The Next Great Adventure (A Marauders Fan Fic)

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Four

Sure enough the next day she received a letter from Cassie which she read as she sat down to breakfast; there was nothing unexpected there – most of it was incredulous phrases followed by unnecessary numbers of exclamation marks – and then some news about what she'd been doing in America before she was told about James being made Head Boy.

I suppose it makes sense really, she had written at the end of her letter, returning once again to the subject which had prompted her to write to Lily, he has grown up a fair amount and pretty much everyone in the school loves him. I wonder who his Head Girl will be though, Sirius didn't tell me that. I'd laugh so much if it's Azalea, he'd hate her so much! Well it's obviously not you because I assume you would have told me so it'll either be Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff... Whatever they're called. Oh well, they're nice.

Lily was seized with guilt as she read this; if any of her friends understood her situation it would be Cassie and it wasn't fair to keep secrets from her. She struggled with this issue for nearly four days before she sat down and wrote a letter out to her best friend which included in it the information that she had been made Head Girl and a plea not to mention anything about James to her. Look I know you'll all find it absolutely hilarious that it's us together but I've moved past that now, she had said, and I don't want to... affect our working relationship in any way. We need to be professional about it and leave the past in the past and having you lot hanging around and laughing at me isn't going to help. And I'll need you to pretend like you didn't know anything about it when we get back to school or Alice and Mary will skin me alive for not telling them.

The letter lay on her desk for another couple of days, only half pushed into its envelope, before she finally left for the Post Office and sent it off; just over a week later she was having a very late breakfast – putting it more aptly she was having cereal for lunch – when she heard a tapping at the window and opened it to the enormous owl who deposited a letter on the table and vanished again.

Hey Lily,

Thanks for the extremely delayed reply to my letter... I thought you were never going to answer it but I suppose that something must have got lost somewhere across the ocean... I don't know if I trust these American owls! Well... your letter wasn't quite what I was expecting...! I suppose I'll get the boring stuff out of the way first: yeah America's alright, we're coming home in a couple of days but it's been really interesting and it was nice, if really weird, to meet some distant family...

Now onto the interesting stuff... Lil I promise I wouldn't do that... Okay well I might want to but I will rein it in for you! I'm sure you can be perfectly professional about it and be civil to James without falling in love with him or anything, although I don't see why that would be such a bad thing. You guys got on really well last year, I'm sure it'll be fine, don't worry. Look I know that this is in no way what you were asking for when you wrote to me (not that you were asking for anything but I'm going to tell you this anyway) but this is what I think (and please don't flay me alive next time you see me for saying this)... I know you're dead set against James and you always have been but, since I've started doing Quidditch with him, I've become quite fond of him and you know that... He's actually a really nice guy Lil and if he hadn't been such a berk when we were younger I reckon we would all have learnt that much earlier... I love you Lil but you're stubborn and you know it; now I'm not saying that you do like him but if you did... well he's improved a lot (besides, if Sirius can manage it so can James) and it probably wouldn't be the worst decision that anyone's ever made. Still, I know that you'll probably start reading this and just roll your eyes and skip to the end because you refuse to admit that James Potter could possibly have grown out of the stage where he was immature and cruel – and Merlin knows if there was one person in Hogwarts who agreed with you about him it was me – but I think he's changed a lot recently and I think it'd be wrong of you not to give him a second chance. He can be lovely when he wants to be, so can Sirius, and I think (and I don't know whether this is just me being soppy and imagining something which isn't there because now I'm with Sirius so they've shown they can be nice and less... boyish) that if there was anyone in Hogwarts he would want to be nice to, it'd be you. Anyway I'd better go because my parents want to take us on a hike to see some wood which is famous for its fairies or something, I don't know, and my hand is starting to hurt from writing for so long... I guess I just want to say, because I know you will be, don't worry Lily. Dumbledore's not an idiot, he chose him for a reason and you know that you two got on.