Seventh Year – Winter
ADDRESSED TO: Lucy Weasley, Hogwarts
Hi
We haven't talked much over the years and so I would normally put some social niceties in at this point but time is of the essence. So I won't. Hope you don't mind.
Lee mentioned last year that you two had become close so it is IMPERATIVE we work together to fix her and Lysander's relationship as we are the two people who know her best in the world.
You may be thinking that everything is fine, they've talked it out, yadda yadda – well, you would be wrong, my little friend.
How do I know this? As usual, I know everything. Also I've been hanging out with Rosie when she's back in the country and she's left a bunch of rubbish Muggle romance books lying around, and in these books there is ALWAYS a dramatic scene in which the lead characters confess their undying love for each other. Otherwise there is NO HAPPY ENDING.
I would therefore like to recruit you to be my eyes and ears, to work inside the enemy lines if you will. I need an agent to operate within the walls of Hogwarts in order for my plan to work.
I considered asking Hugo but quite frankly he does not have the character for it. You can quote me on that.
I'm writing this between two training sessions so I have to be quick. Give me your answer by return post and if the answer is "yes, I will help fix the lives of our best friends" then I will send you details of my plan. If not, don't bother replying as it is a waste of parchment and is not environmentally friendly.
Til then
James
P.S. I hope you had a nice time at my birthday party in October.
Lily,
I got a letter from your brother this morning … I've attached it to this one. I thought I should tell you because it seems like he wants to meddle in your life and I know how much you hate that!
The letter is a bit melodramatic but essentially your brother has a plan to "fix" your relationship with Lysander – do you know about this?
Let me know what you want me to say to him.
Anyway, Scorpius heard back from the Ministry saying his Auror application has been accepted and he will have an interview in the new year! Have you heard back from Cambridge yet?
I know you don't care about Quidditch but we had practice the other day and our Chasers refuse to work together. I've tried every trick in the book to get them to be nice to each other but they just won't! Being a captain is such hard work sometimes.
Love you!
Lucy xxx
Luce,
I just read James's letter. Three times. Why are my brothers such prize idiots?
I don't know anything about his "plan" but everything is fine with me and Lysander so I really don't know why he wants to make drama out of nothing.
I've not heard back from Cambridge but it's early days I guess so I'm not too worried. Hugo, on the other hand, is being VERY irritating – every night in the common room he's lamenting over how difficult the teaching profession is and how he wished he could have chosen an easier career like Caroline (she wants to write for Witch Weekly). Caroline, Eve and Mary have all let me know they are boycotting the common room from now on and refuse to talk to Hugo until he gets a grip. David's being quite quiet over the whole thing so it's up to me to sort it out.
About being a captain – I can totally relate; it was bad enough being a Prefect so I'm so glad I wasn't made Head Girl. I can always ask Roxanne to come down for a Hogsmeade visit and scare your Chasers into behaving if you like? Apparently that always worked in her day.
I've got to go now because Hugo has heard about the girls' boycott and is getting quite emotional, but I'll see you tomorrow at breakfast.
Love you,
Lily
P.S. Whoever said NEWT year was easy clearly never had to deal with Hugo.
ADDRESSED TO: J.S. Potter, Auror Office
Dear James,
I showed Lily your letter and I don't want to repeat what she said in response but let's just say it didn't go down very well.
I don't really know what to do because Lily's my best friend so I would never want to go behind her back. On the other hand, they fell out really badly last year and I don't think they've resolved their fight about Dominique Weasley. I think Lily's just burying it and trying to act like everything is normal.
But please don't tell her I said that!
Maybe let me know what you want me to do and I will weigh up the risk before I agree to anything. If Fred and Roxanne are involved it is an outright NO as I remember their pranks and I really don't think something like that would be a good idea.
I hope your training is going well. I don't suppose you heard that Scorpius is applying to be an Auror? It's best you know now so you have a whole year to be dramatic about it.
Lots of Love,
Lucy xxx
ADDRESSED TO: Lucy Weasley, Hogwarts
Oh, what a tangled web the heart weaves. I knew Lee would react like that which is why I specifically crafted my letter to get that effect, so she would dismiss it with a roll of her eyes and not think about it consciously. To the untrained eye it would look just like another random letter but we have been doing a training course at work about covert communication – but I've already said too much. Rest assured we will have Lily and Lysander's relationship fixed within three years.
I can FURTHER assure you that Fred and Roxanne do not know anything about my plan and nor is it my intention to get them involved. This will purely be between you and me. Maybe Hugo if we need a diversion. And maybe Abigail to add credibility to the diversion. But other than that it will purely be between you and me.
It would be a discredit to my training if I told you my plan before you agreed to help me. Before we proceed you will need to promise you won't tell Lee ANYTHING (unless I agree it beforehand) and you will also need to perform a blood oath at midnight on the next full moon to swear your loyalty.
James
P.S. I don't like the insinuation I am going to fly off the rails at the idea of Malfoy being an Auror. Are you not going out with him? And have I not extended the hand of friendship to you?
