Well, I thought I was on a Lily/Lysander kick...but this one just had to get done. It's strange how boy POVs are so much easier to write, but James is so much more difficult than I had previously expected. Synopsis? Basically, he's suddenly realized that he's not immortal...and the feeling lasts for about ten minutes. XD Typical happy-go-lucky James Sirius Potter.

Now, a little OC background. Yes, this is the chapter with the dreaded OCs. XD Tell me how I do...I've had some Mary-Sue difficulty in the past. When I was ten, I had planned a story out where the lead character was an orphaned, independent quarter-dryad with eyes that changed color and a talking pet owl. So now, I'm rather reluctant to create an original character. Constructive criticism is therefore most welcome.

I won't give you their personalities or an incredibly detailed description of appearance, because that ends up terribly annoying.

Phillipa (Pippa/Pip) Clarke: Black hair (Well, I see James with reddish-brownish hair...and if black-haired Potters get the redheads, can't the opposite be true?), Muggleborn, Gryffindor, parents are both astrophysicists, likes Arithmancy. Yes, I see her as James' love interest, and she likes him...a lot, and I hope that's at least somewhat clear in the letter. It's not meant to be obvious, though...at least not to James. You'll see how clueless he is in a few minutes. It's almost like Ron/Hermione, in my opinion. Unintentional, but it just seemed to flow that way. However, I don't trust myself to do a full story involving James/Pippa, because chances are high it'll end up a big cliche.

Octavian Macmillan: Well, he's September-born, and Dominique is August-born and thus one year up. She won't figure into this letter really, but just so you know, they're...friends, and he's somewhat mesmerized by her. Hufflepuff, awfully messy brown hair (in a bad way, not at all "attractively mussed"), brown eyes, Gobstones nerd, somewhat brilliant at Ancient Runes, utterly average at everything else. Either a halfblood or a pureblood, because I'm not quite sure who his mother is. Honestly, I rather like 'Tavian, and he and Dominique'll get their own story when I find the time.

Anyways, enjoy...and help me with the OC-development if I need it. Seriously. :) Just realize that if anyone has worthwhile criticism, I actually will go back in and edit.

PS: I apologize for the fact that these things are getting longer-and-longer-and-longer-and-longer. I hope I'm not boring you darling readers to death. XD

Dear Dad,

Please don't tell Mum (for obvious reasons, really), but I...but...but...damn. Oh hell. But I think I almost died tonight. There. I said it. I think I - no, we - almost died. And the we is the part that really gets me. If I was the only one who was stupid enough to get caught by the Acromantulas, that would be brilliant, and I would move on with my life. Except I somehow managed to get my friends caught in this mess...and I would never forgive myself if they died.

They're absolutely miserable right now; I can tell. Neither of them is actually blaming me for anything - in fact, they're blaming themselves for coming along without trying to talk me out of sneaking into the Forbidden Forest at night. Pip's just staring into the ashes of the fireplace, looking utterly blank and awfully tired. I've never seen her looking so...dead. And that scares me, really, because she would've actually been dead, and - damn again. Octavian's curled up like a cat on on of our armchairs - we couldn't possibly let him go alone to his own common room to face the nightmares of insomnia - and listing, in a loud whisper, all of the major and minor fouls in Gobstones. He tends to do that whenever he's nervous. I usually find it annoying, but now - Oh, Dad. I feel like a complete moron. I know you've been through so much worse than the Forest, but for me, this was the worst I've ever felt. Exploring the corridors and escaping deserted rooms under Filch's nose? That is real adventure. Today? Today was a disaster. Nothing but. I don't mean to make you worried about me, I'm fine now, but I need to tell somebody. The guilt...it's eating me up from the inside. (I think it is, anyway. It could just be that I'm starving, because all of us were too excited to have any supper.)

Well, it was simply a very...spontaneous decision to go explore the Forbidden Forest. I actually only made up my mind at about four, while the House Elves were giving me tea and scones in the kitchens. And I suddenly realized that I'd explored absolutely everything inside the castle - the Restricted Section of the library, all four Common Rooms, the secret passage into Honeydukes, all the strange little alcoves behind tapestries...I could go on forever, you know. Outside the castle? I've obviously been to Hagrid's hut and the Quidditch pitch...and I fell into the lake that one time last year on my fourteenth birthday. So, basically, I was under the impression that if I've been everywhere except the Forest, why not finish off the list? Better now than never, right? (Well, I actually have been to the forest once, this year, when Hagrid took us to see bowtruckles in their natural habitat, but it's just not the same when you're being...supervised. But that's beside the point.)

Anyways, it's really no fun, not to mention stupid, to go wandering in the Forbidden Forest alone. I couldn't ask Al...he's a third-year. Rose would call the Aurors on me, I swear. Lily and Hugo are even more of babies than Al, and the rest are just as bad. And so being the wonderfully chivalrous Potter that I am, I asked someone in my own year, who happened to be a girl, to come with me. (Well, I actually wanted to ask Pippa. She's...good company...except when she isn't. At any rate, she's better than the dimwits in my own dormitory. McLaggen's more annoying than I am, which says a lot, and that what's-his-name...Pennyfeather, Timothy Pennyfeather never shuts up.) Oddly enough, Pip was ready and willing to go off with me. Something about celebrating the last of me sneaking out at night to places unknown. Honestly, I was just glad she didn't yell the bloody walls down...or fall into a faint. Or cry. Girls tend to be unpredictable...very unpredictable. But Pippa's actually rather straightforward...most of the time. Apparently, today was not part of "most of the time". She went and told Octavian - Octavian! - to come with us. Not that Octavian's not my friend...well, best friend, which actually makes sense if consider the aforementioned dimwits in my dorm...but nobody in their right mind would choose him as a co-conspirator in something like this. Okay, I suppose that was somewhat unkind. It's not like he panics in the face of danger, and it's not like he's slow-witted or horribly nonathletic...it's just...well...Pip seems to fancy the pants off of him, and it's making me go barmy.

