delphinium - remus lupin ¹

three | common room commotion

Dear diary,

O.W.Ls will be the death of me. Who even needs to know all of this stuff in the real world? I'm sure I won't run into any XXXXXX classified animals in my lifetime so why do I need to know them and how to identify them? And if I do run into one? Then surely the ministry should be the one under examination instead.

Remus has tried explaining everything to me in every way possible. The boy really wants me to pass these stupid things, and I guess I'll have him to thank if I ever do. Though, I doubt that he'll have the time to tutor me anymore now that he's become a prefect.

I've never told him about it before but I'm really proud of him. He's achieving all of his goals and living his life exactly how he planned to. Meanwhile, I'm...

"Penelope Pettigrew!" An angry red-headed girl marched towards the sofa of the Gryffindor common room, awakening a frightened blonde girl from her impromptu slumber.

"Lily Evans!" Penelope shouted back uncertainly, lifting and turning her head in time to see Lily throw down a Charms book onto the wooden table in front of the fireplace.

"What the hell, Penelope?" Lily threw out her arms at her side, refusing to break eye contact with the girl. "You lost Gryffindor twenty-five points on the first day!"

"I did?" Penelope asked, rubbing her eyes with her hands, unintentionally smudging her mascara on her hands and under her eyes. She looked down at her hands and sighed, moving the blanket she had been under off her legs.

"Yes! You did!" The redhead started muttering insults about the girl in front of her, ignoring the group of boys who came stumbling into the common room just as the bells rang to signal the end of their first day of classes. "Merlin, you're so careless, Penny. Do you even know what you did?" Lily's voice began to get louder as she went on, drawing the attention of the boys over to the two girls.

"What's my favourite Pettigrew done now, huh, Lils?" James came scrambling over to them, wrapping an arm around Lily's shoulder.

"I'm sorry?" Peter half-shouted, looking incredibly offended by James' statement.

"Aw, see, you care what I think." James tilted his head to the right, jutting out his bottom lip as he mocked his friend.

The remaining two boys appeared behind Peter as he sat down on his usual chair, putting his books down on the table in front of him. Sirius walked around the chair towards the sofa, hitting Penelope's legs lightly to get her to move them so that he could sit down. Remus joined him in walking around the sofa walking to Penelope's opposite side as she stood to grab her blanket that had fallen to the floor. He noticed her small stumble and almost lose her balance, causing him to grab onto her waist to help her stay upright.

"Woah, Moony, holding her by the waist? That's moving a bit fast, don't you think?" Sirius mocked as the two both felt embarrassed blushes grow on their cheeks. It had been four years since the two had first blushed at each other for the first time on the Hogwarts Express. It was quite comforting for Penelope to know they still hadn't changed enough in their friendship for them to stop being completely embarrassed around each other.

"Leave them alone, Sirius." Lily smiled, walking away from James and the rest of the group, heading towards the girl's dormitories.

James looked as if he were going to follow her but decided against it at the last moment, moving to sit in between Sirius and Remus instead. The boys had taken up all the free seats by the time Penelope turned back around, leaving her to sigh and carelessly drop down onto Remus' lap. She knew she could have gotten a chair from the other side of the common room, but her energy levels were running low, and Remus didn't seem to mind either.