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▎ COUNTING STARS  ▎
»»————-　act one. young, wild & free
TEN ━━ the waffle conundrum

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♯ ❝I WOULD NOT... I MIGHT NOT! ❞
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    HOGSMEADE TRIPS, WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY WERE ONE OF THE MOST JOYIOUS OCCASIANS ANNABELLE HAD EVER EXPERIENCED DURING her years at Hogwarts. From tasting Butterbeer for the first time at the Three Broomstick to visiting the magical store of Honeydukes to taste every sweet the store had to offer.

And today, October 22nd, the first trip of the year had finally arrived. Between practising new spells, revising old ones and making assignment after assignment for the last couple of weeks, all fifth year students were relieved to finally have some free time and have fun.

Even her confrontation with James, Sirius and Remus, and the ongoing silent treatment she was giving them couldn't bring her down today as she bundled up in a soft faded green jumper and her winter jacket, her Gryffindor scarf proudly wrapped around her neck to keep her warm.

The fire in the Common Room burned brightly as she descended down the stairs at exactly nine o'clock in the morning, first and second years no where in sight as they slept in today. And excited third years going to Hogsmeade for the first time were eagerly chatting and shouting their plans and all the things they wanted to see.

Annabelle grinned, eyes twinkling as she spotted her friends standing by the portrait door, dressed to go outside as they too, eagerly discussed their plans.

Approaching the trio, Annabelle threw her arms around the necks of Lily and Marlene, bringing the two girls closer to her in a quick hug. "Are you all ready to go?"

Lily hummed in confirmation, taking the initiative to walk outside the Common Room, Julia, Marlene and Annabelle quickly following after her. "I can already taste Madame Rosmerta's waffles." Julia whispers hungrily, bouncing on the balls of her heels. "They are just as good as the ones at the Welcoming Feast. Do you think one of the house elves makes them for her? Or gave her the recipe?"

Annabelle shrugged, "Who knows? Maybe you should get down to the kitchen and ask them?" She suggested and Julia nodded blissfully.

The brunette just shook her had when she caught Julia's dreamy expression as the walked down the stairs of the Gryffindor Tower with a couple more Gryffindors and when they reached the second set of moving stairs a group of chipper Ravenclaw girls joined them.

The Entrance Hall was buzzing with life that Saturday, as everyone waited for one of the Professors to direct them to one of the carriages—one that seemingly were pulled by magic.

Annabelle looped her arm through Julia's as Lily did the same with Marlene, the two  duos skipping down the corridor with gleeful smiles on their faces. "Look the three Marauders have become the four Marauders again. " Julia pointed out, her arm outstretched towards the large oak doors keeping the cold weather outside.

And surely, Peter Pettigrew had returned once more, clearly in better spirits as he happily munched on a chocolate bar—one he probably gotten from Remus, the taller boy seemingly  always having one close by.

For a moment she caught Remus gaze as they stared at one another from across the room. A slimmer of hurt tugged at her heartstrings when she saw how tired he looked—the boy didn't even try to muster up a smile. But then again, neither could she at the moment, still a tad bit hurt by the fact that Remus partook in Sirius and James' less than kind shenanigans.

She watched as Sirius nudged the taller teen, bringing his attention back to their conversation as he held up something she couldn't make out from this distance.

"It seems he's all better." Annabelle replied after a beat, eyes moving to look back at Julia who gave her a sympathetic smile.

Julia knew that Annabelle's friendship with Remus was one of the friendship she was most fond of. They had bonded so much after that first Potion class. Clearly two peas in a pod, Remus and Annabelle had declared they had probably known each other in a different life and had been the best of friends.

The two had clearly clicked, enjoying morning conversations in the kitchens with cups of tea with honey and droning on about the fact that both their mothers were Muggles who couldn't quite grasps their lives in the wizarding world.

Julia had to drag her friend away from Remus most of the time during their years at Hogwarts, and Annabelle rarely left without a fight. Claiming she needed to cash in some quality time with the boy when his annoying and cocky counterparts James and Sirius weren't anywhere near.

The dark skinned girl was certain it hurt the two teens more to be fighting and ignoring one another than the actual reason for the fighting did.

"Come one Belle, the waffles are calling our names." Julia tugged at her arm, guiding her towards one of the carriages where Professor Flitwick stood, almost being trampled over by a group of excited third years due to his short stature.

"Morning professor." Lily greeted the Charms professor with a kind smile, while Marlene was trying to stifle her laughter as the tiny man tried to fix his appearance and smooth down his hair and straighten his blazer.

