25th December, 1971
I lay awake in my bed, the covers tucked up around my chin, staring at the magical photo on my nightstand. It was of James and his parents, standing on a short staircase in matching holiday jumpers, waving and smiling at me. I smirked as James looked like he wanted to rip his itchy jumper off. The photo had come, along with a letter from James wishing me a Happy Christmas, by owl the day before, much to my parents' delight.
Now it was Christmas, and I normally would be up and waking my parents. But I just wasn't feeling it this year for some reason. I guess I had been reminded of how ordinary the Muggle world was.
"Sabrina," came my mum's voice through the door, "Are you awake?"
"Yep, mum!" I called back.
"Are you coming downstairs? Your father and I are headed down… there's presents!" she added.
"Coming, mum," I answered, getting up, pulling my bathrobe around myself and tying it at the waist before kicking my feet into my slippers.
At Christmas dinner, I told them all about the term so far at Hogwarts, about my friends and things I was learning in my classes, and describing the teachers. My parents could not get enough of how brilliant it was having a witch for a daughter. They asked me questions constantly, delighting in the answers as their imaginations caught hold of the way things worked in the wizarding world. I kept them laughing as we ate the feast that my mum prepared, telling them about the hijinks that had gone on around the halls - being careful, of course, to leave out the fact that I was usually providing some sort of help to James and Sirius when they were getting up to mischief.
That night, after Christmas day, I carried my gifts upstairs to my bedroom and began to get ready for bed. I put my brand new copy of Hogwarts, a History, First Edition into my trunk, along with my new potions kit. I turned back to my bed, where several new sets of robes were folded neatly, along with a lovely new book bag, and the main gift, a broomstick of my very own! I ran my thumb over the fancy gold plate on the handle. I knew very little about brooms, mainly through osmosis of Sirius and James blabbering on about this and that Quidditch team. So I had no idea if this was a good one or not. This Shooting Star looked much nicer than the ones at Hogwarts, but I'd have to ask one of the boys about how impressive the model was. I didn't have the heart to tell my parents I wasn't allowed my own broomstick at school yet, as I'm only a first year, and so I carefully tucked the Shooting Star into the closet behind some of my muggle clothes, to keep it safe until next term.
I sat down on my bed and stared down at my lap, wishing that I was already back at Hogwarts again. As much as I love my parents, I missed my friends even more, and the Muggle world seemed so… grey, without magic to spice it up.
As though in reply, there was suddenly a tapping at the window and I looked up to see a tired-looking barn owl, pecking at the glass. Bits of snow were stuck to his feathers, and a cold gust of wind spun into the room as I let the bird in carefully.
I hastily pulled the envelope from the owl's leg and dove into my trunk to withdraw a knut to put in his little coin purse. The owl hooted and flew back out into the snowy night. I watched it disappear among the flakes of snow as I closed the window before turning to the letter I'd taken from it. I opened it up and found Remus' neat script scrawled across the page.
Dear Sabrina,
First of all, happy Christmas! I hope you're enjoying your holiday so far.
I'm writing to you because I've got some suspicions about Tutman. I saw him sneaking off into the dungeons during breakfast one morning. He initially said he was going down to discuss something with Slughorn, But something just didn't seem right about it. Tutman never paused at all when he saw Slughorn walking down the Great Hall, so I decided to follow him to investigate. For some reason, Tutman ducked into a Prefect toilet, and then Malfoy and Snape just happened to be in the corridor at that exact time as well… Why would he be sneaking off to a Slytherin prefect's toilet?
Hope all is well. I miss you guys a lot right now, the castle's so empty and lonely.
Remus J. Lupin
I chuckled at the formality of writing his full name, before subconsciously hugging the note to my chest. I wish I hadn't sent the owl away without reading the letter first so I could've sent a note back to Remus, but now it was too late. I needed an owl, and I had left Archie at school so he wasn't cooped up in his cage all holiday.
I fell asleep that night, dreaming of going back to Hogwarts, and questions about what Remus saw swirling in my head.
Author's Note: With what the world is going through right now concerning the Coronavirus, I hope that everyone is staying safe and healthy! Please make sure to practise at least BASIC hygiene, and avoid public and crowded places whenever possible.
My university has closed for the rest of term, so online classes, yay! Luckily I'm only in my first year, so I still have plenty of time 'til I graduate. But I'm essentially being locked up in my house by my parents (my friends are literally calling me Rapunzel because I can't really leave the house even though I'm perfectly healthy lmao). Soooo this means I'm going to be writing a lot more than usual and get these books done faster, yay!
