serendipity - r. lupin

FORTY EIGHT

Euphemia's eyebrows rose in remembrance. Her gaze flicked from Genevieve, to Remus, and then understandingly to James. "Fine, but I'll be stealing her later!" Euphemia called after them.

James had brought them all into his room. His red walls were still covered in Quidditch posters and Gryffindor flags, but his bed seemed to have gotten bigger. On a notice board, amongst photos and souvenirs from treasured memories a letter was attached to it by a pin. Genevieve recognised the scrawled out handwriting.

"Oh," James said as he noticed what she was looking at, "Yeah, that's from Anna. Owlbert sent me it a couple days ago."

"He flew into the kitchen sink while delivering it," Peter recalled with a snort, "Padfoot was doing the dishes and let out the most girlish scream ever."

"Moony had to stop me from drowning your owl on the spot," Sirius admitted. He flopped onto James's bed. "He threatened to put soap suds down my throat if I did."

"I'm sure Genevieve wouldn't have liked a dead owl as an early Christmas present," Remus said dryly.

"The ink on the letter didn't run, luckily," James said.

Genevieve read over the letter quickly:

James,

Genevieve said that you don't like me. Is that true? If that's true, then you're a git and I never even liked you in the first place. Actually, I did use to like you, but if that's true then I don't anymore, and Remus was always my favourite anyway. He always gave me chocolate, and you didn't. Don't tell mum that I called you a git or I'll get told off, and then I won't like you even more. Sorry for calling you a git if you do like me though, you're still the coolest.

From,
Anna.

Genevieve stared at the letter, her jaw hanging slightly. "I feel like I've just gone through the five stages of grief."

James snickered. "My exact reaction. I made sure to send her a letter back informing her that I do like her, and that I swore on my first caught golden snitch that I wouldn't tell Mrs Lewis she called me a git."

But Genevieve was barely listening, her attention had been brought to a different letter. The ink was still fresh on it, and the parchment barley creased.

Potter,

Fine, I'll come over for Christmas, but just to be clear— I'm only going for Genevieve, got that? Not you, just Genevieve.

From,
Lily.

Genevieve pointed to the letter. "Do my eyes deceive me, or is Lily coming here sometime soon?"

James grinned and shook his head. "Your eyesights perfectly fine. Lily Evans, soon to be Potter, is coming here for Christmas," he announced.

Genevieve glanced around the room at the other boys, and they all just nodded at her shocked expression. They already knew, as they had been here five days prior and stayed ever since. 

"Shocking, isn't it?" Peter said.

Genevieve shook her head as she stared at the letter of response. "Stupid, stupid girl," she muttered in under her breath. She hoped this wasn't another one of Lily's methods to lead James on, because frankly, Genevieve was getting tired of her doing that and didn't know how many more scoldings she could hand out. Maybe Lily had come to her senses and realised that James wasn't as bad as she thought, and this was her first act of redemption.