- Chapter Seventy-Two -
"You'll be even more fine when you read this letter."

"CONGRATS, YOU MANAGED TO NAME 2/10."

"Better than nothing." James shrugged his shoulders, biting his toast as Sherry laughed and began to pack all of her things away into her bag so she could start eating despite the fact that breakfast was nearly over - the majority of it had been spent listening to James try and explain what different things did in Sherry's makeup bag. According to James, moisturiser was to take all of the makeup off after you've worn it for the day. "I have a question."

"No, I will not marry you." Sherry looked at him, tilting her head with a smile on her face at the sight of James' serious, almost worried expression. It had been a joke, but the more she remembered how much of a hopeless romantic he was, the more she became convinced he might've been about to propose there and then.

"Shut up." He rolled his eyes, downing the last of his water and Sherry relaxed her slightly tensed shoulders with a small reprimand of her brain thinking that he would do such a thing. They had been dating less than a day and even James who had chased after Lily Evans for five years would never move that fast. "No, I was just wondering if you reckon Professor Greene might let us sit next to each other in Defence again."

"After the tongue-tying incident?" Sherry raised her eyebrows, the scene so clear in her mind of when James was unable to speak and so resorted to violence in the form of yanking her hair. Professor Greene had been wary of partner work ever since then. "I don't think so. She's smarter than that. Plus, I like being next to Ams, it means I get all the answers."

"Fair enough." James sniffed, taking his timetable out of his pocket and checking it over on the right week. Meanwhile, Remus and Sherry fought from across the table about a letter that Remus had in his hands that had been delivered by the owls just minutes before Sherry had entered. "Hey, we have Potions first."

Sherry emitted a loud groan and flopped her head dramatically onto the table, whining into her arms that muffled her voice at the knowledge that they had Slughorn next. Ever since Matt and James' fight, Sherry hadn't been to another meeting but neither had Matt so she assumed that he had been either kicked out or didn't want to face James again. Personally, her own eyes hadn't met Matt's since that night and she hoped that they never did again - they had almost paralysed her last time and she didn't fancy feeling that again.

"You'll be fine." Remus rolled his eyes at Sherry's dramatics as she turned her head so whilst still resting it on her arms, she was looking at James whilst Remus looked through the letters they had previously been fighting over. James laughed at Sherry's expression as she tried to restrain her own grin. "You'll be even more fine when you read this letter."

Curiously, Sherry gave up on her theatrical antics and looked up at the boy opposite her with furrowed eyebrows. Remus sat smugly, a tea-stained envelope within his fingers with a ragged scrawl of Sherry's name on the front of it; the wax seal was so familiar that Sherry's heart skipped more than several beats as she launched out of her seat and yanked the letter out of his grasp with an eagerness not often witnessed. The seal was a pinkish red colour, personalised with a calligraphed L as a pattern.

James perked up at her excitement bordering on anxiousness, his irises training themselves to her eyes so he could detect every emotion change. At the moment, her face was blank but he prepared himself for anything else she felt that he could see. Looking at Remus, he seemed to have the same anxiousness on his face as he watched Sherry closely whilst she ripped open the envelope to reveal an off-white piece of parchment. Once it was unfolded, handwriting similar to the writing on the front of the letter travelled down the majority of the page.

My darling daughter,

I hope you had a nice summer, my love. I've not heard a lot from Lyall or his wife but I imagine they're treating you well, after all I haven't been contacted by any police officers about you! Just joking, baby. Fourth of July was so exciting here at MACUSA, the fireworks were the shapes of different beasts and plants - you would have loved it.

Anyway, I wrote to say that I'm thinking of coming down for Christmas! If Lyall and whatever his wife is called will have me, of course. He's been very dear to me in taking you in despite our lack of contact throughout the years. His son, Romulus, is your age I think. Correct? Let me know. I hope you've found a friend in him. And about that James Potter, I've been thinking, what do his parents do? Are they at a high position in the ministry? If you guilt them enough, they may offer you a job! No need for good grades in your N.E.W.Ts after all and you can work with me in my sector! How wonderful.

I also wanted to talk to you about a letter I recently received from a Horace Slughorn? Making sure you were okay about your breakup? Some sort of pranking I think since you haven't had a boyfriend in England yet, like you would date an English boy! Slughorn taught me, actually, though I never got invited to his little parties. Definitely not still mad about it! Lyall did though, and he didn't go for a while but then he went back again. Suck-up!! Hopefully he didn't kiss-up to his wife that much!

Oh, the sun is doing me very good this year-

After a couple of minutes of reading, the paper in Sherry's hand was quickly crunched into a small ball of wrinkled paper before she reached into her bag, took out her wand and set fire to the crunched paper until it was just a pile of ash on the table. Her face was flushed red with what James had deduced was anger, with this in mind he moved her knife and fork away from her plate whilst she sat and stared at the black dust pile for a moment. There were no thoughts behind her eyes but at the same time too many to count.

Remus pursed his lips at the sight of the ash pile, halting in his reading of his own letter from his parents. Sherry breathed heavily for a couple more seconds, shoulders and chest rising and falling at a deep steady pace. A moment of silence. Then, she grabbed the envelope the letter had come in and did the same thing, creating a smaller ash pile by its side. A smell of smoke lingered around the group and soon the friends around the Gryffindor table were all detecting where the stench was coming from.

