04 | GOOD LUCK

INSIDE THE HOGWARTS EXPRESS, Noah Blythe was struggling to open his dozens of chocolate frogs, which he had bought from the Trolley lady under the amused eyes of Kendra and Alexia minutes ago.

"What?" He blurted out once he finally managed to open the first one, after about two minutes of miserable, failed attempts. His eyes bounced between the two girls sitting across from him in the compartment. They always sat on the far wing of the train, in a space just for them. No one dared to bother them anyway; everyone was too afraid of Noah's emotionless face or Alexia's famous death glares. "The lady is too kind, how could I say no to one of her sweets? Besides, I... ah, man!" His voice changed abruptly, to a tone of mild exasperation as he observed the card in his hands. "I can't believe I got Harry Potter again! At this pace I'll be able to decorate my entire bathroom wall with cards of him. Seriously, why can't I ever get Newt Scamander?"

"Because you're not fantastic, you're just a beast," Alexia said, flashing him a grin and receiving an angry, flaring stare from Noah in response.

"Please, Nott, everyone knows out of the two of us, I'm the beauty, you're the beast," he replied in a tone of triumph, his toothy smile so rare Alexia just had to stare. Noah, like her, came from a broken home. Unlike her, not due to power, wealth or the outcomes of the Battle of Hogwarts, but due to having two parents who were always too busy arguing with one another to even notice their son. That enraged Alexia; and it saddened her that neither her nor him had an owl because they had no one to write to back at home.

"You're deluding yourself," Kendra said, her lips sporting a smirk every Slytherin would be proud of, "Alexia is most obviously a beauty."

But Alexia was no longer hearing them, feeling herself pulled back into that familiar abysm that inhabited her mind at the most inappropriate times. She turned her head to the window and the landscapes beyond, hoping the outside would save her from the inside. Wherever she looked, all she saw was green and grey, as if the whole world had been reduced to those two colors, and she couldn't help but smile. Even nature was a Slytherin, with all those verdant fields and silver skies. The clouds were of a sunless color, charged with future rain. Nature had to be a Slytherin, because it was the one thing with both beauty and chaos, that both harvested admiration and fear. She aspired that for herself, as for now all she could see of her was the chaos and the fear.

Sometimes the feelings inside her were so jumbled she felt like she had the sky trapped within her body, as if she was physically capable of pulling it into her; because she could feel the wind whipping the corners of her mind, bringing the dark thoughts along and clouding the good ones. She could feel the empty space in her chest where science told her the heart lived, as if her body was just a sky with no place for a sun, always coated in night.

Most of the times, she felt like a thunder with no voice to rumble.

"Babe, are you okay?" Kendra's voice entered her ears worried and soft, the touch of her fingers against Alexia's skin soothing and real. This was real. Kendra and Noah were real. The darkness inside her mind wasn't. And yet it still hurt like it was.

"I just have a bad feeling about this," Alexia muttered, turning her head to face her friends. Suddenly the sun was piercing through her walls, reaching even the farthest corners of her being. The world could be bad, but at least her friends made it better.

"Please be more specific," Noah replied, one quirked eyebrow matching his lips, "you always have a bad feeling about everything."

"True," Alexia said, feeling her own mouth mimicking his. "Sometimes I even have bad feelings about bad feelings. But this in specific... I think Hogwarts may have some surprises for us this year. Don't know how to explain it, it's just... a feeling. All I have is feelings, anyway."

"Because that's what means to be human and alive," Kendra retorted, offering Alexia her tender, knowing smile. "Some feelings hurt, but we need them, don't we? Otherwise, how would we heal?"

"Why is it that with you two," Noah started, pointing an accusing finger at the girls, "I always get trapped in existential, philosophic reflections? If I wanted to think deep, I would have asked the Sorting Hat myself to place me in Ravenclaw. No offense, Wilkins."

