Potter and Evans

Letters

Lily woke to the sound of tapping on her frosty bedroom window at around nine o'clock: two days after she had returned home from Hogwarts for the Christmas holidays. She reluctantly heaved her hazy body out of bed, and upon accidentally stepping on the squeaky floorboard by her bed on the wooden floor, she heard Petunia sigh moodily from her room next door - she had probably forgotten that Lily was home and Lily had just abruptly reminded her.

Petunia had not hidden the fact that she no longer wished to have anything to do with Lily and had switched to blatantly pretending that she wasn't in the room rather than the constant fighting that used to happen. This consisted of interrupting her mid sentence, talking about things in the muggle world Lily hadn't caught up on yet and ignoring her questions about it, and talking about her as if she wasn't in the room. Whereas in her previous years at Hogwarts where when she returned home Petunia would at least pretend to be nice in front of their parents, she had given up on her pathetic show now and her parents were now all too aware of the tension between the two. Their relationship had gradually gotten worse and worse as they had gotten older, and even though Lily often tried to make amends, Petunia refused to play nice, leaving Lily upset and lonely during her weeks home. She tried not to show this in front of her parents whom she loved dearly, but they could easily see through how much Petunia was hurting her every time she snapped at her and shrieked 'freak!' whenever Lily tried to talk to her.

Lily waded her way to her window and pushed it open, letting in a huge wave of cold fresh air that angrily stung at her skin. Two owls flew into her room, one professionally perching on top of her bed frame, the other madly and excitedly fluttering around her head before clumsily choosing to sit on her drawers, knocking a few books onto the floor. She first took the letter from the owl on her bed frame, stroking her hand down it's white feathers. In return, it gave her an affectionate nip on her hand.

She opened it and immediately recognised the untidy scrawl.

Lily,
I don't mean to bother you so soon, but my mum wants to know if you're definitely coming or not on Christmas Eve Eve so she knows the numbers for food (not sure why she needs it this early but you know what mums are like). I told her you weren't completely sure, but she insisted I sent this letter. You're welcome to stay the night before and after too if you'd like - Remus and Peter will be and I'm also sending a letter to Marlene asking her.

While I'm on the subject, do you have any idea what happened to Sirius and Marlene going to the ball together? I was convinced he would ask her but he never did.

Also, we've got the new cleansweeps, so I hope you're ready to learn how to play Quidditch (I've decided that it's a necessity for you to not only be able to fly, but to be able to play, so consider this repayment for helping with the prank).
James.

P.S. Did we potions homework?

Lily smiled and shook her head at how James couldn't focus on just one thing. His head was constantly spinning and it showed in his letters too.

During the summer of third and fourth year, James had sent her numerous letters (two or three a week) 'checking up on her' and he often went into long explanations of what he had been up to since his last letter. She'd acted like she had found them annoying when he had asked her if she had received them once they returned to school (since she refused to ever reply to any of them), but truthfully she'd enjoyed receiving them because it made her feel more connected to the magical world and distracted her from Petunia's torments. She even found herself looking forward to getting them in the summer going up to fifth year, but she had never received anything and secretly felt disappointed. However, once they returned to school, she found that James' feelings for her had not at all changed and he still proceeded to constantly bug her. She absentmindedly wondered if he still liked her now.