Glory |A. Potter|

Eleven

"He apologised properly."

Ramona looked up, an eyebrow raised as she glanced at Jane briefly before she focused back on her meal so as to hide her smirk. "Did he, now?"

Ramona had returned from her meeting with Louis a while ago and they had started their dinner with her telling Jane most things about it and now she had finished, Jane told her the interesting instances happening in her life. She nodded once as she turned her attention back to the pasta in her plate.

"He did. After Care for Magical Creatures, he walked me to the choir meeting and apologised for his ways all these years. He claimed he's more mature now."

"In some ways," Ramona agreed, "I definitely condemn the way he smokes, though. He didn't pick up on that because he's more mature."

"I agree with you," she muttered, "I didn't tell him, though. He claimed he'll stop being rude to me as I apparently didn't deserve it back then."

"That's nice of him."

"It is. I also asked him to call me by my name."

Ramona looked up, a mischevious glint in her eyes. "Did he?"

Jane smirked, "He did, and then proceeded to ensure me we aren't friends."

Ramona chuckled as she glanced down the table, where the Slytherin boys in their year were sitting. "Classic Albus Potter."

"Indeed," she mused, "he sounded scandalized at the thought of us being friends."

"Oh, Albus," she smirked, "just you wait."

"Just you wait indeed," Jane laughed as she looked over at Ramona and the two of them shared a look of amusement. Then they turned back to their dinner and conversation drifted off to nothing but little observations here and there.

Ramona and Jane hadn't always been close. During their first year at Hogwarts, they hadn't really liked each other. Ramona had acted as if she was superior to her, something that had made Jane not like her at first. But then, during the summer holidays, Ramona's parents had gotten through a rough break-up, her father no longer wanted anything to do with her, and when she returned, she was nothing like the girl Jane had first met. She was considerably more humble and a lot more insecure and this time, Jane had given her the benefit of the doubt and Ramona had decided to give her a second chance.

It turned out this was one of the best decisions either of them had done in their lives.

Jane and Ramona had gotten inseparable ever since. They understood each other completely, they told each other everything, and together they grew. Ramona's confidence was slowly restored although her arrogance didn't and through the years, she managed to give Jane the attention and support she deserved but had never gotten all her life. Both of them believed they were lucky they had met the other. They knew, if it weren't for their friendship, they would have been completely different people.

As dinner continued, Scorpius moved down the Slytherin table to join them, taking a seat beside Jane with a friendly smile and no need to ask to join them. Both of them were comfortable around him, they accepted him, respected him. They hadn't bonded until their fourth year in the school but the time they had lost didn't make much of a difference anyway.

Scorpius appreciated their ambition, the way they fought for what they wanted to do in their lives fairly, without wishing harm to their opponents but only thinking they should try harder to succeed. The girls on the other hand valued his honesty, his understanding, his insight. If one were to see him, they wouldn't claim he had that many Slytherin traits, however, if someone got to know him the way they did, they would soon realise they were wrong. Scorpius's ambition and need for self-preservation couldn't be ignored and the qualities he didn't have would rule out all other houses anyway.