slipper and doing the same charm, but with more fluidity and the legs few long, the tea-cup scuttling.

“Looks good to me, you’re not being gentle enough with your wrist,” I teased, grinning at him. “You guys all look sad, what are you talking about?”

“How my mother is going to kill me...wait...” He bucked up suddenly, sitting perfectly upright, “She’ll be mad at you as well, you knew didn’t you! She’s going to be mad at you as well. Brilliant!”

I’d considered this and winced, “Thanks Ron. Although technically I’m not related to any of you and your mother loves me so she won’t be too bad. “Harry lifted a brow, “Maybe...hopefully.”

“They sent me a letter anyway, from ‘my dad’ so it got through, they said it’s going fine, they’re setting up now, making more produce around the clock.”

I left them once the conversation grew to the mysterious mountain of money they had amassed, leaving Harry to explain and escaping over to my friends, finally joined now by Dale, fresh back from a detention with Umbridge for snapping at her.

“Hand hurt?” I asked, gently tugging at it. Deeps words engraved. “Get some Murlap, I know Lee’s got some left, I’ll bug him for it.”

“Nah, no worries, I’m brave.” He winked and I rolled my eyes, slipping in Ryan’s empty spot.

“Sure? You’ll regret it tonight when you accidentally knock it.”

“No I won’t.”

“Whatever you say dearest...You done your transfiguration yet?”

“Yeah right.” He turned a little, bottom lip protruding.

“No way, do it yourself loser.” I squealed, him catching around my waist as I tried to escape, the two of us struggling until I ended up rolling over him and onto the floor.

“Merlin, you two are annoying.” Leanne scoffed, rolling up her parchment and earning a grin, winking pointedly towards Ryan and Katie, squashed up on a small chair due to how busy the common room was, faces in a charms book.

“Quit pushing them,” Dale said, suddenly noticing, “He doesn’t like her.”

“He acts like he does,” She argued.

“He acts the same with you two! Stop making something out of nothing.”

“Have you even asked him?” She pouted, challenging Dale.

He scoffed, “No, because he would say if she did and I don’t wanna make him feel...alright mate?”

“I’m good.” Ryan said, sliding back into his chair, looking suspicious, “What were you guys talking about?”

“Filch and Umbridge’s obvious love affair.” He crinkled up his nose.

“You think Mrs Norris joins in?” I giggled, thankful the awkward air faded away.
_________

Time passed slowly, I missed the twins, George especially.
And I felt myself slipping, I was spending too much time with Dale. Going against what I had promised myself.

I didn’t mean too, I didn’t want that, him, Dale.
I suppose it was just comforting.

“So she’s keeping it then?”

“By ‘it’ you mean her daughter?”

“Yeah, whatever, I thought her mum flipped?”

“She did, but she couldn’t force her to have an abortion as much as she tried, Sarah said she fought against it so much.”

“Good for her! Good to see her finally stand up for herself.”

“Shame she didn’t do it originally.”

“I can’t believe we haven’t done anything to Pucy yet.” I moved, my head had been on his lab so I spun up onto my knees, the letter from Sarah in one hand.

“That’s true. It’s not good enough.”

“Definitely not, what did the twins leave you?”

“It’s all upstairs with Lee, let’s go, my hand hurts like hell as well so I'm going to knick his murlap essence.”

Twenty minutes later, we had several dungbombs and some laxatives.
They did enjoy muggle things.

“How are we going to get this into his glass?”

“We’ll do a bunch, he hangs out with Malfoy and that always in the same spot, so we get it in a few.”

“But how?”

“I can help with that,” Lee promised mysteriously, seeming a lot happier than he had recently. Although them being gone had definitely helped his grades. “Leave it with me, I’ll make a distraction when you walk in, so rush over there to get away from it and slip it in.” He was beaming, “Ah this is going to be fun!”

Covered in stinksap and with a smell that seemed to cling and was impossible to remove I was feeling a bit less happy that afternoon.

Although several Slytherins had had to sprint from the great hall half way through breakfast awkwardly and that was worth it.

“Mr Jordan!” Lee flinched visibly, her voice high, a screech, “Not so fast, and Miss Pelanci? Once again causing trouble I see.”