"All taken!" She replied, scrunching up her nose in a much more adorable than menacing way. Kendra was one of those people that just couldn't be mean; her cuteness didn't allow it. Then she got up abruptly, her shoes clicking in the moving floor of the train. "I have to go do my patrol in the corridors. Something you, Blythe, obviously wouldn't understand."

"Ah, you're so funny," Noah crossed his arms over his chest, sticking his tongue out to her before turning to Alexia. "You're going off to your Prefect duties as well, Nott? Think about it, how will your conscience allow you to sleep at night knowing you left me here all alone, unprotected from the vile creatures that are other students?"

"Crybaby!" Kendra shouted at the same time she opened the door of the compartment.

"I'll keep you some company before I go," Alexia laughed, "as long as you let me have some of those chocolate frogs."

"Alexia, dear, why do you think I bought so many?"

ϟ ϟ ϟ

"Ah, Alexia! I was wondering where you were," the amused voice reached her ears at the same time her back bumped against the wall when the train described a tight curve on its route. By mere inches didn't she and James Potter crashed their heads against each other as he left his compartment.

"Why, did you kill someone and want help getting rid of the body? Or did someone die and you think I did it?" Alexia tilted her head to the side, her eyes unable to not run James' well-built figure up and down. He was already on his Gryffindor robes, she on her Slytherin ones. He was doing the same to her, and when their eyes met up there again, both of them seemed pleased with what they had seen.

"If someone died, I'd never think it would be you. You'd be too clever to leave any traces behind," James said, that playful smirk that granted him the title of Master of Mischief Making playing on his lips.

"Right answer," Alexia nodded. "Shouldn't you be out of Hogwarts already, though?"

"I decided to stay for another year since I knew how terribly you'd miss me. I couldn't do such thing to you, love."

"Spare me of those nicknames, Potter," she leaned forward very consciously, her smirk widening when she saw him hold his breath at her closeness. She knew he'd be taking in her perfume, coconut and amber and all things her. They had a complicated relationship, those two; enemies on the Quidditch pitch, but pretty much always flirting outside of it. It was another type of fight none of them enjoyed losing. "Just because we flirt doesn't mean we like each other, and much less that you can call me whatever you want."

"Whatever you say, love," he repeated, winking at her as curls of his hair fell over his brown eyes. He was hot, she had to give him that. But no hotness in the world would make her go for a Potter; in fact, she didn't go for anyone. If she couldn't even feel her heart, she doubted she could feel other's. "I just wanted you to know I'm not going to give you a break this year. You've been stealing me the Quidditch and House Cups since your first year and I'm not going to let that happen on my last one. Bet your ass on that."

"Leave my ass alone, Potter, and everything else," Alexia warned as she rested her back against the wall, not paying any attention to the few students in the hall who glanced at them in surprise, seeing two of the most famous Gryffindors and Slytherins talking so casually. The houses didn't work like that anymore, not after the war. Competition between them was healthy and fun; profound division was not. "And get ready to be defeated once again."

"I—," James opened his mouth to talk but was interrupted by a ginger head opening the door of the compartment behind him and peeking into the hallway with an expression halfway between fury and despair.

"James Sirius Potter, for one bloody second, stop flirting and come back here right now!" Rose Weasley demanded, her voice so steely Alexia raised her brows in surprise. She could hear Hermione Granger in her. "Roxanne and Fred are arguing again, Albus is nowhere to be seen, probably off with Scorpius causing trouble somewhere, Hugo is eating too many Pumpkin Pasties, and Lucy doesn't stop singing songs from annoying boy bands! And I'm just one, and my parents do not pay me enough to babysit you all. In fact, they don't pay me at all."

When she stopped talking, her face as red as her hair, she and Alexia locked eyes. Alexia recognized bravery in them, but also brains and stubbornness. She was a worthy opponent, but Alexia had never given her much thought. On the other hand, she often had to hear Scorpius rambling about her.

"Good luck, JS," Alexia told James while he cursed his luck under his breath and pinched his nose in exasperation, "you're going to need it."

Little did she know, so would she.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hope you liked this chapter :)

Next ones get even more interesting with the arrival of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students!