CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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     GIDDILY, she closed her trunk and pushed it to the end of her bed. The winter holidays were upon them, the final day of the first half the year arriving just as suddenly. She skipped down the stairs of her dormitory and out of the portrait hole, to where Louise was waiting for her so they could walk to dinner together. It was Winnie's turn to sit at the Ravenclaw table, and weirdly enough she wasn't begging for them to sit at the Gryffindor table with a certain group of troublemakers as she often did.

     They made it to the hall and all the way to the Ravenclaw table without much conversation. Without much conversation? Suddenly, Winnie was extremely concerned.

     Putting food on her plate hesitantly, she eyed Louise suspiciously. "Alright, Lou?" she questioned hesitantly, her fork hovering over her food as she patiently waited for an answer.

     "Why, yes, Winnie, I am doing beautifully today," Louise grinned, although not as vibrant as usual, sticking her own food into her mouth without hesitation. "Thank you for asking." She said the last part with a completely full mouth, causing Winnie to shoot her a disapproving glare.

     "By the way, I won't be on the train tomorrow," Louise spoke up, keeping her eyes carefully trained to her food. "I'm getting home by other means."

     Winnie gaped at her for a moment. Typically, Louise would just spend the holiday with her family and then come to Winnie's for the last part. "You're still coming over, right?" she asked, putting her fork down and gazed at Louise staring at her mashed potatoes resentfully.

     "Not this year."

     There was a thick silence that made Winnie extremely uncomfortable. The whole thing did, to be frank. "Why not? Are you okay?" she asked, barraging her best friend with questions unintentionally. "You know that you're perfectly welc—"

     "I am just amazing. You know how my parents are. They just are the way they are and they're just being strange about the holidays this year, alright?" Louise replied a bit tersely, her normal demeanor taking over her pressed expression in a matter of seconds. "Now, finish eating, Winn, or else you'll be starving in the morning. I don't want you to miss me too much."

     Winnie watched, utterly confused, as Louise stood up from her spot, dinner completely untouched, and she made her way to the Gryffindor table, tapping Remus Lupin on the shoulder, and saying a few words to him. James, Sirius, and Peter all watched in confusion just as Winnie did as he stood up and they both left the hall together.

     Standing up, not bothering to finish the rest of her own dinner either, Winnie made her way to the Gryffindor table and took the seat that Remus had just been sitting in absentmindedly. "Any idea what that was all about?" James asked her immediately upon her arrival, already knowing that she had clearly witnessed the whole thing as well.

     "Not a clue," Winnie replied, staring back at the doors for a few more moments with creased brows before turning to the other three. "She just told me that she's skipping the train and the last week of holiday she always spends at mine."

     Peter glanced between her and James, even more confused than the rest of them, but for a completely different reason. "I don't see...why...is that a problem? Remus and Louise are friends, too, why's that...strange?" he spoke in a small voice, pausing every so often in apprehension.

     "The way she was acting was all..." Winnie trailed off, trying to find the right word to describe the opposite of how Louise typically acted.

     "Strange," James finished for her. "Not herself. At all, really." Winnie pointed a finger at him and nodded, while Peter just shrugged lightly.

     "Concerning as it may or may not be right now, nothing much we can do about it," Sirius commented, mouth full of food. Winnie looked at him with the same glare she had given Louise and he simply smiled at her, food hanging out of the side of his mouth.

     "You're disgusting," she laughed, the other two laughing along with her. James tried to poke him with his fork and Winnie watched them in half amusement, half disappointment. Their lack of manners, in hindsight, was truly not shocking to her at all.

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     Christmas had come and gone in a flash, and Winnie had barely gotten any correspondence from Louise. And when she did, it wasn't her family's bird, which made it all the more strange. There was a large absence in her life without Louise right there to be plotting strange schemes or giving her crazy advice most hours of the day.

     She was sitting in her living room, reading one of her textbooks out of sheer boredom while her mother cooked dinner in the kitchen. There was a sudden loud knock on the door and Winnie closed her book, shouting, "I'll get it!"

     When she unlocked the door and opened it just a bit, her lips didn't connect to her brain for just a moment and she blurted out, "What the fuck?"

     James and Sirius grinned at her. Those stupid, stupid grins. Then, she shut the door in their faces. Why, she couldn't exactly say. Two seconds later, the door was open again and she was looking back at the both of them sheepishly.

     "What...was that?" James asked, stupid grin still present in all it's glory.

     "I, I panicked? I don't know," she answered, still trying to process the fact that James Potter and Sirius Black were on her doorstep completely unannounced.

     "What have you got to panic about?"

     "He's right, we won't bite," Sirius added with a wink. Winnie's cheeks went completely red.

     "Why are you here? How are you here?" she pressed on, trying to distract herself from the warmth of her face.

     "We came to visit you, of course," Sirius replied, leaning up against the doorway  in attempts to appear more casual. "James only lives in the next village over. We're quite close, actually."

     She never knew that, but it appeared as though James was fully aware of this fact. She suspected that was all Louise's doing. "We were always that close, just never friends until now," James clarified, sensing her confusion and she felt a little bit of warmth in her chest at him calling them friends.

     Sirius casually held up a plate that Winnie hadn't noticed he had been holding, and smiled at her softly. "We brought cookies, if that's any bonus," he told her, waving the plate back and forth as if to tempt her. "Freshly baked by James' mum cookies."

     Winnie smiled and shook her head. "Alright, come on in."