Chapter 11- Christmas

Christmas morning dawned way too early. Verity was awoken at an ungodly hour by an excited Lily jumping on her bed.

"Wake up, Ver, wake up!" Lily shouted with glee.

"I'm awake, I'm awake!" Verity groaned as she propped herself up on one of her elbows.

"Look, you've got presents!" Lily squealed.

"Oh my gosh, and on Christmas morning too! I didn't expect that!" Verity said dramatically.

"You know, your sarcasm is worse in the morning." Lily said as she calmed down.

"Sorry Lil." Verity sighed.

"I've already opened mine." Lily sighed as she looked at the pile of presents at the foot of Verity's bed.

"At five in the morning… I'm sure you did." Verity grinned.

"I'm gonna go wake Teddy now." Lily beamed before running out of Verity's room.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Verity called after her, but she was already gone.

Verity gave herself some time to stare at the ceiling before she too, pushed the covers off her bed and reached down to the small pile of presents at the end of her bed.

James suddenly bust through the door, his arms full of unopened presents.

"Not opening presents without me, are you?" He raised a teasing eyebrow.

"Are you up already too?" Verity groaned.

"Well, I think Lily's squeals of excitement could have woken someone up all the way in Australia, but yes, I am up." James said as he dumped his presents on her bed.

"See, I brought mine, we'd be disobeying tradition if we didn't open them together." James said as he jumped onto her bed beside her.

"Are you seriously still on about this? We started it when we were like… five." Verity shook her head.

"All the more reason to continue it." James smirked. "It looks like a good haul this year, and we haven't even been to see Grandma yet. No doubt there is a ghastly pink sweater waiting for you."

Verity rolled her eyes. "I happen to like your Grandmother's knitting."

"But that's 'cause you don't get one in that awful colour…"

"Orange?"

"Yeah, that one." James huffed as he ran a hand through is dark hair.

"Anyways, let's get to opening the presents." James smirked as he quickly picked one off the bed and began to open it.

"Arrg, Al got me a pink pot plant. Wait, scratch that, just the pot."

Verity laughed. "But undoubtedly you got him something worse."

"A doormat. Who wouldn't want one?"

Verity gave him a friendly shove and began opening her own presents. She was happy to find a collection of books and sweets.

"Thanks for the book, Ver!" James exclaimed. "How did you remember this was the one I wanted?"

"I have my ways." Verity laughed as she leant back on the bed and began reading one of her new books.

"How can you read at five-thirty in the morning?" James groaned.

"Hey, I've seen you read at four! So…hmm!" Verity stuck out her tongue.

"Yeah, four in the afternoon." James chuckled.

"Nah, you're right, hardly any of this is making sense at the moment." She sighed.

"Wanna help me take all of this back up to my room?" James gestured to the various items that were scattered on her bed.

"Sure." Verity shrugged.

Verity and James walked into James' room, arms full.

"Hey, speaking of presents, I didn't see anything from you this year." Verity teased as she dumped an assortment of sweets on James' bed.

James suddenly froze and turned to her, a deep blush resting on his cheeks.

"James, I was joking! You didn't have to get me anything." Verity assured him.

"But I did get you something." James mumbled before reaching into his pocket.

"Here." He passed her a small box.

"I saw it and thought you might like it." James shrugged. "I had it specially enchanted."

Verity looked at him suspiciously before untying the silver ribbon. She cautiously opened the lid, not knowing what to expect.

Inside the box was an elegant charm bracelet. One charm was lay dangling down from it; A small, silver wolf. Verity was shocked when it suddenly flicked a purple colour. A purple wolf… this made her giggle.

"Oh James, You shouldn't have." Verity said as she launched forward to hug him.

"What are friends for?" James asked as he uncomfortably patted her on the back.


As soon as Verity walked in the front door, she was engulfed in a warm embrace by Mrs Weasley.

"It's good so see you again, Verity. Oh look at you, you must be hungry. Don't worry dinner will be ready soon."

Mrs Weasley pulled away and was soon onto her next victim. James mouthed 'help me' as Mrs Weasley hugged him. He pulled away from her embrace and quickly stumbled over to Verity.

"What, too old for hugs now?" Verity teased.

"Hugging is embarrassing." James groaned.

Verity just laughed at him.

After Teddy had endured his hug, he joined the pair.

"Is Vic here yet?" He asked anxiously.

"I don't know, we only just got here… same time as you coincidently." James teased.

