Too Little Too Late

Chapter 6 | Edited

The weeks flew by, taking with them the laughter of everyone in the castle. Luckily, it never seemed to run out.

"Sooooooo how's Frankie boy?" Marlene had teased Alice a few weeks after term had started while the girls where all sitting in the Gryffindor common room.

Alice blushed bright red. "Good, he's starting his first year of Auror training and he's under Alastor Moody himself." Alice, having always dreamt about being an auror, knew about the legendary Aurors of times gone by (and present). Alastor Moody was basically her hero.

"Did I hear the name 'Moody'?" A (suspiciously James sounding) voice came from behind the girls, causing them all, except Alice who had been facing that direction, to jump.

"Yes Potter. 'Moody' as in Alastor Moody. Now go away, we're having a discussion." Lily quipped, obviously annoyed by the presence of the bespectacled boy.

"Why're you talking about him?" James continued, looking only slightly disappointed.

"Frank is working under him at the Auror department starting this year." Alice supplied.

"Whoa awesome. I've always wanted to be an auror. Do you reckon Frank will answer any owls I send him with questions?" James asked Alice eagerly.

"Yes I'm sure he will, he always liked you anyway... Even when he told you off." James only chuckled, remembering the times when Frank (a prefect in the year above, and eventually head boy) had scolded his bad behaviour. He never did truly seem to mean it though.

"I didn't know that you wanted to be a auror, James." Layla thought out loud.

"For as long as I can remember. My dad was one when he was younger, he had to retire though when he got hit by a rather nasty cutting charm on his wand arm. His reflexes haven't really been the same since."

"Well I hope you achieve that." Layla replied sincerely.

"Thanks Layla. What do you guys want to do after Hogwarts?"

"I want to be an auror also." Alice chipped in, a glazed over look coming onto her face as she dreamt once again of her dream job.

"I'd always wanted to be a professor but with everything going on I think it may be best to do something that would help people, like perhaps healing." Layla replied thoughtfully.

"Too bad your potions are rubbish." Remus said from behind the (now startled) Layla.

She slapped him.

"Take that back!"

"I'm just saying, you're more likely to do harm than good as a healer with your potions skills." Remus teased, winking.

Layla gasped dramatically before running after Remus, screaming about traitorous friends.

The group had barely anytime to blink before Sirius and Peter had joined them, Sirius taking the spare seat and Peter collapsing onto the floor.

"So what have you guys been up to?" Sirius asked lightly.

"Uh talking about our futures." Marlene replied, still slightly shocked.

"Why do you look like you just witnessed two blast ended skrewts doing the nasty?" Peter asked curiously.

As if to answer the question, Remus re-entered the room with Layla over his shoulder.

"It's a good thing you don't want to be an auror, Cookie." Remus announced.

"Oh shut up. You only caught me because I like you too much to fight back."

"So why did you punch me then?"

"Self defence."

"I was running away from YOU."

Layla huffed and stayed silent, basically admitting her guilt to her friends. While Alice, Marlene, Lily and James all burst into laughter, Sirius and Peter had faces of shock.

"Moony you can put her down now." Sirius huffed after a while.

"She's vicious Pads, she'll attack the moment I let her go." Was Remus' solemn reply.

"I will not." Layla defended.

Remus only chuckled and continued to hold his annoyed friend. His other annoyed friend continued to glare at him, despite Remus not noticing.

James; however, did notice, and made a mental note to tease the dog animagus about that fact later. Oh jealousy thought James, such a cruel mistress, he had fallen prey to her himself when Lily and Snivellus were still friends.

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It was the next day when Layla found herself forgetting about the homework spread out on one of the large library tables in favour of listening into a, rather loud, conversation of the marauders. She knew that she shouldn't be, but when they were talking that loudly it was unavoidable. Right?

"But still Padfoot, you could have seriously injured the boy." Remus' calm voice was clearly audible, once again having to act as the voice of reason for his friends.

"I don't care. Did you hear what he said? That little fu-"

"Yes we know, Sirius, we do. It was an awful thing to say. But he was only a fourth year and was probably only saying it to impress his friends. You know how fourth years are." James reasoned. That's odd, thought Layla, since when did James have to reason with Sirius?

"I'm going to kill him." Sirius' tone was deadly, scaring Layla slightly.

Layla, making a rash decision (she was a Gryffindor after all), decided to put herself in their view, by grabbing a book or something, and hopefully encourage them to keep their voices down or move to a more private area where Madame Pince hopefully couldn't hear them and tell the headmaster that Sirius is homicidal. Quickly getting up, Layla did just that. She didn't even look at the cover of the book she had taken, yet she knew it was in the astronomy section as that had been what she was previously studying.

"Oh Cookie! Hi." Remus said rather loudly, probably more to alert James, Sirius and Peter to her presence.

"Hi Teddy..." She paused, not sure what to say. Should she tell them that she'd heard their conversation? No. Definitely not. Just act normal. What's normal? Joking? Annoyed? Uh.. "I didn't know you three knew your way to the library. Impressive, boys." Sarcasm always works.

"We're just following Moony here, hoping to annoy him." James supplied, winking at his werewolf friend.

"But, now that you're here, I guess we could talk to you instead." Sirius chimed in with a smirk.

"Oh do feel free to not do that." Layla smiled sweetly before moving back to her table.

Finished with her astronomy, Layla pulled her potions in front of her. It took Layla approximately seven seconds to read the title of her essay and collapse onto the table, having already given up. The marauders chuckled.

"I can always tutor you." Sirius said with an even bigger smirk gracing his features, pulling up the chair next to Layla.

"No."