attached | james potter

twenty-one: invitations

Chapter Twenty-One

The next morning, Brooklyn was awake early, sitting alone in the owlery. The sounds of wings flapping, hoots and occasional screeches of owls did nothing to distract or dissuade her from the crisp letter in her hand. Her gaze scanned the words intently as she reread the last part of it for the umpteenth time, her eyebrows furrowing.

When she reached the end, she stopped for a moment to recompose her thoughts, taking a deep breath. What the hell did she just read?

She read it again twice more, just to be sure, but the same words stared up at her, scrawled out in her mother's familiar, loopy handwriting.  At the bottom of the letter, there were a few hastily written sentences:

We hope you're doing well, darling. Send our regards to your friends! (Remember, you're staying in school for Christmas break, we hope you don't mind. It's just that we feel things will be much easier this way.) We'll see you in a few months.

Love, mum and dad.

Brooklyn clutched the letter tighter in her hand, sighing. She couldn't believe it. They'd been serious about not wanting her back. They didn't want her at the wedding, and they couldn't care less what she felt. Apparently, she was just going to get in the way. Some parents.

Truth be told, she'd never really had a great relationship with her parents anyways. Sure, they were a peaceful family with hardly any problems, but it was still there, that small, unspoken gap between them. Ever since she'd discovered she was a witch, she'd only kept drifting away from them, further and further. Whenever she was home, conversations during dinner were shorter and more polite, and smiles were more strained. At school, letters were less frequent, shorter. It was almost as if her Hogwarts letter all those years ago had caused some sort of breach between them, in some way.

Rubbing her temples wearily, she tried to keep the scowl off her face. She simply couldn't be bothered to try anymore. Besides, now, she wasn't even going home for Chrisfmas. What was the point?

It wasn't that she didn't like staying at Hogwarts. Quite the opposite actually, she loved it here. She'd just truly been looking forward to seeing her brother walk down the aisle at long last, and now, all she would get to see were photo albums filled with pictures of everyone having fun but her. A truly fantastic way to spend Christmas.

Maybe it wouldn't be that bad. At least she'd have Peeves to keep her company.

Uncrossing her stiff legs, she stretched slightly, yawning. She could feel her eyelids drifting shut, and her shoulders felt heavy, like she was carrying the sky on them. Her previous semi-good mood had vanished, and now, all she felt like doing was sinking down in her bed and staying in there for the rest of the week.

Obviously, that wasn't going to happen.

"Brooklyn, darling! There you are!"

A familiar, loud voice startled her out of her sleepy stupor, and she looked up to see James approaching her with the usual bright grin on his face. She bit back a curse. She hadn't been expecting anyone to be up there so early in the morning. But then again, James always did the unexpected.

How in Merlin's name was he always so cheerful?

"Hey," she mumbled, giving him a slight nod. Her heart jumped a little, but she quickly looked away. She'd been absolutely dreading facing him since last night's embarrassing episode at dinner, courtesy of Lily, damn redhead.

She still needed some time to sort out her confusingly conflicting emotions. She wasn't even sure what she felt anymore. Part of her knew that she could no longer deny the fact that she fancied him. But a small part of her still completely and wholly refused to accept the fact that she was attracted to James Potter, the bane of her existence since she was twelve years old.) Well, one thing was certain, if she wanted to get over this sudden, tiny, miniscule sort-of-maybe crush on him, the obvious thing to do was avoid him at all costs. But it was kind of difficult to do that when he kept popping up everywhere she went. It was almost as if he had a super-sensitive Brooklyn radar wired into his brain.