Our Blood Runs Red

Looking around, Chloe realized this year was not going to be the same or as good as all four years of Hogwarts had been before. It was going to be way different, and probably not for the better. For example, there were those dark posters outside. There was no chance that those meant something good was going to happen- it probably meant just the opposite. Sighing, Chloe wondered what exactly what was going on. There was almost no way to tell the future, but that didn't stop her from longing to know what was going to happen in her life. Glancing into the compartment, Chloe was a bit shocked at how many people were in here. She was surprised, but she certainly was ecstatic to see that most of her friends were already here. She grinned at Sam and answered,"Nah, it was dead boring." She rolled her eyes and shook her head in mock disbelief. Then Sam said the exact thing that was on her mind, the fact that he had missed it so much because he had done nothing. She nodded in agreement, not really feeling like going into much more detail of how much her summer had sucked.

That's when the door opened, and Trent walked in. She looked up immediately as he went through a round of greetings, basically hugging the girls and doing that weird fist-thing that guys did to each other. She smirked a bit; what was it with guys and their muat not hug other guys thing? It was a bit weird, if you asked her. There was not much wrong with physical contact; she smiled at him as he hugged her and told him,"Long time, no see." After greeting that one friend, she turned to the rest to see how they were. Millie and Elliot were here as usual, sitting down already. Byron, Roxi, and Sam were already here, probably having gotten here before her. They all looked basically the same, so she deduced that nothing had physically happened to them, at least from what she could see. After glancing around, she took a seat on the end of the seat, noticing how full it was but happy to be squished between her friends.

Chloe looked up from her thoughts as Millie tossed something at her. She caught it in the air, and her mouth fell open as she took it in. It was an ugly blue dress with sparkles interlaid in it. She answered,"You know what, I think I'll have to pass on that." Grinning, she continued,"The dress shouldn't go to waste, though." She smirked as she tossed it to Byron. "I think it's your size. Enjoy!" She laughed and turned away from him so she wouldn't have to deal with whatever remark he thought up to counter her move. Well, turning around wouldn't stop her from hearing it, but it did make her feel better. Millie asked for the contraband, and Chloe could only shake her head. She had never really gotten into that kind of stuff, even though some of her friends had. It just wasn't her style. It never had been, and she planned for it never to be.

She shook her head at Millie and Byron in disappoinment but chose not to comment it. Who knew how a comment like that would end up? It would probably be wise just not to risk it. Chloe glanced around the compartment as she waited for someone else to bring up something. There were sure a lot if people in here; including herself, there were seven of them in a compartment probably meant for four. And that was not counting all the luggage and pets the seven of them had brought along. It was an uncomfortable squeeze, but Chloe was happy. Her friends were by her left, and her friends were by her right. What could be better?

Unlike how he had smiled at Roxi's welcome for him, Millie seemed to offer none of it. As if his parents, or the lack of them, had not offered him reasons for displeasure, his best friend was going to give him more. Trent frowned. What were they now? Surely they were still best friends. It was odd, really, when things became more and one had no control over definitions anymore. He sulked a little at the lack of attention from Millie. It was ironic, really. He had wanted to feign nonchalance, and yet, he wanted nothing but to sulk when her actions allowed him to be really nonchalant. While still entertaining those thoughts, something furry slinked towards Trent. As soon as he identified the cat, it jumped onto his lap. At least Lucius' affections for him did not diminish. Happy to return the affections, Trent bent to plant a kiss on the cat's head before cupping it to rub his nose against the soft fur on its head.

When he could finally take some attention off the cat, Trent heard the words spoken by Millie before he landed his eyes on her. Immediately, he thought about the massive stash he had in his trunk. Possibly, it outweighed his parchment. He was certainly on his way to injury. As much as he did not want to part with his stash, he could not lie about not possessing it. It was not that he had some obligations not to lie. Trent never felt obligated. It was just that, being his best friend, Millie undoubtedly already expected him to have it. Still patting Lucius, who had now began to lick his palm, Trent eyed the girl cautiously.

"What do I get in return for handing them over?" Trent glanced at Roxi, checking for any signs that she was going to hand hers over. Of course Trent knew that she had some with her. It was common knowledge after all, at least in the clique. He grinned at Byron, who was on with his silly commentaries again.

Millie asked how Roxi could have missed the posters and Roxi grinned, "Bigger and better things to pay attention to I guess," she said, winking at Elliot jokingly. Roxi loved to pretend to be secretly involved with, well, everyone, but Elliot was one of her favorites, because it played on those awkward unspoken boundaries of girl code, and she liked to play with such limits.

