Moonstruck | marauders era

xi. rainy birthday

     Cassie entered the room through the big wooden doors for another Slugclub dinner. The room was decorated in a Halloween theme, orange and red leaves around the table and swirling softly through the air. Craved pumpkins were scattered around the room, candles burning inside. Cassie was met with the eyes of everyone when she tried to sneak in - she was late.

"I am sorry, professor," she said. "Mister Potter and I were working on our project and I lost track of time." She sat down next to Lily and smiled at Mia from across the table - Remus next to her.

"No worries at all, my dear. I am happy you made it and I am thrilled to hear that you and Mister Potter are working on your project already! How is it going?"

"We set the lacewing flies to stew two days ago and met again today to do some of the theoretical part."

Cassie was positively surprised by James Potter. They were working on the project together as a team since day one. While she got the needed books from the library he organised the lacewing flies, their first ingredient. They had found a small, unused classroom where they could work on their project over the next month and they started to prepare the first step - stewing the lacewing flies for 21 days. After the unusual pair had set the ingredient to stew they sat in the library across from each other and took first notes for the required essay. They split the topics and questions between them and would meet up occasionally to compare their notes. And they got along surprisingly well. During their shared time in the library, their potion wasn't the only topic between them. They found their conversations to swing from potions to charms and defence against the dark arts before it took a quick turn to Quidditch and ended at their stubborn friends.

Skyler and Sirius weren't talking. The only thing they had agreed on and talked about was their choice of potion which ended up to be Amortentia. They had agreed it was difficult enough to gain some extra points but easy enough to not having to work on it together for too long. That was it. Silence since the agreement, only glares shared between them. It was Sirius' turn to try a new prank and both groups were waiting for his next move - it was getting on Skylers' nerves. Cassie and James found it rather amusing.

"Tell me. How bad is it?" Lily asked quietly as Slughorn started a conversation with Evan Rosier next to him.

"What?"

"Working with Potter, of course."

"Oh. It's actually quite nice. We chose polyjuice potion and working on it as a team is going pretty good so far. He got the first ingredient, for example. And we split the theoretical work equally."

Lily watched her with a slightly opened mouth and her eyes wider than usual, if only a little. She wouldn't have expected James Potter to throw himself into work for a project like that. She assumed he'd let his partner do all the work. She was wrong, apparently.

"He's not that bad, Evans," said Cassie with a smug grin and nudged her shoulder against Lily's. She only rolled her eyes with a small smile but Cassie took notice of the slight pinkish colour on the redhead's cheeks.

"Which potion did you choose?" she asked and nodded in the direction of Lily's potion partner, Remus.

"Draught of living death. We split the work, too and will meet once in a while to discuss our results. We plan to start brewing it soon so if we happen to mess it up, we'll have enough time to fix it."

Cassie nodded to her words and her eyes moved to set on Remus again.

"Sounds like a plan," she mumbled as his eyes met hers.

》•《

     The sunny days in November were continuing and Cassie, Grace, Gabriella and Dana gathered around the Hufflepuff table during the early morning of the 7th November - which just happened to be a Sunday.