James Potter
5th September 1971
Dear Big Brother,
How are you?
I’ve been great! I’ve made so many friends already.
I got sorted into Gryffindor!!
I haven’t gotten into much trouble YET.
The friends that I’ve made are so nice, there’s Lily Evans and Mary MacDonald, and they’re both in my dorm room!
We had our first two days of school this week, we haven’t learned anything magical yet, mainly just basics and stuff,
Ya know?
I haven’t seen much of James and Peter in the last week, but hopefully, we can talk soon.
But enough about my week, what have you been up to?
How's Quidditch?
Anyway, that’s all I have time for
I love you, and I hope to hear from you soon
Love from, Marlene
Your favourite little sister :)
Satisfied with her letter, at last, Marlene opened the envelope next to her and licked it shut.
She looked up and watched as her best friend, Mary, played with Salem. Lily was nowhere to be found. She did that sometimes Marlene noticed, and she was always irritable when she came back.
“Come on Mary, I want to go and send this letter,” Marlene said. Mary looked up and stopped waving the feather, much to Salem’s dismay, who was still waiting to pounce.
“Alright,” She dropped the feather. Salem picked it up in his little paws and started chewing and rolling around with it. The girls giggled, she picked up her letter, linked her arm with Mary’s, and the two walked out of the common room portrait.
Marlene shivered as she and Mary stepped out into the crisp Autumn air. Crunchy orange leaves littered the school grounds.
“Ooo, don’t you just love autumn Marls?” Mary said, unlinking her arm from her friends. Marlene scrunched her face up, “I absolutely do not. It may be pretty but it's leading away from summer and into winter.” She said matter-of-factly.
Mary dramatically lifted the back of her hand to her forehead in mock dramatic, “But Marlene, how could you. It’s only the best season of the year!” She sighed in mock shame.
The girls burst out into a fit of giggles.
They had nearly reached the Owlery, Marlene took the letter out from tucked underneath her arm and picked a tawny owl, and tied the letter around its leg. She petted its head and the bird went off with a screech.
On the way back to the castle the two girls chatted about school, and their family back home, Marlene told Mary all about her brother's Quidditch career.
“Do you know where Lily goes when she's not with us?” She asked. Mary shrugged, “I’m not entirely sure but I think she goes to see that Slytherin boy, Severus.” She screwed up at the thought of the greasy boy from the boat, who looked so deprived of sunlight and anything potentially happy she almost felt sorry for him. No way, she thought, the first few days of classes alone had been enough for her to know that Severus was going to be trouble. He was vile and rude, and he always thought that he was slightly better than everyone else.
James and Sirius had taken it upon themselves to be equally as rude to him as he was to others. Even Remus looked like he wanted to punch him. Fortunately, it hadn’t escalated to that… yet.
After getting lost on three different moving staircases, and nearly falling off an unrailed landing Marlene and Mary made it mostly unscathed back to the Gryffindor common room.
“I swear we are going to have to find a better way to get up those bloody stairs or else I will be moving down to one of the lower levels one of these days.” Marlene puffed, she was usually quite fit yet these steps really took the wind out of her.
In the common room next to the fireplace sat a lonesome James Potter, which was a rare sight indeed. Since the start of school James and Sirius had been pretty much inseparable no one had seen one without the other.
Marlene quickly excused herself from Mary and went over to see her friend.
“Hi James,” she said, tapping him on his shoulder.
“Oh, hey Marls! It's good to see you, feels like I haven’t seen you in forever,” he slid over on the couch so she had enough room to sit down. She plopped down next to him and began telling him about the stair situation with Mary and how they thought they needed to do something about how tiring it was
“Well, when we finally learn some levitating charms I’m sure you could float each other up,” James said, Marlene snorted.
James carried on and told her everything about the things that he and Sirius had gotten up to. How they had already blown up the third-floor boy's toilets, he told her about the strange boy that is Remus Lupin. He told her about how Remus had feigned ill this afternoon and had insisted on going to the Hospital wing but refused help from anyone.
Soon after the pair had been talking for about half an hour Professor McGonagall drifted into the common room and put something up on the noticeboard.
“I wonder what that could be?” James said, jumping off the couch, closely followed by Marlene. He read the sign with her peering over his shoulder.
QUIDDITCH TRYOUTS
EARLY NEXT SATURDAY MORNING
Available Positions
2x Chaser
1x Beater
1x Keeper
NOTE: First years are not able to try out
James’ face fell a little at the last line, but he quickly regained his normal excitement
“Marls, we absolutely must go and watch. I know we can’t try out but at least we will know what we are up against for next year.” He said, hardly keeping the excitement from his voice.
“Of course, we’ll go and watch James, but are you sure you want to get up early just to go and watch?” But the decision had already been made in James’ mind, there was nothing that would stop him from going to watch those Quidditch tryouts, whether it was an early start or not.
James quickly scampered away, probably off to tell Sirius about the Quidditch tryouts. Not long after he left, Lily came through the portrait hole. She was smiling and looked as if she had been out in the cold.
“Marlene, hey!” Lily said, skipping over to her. “Do you know where Mary is? I want you two to come and meet my friend! His name is Hagrid, I met him when we got off the train.”
“Yeah, sure! I would love to! I think Mary is sitting in the common room, we can go get her, and then you can take us to this Hagrid person,” she said and started walking towards their dorm doorway, Lily following close behind her.
“Maryyyy,” she shouted up the stairs, a cat's meow and ruffling of sheets could be heard up the stairs, “Yeah?” Mary shouted back from the dorm, “What’s up?”
“Me and Lily are going to go and visit one of her friends, Hagrid I think she said? Do you wanna come with us?” she yelled. Mary came trotting down the stairs, she was pulling her curly hair into a ponytail.
“Yeah sure, sounds like fun,” so Lily led Mary and Marlene down to the grounds for the second time that day.
She led them to a small hut on the outskirts by the forbidden forest.
Lily reached up and knocked on the door…