She Said What?

Chapter 33: I Receive Terrifying News

A/N: Most of you totally caught my epic blunder in the last chapter – cats are allowed at Hogwarts, which was an oversight on my part, because my brain tends to be a bit of a dolt at the best of times. Apologies, apologies.

But, for the sake of not changing my outline, we are going to hereby assume that the rule for allowing students to have cats has not yet come into place. This is a good long time before Harry went to Hogwarts – it can be possible. Again, I'm sorry to change the rules of Hogwarts because of my laziness, but I just don't want to change my outline – Napoleon's forbidden-ness kind of just works right now with what I want.

Still, thanks a billion for letting me know about the whole thing, and I'll do my best to avoid any more of such errors.

So, without further ado...something somewhat fluffy! Cheers & enjoy!

January 10

11:00 PM
Status: Wondrous

I didn't intend on writing today – there's been too many things to do rather than write about them and it doesn't help that I'm bloody exhausted at the moment – but this needs to be written about. This needs to be pulled apart and dissected and analyzed, because I don't know what's going on here. It feels like I'm losing something I thought was in my control.

It all started this morning, during breakfast.

I was sitting with Alice and Livvy, as usual, and Livvy was attempting to explain (kindly) why Alice's Transfiguration essay sucked balls. I was giggling and sipping at my orange juice, as per usual, when the owls started coming in to deliver post.

Generally, I don't get a lot of mail, so I was extremely surprised to see George, my owl, flying towards me with a letter in his beak.

He landed at the table, almost knocking over the flagon of orange juice (he's almost as clumsy as me, which is another reason why I love him so much) and I took the letter from him. He gave me an affectionate little nip on the finger, stuck his beak into my juice, and flew off. Alice and Livvy temporarily forgot about Alice's essay and looked at my letter with interest.

"Ooh, who's that from?" asked Alice, craning her neck to get a better look.

"I dunno," I said. "It looks like it's from my mum."

I fumbled with the seal and finally opened the paper inside. It turned out that the letter was not from my mother – it was from Petunia.

This was very odd, because Petunia has never sent me a letter at Hogwarts before. The school has a way to get Muggle letters to the students, but Petunia usually ignores it. This must be important. I quickly scanned the letter to see what it said. It was very short.

Dear Lily,

Vernon and I had a long conversation with Mum and Dad yesterday. We talked about wanting to be married in the near future. After a lot of negotiating, Mum and Dad have agreed. Vernon and I are going to have the wedding next summer. I just wanted you to know. Thanks for keeping my secret for me.

Petunia

I had to reread it a couple of times to take it in. I could feel the shock in my face, in my stomach, everywhere. I was struck dumb – it felt like someone had dropped an anvil on my intestines.

When Petunia brought up the idea of marrying Vernon, I didn't think she was serious. I didn't think it was going to actually happen. I put too much store in Mum and Dad saying no, or making it happen in a hazy, long, unspecified future. But next summer! That's too early to have a brother-in-law – particularly one I like so little. What were they thinking?