ADDRESSED TO: J.S. Potter, Auror Office
Dear James,
You think your plan could work within three years?! That's crazy! I thought it would be a quick thing!
Also, if you honestly think that I will make a blood oath at any time of the day then you have taken leave of your senses.
Please just let me know what I have to do. Lily keeps asking me who I'm writing to – I've told her it's my sister but I don't think she believes me.
Lots of love,
Lucy xxx
ADDRESSED TO: Lucy Weasley, Slytherin Common Room
I have reconsidered my plan now I know that you are onboard. I had to write that it would take three years in case it was intercepted by you-know-who – in reality we could pull it off within a couple of weeks if we are lucky, although it may take longer if owl post is disrupted over Christmas.
As you know, I am in the fortunate position of being Lysander's best friend and as such we hang out a lot outside work. On one recent occasion I was at Lysander's flat with Lorcan and while they were watching some Muggle TV show I just happened to catch sight of a box lying around. The lid accidentally fell off this box and inside were loads of letters from Lily. My eyes coincidentally glanced over the top one because I saw my name (and the words "James has been funny", which is to be inscribed on my tombstone if I die in action).
What I propose is that we organise these letters (I'm assuming Lee has kept hers somewhere) and send the full collection to both of them and then they can talk things out. I thought you could help with the organising since you're quite arty and I know you've made a scrapbook with Victoire before. However, there seems to be a few gaps in the letters (e.g. there are no letters in Lysander's collection from Lee's fifth year) so if you could find out whether Lee just didn't write any in these gaps or whether we need to find even more letters that would be great.
Please send daily reports of your progress.
Til then
James
ADDRESSED TO: J.S. Potter, Auror Office
Dear James,
I am not entirely sure how you found out that there are gaps in the letters if you only "accidentally" "glanced" at the "top one".
Anyway, I had breakfast with Lily this morning and was talking about the (fake) letters I'm sending Molly and casually mentioned how she always used to be writing to Lysander. I asked if she kept the letters and she said yes.
I did not ask anything else as I thought this would be suspicious but I'll let the matter cool off for a few days and then do some more digging.
In the meantime, I did ask Hugo how to get into the Gryffindor common room and he told me the latest password. I think he was too stressed about his NEWTs to care about why I was asking, but I told him that some Gryffindors were planning a party and I was invited (the real reason is obviously in case I need to do some snooping to find any letters). If anyone asks about the party I can just say it was cancelled or that I must have heard a wrong rumour or something.
How are you going to get Lysander's letters without him noticing? Surely if they are just lying around in the middle of his flat he will notice they are missing? :)
Maybe we should meet up over Christmas break to get all the letters in order. Hopefully I'll have found Lily's by then!
Lots of Love,
Lucy xxx
ADDRESSED TO: Lucy Weasley, Slytherin Common Room
Good work. I can't believe Hugo would give away classified information like that so easily – I will need to have a talk with him about security in the holidays. It's a complete disgrace and a shame to our family name.
Okay, I will admit that the letters weren't exactly lying around for anyone to see. Let's just say that Lysander's box of letters was hidden enough that he won't notice it missing for a small while.
I've given it some thought and I really don't think there's any way for you to ask Lee where her letters are without it raising suspicion. After lengthy consideration I have decided it is probably best for you to just break into the Gryffindor common room in one of your frees and go through all her belongings. I have packaged up my invisibility cloak to help you with this and will be sending that later with another owl (in case your mail is being tracked). Please use it well.
Agreed about Christmas. I propose we meet up at Shell Cottage on the basis that Victoire and Dominique don't live there any more. Louis will probably be there and I don't like lying to him (I know, the brilliant James Potter has a flaw) but I'll think of something.
Good luck.
James
ADDRESSED TO: James Potter, Godric's Hollow
Dear James,
My dad says the Ministry have gone on their Christmas holidays early so I am sending this letter to your parents' house. I hope this is okay!
I have a lot of news!
I saw Abigail sitting alone in the (Slytherin) common room the other day so I went over to talk to her. She's very nice! I asked her if she could make a diversion at some point when she is hanging out with Lily in the library and she said yes! She said something about Hugo's friends avoiding him because of his stressed attitude which I know Lily has mentioned to me before, so we put our heads together and decided the best thing to do would be for her and Hugo to have an "argument" in front of Lily about it and refuse to be consoled so that Lily would be forced to intervene and spend as much time as necessary trying to get them to patch things up.
Abigail spoke to Hugo later and he was okay with the plan as well, but he said he "didn't like the insinuation" that his attitude was causing problems.
Anyway, we decided the best time to do it was in one of our free periods like you said, so that all other students would be in lessons. We thought there may be one or two odd students left in the Gryffindor common room but thankfully I have a bunch of Decoy Detonators which Fred gave me years ago when he graduated.
So I snuck out as planned (3pm this Tuesday) and made my way up to the Gryffindor common room. I hoped that Abigail's part of the plan was going well!
There weren't any students in the common room which was good, maybe Hugo did something in advance of the plan but I forgot to ask him.