"Are they important?" she asked absentmindedly, seeming too disctracted to really pick up on the changing times. She blew a bubble with her gum, which emitted several blue bubbles which began to float about the compartment, refusing to pop. If they happened to collide, they just reformed into a larger bubble. Roxi dtared at them for a few moments, her cherry lips parted as her eyes stared, transfixed, at the beautiful luminous bubbles.

Finally, she pulled her eyes away to see Millie pulling out some fun stuff and Byron commented, saying he was sure she had her own. "Ooh! My turn!" she said, doubling over and fumbling with her trunk. She pulled out a bottle of Firewhiskey and a pack of smokes, always being one for the classics. She did not drink to get drunk, she drank to party.

"Who wants?" she said. "And everybody else needs to share!" She pushed her bottom lip out, crossing her legs and rocking in her seat, batting her eyelashes, before allowing for a devilish grin. Trent asked what he would get for handing over the goods and she gave him an earnest look, saying, "My eternal love and friendship, of course! Now hand it over, Trentilicious!"

"God it's getting crowded in here," Sam said with a grin as he looked around, surveying the faces of his new friends, it was nice to finally be fitting in with a group of other Gryffindors his own age, he'd been getting sick to death of having to hang out with the younger kids, and sitting in the shadows of the older ones.

His grin, however, soon fell as Millie pulled out a bottle of Firewhiskey, something he, Sam, had never had before, and had not brought along with him. Suddenly, he remembered why he'd never hung out with these people before, they were far too cool for him.

Looking sheepishly around at the others he opened his mouth as if to say something, before closing it, a look of concentration set upon his face as he tried to figure out what he was going to say.

His face burning and his eyes looking anywhere but into the others' eyes, Sam finally plucked up the courage to say what he was planning to say. "I... I didn't bring anything," he said quietly, his voice almost being drowned out by his raucous compartment-mates. "I can go, if you want.." he said, nodding a little. "Probably for the best," he then added with a shrug.

Samuel suddenly looked really awkward and Roxi vaguely wondered if somehow a goody-two-shoes, do-gooder had stumbled into their midst. Samuel had hung out with them once or twice, but he was not exactly a regular to their group. They knew him mostly from Quidditch games and from the common room, but besides that they knew little of the boy.

She considered the fact that maybe he did not want to take part in their sinful nature- she knew that Byron was not always so keen on their lifestyle. But she knew how to get people to stick around, and Roxi needed Samuel's eyes on her. She needed her friends to love her, to need her, to want to be around her. The more people, the more validated she was.

"Oh but Sam," she said, her eyes growing wide, her face looking positively tragic. "You can't leave now. You don't have to have anything to stay with us. Just enjoy. It's on us. We don't all carry stores with us. All Byron has in excess is a lot of dumb Qudditch books." She grinned and poked Byron's side. She looked back at Samuel. "Don't leave now, it's just getting fun!"

Sam shook his head with renewed vigour and looked at Roxi with a horrified expression. "I don't want to leave," he said quickly, "I just thought... nevermind," he said, shooting her a smile and taking his seat back looking in his lap as he thought of what a fool he had just made himself out to be.

"Sounds like we'll get along pretty well then mate," he said, nodding to Byron and looking thoughtfully up at the boy's trunk. "Planning on trying out this year?" He added curiously, wondering to himself what broomstick the boy owned. "I didn't see you out on the pitch last year, what position do you play?" He said quickly, before shutting up... once again he'd been blabbing.

Looking down at the bottle Sam picked it up and unscrewed the cap, looking at it for a second before sniffing the opening gingerly. "I've... er... I've never actually.. y'know... drank," he said, blushing once again, before swallowing his pride and taking a swig.

"Oh m-" He cried out, wretching as he felt a wave of heat surge through his body, setting his heart and soul on fire. "What the hell is in that?" He asked, eyes watering and face flushing redder than a tomato.

It was a wonder how Byron actually accustomed himself to following Roxi's lead in too many things, when the girl was actually rather oblivious herself. Perhaps it was good that he did not wonder about that fact; for to wonder about it was to also question about his intelligence at the same time. Ignorance is bliss, and this boy can unknowingly attest to it. Byron was eagerly waiting for Roxi to display her share of goods, when out came a Firewhiskey. Pleased, he made a grab for it. As soon as the bottle was in his possession, the boy started to attempt a balancing act of it on his index finger. The relatively heavy bottle teetered and tottered at the pivot of the tip of his index finger, before falling off, landing in the safety of Byron's other hand, ready for the fall.