"Whatever." Teddy shrugged before he walked away to meet the girl that had caught his eye on the other side of the room.

Verity smiled as she noticed Teddy's hair change to a turquoise colour. She started absent-mindedly playing with a strand of her own hair. She frowned as she tried to get it to match Teddy's favourite colour… she'd never quite been able to pull it off. Teddy had copied Harry's hair-colour until he was about fourteen, but then decided on the turquoise.

"…Ghastly isn't it?" James cringed, ripping her from her thoughts.

Verity shook her head and allowed her hair to go back to her favourite shade of pink.

"Sorry, what?" She asked.

"Teddy and Victoire." James rolled his eyes. "Snogging?"

Verity moved her eyes over to the couple across the room.

"I think it's sweet." Verity said softly.

James groaned. "You're such a girl!"

Verity rolled her eyes and turned back to him.

"Don't tell me that you don't fancy Alice Longbottom."

"Well, I have no idea why you are under that impression." James smirked. "But no, Alice is just a friend… good Quidditch player too."

Verity smiled. "Let's go help your grandmother… Then we can have our favourite Weasley-Potter-Lupin tradition. I like it when it snows on Christmas."

"What?"

"Snowball fight?" Verity laughed.

"Oh, I remember when I started that; Uncle George shouldn't have gotten in the way, I was aiming for you." James pouted.

"How do you remember that? We were like four."

"I have a good memory." James smirked.


Lunch went slowly, Verity sat in-between James and Mrs Weasley.

"Oh, that's a lovely bracelet dear." Mrs Weasley commented.

Verity inspected her bracelet, Mrs Weasley looking over her shoulder.

"Thank you, James got it for me for Christmas, I love it."

"It's beautiful, I didn't know that my Grandson had such taste in jewellery."

James' cheeks flushed a deep red.

"Is that a wolf, the charm?" Mrs Weasley asked.

"Yes." Verity blushed. "It's… It's my.."

"I know, dear."

"…My patronus…"

Mrs Weasley was soon distracted in a conversation with Dominique. Verity sat in her seat, frowning. What had Mrs Weasley known?


"James, we give up." Albus complained.

"What? But… tradition says that we have to play at least four more rounds!" James complained.

"James, you always win the snowball fights. Well, you and Ver… Teddy was supposed to be on my team this year, but he's too preoccupied telling everyone about the wedding." Albus groaned.

"Yeah." Fred (the second) complained. "Besides, I challenged Lily to a game of Wizard's chess."

James sighed as everyone else retreated back to the house… in the warmth… Verity could understand why they were sick of the snowball fight.

"Well, and then there were two." James smirked. "You're going down Lupin."

"Oh, I was under the impression that you were, actually, James." She teased.

"Hey, everyone knows I'm best at snowball fights." James said, in a half-laugh.

Verity laughed as both she and James started gathering snow in their gloved hands. After ages of running around and dodging the snow being flung at her, Verity managed to hit James with a snowball.

James gasped dramatically and brushed the snow off his shoulder.

"I told you that you were going down, Lupin." He grinned.

Verity stood there, frowning at him. He smirked before lunging forward and tackling her to the ground. She shrieked with laughter as he began to tickle her. Verity's sides began to ache from laughter. As his tickling began to cease; her laughter began to die away. She stared into James' brown eyes, searching them for what seemed like eternity. The talking that was heard from the house in thein the background began to sound muffled. Verity could hear James' deep and heavy breathing as he stared down at her, his face inches from hers. She began to feel her heart beat rapidly in her chest. Her eyes quickly darted away, but soon were lured back into James' gaze. She began to feel nervous; vulnerable even…She hadn't really looked in her friend's eyes like that before. Verity gulped as she scooped snow up from beside her. She cautiously lifted her hand up and smashed the snow into his shoulder.

"I win." She breathed.

Brown eyes tore away from brown. James began to laugh nervously and slumped back into a sitting position beside her.

"I'll give you this time Lupin." He said in a tense laugh before standing up and swiftly stomping away back to the house.

Verity pushed herself back up off the ground, the cool air whipping her face. She had discovered something that she knew would…could… never be. She was in love with her best friend.


Hello!
Thank you to the people who read/ review/ favourite/ follow this story! I'd like to know your thoughts on this chapter if you have the time.

Hahah, please don't flame 'cause I didn't describe the snow right! I live in Australia, the only place you can see snow is the mountains… and I've only been once, but I was too young to remember it.

Anyways, thank you for reading!

Silver :)