James
It had been a stressful day, and James was ready to just tune everything and everyone out by walking up to the astronomy tower. Gryffindor had won a quidditch match against Slytherin. But in a surprising turn of events, it was a narrow victory. James, Marlene, and the other chaser (a small 3rd year who was new to the team) had scored many goals between them, but the match ended with Regulus catching the snitch, making the final total 200:190 to Gryffindor.
Although they won, it was still stressful because it was James’ first match being team captain. The last team captain had left last year: when he opened his letter of books and equipment the 5th years needed to buy, he was kind of surprised to see a shiny prefect badge and a captain badge. He wore it with pride and immediately started planning training schedules and drills to do.
Contemplating the worried questions from his friends when he returned after the victory party had ended, James decided to take a walk to the astronomy to clear his head of the racing thoughts speeding through his mind like the snitch when someone was trying to catch it. While trudging up round corners and wandering up stairs, he noticed a little shadow following him. He tried to catch it by quickly turning around but it was no use. Perhaps it was just a house elf on their way to clean a random classroom. He didn’t think much of it and before too long, he was at the astronomy tower.
Fortunately, it was a clear night, and James could easily pick out Sirius and Regulus. Sitting down, he breathed out a sigh of relief that the day was over, telling himself he could relax now. The air was cool, and a soft breeze tickled the back of his neck, lightly ruffling his curls. He placed his hands down onto the stone floor and allowed his head to fall back. Birds were still chirping merrily away, as if to reassure him that everything was okay.
James shut his eyes and welcomed the quiet chirps, and the rustling of the leaves from the forbidden forest. After a while, he slowly took in his surroundings and gradually became aware that the little shadow had followed him up to the astronomy. The little shadow was in fact a cute black cat. Which was staring at him from a ledge near James.
‘Well, hi there little one,’ James began, ‘I didn’t realise I had an audience tonight.’ He let out a small chuckle and raised his hand towards the cat as if to say, ‘Come here, I won’t hurt you. I just want to stroke you.’
Surprisingly, it worked, and the cat obliged. It cautiously came up to James’ outstretched hand sniffing it to be sure he was safe. When, it had deemed James to be harmless, it nudged James’ hand with its head, and he was enchanted so he began stroking the cat. He was immediately rewarded with a satisfied purr. The cat carefully approached James until it was practically in his lap. James opened up his arms and much to his delight, it curled right up in his arms.
They stayed like that for what seemed like hours. The cat - which James had nicknamed Leo, after his favourite constellation – had fallen asleep within minutes of settling down and getting comfortable. James came to the realisation that all his thoughts of stress and pressure from the day had gone. His racing mind was no longer racing. All was calm now that he had Leo.
However, he was getting rather cold, and wasn’t far from shivering. Gently, James nudged Leo awake, much to the apparent dislike of Leo.
‘Hey little Leo, don’t worry. Its just getting a bit chilly, and I don’t want you or me to freeze to death tonight so I’m going to pop back inside and probably go back to my dorm now.’
Leo didn’t like this, and when James tried to place him off his lap, he meowed indignantly and just climbed right back on.
‘Okay fine. Look, Leo, the way this is going to work is this: either you get off my lap or I’ll have to bring you back to my dorm and you most likely wont like being shut in a room with a bunch of teenage boys.’
Leo just stared into his soul, refusing to break eye contact as if to say: make me get off your lap, I dare you. When James noticed this, he broke out into a grin and scooped up Leo in his arms and began walking back to the Gryffindor dorms. He wondered where Leo would sleep, but he came to the conclusion that it would be best if he just slept with James. Then, James could put a locking spell around his bed so Leo couldn’t escape and scare the living daylight out of his dormmates in the morning.
‘Okay Leo, I’ve come to a decision: you’re going to have to sleep in my bed because I don’t want to freak out my other dormmates.’