Grinning, Byron tossed the bottle to Millie. "Caught that for you! I've more of it!" Excitedly, Byron reached for the trunk that was under his feet like a feet-rest, and brought five bottles of Firewhiskey. "One for every year that I'll be in school now," he began randomly, as if the years of his attendance at Hogwarts had anything to do with the number of bottles he had sneaked from his kitchen fridge to his trunk. Using the in-betweens of his fingers to hold onto the tops of the five bottles, Byron held his only goods out for display. But before he could bask in that, Sam spoke up. Immediately Byron almost hurled one of his bottles at the other boy.

"Don't! If you leave, Trent and I are going to be relegated to the minority again! We neeeeed you Sammyboy. These girls drive us crazy sometimes." Grinning, he continued. "And keep that bottle. It's a gift for being a part of this fraternity." He turned and nodded to Trent, as if a silent agreement was partaken. Roxi, too persuaded Sam to stay. Byron was about to nod eagerly along with her efforts before he scowled and turned to her. "No I don't! And it's not stupid!" In a defensive tone, he retorted before realising that he did Quidditch written all over himself and his things. The only thing was that he hated to read. So there would be no books on Quidditch, but everything else had to suffer it.

And then Sam's question about Quidditch. Byron, despite being upset that he was not noticed before on the Pitch, shrugged it off and replaced his voice with an upbeat tone. "I tried out for Chaser but it didn't work out. I mean, I would love to play Chaser or Seeker 'cause they're awesome to be, y'know. But ..." He thought about how he was told that his hand-eye coordination, despite his flying skills, were really bad. "I guess they didn't work out. Dad has been telling me that I can't avoid being a chip of the old block after all. He's trained me to be a beater, like him!" Byron beamed at the thought of his dad, thinking of the poster of Ludo Bagman at home, in the Wimbourne Wasps kit. "I'm not gonna try out for anything else anymore. Beater, I'll be!" With certainty in his voice, Byron nodded and grinned at Sam, at that happy thought.

While he was blabbering about Quidditch, Sam had taken his first taste of Firewhiskey. Byron felt the sides of his lips tug up, before he burst into laughter at the other boy's reaction. "It's cool, dude. We all ... well, some of us, turn into tomatoes on our first try too." And then Byron continued to laugh.

Grinning, Trent directed his attention to Roxi now. "But Roxibaby, don't I already have your eternal love and friendship? You're always using that one one me." He feigned a sad look on his face. "And I cave, because I can't live without it." The cheeky grin reappeared on the boy's face before he bent to fetch what was needed for his trunk. Lucius mewed in protest as he was felt slightly crushed between the boy's lap and chest. Trent raised himself back up again as soon he could, and patted the cat again. Lucius, however, was not pleased. He had to share the space on Trent's lap, with a stash of spliffs, a bottle of vodka, and a bottle of whiskey. In the boy's knapsack was some more spliffs and cigarettes.

It was a pity that Trent did not read the posters, and was still not expecting what was to come later. He certainly had plans to leave his stash in his knapsack, and his skateboard was supposed to go along with his trunk. Surely, something would be grabbed as a muggle artefact, out of the many in his possession.

As soon as he got his stuffs out for the others, especially Millie and Roxi since they were the only ones in the clique who really needed them, Trent held a spliff up for Roxi. "Any?" Byron was looking at him, and Trent stared back blankly, before he realised that it was a cue for something. Despite being more street-smart than Byron, Trent's reckless attitude made him oblivious, too. He only paid attention to whatever pleasured him for the moment. Perhaps, then, one could call it selfish. He was certainly self-centred, despite the fact that he could and would be open to anyone. He merely responded better to the ones who provided the better pleasure at any moment.

Still, Trent feigned interest in Byron's cue, nodding back as if he knew what it was for. Byron had began blabbering, and Trent lost interest as soon as it began. He eyed Millie for the longest time, but failed to get any sort of personal attention. Shrugging, he offered Elliot a spliff, before turning his attention back to Roxi, giving her a wink for no apparent reason. Quickly, though, his attention was caught up in Sam. The redder Sam's face turned from the alcohol, the more apparent his chuckles became. Shaking his head in amusement, Trent offered a spliff to Sam too. He was certainly doing a Santa Claus all of a sudden. Pausing, he wondered about offering Chloe one, and began to eye the girl for a clue about it.

As Sam felt his face slowly return to its natural complexion, Sam couldn't help but laugh at himself. "That stuff's brutal," he said, shaking his head as he passed the bottle back to Roxi, before feeling another one land in his lap, perfectly positioned to take the place of its predecessor.

