May 13, 9PM

Now that it was really starting to feel like spring, it was finally a good time to bring the Astronomy Club outside. No longer did they have to cramp around the telescope in the Astronomy tower, nor did they have to hike up the dozens of stairs it took to get there. Jai loved that classroom -- it was his favorite place in Hogwarts, and possibly the world. But even he could admit that it wasn't the most convenient place to get to.

This would probably be the last, if not one of the last, meetings of the year -- which meant that it would be one of Jai's last Astronomy Club meetings ever. Unless he were to take over Professor Trishna's job, but that hardly  seemed like something that Jai was capable of. Talking in front of dozens of students, wondering if they were learning anything? He didn't think he would make the greatest teacher, although he had managed to host the club meetings pretty well. He thought he'd done a pretty fine job as the president.

Even though it was hard to get many of his peers interested in astronomy, he still felt obligated to wear his (nerdiest) space t-shirts to the meetings. Tonight was a shirt detailing the lunar phases. He had conjured up a few chairs, and he brought with him small black discs that , when you looked at it, perfectly replicated the night sky (or at least most of it). He was planning to give them out to the members.

Club night at last.

Alvis came trotting up almost as soon as Jai finished the set-up, telescope strapped to his back and a pile of coiled parchment star-charts in his arms. He was still in his uniform -- tie loose, sleeves unbuttoned, all of it worn and wrinkled from a day's wear -- but once he'd caught up with the seventh-year and deposited his load of charts he shed the tie and let it drop onto the back of one of the chairs.

"Hey Jai." He grinned, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Cool shirt. Think we'll have a clear night? It's been cloudy lately..."

Alvis had been in the astronomy club since his first year and had, by his count, missed only two meetings -- once in second-year for a severe headache, and once the previous semester when he'd been confined to the hospital wing after being nearly drowned. Like Jai, the astronomy tower was his favorite room in the castle, but he couldn't deny how nice the night was getting now that spring and summer were starting up. It was almost enough to make him forget that he'd had quite enough of the lake for one school year. Almost.