Dear James,
I will try to refrain from nagging you too much about your horrendously sparse letters lately, but let me just remind you that I literally birthed you from my body, so you could perhaps put in a bit more effort darling.
I enclosed the jumper you asked for (it was curled in a heap under your bed of course), tell me, does Remus let you boys get away with such poor cleanliness in his room? Should I write him for tips?
In any case, your father and I were both thrilled to hear about your win against Hufflepuff, he's thinking about coming down for your next match so you'll have to let me know if that's an idea you'd like me to get out of his head. I know how very uncool having your parents doting on you can be (I should let you know, he has gotten his old school scarf and Gryffindor jumper—yes, the one with the roaring lion on the front—ready to go just for the occasion). He's working quite a lot these days, I think he just wants something to look forward to. Not that I'm trying to guilt you into letting us come or anything (I too may have pulled my Gryffindor apparel from the basement, but that is purely a coincidence).
Your cousin Daphne is having a baby, I can tell you're already pretending you don't know who she is but I promise you you've been introduced to her on several occasions. I'll be heading to Diagon Alley to pick out a present and I was thinking I'd get some new trainers for you and Sirius, you two were both looking ratty over Christmas. So you can be expecting those in the near future.
You see James Potter, this is a letter, look at all those words. Don't you feel so much better informed now? I can feel our mother-son relationship strengthening with each sentence (be warned, if you reply to me with four sentences or less your father and I will be showing up to your quidditch game in matching lion jumpers whether you want us to or not).
Give my love to Sirius and the boys!
Sincerely,
your gracious, youthful, incredible mother
Mum,
Please. I'm begging you. Anything but the lion jumper. ANYTHING. You can come, sure, but be a little more chill about it okay? Like maybe wear a trench coat, some hats, sunglasses—I'm just throwing out ideas here!
Listen, it's not my fault my life is dull. I'm doing alright in classes, Frank has us practicing twice a day at this point, the tyrant, but that's hardly new. Mostly everything is the same as it always is.Also, my room in not that messy. Me and Sirius are incredibly well kept young gentlemen I'll have you know. Well, I am anyway. And Remus is not the boss of us!!! (but please don't tell him I said that)
Have they got dad working on the dark mark case? Is that why he's so busy? Bloody mad that was, how it just appeared like that in the middle of London. Do you know anymore about what happened? Have they caught who did it?
See look, loads of words!
Sincerely,
the best son ever, James
A month after they get back from Christmas holidays the image of a skull eating a snake is projected into the sky over downtown London. Clearly magical. Clearly in violation of just about every line of the Statute of Secrecy. The Aurors have to oblivate a ton of muggles and spread a fake news story about how it was promotion for some film or something. No one knows where it came from or what it means, and the Ministry has been infuriatingly tightlipped. Of course, there are rumours that it's connected to the Death Eaters, but they've never done anything like this before. Anything this big.
"Bullshit," Sirius mutters, crumpling up the Daily Prophet in his hands before incendio-ing it.
"Oi!" Peter tries to lean away, "you're getting ash in my eggs," he says, mouth full.
