Chapter Text
I am rich. Ridiculously rich. Some might think admitting such a thing is being supercilious, but it is not like I go around boasting about my wealth—which is more like my family’s wealth, anyway, if we are being exact. If your family was rich and you would be able to spend the entire summer in an unnecessary big mansion in the heart of Tuscany, you would not complain either.
So, no, I do not mind it at all. I have not for the past sixteen years, at least. Until one day, late spring of this year, Sirius came bursting into my room, declaring that James Potter would stay with us in said mansion for the summer after their graduation. Which meant this summer. Which meant I had no time to prepare for it whatsoever.
Maybe I do mind being rich after all.
I do not hate James. At least not in the way you hate someone and wish they would die a very slow death. That might be too extreme, even for me. I hate James in the way that I wish to never have to meet him, ever.
When we permanently moved from France to England and Sirius went to that new school and started constantly talking about ‘the boy with a grin like the sun itself’, I decided I would never want to meet whoever he was talking about. He had taken the one thing from me I still had. I would not be able to bear the sight of him.
And now, forward to the summer, I dread the moment James walks into our house, screaming ‘hellos’ and making Sirius even more unbearable.
Summers in Italy have always been the best time of the year—at least for me. Sirius usually prefers staying in England, which I am totally fine with. He can do whatever he wants, it is not like he owes me his time or something. He might stay for a week or two, but I do not need his pity visits. Not when he never bothered to visit when our parents finally allowed him to go to boarding school after begging for it for months.
Maman and papa never knew the real reason for Sirius’s begging, but I? Oh, he never stopped talking about James. Day and night. No conversation with Sirius would pass without him having mentioned James at least once. I cannot remember the last time we talked about how things were going at my school.
Maybe it is good that I am finally meeting that infamous James Potter my brother has been raging about. Even if only so I can be reassured that James is indeed completely and undeniably infuriating.