“She didn’t do anything.” Lee defended quickly but she waved him silent with a clawed hand.
“I’ll be the judge of that, we’ll add another week shall we. You are very lucky that it is only in extreme situations I can expel students.” I bit on the inside of my cheek to keep silent, “But, I am pressing Cornelius and I hope exceptions can be made. Although Minerva shall be difficult too...” She trailed off, suddenly realising she was speaking out-loud and screeching at us again until we moved away. “Detention tomorrow night Mr Jordan, Miss Pelanci!”

That added another two weeks to my time.

I wasn’t free until close to the end of May. But by then I almost wished I was in her office.

The twins had managed to get a few more letters through, under the pretence of relatives until Umbridge, who had obviously been skulking through files, discovered I barely had any.
And the letters stopped.

But they had opened, were already attracting business. George had included a picture of a giant man, charmed to move his metre high hat off and on his bright red head. It was definitely one way to stand out in Diagon Alley.

I missed them, George a ridiculous amount and right now, when everything was so awkward I would have killed for them.

Katie had told Ryan her feelings, he, as Dale had predicted didn’t share them but was too blunt, sending her into a spiral of tears and dividing the group.

Leanne was furious, both at herself and the way Ryan had handled it.

Aaron was trying to talk to both of them but was finding it hard to avoid Leanne’s comments whenever he did.

Ryan was still perplexed, although he left the arguing with Leanne to Dale, who found it far too easy, the years of bickering boiling over into cold silences, raging arguments and snide comments.

I wasn’t sure where I was. I felt bad for Katie, had told Ryan off for how he had handled it but it was too late, things from years ago had been brought up, silly petty things and it had burst.

It wasn’t like none of us had other friends, so it was easier in that respect, no-one was alone but it made it harder overall. Smithy complaining to me about the tension in classes, Eddie Charmicael and a few other Ravenclaws much in the same boat.

It was odd how everyone’s world was rocked so much by an argument. But after two weeks it was simmering, it hadn’t been sorted and in the common room I found a quiet place with Neville and Lee. This evening however Lee was enjoying yet another detention with Umbridge, although it wasn’t related to the Niffler we had levitated into her office.

I could only imagine if she found out.

“Okay, so your first exam is what....”

“Wednesday after next, so sixteen days.”

“And it’s theory of charms?” He nodded, “Easy,” I soothed, “Think how much we learnt during our lessons, you learnt at the DA meetings.”

He whined, pulling his large charms book closer, “I did it eventually yeah, but I don’t know the theory.”

“Sure you do.” I ran my tongue over my lips, trying to recall my exam paper a year back, “We had...and I know the twins did so it’s likely to be similar...” I rolled my eyes, pulling his parchment and quill from him, “Cheering charms, Levitating, locking, unlocking....erm...we had concealing charms...fuck, what else?”

“That’s plenty to go on,” He grinned, “And you reckon all these will come up?”

“I’m not promising anything,” I warned, watching the grin slide, “But these ones have the last two years, but there’s twenty five questions and I can’t think what the seventh years had they’ve mentioned...”

“This is enough help, thanks.”

“It’s fine, if you want any notes let me know.”

“You have last years notes?” I nodded.

“I keep all of them in my folder, well all the useful ones that don’t have scribbling all over, you never know when something might pop up.”

“You really are more similar to Hermione than we thought.” I stuck out my tongue,

“If you don’t want my help Neville...”

“No, no...” He scrambled, “I do, and thank you.”

“No problem sweetie. You stuck with anything else?”

“You don’t have to help me you know,” he said, a small smile, eyes on his parchment, “You’ve got stuff to do.” I pulled my legs up, sitting over one.

“Not really,” I admitted, “I’m finally free from Umbridge, I’ve been doing all my work since most of my best friends are ignoring each other so I’m ahead at the moment.”

“Is still bad?” He enquired and I nodded with a sigh. “That’s a shame, I would have thought they could have sorted it out by now.”

There was a general knowledge of what had happened, the basics anyway floating about.

“Thank you!” I exclaimed, “Katie and Ryan need to sort it out and Leanne and Dale need to back the hell out of it!”

“Yeah,” He murmured, looking in the contents for the right page, “I feel bad for you and Aaron.”
I shrugged, “We’re alright, Aaron get’s it worse because Leanne is in mega bitch mode.” I sighed, rubbing my eyes with a weary, and newly scarred hand, “So he’s been lying low in the library.”

Not alone that was, he’d met a certain Hufflepuff male he was interested in but I was sworn to secrecy. No-one had even noticed or acknowledged this big first in his life, since he had come out he’d seemed to be the only openly gay student at Hogwarts, and that had lead, originally in third year, to some Neanderthals making comments.