I looked through all of Lily's things but I could only find a handful of letters in her trunk! I did bring some waste parchment with me so I screwed that up and replaced the letters with it so she wouldn't notice anything was different if she glanced at her trunk.
I really didn't know where the other letters were!
I had to make a quick getaway at that point as I could hear someone coming up the staircase so I put on your invisibility cloak and went back to the Slytherin common room.
I didn't see Abigail or Hugo again until dinner but I couldn't talk to them then as it would have looked really suspicious! The other Gryffindors were sitting with Hugo again, though, so I think the argument diversion worked in more ways than one.
Not much happened until yesterday (Thursday) when I ran into Hugo on the Quidditch pitch (he had practice after we did) and we talked about the plan. I said I could hardly find any letters at all and his face got kind of weird and glazed over and he said he thought he had an idea about something, but I said we can't talk about it now as our teammates were nearby.
I waited for him in the stands so that when his practice finished I could grab him immediately and he said the following…
He told me that Lily was very messy and used to mess around instead of doing revision so over the years he kept having to pick things up that she had left lying around as he didn't like mess. He had made a folder of all the parchment he had collected as some of it was class notes and he thought Lily would be thankful for them one day (this is debatable…).
We walked up to his common room and he ran in to get the folder and passed it to me. One of his friends asked him what he was doing but he said that Molly had asked me to get some of their old Quidditch training plans for her, which was pretty quick thinking.
I pulled out a huge bunch of letters from this folder! I don't think I have all of them, though – the rest must be at your parents' house – please could you have a look for me?
But I think I have most of them!
I've asked Victoire if I could borrow some of her craft things when we go to Shell Cottage as she used to have a lot of nice sparkly pens which I thought we could use to put all the letters together. She said yes!
I'll see you then.
Lots of Love,
Lucy xxx
ADDRESSED TO: Lucy Weasley-P, Slytherin Common Room
If the ink on this page is smudged it is because I was so overcome with emotion at how well you pulled this off that a tear came to my eye. I will now refer to you as Lucy Weasley-Potter in honour of your achievement. You're welcome.
I just happened to be doing a bit of cleaning this morning and I thought to myself that maybe Lee's room could do with a spruce up as well. You know. Because of dust. I gave it a thorough clean if you know what I mean. Lots of sweeping.
It was a success. James wins again.
We should have everything we need for our project now so I'll see you next week.
Til then
James
P.S. Mum was reading this over my shoulder so I had to be cryptic. I used some top Ministry techniques in this letter but once again I've already said too much.
ADDRESSED TO: James Potter, Godric's Hollow
Dear James,
Don't worry, I could understand every word of your letter and so could my friends at lunch (I showed it to them to see if they could crack it). It seems like you need more Auror training!
Lots of Love,
Lucy xxx
ADDRESSED TO: Lucy Weasley-P, Great Hall
From what I recall you used to be a lot nicer and a lot less sarcastic before you started hanging around with my sister. I don't remember approving of your friendship and as such I rescind any deemed approval you may have thought you received a few years ago.
James
James,
I don't know what you and Lucy were writing to each other about but she showed me your last letter. You really are a complete prat if you think I need your permission to do anything least of all to be friends with someone.
I'm glad you and Lucy are friends, by the way, but if this is about your supposed plan from a month or so ago then I would like to set out very clearly that I DON'T REMEMBER APPROVING OF YOUR FRIENDSHIP AND AS SUCH I RESCIND ANY DEEMED APPROVAL YOU MAY HAVE THOUGHT YOU RECEIVED.
All my love,
Lily
ADDRESSED TO: Lucy Weasley-P, Slytherin Common Room
TRAITOR!
ADDRESSED TO: James Potter, Godric's Hollow
Dear James,
The only thing I care about is that you haven't demoted me back down to a Weasley and you are still addressing me as "Weasley-P".
I can finally sleep soundly knowing I have now accomplished the pinnacle of all human achievements. Hooray!
Speaking of which, term finishes tomorrow so I'll be home over the weekend. Shall we meet up on Monday? That gives us enough time before Christmas to organise the letters.
Lots of Love,
Lucy xxx
ADDRESSED TO: Lucy Weasley-P, Hogwarts Express
Sarcasm is NOT (I've underlined this five times to make my point) a good look on you. You really need better friends than my sister. I know she will be reading this over your shoulder because you always sit together on the train now, so just let her know that I added that last sentence in for her benefit.
I'll meet you on Monday as planned. Molly has left us a lot of Quidditch notes to go through so it might take us a few days to sort out. I'm so glad you asked for my help with your team's training. It takes a very wise person to recognise when they need the help of a true genius like me.
Now Lee's presumably stopped caring and looked away, the above still stands but obviously it was written in code. The Quidditch notes was code for the letters. The team training was code for-
ADDRESSED TO: Chief Agent James Potter, Godric's Hollow
Dear James,
I stopped reading your last letter because funnily enough I could understand your code system. You should be an Auror with skills like yours!
See you Monday.
Lots of Love,
Lucy xxx