Loverboy

"Its no trouble at all"

"And that's gin," Remus said, grinning, as he laid his hand of cards on the table.

Ollie groaned and showed her lousy hand. "This game isn't even about skill, is it? You're just lucky."

Remus picked up the deck of cards and started shuffling. "Oh, come on, you're bound to win eventually. Besides we aren't keeping score."

"Oh, whatever," Ollie huffed, her smile peeking through despite her annoyance. "I'm sick of your Muggle games anyway."

"That's just as well since we have to set the table," James said, walking into the Potter's ornate dining room from the kitchen with a stack of napkins in his hand. "Come on, help me."

Something about staying at the Potters' over Christmas was unusually peaceful. Ollie couldn't tell if it was because the fire crackled in the living room and the smell of gingerbread permeated every room of the house, or if it was because Mr. Potter told the teens stories of his youth with his glasses perched at the end of his nose while Mrs. Potter laughed along and sipped on her tea, or if it was because something about a home teeming with love brought a sense of calm over her. Christmas at the Sato house was frantic. Scribbling letters and sending the family's pet owl on long trips, wrapping parcels to send by Muggle post to people's houses, trying to balance the work of a holiday with the festivities. That is not to say that the Sato house was not full of the same love as the Potters', just that there was not room for that love to be the only thing felt.

Mrs. Potter came into the dining room, guiding heaping plates of food to the table with her wand. "Go and find your friends, would you?" she asked, and the sheer warmth in her voice almost covered the unmistakable posh.

Ollie, Remus, and James ducked their heads into the living room to see Sirius and Peter reading their seperate books on the couch. "Guys, c'mon, it's dinnertime," James said, and both boys got up and came into the dining room.

Everybody sat down and immediately began heaping food onto their plates. "Thank you, Mrs. Potter," Ollie said.

"Oh, honey, it's no trouble at all. I'm so happy to have you all here," Mrs Potter replied.

"This is delicious, Pheemie," Sirius said through a mouthful of potato. "Thanks for letting us stay here."

"Sirius, don't talk with your mouth open," Mr Potter said, a light sternness to his voice.

"So, Olivia, your boyfriend seems like a nice young man," Mrs Potter said, turning toward Ollie. "How did you two meet?"

James made a kissing face across the table from Ollie, and she rolled her eyes and grinned. "It was at Sirius's cousin's wedding. Apparently, his parents knew Sirius's cousins when they went to school."

"And he came up to Ollie while we were talking and asked her to dance," Remus cut in. "And he swept her away and they danced the evening away."

Ollie giggled. "It's true," she said cheerily. "And then a couple weeks later I saw him at school and we were reunited. I had fully thought I wouldn't meet him ever again."

"And then they spent weeks sneaking off together," Sirius threw in. "And Ollie kept insisting that they weren't a couple, and they were just friends. Turns out, this Pierre guy had been romancing her while thinking she was dating James."

Mrs Potter let out a hearty laugh. "That's so sweet," she said. "Just know that if he turns sour, you can come to me, I know a few good hexes for boys like that."

Mr Potter smiled coyly. "I was always good to you, darling," he cooed across the table. "You never had to hex me, no?"

"Oh, Monty," Mrs Potter laughed. "Kids, you know, I was a real heartbreaker back in the day."

"You most certainly were," Mr Potter replied. The two gazed at one another from opposite ends of the table.

"Ew, guys," James interrupted. "Not in front of us."

The rest of the dinner went on full of laughter and catching up about school, until finally everybody was full, and James and Peter put the leftover food into their fridge.

And as the night grew later, the parents went to bed, and the five kids were left to their own devices in the living room.

"Who all do we know is coming to the party?" Peter asked James as he braided a tiny section of Ollie's hair.

"Oh, loads of people," James replied. "All of us, duh, Frank and Alice are coming, Pierre's coming, Evans said she'd come, same with McKinnon. I think Parkinson might show up, and I think Evans is bringing that brute boyfriend of hers."

"He's not a brute," Remus cut in. "He's a good person, I've talked to him lots. You're just jealous."

"Well the only noises I've heard from him are grunting on the Quidditch field and slobbering all over Lily Evans," James replied, far more defensively than was necessary.

"Well maybe we will all get to know him better at the party," Ollie said. "But we should head to bed, so we can be up early tomorrow and help."

The boys murmured general agreement. So, they all climbed the stairs and went down the hall into the rooms where they were staying, and fell asleep full of Mrs. Potter's cooking and surrounded by a thick love in the air, obstructing the horrors which were happening outside of the Potter's mansion.

i hope y'all know i really love this story and i love writing it it's just that i still don't have a freaking computer so i always have to write on my phone and it's so frustrating and takes so much longer. but here i am persisting and pushing out more chapters. because i do have the rest of the major non negotiable plot points planned in my head, and i'd like to finish this story before i graduate (not gonna happen at this rate lmao) and i don't want to lose steam on this because i've gotten this far and i don't want to abandon this story that is so dear to me.

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