It started at the beginning of this year, I believe...things started to get awfully awkward between us. Pip and me, I mean. Or Pip and I. Or me and Pip. I honestly don't care right now. (And yes, I know fully well that I'm going off on a tangent here, but it's so much easier to write about romantic trivialities than...Acromantulas.) So, yeah, Pippa's never been able to talk to me properly since the train compartment. She keeps on about the weather. The weather, I tell you! And homework. She's started to care a thousand times more about homework, too. Every time I look at her, her face is bent so close to her book or her parchment that I'm afraid her eyes are going to give out! It'll serve her right, though. Because whenever she talks to Octavian, her face seems to light up, and she laughs more than I've ever seen her laugh in my life, and she keeps twirling a loose strand of hair in a damn irritating and affected way while staring at a point just beyond my left shoulder. And every single time I end up alone with Pip, she turns red and somehow manages to bring Octavian into it all. Just like today. Well, yesterday, if you want to be technical. It's way past midnight now, after all. (Oh, hell. She's just gone to perch on the arm of Octavian's chair, looking deceptively innocent and staring at my shoe. Damn her.) The only reason I care about all this is for Octavian's sake, of course. He's already getting his heart broken because of Dominique, of all people, and her horridly pointless infatuation with that Davies bloke. So I don't know how much he can take of Pippa blatantly throwing herself at him. Yeah...so my reason for bothering is most certainly not jealousy. Honestly, I think I may have a...thing...for Suzanne Xavier, that Ravenclaw one year up. She's rather smart, incredibly pretty, has nice legs, and yes, is quite a bit of an airhead, but what does that matter? Except for the fact that she's dating Davies...the one I mentioned earlier...the one Dominique's been absolutely obsessed with for about two years. It's all so...convoluted, you know? Like a spiderweb, almost...

Oh, damn, I ramble too much. Point being: spiderweb...Acromantulas...forest. So anyways, the three of us stayed up in our Common Room until about a quarter past ten; then we hid under the Invisibility Cloak and got to the outskirts of the forest without any major issues. But right before we took the first step in, Pip tripped over my foot, fell down, screeched like a banshee, tried to lift herself back up but got all three of us tangled in a big heap, threw the cloak off, screamed again, and luckily did not wake up the entire population of Hogwarts. Idiotic...although Pippa's always an idiot. (Actually, it depends on your definition of idiot. Mine is: a person who is academically smart, but otherwise an incredible...well, idiot.) After this terribly chaotic mess, we finally recovered enough to actually enter the forest. And it was the most frightening thing I've ever done in my entire life. Instantly the atmosphere became so much more dark...chilling...eerie...it was awful. There's nothing more to tell, though, until we got to the clearing with the damn Acromantulas. We were just walking along in a perfectly straight line...or what we thought was a perfectly straight line...although it ended up being more of a circle. It was absolutely silent, disregarding the strange cries and whistling wind in the background; nobody said anything at all, nor did anybody want to. (Except for Octavian - he made one rather glum comment about the fact that we weren't seeing any "real live centaurs". But that doesn't count.) So eventually, we ended up in a clearing-type-thing. And then three hairy...appendages...came down from behind and all of us were lifted into the air. Hell, at that moment, I was certain we were dying. Dreadful, you know? So while I was planning my will, Octavian was yelling his head off and Pip was swearing the loudest I've ever heard her. (Well, she wasn't really swearing. The thing is, ever since I said "Merlin's pants" a year ago at something-or-the-other, Pippa's found a fascinating hobby in creating her own...expressions. For a while it was "Godric's beard"...and then after that it was "Agrippa's eyelash"...and now she's overusing "Circe's ingrown toenail." It gets irritating after a while.)

Yeah...so we were being swung around by huge hairy spiders holding our ankles. (You know, when you put it that way, this whole thing actually sounds comical. And it probably was wonderfully hilarious. We were just too petrified to realize. Almost died? Of course not! I'm James Sirius Potter - invincible. And I have just had the biggest adventure of my life.) So said spiders talked among themselves - wondering who to eat first, from the little I heard. But they went berserk after a while, dividing into random factions and attacking each other...but without letting go of us. I suppose they had no real leader to keep them in order after that big...Aragog-thing you told me about died. Regardless of the cause, because of this battle, I was feeling almost seasick, Pippa was shrieking like mad, and Octavian had practically fainted. And then, suddenly - and this is the weird part - a really old blue car came crashing through. Emphasis on car, but also emphasis on old. Overall really dated and incredibly ugly, even when you ignore the scratches and mud on its outside. The Acromantulas dropped us in shock, blinded by the headlights (I think I'll have those bruises for life), and we scrambled into the car. Which drove us to the forest outskirts on its own. I'm not even going to bother to try and make sense of that. And somehow we limped and scrambled up into the castle to Gryffindor Tower...

I feel...better now, I think. I should probably sign off now, considering that Octavian needs to get back to his dorm before morning, and I need to give him the cloak. Please don't stress, we weren't really that close to dying, and fourth-years aren't allowed to die, anyway. But if you know any information about that weird car, just reply and tell us. It's the only lose end in this; after that's cleared up, we can put this entire unfortunate incident behind us.

Sincerely,
James