Another Train Thread (Open!!)

So that was the end of fourth-year then. To be honest, it hadn't gone quickly like other years, but dragged on and sometimes felt like it would never end. Aoife hadn't done much incredible stuff. Getting locked in a closet with Hunter, proclaiming her love for Seren. Very eventful. Not in a good way. Really, she should have done some more productive stuff like raising sheep cruelty instead of being stupid and teenager-ish.

Still, she felt a little bit sad that it was over. Maybe because she had wasted a year, maybe because Morgana was leaving her alone at work and Tor was no longer her only Slytherin friend. Or maybe because next year was fifth-year and that would suck. Stupid exams. Stupid studying. Stupid homework. On the bright side, she would be changing her hair back to red. On the train journey home, while she could use magic of course!

Like usual, she rushed through the grounds to the carriages and was one of the first to reach the station. This meant she had almost all the compartments to choose from! The minute she sat down in a large one at the back of the train, her cat decided to wander off and she scowled at him. Stupid Smartie would probably lock himself in someone's suitcase or something. He liked suitcases. Deciding not to worry about anything - she should be happy, going home - she sat back and took the top off one of the many butterbeers she had thought to buy in advance for summer. Finally! The stupid horrible long year was over!

Hunter was usually late to just about everything that didn't involve food. It was strange for him to actually make it to a class on time, unless he was really, really trying. And even then, he normally got distracted - most typically by food - and still wound up being late. But sometimes, there was the rare occasion that he wound up being early, despite not actually trying to be. He wasn't sure how it happened - normally it involved him losing track of time and thinking he was late when he actually wasn't. Either way, it seemed to be the case as he rushed out of the castle to catch a carriage down to the train.

As it turned out, he'd beaten a good few people to the carriages and ended up walking onto a moderately empty train. He instantly headed toward the back, wondering if any of his friends had beat him there and found a compartment. Peering into each box as he made his way through the train, it didn't take him long to find one occupied by Aoife - not that he could miss her hair if he tried. As he let himself in, Aoife's stupid cat escaped underneath his feet. Hunter glared at it and tried to resist the urge to kick it. "Stupid cat," he muttered under his breath.

Then, he turned back to Aoife, beaming. "Oh, butterbeer!" he exclaimed happily, snatching one for himself from Aoife's stash and retreating to the seat across from her before she could steal it back. He kept a firm grip on it, just in case. "At least you came prepared," he commented. Not that he hadn't. "Here," he said, pulling a jumbo pack of haribos from his bag and tossing it at her. "Fair trade, right?" Not really. Butterbeer beat haribos any day. But Aoife probably thought differently, so it was fair enough. "Excited to go home?" he asked, kicking his feet up onto the seat and leaning back against the wall behind him. "I'm not. Jack always sits around and does nothing and makes me do all the work when I go home." Though it wasn't entirely true that he wasn't excited - in truth, Hunter was dying to see his brother again. It was always the hardest part about going to Hogwarts - not having Jack there with him.

He looked absentmindedly out the window to see if he could see any of his friends boarding, but the crowd was becoming to dense to tell one face from the other. "Kind of sucks that this term's ending, doesn't it? With OWLs next year and everything - I'll probably fail every one." It sucked for more reasons than that - Hunter's fourth year had been brilliant. The best he'd had at Hogwarts so far. He'd gotten much closer with all of his friends, particularly Ariel, and he'd started dating Seren. And he and Aoife were on speaking terms - it was just an all around good year. "Do you realize that I'll be sixteen in three months?" he added, looking over at Aoife with an amused expression. "Feels like we were just eleven, coming here for the first time, doesn't it?"

Aoife was digging in her backpack, trying unsuccessfully to find her stupid wand. For the hair spell. Her bag was filled with rubbish, notepads and pens and cuddly toys and skittles and whatever else, so it was a difficult feat trying to get the annoying piece of wood out anyway. It would have made a lot more sense to put it in her pocket earlier. But she didn’t really have much sense, did she? Finally, she found it at the very bottom and was too busy triumphantly grinning to herself, she didn’t have time to stop Hunter stealing a butterbeer.