"Thanks... I think," he said to Byron, deciding that he'd come this far, might as well keep going with them, rather than go and try and settle somewhere else, and miss out on the fun here.

"Well, I'm a keeper," he said, speaking solely to Byron now. "I'm sorry you didn't get in last year though... Jack was a picky captain, but she's gone now isn't, she," he said, grabbing the bottle and placing it at his feet, trying to make the action seem as discrete as possible, deciding he'd crack into it after the start of term feast.

"But she's gone now, isn't she," he said with a smile, "and we do need beaters, so I see no reason as to why you shouldn't get the spot," he said thoughtfully. It had suddenly occurred to him that the team would be needing a new captain, and as far as he knew, he was the oldest left on the team after last year's departures... still, now wasn't the time to talk about such things.

"How much longer?" he enquired vaguely as he looked back out the window, watching the sun starting to set just over the horizon. "And when's the trolley getting here," he added as his stomach rumbled noisily

The hoodie that Miles had filled was more than a little bit weighty. He’d placed a number of spells on it, not only to encourage the guards to brush over it but to also lighten it. Millie didn’t know how light he’d made it but it was still quite heavy in its own right. She wasn’t entirely sure what to compare the weight to but it was enough to put strain on her arm and she was sure that had something to do with the bottles of Ogden’s and everything else that had been tucked into the pockets. It wasn’t that uncomfortable really....just an inconvenience.

It would be easier to carry worn but it wasn’t the best idea to try and smuggle it in that way. No, Millie had a much better idea. She wasn’t going to tell her friends though. Not yet. It was a work in progress. She was vaguely confident it would work. Only vaguely though. No scenario was producing a positive outcome yet. She decided it was probably best to just play it out - so that was what she intended on doing.

She was learning quite quickly that looking for the outcomes she wanted wasn’t working. She didn’t know why - as it usually did - but she still felt a little shaken, a little hesitant. She didn’t want to find the outcome she dreaded. She knew she was being foolish, believing she’d find it in the most trivial of things, but that didn’t put her mind at rest. In fact, it made things worse. The fact that she was telling herself she was being stupid yet part of her believing that despite the unlikelihood it could still happen...it terrified her. She’d always adored her ability to tell what was going to happen. She’d never been stumped before, never been scared and too scared to admit it. She had a feeling that for that little gift, that stroke of luck, to work again she’d have to get over it - accept it and move on.

It was funny. The easiest thing for a human to fear was most probably death. Usually their own death. It was funny, really, that she seemed more at ease with her death than the death of another, more important person. If it affected her as it seemed to then it was quite silly of her to be so petty. She couldn’t help it though. She didn’t know how else to behave. It was all too much. Too much for someone of her age to comprehend. Death was not supposed to be on the agenda. Not yet.

Millie shook her head clear of the thoughts and looked over at Byron. She laughed and shook her head. “No it’s not the bloody Salvation Army! I think Chloe is right though. It’d suit you far better. Blue’s your colour I think, darling.” Millie pushed the bottle of Firewhisky back into the pocket she’d gotten it from and poked her tongue out at Byron before turning her attention to her brother who was begrudgingly taking his things from his bag. She jangled the hoodie at him and turned a little so she could look at everyone else as he shrank some of his things and pushed others into whichever pocket had the room.

“The posters depict the end to your kind of fun,” Elliot replied carefully, slotting a packet of gum into the breast pocket of the hoodie. “Muggle things are a no-go according to the new Minister. I feel sorry for those Hufflepuffs in the compartment down the way that were sewing things into their jumpers. Creative but I doubt it’ll work.” Millie rolled her eyes at him and tapped her foot against the floor. “Basically,” Elliot continued, pushing a packet of cigarettes into the hoodie, “This is just a precaution. It’ll probably end badly for the poor swot that ends up with it.” Elliot looked at Millie with a smirk on his lips. “But it’ll be worth it in the long run for us. What else did it say on the poster, Mill?” Millie shrugged her shoulders and Elliot rolled his eyes. “You’re so useful.”

Millie looked over at Trent and frowned a little before stating quite clearly, “You get your stuff back.” She jiggled the jacket again before sighing gently and turning around. “No more takers? If you’re keeping it then it’s got to be gone by the time we get there. Otherwise, get creative...sew it into your knickers.” Millie smirked. She only just managed to catch the bottle of Firewhisky Byron threw to her and she in turn chucked it to Elliot. He caught that better than he did the cigarette and set it down beside himself. “Right little loves. I’ll be back. Don’t miss me too much?”

And with that, Ms. Finnigan swept out of the compartment.