"Good morning Miss Evans." He replied cheeringly, craning his neck to look at the four girls in front of him. "Girls." He added as he smiled at the other three.

"Morning professor." They chorused together before handing him their permission slips.

"Have a nice day." He waved at them when the carriage started to pull away from the castle.

"We should go to Honeydukes after we had breakfast right?" Marlene asked, peering up at the other three girls, "I need some new Chocolate Frogs."

"No—No I need to go to Spintswitches!" Julia declared as Annabelle and Lily exchanged knowing glances.

"You don't even play on the Quidditch house team!" Marlene argued, eyes narrowing and crossing her arms over her chest defiantly.

"S-so!" Julia stammered, eyes flicker to her other friends to gain their support.

Lily's emerald eyes widened when Julia and Marlene both expectantly looked at her. "Well—erhm, Marlene, uh—" She cleared her throat, "Does have a point, why do you want to look at Quidditch supplies?"

"Because I like Quidditch!" She exclaimed in an perplexed tone as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well! I like sweets!" Marlene voiced quickly, leaning forward to glare at the other girl. "So I say we go to Honeydukes first."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes—"

"Look! We're here! Come Lily let's go!" Annabelle exclaimed in relief, all but dragging Lily out of the carriage, the redheaded girl stumbling over her feet as she tried to keep up. "Let's go the Three Broomsticks before it gets too full."

The brunette quickly linked her arm through Lily's as they speed-walked ahead, trying to ignore the two bickering girls behind them. "They're crazy." Annabelle giggled when Julia almost tackled the younger blonde to the ground when she stated Quidditch was overrated.

"They truly are." Lily shook her head when she pushed the door of the Three Broomsticks open, the warmth easily embracing them when they walked inside. A couple of students were already gathered inside—most were third years eager to try out Butterbeer.

"It smells so good!" Julia popped up behind her, resting her head on Annabelle's shoulder with a happy sigh, her semi-fight with Marlene already forgotten. "Let's go sit down and order—oh hey Madam Rosmerta!"

"Hello Julia, coming to get some waffles again huh?" The woman wondered as she walked with them towards one of the empty tables.

"Of course, speaking of those waffles, do the house elves help with them?" She peered up at the older woman with curious eyes, "I mean they taste just like they do at the Welcoming Feast, and no matter how much I try at home, I just can't get them as good."

There was a twinkle in Madame Rosmerta's eyes as she regarded the teenage girl and she winked at her, pulling her finger to her lips to shush the girl.

Julia gasped as Rosmerta walked away again before she turned towards her friends, "She totally gets help from the house elves! Do you think I can get one of them to spill the recipe?"

"I hope they won't, you'd be living and breathing those things if you could."

"I would not!" she paused, "I  might not!" she corrected.

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THAT EVENING, THE COMMON ROOM WAS QUIET, WHICH WAS A VERY UN-GRYFFINDOR LIKE, AS MOST DAYS, THE COMFY LIVING SPACE WAS FILELD WITH LOUD CHATTER, boisterous teens and four very mischievous Marauders creating some sort of chaos. But tonight, after almost everyone had been tired from the Hogsmeade trip, silence filled the Common Room for once.

If she was honest, Annabelle absolutely loathed it. Like if she wanted some peace she would go to the library—especially not the Common Room. Chatter and noise mostly brought her the peace she needed and it comforted her to be surrounded by so many lively people. It reminded her of her home, with all her father's happy little accidents and blaring fire alarms constantly ringing through the house.

It probably was one of the reasons she was sorted into Gryffindor in the first place. They were after all known to be quite loud, and if you asked the other houses, too loud might even describe them better.

She could clearly recall the first Quidditch match of her second year—Slytherin versus Gryffindor. She did wonder if Dumbledore was trying to start a murder spree that day. Like seriously, house rivalry between them was already high, but that same day Slughorn though it would be absolutely fantastic to make a little competition during a Slytherin-Gryffindor class. Like Is he dumb? Or did he also like to see children almost gauge each other's eyes out.  She was still debating the answer three years later. It wasn't even save to place Sirius, James and Severus withing two meters of one another, but actually pitching them against one another? Bad idea.

It had started with a screaming match when Sirius accused Severus of tampering with James' potion, which the greasy haired boy had denied with a tone so cold, she might freeze to dead if she was on the receiving end. After that their other housemates started to hurl insults at one another while Slughorn tried to keep the peace—and failing miserably when wands were drawn and hexes were thrown.