This was the boy who always had stacks of butterbeer. She would have thought he would have his own! “I’d be careful if I were you,” she remarked wryly. “You never know what someone could sneak into an innocent bottle of butterbeer.” For all he knew, she could be making him fall in love with Blake for revenge. Then she was being hit with haribos. Awesome. “Not really, they aren’t tangfastics so they aren’t worth all that. Anyway, I am hesitant to eat anything you have given me.” Her suspicion didn’t last too long, though, and she was soon ripping open the packet and shoving a handful in her mouth. Nope, no dodgy love potion in there. He’d have to be clever to get a potion into sweets, though, and Hunter was anything but clever. "Super excited! But I won't bore you with sheep information."

“Not really,” she shrugged. “This term hasn’t been that great. But you’re right about OWLs.” Those would suck. Deirdre said that they were hard and she would need to actually study for them. Oh damn, poor Deirdre would be in seventh-year next year and then she would have to leave. Aoife’s plan was to sit in the middle of the staff table and refuse to move. Then she could stay at Hogwarts as long as she wanted. “You won’t fail every one!” she said optimistically. “Just all of them except Potions! I’m going to get an O in everything though. Obviously.” She was the best in the whole year.

Sixteen. Wow. “Yeah, it’s not fair,” she said bitterly. “Your teenage years will be over way before mine.” At least Sheep Freak’s teenage years weren’t really teenage years. More like extended childhood. “No, that seems like years ago. Because it was.” Maybe she was just contradicting him because she didn’t like him much. “Seriously though, a bit. We’ll have to leave soon. Well, you will.” Not her. Deciding to get the red hair thing over with, she grabbed her wand and pointed it at her head, before whispering the colour changing charm. She was pretty sure she could see a hint of a red lock, but she turned back to Hunter anyway. “Did it work?!” Goodbye blue hair.

Hunter completely ignored Aoife's remark, popping the top off the butterbeer and taking a huge swig before flashing her a grin. He didn't have anything to worry about - Aoife couldn't make a love potion if she tried, and he'd know if she'd bought one from Zonkos. Well, he'd probably know. Ariel would've told him if it happened on her shift. "Well, then at least something good came from that whole ordeal, right?" Hunter pointed out. "Maybe now I'll be able to have sweets in plain sight without having to worry that you're going to steal them - though I doubt it," he added as he watched her rip into the Haribos. "And they're starmix, which is just as good as tangfastics."

Honestly, Hunter was glad that Aoife decided not to go on about whatever sheep information she had. Between his years being best friends with her and whatever he was to her the rest of the time, he was pretty sure he was as much of an expert on sheep as a person who didn't particularly care about sheep could possibly be. "Speak for yourself," Hunter replied, shrugging. My term's been great, at least. The best so far, actually. Yours probably wasn't good because you didn't hang out with me much," he added, nodding as though it was a very serious statement. "Yeah, I s'pose I won't fail potions, you're right. But there's no way you get Os in everything."

Hunter snorted at her response. "You'll never change, will you?" he asked with a tone of amusement. "Not that soon. We have three more years still," he pointed out, though even as he said it, it didn't sound like very long at all. Four had passed already. Then, Aoife had her wand out. Hunter watched on, taking another swig of butterbeer, wondering what she was doing as she pointed it at her head. But then, his eyebrows raised in surprise. Because her hair wasn't that ugly shade of blue anymore. It was red.

Hunter just stared at her for a second, trying to get used to the sudden change of color. He was used to Ariel's constantly changing hair, so it didn't take him long, but he took a few extra seconds anyway. Because he hadn't seen her with her hair the proper color in a year - and because she looked so perfect now that it was red again. Hunter instantly found himself confirming his suspicion that he had a thing for redheads, and also found himself wishing she'd kept it blue to save him some trouble. Oh, right, she'd asked him a question. Swallowing and averting his gaze in what was hopefully a nonchalant manner, he replied. "Yeah, it worked. Why'd you change it back?"