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Hogwarts is everything you expected, and worse. As the end of your term approaches, so does the stress that comes with your last examinations– granted your house is better at dealing with it than, let's say, Ravenclaw, but that doesn't mean no one cares about such things. It's headache-inducing. It's terrible, to hear everyone's chatter and nonstop worries.
Dorcas Meadowes pulls you into a study group with her and a few of your year-mates. It's fun for the most part, until it's not and the group gets bigger so you have to study. It's not enough that you're not failing, as Dorcas seems to put it, and she's a particularly harsh study buddy.
You feel dead on your feet. Marlene McKinnon, a Gryffindor 1st year that joined early on in your sessions, jokes that she will really kill you by the end of the term. You agree, only on the principle that you will die regardless if only Professor McGonagall had her way. Loretta Zabini from the Ravenclaw 1st years dryly comments that you are both being overdramatic. It's awful. She thrives when she's studying.
That's all ruined when Marauders barge in, though. You try to not care much, but it's hard when they've become a fixture along with your textbooks at whatever place you've been studying at. You can't even fault them for being there though, with it being your year's biggest study group– most of the students came by and checked out what was going on. Even a few Slytherins dropped by a lot of the time, despite being the most removed House from the other year groups.
The Marauders, - who you've come to know that's what they've been notoriously called for quite sometime after their rather unfortunate knack of marauding pranks against Hogwarts resident populations, whether they be students, teachers, or ghosts - are one of the few that dropped by the study group often. For what it's worth, after the spectacle between you and James Potter, you think it's easier if you ignore them completely. You don't... you don't know what to do about that situation either.
It's all so complicated that you are lost. ( If James Potter's magic is like fire, then yours is soil. Dead and alive, mushed together; too old to know yet so young to be wise. )
It appears that he is a dimwitted tosser that can't help himself because he always sticks close. You don't know what's it with him, but he seems to just love bickering with you. It's not quite playing pranks or picking on you, ( he can't, not after what he promised and your magic entangled with his– ) but pointing out your mistakes or trying to one-up you in... almost everything.
What doesn't help is when Sirius Black completely misinterprets the situation and thinks he's got a crush on you. It's– it's not fine. The most relieving thing of all is that neither you nor James like the accusation very much. You think he gets a sick glee whenever he gets hexed or you smack him. He is insufferable. All of them are– which is. Well.