"Remember our anger management." Louis, from beside her, gently slid the wand out of her grip and lay it gracefully on the table beside her as she continued to just look at the burned paper in front of her. Then, the boy's strong hand massaged Sherry's back in comforting circles.

Suddenly, her flushed red face became a little bit paler and her clenched jaw ended up becoming a little bit looser. Both James and Remus let their eyes expand wider as Sherry visibly calmed down at her best friend's hand rubbing her back and his voice soothing her a little more. The anger management that Sherry had mentioned helping her and Louis' brother was no joke James realised as his girlfriend took one last deep breath, closed her eyes and then let a nice smile appear on her face.

"When's the next Slug Club meeting?" Sherry asked James, reaching back into her bag and for a moment he was scared she was getting her eyelash curlers out in order to do something violent. But when she simply pulled out some parchment and a quill, he relaxed and decided to answer her question calmly.

"Uh, this Friday." He said and exchanged glances with Remus who had returned to reading his letter but glanced up to watch the situation at small intervals, namely this one where Sherry hummed in response, dipped her quill in her ink pot and put her pen to paper with a sweet grin.

Dear Ms. Opal,

Her name is Hope. And their child is called Remus.

Sherry

"I'll be there." Sherry said as she capped her ink pot again and placed it inside her bag along with her quill. Pleasantly surprised, Amber raised her eyebrows at the proclamation from across the table. After her outburst about having Potions next period, she certainly didn't expect that to come out of Sherry's mouth. "Okay, I'll see you guys in Potions, I'm gonna head up to the Owlery."

"Goodbye." James watched her every move as she got up from the bench, took her parchment she had written on in her hand and hiked her bag strap up on her shoulder. At his farewell, Sherry grinned and leaned closer to him, her lips brushing on his for just a second as her own goodbye before she left him with her bright smile and walked away. "Wow."

"I never thought I would ever see that happen." Remus leaned into Sirius by his side, pointing at James who in motion of going back to his breakfast, continued to watch Sherry walk out of the hall. Her short hair bounced with her walks and James tried not to look like a lovesick fool touching his fingers to where her lips once were. "It's weird to see them kiss."

"It feels almost...odd." Sirius nodded, watching his friend start to talk to Louis who had decided to fill the space that Sherry had left by sliding closer to James and mentioning whatever.

"I think it's sweet." Peter mumbled, face full of toast tucked into his cheeks like a squirrel so that he could speak with a hand in front of him mouth whilst he still had the food in. Oliver was beside him, talking with Mary but sparing anecdotes for Peter sometimes but the boy was just content on eating his breakfast. "Who would've thought?"

"Me! I thought!" Remus pointed to himself, still not finished with his letter from his parents he had received because he kept getting interrupted by both Sherry and his own friends talking about Sherry. "I bet you all and I won! And not everyone has given me their galleons, by the way, I'm talking to you Lily. I fucking predicted everything in their fucking relationship so I better get credit for that and my betting money! This wouldn't have even happened if it wasn't for me! If I didn't exist, they wouldn't have even met each other and if my dad didn't exist, she probably wouldn't even be here!"

"Woah, Remus."

"Calm down."

"I'll get your money to you eventually."

"Fuck you guys." Remus breathed out an amused laugh as the table erupted into a round of giggles and cackles at his explosion. With this new relationship, Remus knew that the friendship groups were bound to intertwine, he just wasn't sure how well that would smooth over and how well it would go. Breakfast seemed to be going okay, but knowing how both of these groups functioned, he was constantly on the edge of his seat. "Let me get back to reading my letter."

"Yes, sir. Remus, sir." Peter mimicked a salute and went back to eating his toast as Sirius giggled under his breath at his friend's remarks before the two of them launched into conversation about things such as the Potions essay that Peter didn't do and rushed to complete as soon as he could.

Remus rolled his eyes and went back to his letter, skipping past the endless amounts of scribbling about how well he was doing, or who was a prefect this year, or if they've said anything about running for Head Boy. Eventually, he reached the end of the letter and skimmed past all of the writing from his parents.

We hope we've talked enough about how well you're doing, we know how embarrassed you get. Just check in on Sherry for us, we've not really heard much from her since summer. Not unusual because we know she rarely sends any letters, but we'd love to know how she's doing. With Matt and James and et cetera. Poor girl...

We're looking forward to seeing you at Christmas! And also when you come home, don't mention it to Sherry but we're taking her shopping to see what she wants for her seventeenth like we'll do with you. If you have any ideas just let us know.

We love you, darling boy!
Mum and Dad x

Remus smiled to himself and reached into his own bag, yanking out parchment, ink and a quill just like Sherry had to then prepare himself to write back to his parents. Yes, he was doing perfectly fine. No, he didn't know who were that years prefects. No, there hasn't been any news about Head Boy and Girl. Yes, he had looked into Apparition Lessons. No, they won't be able to afford it. And...

As for Sherry, she is perfectly fine. But I'm not going to bore you with my outside view of what's happened, it may be more of a thrilling read if Sherry were to tell you the drama herself. Let's just say, its quite shocking. Mum, you might faint. Dad, you'll spit out your tea.

Now I've created tension and anticipation, you're welcome.

Love you both,
Remus x

•*•*•*•*•