But finally he had someone he adored from the sounds of it. And they were all too busy bickering and ignoring each other to care.

“It’s just too much now, it’s been going on too long and I’m sick of it.”

“I can imagine.”

He couldn’t, Neville didn’t have such a wide circle of friends, he’d always been a bit of a loner...well perhaps that was harsh, he had friends, just not with the same passions, the same strength and loyalty it seemed.

That group excluded me, and I knew it did the fifth year trio and Ginny who would defend him to the ends of the earth.

“Amelia!” I twisted awkwardly, waving gently to Dale and Ryan, playing exploding snap, “Come play!” Katie and Leanne were upstairs, working on transfiguration.

“In a minute.” I answered, turning and smiling to Neville, “Let me know if you want anything, it’s not bother, promise.”

“Will do. You could always come into the exams for me if you like.”

“Polyjuice potion it?”

“Oh God,” he whined suddenly, “Do you think that will come up in the potions exam?!”
___________________

Before I knew it, and before they were talking properly again, it was the last weekend in May, Quidditch was this weekend and the Apparation tests the next.

At least one of those things was going smoothly.

Katie had told me it was very hard to work with someone like that that you had handed your heart to and for him to laugh and assume it was a joke.
I could only imagine.

“Angelina’s flipping as well, we’re so close, even with how bad we’ve been...if we win, somehow scrape it we’ve got the cup.”

“You’ll be fine...and...” I pressed gently, “Quidditch isn’t the be all and end all Katie.”

She eyed me warily, “You’d think differently if you trained twice a week for six years.” I nodded silently, feeling bad for even suggesting that. Of course I knew how important it was to her, to the whole team.

“Sorry. I’m sure you’ll do better than you think.”

“We’re in shambles, we were lucky to beat anyone, we’re lucky Hufflepuff lost to Slytherin. Ravenclaw is going to tear us to shreds.” I remained silent again, “I mean, Ron tries but he’s just...he’s not Wood ya’know. And with me and Ryan not speaking...”

“You could always just speak.” I offered softly, “I know he’s tried to apologise but Leanne chases him away like a guard dog.” She sighed.

t was true, this argument had gone far beyond Ryan and Katie. It had let all the animosity between Leanne and Dale take effect, have an excuse and it was their argument now, just using their friends to back to up, give it a reason.

“He says sorry all the time.” She replied miserably, “It was just so embarrassing and I don’t know if we can be friends again like before, not after this. He thinks I’m a complete idiot.”

“No he doesn’t,” I was quick to defend, “He thinks he’s an idiot for reacting in such a twattish way, he feels really bad, he wants the fight over as much as you.”

Lately I’d taken to playing owl flitting between the group, trying to make them see how much easier it was just to make up. Leanne had failed, she’d just barked at me but if Katie and Ryan made up the other two would have no excuse...not that they had much of one now.

“I don’t know Amelia.”

“What if we all sit down and just talk it out?”

“Not in front of everyone, that’s even worse.”

“Alright, what if I get rid of everyone and you go up and speak to him tonight? The games tomorrow, you can’t be like this then it will hurt the team.” I had her there, Quidditch was her one true love.

“Fine.” She gave in after a minute or so of thinking, “But no-one better come up and don’t tell Leanne.”

“I won’t!” I promised holding back a grin, in a selfish way I wanted the argument over for myself just as much as for her. “Wait in the common room and I’ll bring them down, okay?”

“Okay.” She exhaled, trailing after me and standing by the stairs as I dashed up the other staircase.

“Everyone but Ryan out please.” I chimed, grinning. Aaron, as usual wasn’t here. He was with his boyfriend they were still keeping it low, I know Gregory was nervous about everyone finding out his sexuality.

I understood because of some of the old fashioned imbeciles that went here but still, I could see no reason for anyone to ever be ashamed of who they loved or were attracted to.
Unless it was Filch and Mrs. Norris.

“What, why?” Dale complained.

“I want a hand, and I need someone strong.” I pouted over dramatically and he rolled his eyes, “Bullshit.”

“Yeah, what’s up?” Smithy asked, and I took a second to notice he was topless.
And in rather good shape.

“Katie’s coming up to talk to Ryan...alone.” I ended firmly, “If that’s okay with you?”

“Of course it is,” he said, although he instantly looked nervous, “Leanne isn’t going to come charging up is she?”