Poor Lily had been caught in the crossfire—which had send James down into a whole other spiral of spitfire insults and curses.

She didn't know a boy's voice could get so high when James actually punched Severus. 

But then later that day the Quidditch match took place, all Gryffindor spectators—who had caught wind of the brawl during Potions earlier with one of their teammates in the starring role, thought it was a splendid idea to start screaming and shout insults as if they were simple spells a toddler could even perform. That riled everyone up pretty quickly as things took a nasty turn during the match.

Let's say Madam Pomfrey hadn't seen so many Quidditch players inside the Hospital Wing at the same time before.

Annabelle sighed, a bored expression on her face as she chucked her History of Magic book aside—even though she should be studying for the test Binns had set up for tomorrow. The Sorting hat had been quite right to say her aspiration to require knowledge was less than desirable.

She could not blame the hat.

Dot had been sitting on her lap while the brunette had played with him. He would stretch his paws to grab onto her wiggling fingers only to drop them when she had moved her hand to rub his belly and taking the opportunity to capture her hand with all four paws, softly biting onto her thumb. But he lost interest fairly quickly as she moved her finger less and less and by now he had long since left her side to curl up in front of the fireplace, napping with another cat next to him while she remained seated in a window seat with a beautiful view of the Castle Grounds.

Weaving her fingers through her hair, Annabelle looked up only to see a very nervous looking Remus standing by the boys staircase, fiddling with his oversized sweater, pulling at a loose strand as he kept looking at her and away. His eyes had widened when he'd noticed she caught him staring and his ears turned red immediately. But at the same time it seemed he had found his courage as he decided to finally approach her. He made long strides, he wasn't tall for nothing, and stopped directly in front of her, awkwardly clearing his throat.

"Hey Annabelle." He spoke softly, light brown hair falling in front of his eyes—she noted it resembled James' hair, a complete mess, as if he had been running his hand through it and had pulled at the strands far more than he should. "I erh—I wanted to know how you were doing." He mumbled, avoiding her eyes as he instead looked at the window next to her head.

She hummed, biting her lip in contemplation. It had been a couple days after the confrontation in the corridor with the Slytherin boy, and she was still mad, but a bigger part of her missed her friend more. "Hey Remus." She smiled, her voice soothing and calm and she could immediately see his tense shoulders slack at the sound. "Completely done with my attempt to study about the Goblin Rebellion of 1612." She laughed.

Remus chuckled, taking a seat next to the girl when she shuffled to the side to make room for him. "They do have funny names, Bodrod the bearded, Urg the unclean—very erh, descriptive."

"Makes it easier to come up with names during the test, you can almost put anything down and have fifty percent chance of having a correct answer." Annabelle shrugged, leaning her head on Remus' shoulder when silence enveloped them.

"I'm sorry for what happened." Remus spoke up after a moment, a sombre look on his face when he looked down to face her better.

"I'm sorry too," She apologised, "I shouldn't have start shouting at all of you, I know how you scars make you feel, and it was rude of that boy to stare, but you know how I don't like how James and Sirius respond to all of those things. They always think with their wands first—wait that sounded wrong" Her eyes widened as Remus started laughing, his whole body shaking.

"Remus!" She slapped his shoulder jokingly, "Don't be such a baby!"

"Hey! You said it!" Remus heaved out between bursts of laughter.

"Remus! Stop! It isn't funny." Her words held little meaning when she too couldn't hold back her laughter anymore.

"I missed this." Remus admitted when they had finally calmed down again. "I missed you."

Her gaze softened at his words, and she was quick to wrap her arms around him in a tight embrace, resting her head on his shoulder. "I missed you too. We shouldn't fight, ever. It feels wrong."

"Agreed."

"So, where are the others? Terrorising the halls of Hogwarts again?" Annabelle wondered as they pulled away again.

"No, they're actually in the library if you would believe me. They still haven't finished McGonagall homework essay yet, and they were nowhere near completing it when I finished it yesterday." Remus told her, a smug smile on his face as he recalled the faces of his friends when he denied them his own homework to copy.

"Merlin, they can be idiots sometimes. McGonagall will murder them if they haven't completed the work tomorrow."

"Knowing them, they would find a way to weasel out of a detention." Remus laughed.

"Maybe you should actually go check on them?" Annabelle suggested, "make sure they are in fact working and not petrifying poor Madame Pinch."

Remus paled slightly, "You know what that isn't a bad idea." He jumped up quickly, waving goodbye to the brunette before dashing away.

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