More Than That

Chapter 38

After a day full of exams that thankfully turned out to be relatively easy, everyone's Friday night was spent in the Gryffindor common room. The room was filled with both excitement and an utter lack of stress as people anticipated the week ahead of them in which most students would be leaving to see their families for the first time in a while.

All of the older Gryffindors sat around the crackling fireplace, some students splayed across the various furniture and some on the floor, and a couple of bottles of firewhiskey were slowly making their way around the room. Multiple people were talking at once, different groups of students conversing within their own circles, but each conversation that mixed together was undeniably joyful. Students got louder and louder as they had more firewhiskey, but the noise in the room never became overwhelming.

Sage was curled underneath Fred's arm, her body firmly pressed into his side, while he spoke about something with George. It was their first real outward display of affection, the first time that Sage hadn't tried to hide their relationship from everyone else, and she'd thought that it would get a bit more of a reaction than it did. No one had hardly even blinked at them when he'd slung his arm over her shoulder and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, and she hadn't known whether to be filled with shock or relief.

She knew that they hadn't been the best at hiding anything in the past - Ginny and Hermoine proved that - but she hadn't thought that they'd been so obvious that everyone in Gryffindor had already known. It really was sort of a relief though, not having to tell anybody.

With that knowledge in mind, she took a swig of the bottle that was passed to her and melted into Fred's side after she passed it along, fully and utterly content. She was sitting with all of her closest friends, underneath the arm of her boyfriend, didn't have to worry about school for a week, and was going to get to see her family the next day. And on top of that, she had a getaway to look forward to at the end of the week.

She closed her eyes and took it all in, relishing the happy sounds in the room around her.

~~~~~~~~~

When she stepped into a taxi at the train station after a train ride with her friends that felt much too quick, the relief of being home started to fill her chest. No matter how much she loved Hogwarts, there were still times that she missed her Mom more than anything. She was happy to be home for a little while.

Her mom had insisted on picking her up from the train station, but Sage had declined and opted to take a taxi instead. She didn't want her Mom to have to worry about leaving Mia home if her brothers weren't home and she hadn't spent even a penny of the Muggle money that her mom had given her at the beginning of the year.

She couldn't keep the smile off of her face as the familiar streets passed her window. She could already smell her house's distinct smell and could already taste the cookies that her mom was bound to make. A flutter of excitement settled in her stomach as she got closer and closer to her house; her leg was bouncing on the seat so much that the driver sent her an annoyed look.

When the car finally pulled into the driveway of her house, she could barely even wait for the car to pull to a stop before she was handing the driver her money and hopping out of the car, running to the trunk to grab her bags herself. The door to the house opened right as she shut the car's trunk, and she saw a little ball of joy tumble out of the house, clad in a pink dress.

"Sage!" Mia squealed as she ran towards her big sister.

"Mia!" Sage greeted and set her bags down to bend down to wrap her sister in a hug. "I missed you, Mimi."