“Probably,” Dale said scornfully, “Can’t have anything happen without her, she’d die not to be the centre of attention.”

“Dale,” I scorned, “Is that okay with you guys?” Cormac groaned but started down the stairs complaining under his breath and Smithy shoved his shirt on, leaving with a smile.

“And please, for the sake of my sanity, sort it out.” He warned beaming and skipping down the stairs.

“Come on Dale.” He glanced at Ryan.

“Go mate, seriously, this has gone on enough.”

“Isn’t us that’s keeping it going!”

“Dale!” I complained, “Shut the fuck up and come downstairs. I’m so sick of you and Leanne constantly making comments.”

“Oh right, of course, and I’m sure I get the blame for all of them.”

“I’m going to hex you in a minute and it will not be pretty.” I threatened lifting a brow before I calmed, “Please, just...talk to Leanne.”

“Why should I have to make the first move?”

“Because you’ve both been complete idiots.” Ryan answered for me, “And as bad as each other and Amelia’s right, it’s fucking annoying. Sort it.”

Dale’s shoulders fell but he moved towards me, “Thank you.”

“I hate you sometimes.”

“Good, good luck Ryan.”

He mumbled something I didn’t hear properly as we set off. “Just him Katie,” I promised calmly, internally cheering that soon this whole mess would be over.

“What do you want to do then?” Dale asked grumpily.

“I want you to cheer up.”

“I am cheered up.”

“Don’t be all mad at me, I’m glad we finally said it straight, you and Leanne made their argument about you two and it was just petty.”

“She’s just been so....eurgh lately.”

“You remember when Ron and Hermione argue yeah? And it’s constant, and really awkward.”

“Yeah...”

“Yeah.” I said definitively,

“Ah.”

“Exactly.”

“I see your point.” I smirked at at him, “You want to walk? It’s too hectic in here.” He was right, all the fifth and seventh years were hunched over books, or practicing charms that made the portraits complain loudly. “Definitely.”

I clambered out the portrait hole behind him, finally happy that the evenings were much warmer, summer cradling us even so high up in Scotland.

“It’s going to be so hot in California.” I thought out loud, earning a nod.

“Oh God yeah, I forgot about that, how long you there for again?”

“A week...it won’t be too bad.” He laughed at my grimace. “Nah, Tammy’s brother isn’t too bad, and he’s only like twenty two so I’ll just hang around this him I guess.”

“Whose going from your side?” I snorted, “I just meant...I didn’t know if your Dad would be flying your Grand-dad out.”

“He doesn’t a clue where he is most of the time.” I responded, a hint of bitterness, I was almost annoyed at his condition, at the dementia destroying his memories and senses. “It doesn’t mean anything to him.”

He mumbled a quick sorry, resting his arm around my shoulder and halting, the two of us in the middle of the courtyard, the sun was all but set, a sprinkle of stars starting to appear.

“You gunna make me say sorry to Leanne?”

“No,” He glanced at me, “You’re going to say sorry because you’re a good guy, and she’s going to say it back and everything is going to be fine before I go insane.” He chuckled.

“Sounds like a good plan. Lets just hope they win the cup, if they win them two will be perfectly fine together.”

“You reckon that’s likely? You know this team is a mess.”

“Probably not.”

We were both wrong, and by the next afternoon a chorus of ‘Weasley is our king’ was roaring around the stands, a chorus and claps and yells are they landed, Cho slamming her broom down and storming away as the youngest Weasley held the snitch high.

I cheered excitedly, frowning a little at the empty area beside me. Hermione and Harry had been there but had vanished with a still bruised Hagrid, I’d been tempted to follow but it wasn’t my place, it could have been anything.

Umbridge could have finally had her way and was sacking him, and he’d wanted to say goodbye quietly.

I shrugged it off, joining in the clapping as they all landed and Madam Hooch carried the large trophy over, McGonagall appearing on the pitch with a wide grin, helping Angelina lift the prize.
She was always saying how much she adored having it in her office.

Lee was at it as well, voice loud and fast in the air.

“Let’s get back to the common room.”

“Nah,” I tugged Aaron, “Let’s meet them outside the changing room.” Even Leanne was grinning, having spent most of the match looking fairly bored. And it was still incredibly awkward between the two, although they had spoken and ‘made up’ beforehand.

I would have to find a way to get a letter to the twins and let them know, they’d be ecstatic.
♠ ♠ ♠
Sorry this is very filler-ish.

I miss the twins!

much love x