OCTOBER is Vera's favorite month of the year.

That transition from the warmth of the sun casting a golden glow on her skin to the cool breeze kissing her neck and littering her skin with love bites of the autumn. The clouds seem to get bigger, a little more gray, cry a little more. Vera loves finding leaves of various colors hiding in her dark curls. She loves jumping into piles of leaves, though some might say she is too old for that now. She doesn't care what anyone says.

She is forever a child in October.

Both her mother and her younger sister were born in October. Her father, ever the outcast, was born in March. Vera herself missed the deadline by a mere two days. She was born November second.

And that's not to mention her absolute favorite holiday of the year is in October. Halloween.

A day where she gets to dress up and be whoever the hell she wants to be while getting free treats? Could it get any better?

Before she started at Hogwarts—before she even knew Hogwarts existed—her parents used to take her, her brother, and her sister to this carnival every year. It only came during the last week of October, and Vera looked forward to it the entire year.

Those were the few times where her mother and father never argued, never disagreed on anything, never fought.

As a kid, Vera didn't truly understand what love was. She thought her parents had it, but then they started fighting, which later led to a divorce.

It wasn't messy in any way but rather amicable. They agreed on shared custody of their son and two daughters, so Vera, Adonis, and Elodie spent alternating weeks with their parents. It helps that they live in the same city.

The months after the divorce were intense, with Vera walking on eggshells with both of her parents, but they soon became friends again the way they were in their university days when they met.

Sometimes, selfishly, Vera wishes that her parents were not on such good terms. It's not that she likes the fact that they're divorced or wants to hear them arguing constantly. It's just that it's ruined her entire perception of love and marriage.

How can you love someone, break it off, and still be friends afterward as if you never once shared your greatest moments and deepest regrets with them?

Vera shakes the thought out of her head, promptly going back to October.

Crisp air, pink tinted cheeks, pumpkin pie, pumpkins. October is everything anyone could possibly want in a month.

This is what she's thinking as she walks down the streets of Hogsmeade when Nora Silvers—Vera's best friend to her misfortune—locks her arm around Vera's and beams at her.

Nora is...how can Vera describe her?

Loud.

Obnoxious.

Irritating.

The epitome of sunshine.

She is also the most amazing person to ever exist on this doomed planet.

If asked, Vera will deny she ever thought such a thing.

Blowing away a loose strand of blonde hair, Nora quirks an eyebrow at the taller girl. Just as her name suggests, her gray eyes twinkle into a rare silver color that resembles nothing but mischief.

"I swear, Vera, if you were thinking about that toe rag, Potter, again I'll strangle you."

Well. She wasn't before, but now she certainly is.

Her good mood instantly sours at the thought of James Potter.

The only person in the world who broke up with her.

Her, of all people. She has an entire line of people waiting for her to give them a chance—no, not an exaggeration—and of everyone she could choose from, she chose to date James Fucking Potter.

Maybe it was her fault for getting sucked into his charming smile and lame jokes. Agreeing to date him when everyone knew he was in love with Lily Evans. AKA the reason said boy broke up with her in the first place.

Even though, realistically, Vera knows that the fling could never have gone anywhere, she can't help feeling annoyed. It's a hit to her ego and pride. Never once in her seventeen years—almost eighteen—has someone broken up with her.

"I swear," Nora interrupts her thoughts. "You're way too obsessed with the boy."

Vera scoffs. "I am not obsessed. I do not get obsessed with boys."

Nora shoots her a disbelieving look before shrugging and going straight into a rant about how she was giving a guy head the other night.

Her words echo in Vera's head. She scoffs again internally.

She didn't even like him in the first place. The only reason she agreed to date him was because he kept hitting on her and a drunken one night stand turned into another one which turned into weeks of hooking up. Eventually, when James asked her to be his girlfriend, she assumed it would appease him to put a label on it. She didn't particularly care. It was only casual, after all.

Once she was bored or once he started really falling for her, she would break it off.

The thing is, though, he's the one who broke it off.

She spent three months of her life with this guy and he had the audacity to end it?

She's Vera Archer, for Merlin's sake. She's pretty, she's kind, she never says a bad word about anyone no matter how much of an arsehole they are. People admire her.

No one just ends it with her.

Okay. So maybe Vera is a little obsessed.

"He made the most atrocious noises. I swear to Merlin, V. It literally sounded like he was some type of ogre or something. And he came literally a second after I put his dick in my mouth. A second! If he can barely last just from my mouth, you can only imagine how horrible he'd be at sex."

Vera snorts. "Let me guess. You know because you proceeded to be stupid and sleep with him."

Nora gives her an overexaggerated eye roll. "You'd think I'd learn my lesson from 'piss on me' guy, but clearly I didn't. And for the record, he lasted three seconds."

"Damn, Nori. You sure know how to choose 'em."

The voice doesn't come from Vera. It comes from someone behind the two girls. They turn around to find a tall boy smirking at them.

Nora immediately narrows her eyes. "Eavesdropping again, Archer? No wonder you can't get any girls. You spend all your time trying to figure out who I'm shagging next."

Adonis, Vera's twin brother, only laughs in response, his smirk growing wider.

"Ah, dear Snora. You have no idea how many girls I get. And for the record, it's not my fault all the guys you end up with can't get you off."

A slow smirk curls on Nora's lips. "You offering to change that, Donnie?"

It's Adonis's turn to narrow his eyes. His smirk promptly falls. "You wish."

Nora grins at him, sighing dreamily. "I do."

Adonis lets out a sigh, shaking his head. "You are insufferable."

Nora pouts at him. "Aw, you're so in love with me."

He glares down at the blonde girl. "I hate you."

Vera muffles a laugh. Their dynamic has been this way since they were young. The twins met Nora when they were kids. They all went to the same muggle school, lived in the same muggle neighborhood. Vera and Nora immediately became friends, but for some reason, Adonis kept his distance. Now Nora takes every chance she can get to tease him. And Adonis never passes up the opportunity to tease her right back.

Vera isn't quite sure if Nora actually likes him or if she just likes getting on his nerves. She also isn't sure if Adonis is actually annoyed by Nora's shameless flirting or if he secretly enjoys it.

They either hate each other or are in love, there's no in between. Vera cannot for the life of her tell which one it is. She doesn't dare raise the topic, though, because they would both kill her for suggesting such a thing.

Nora turns to her eagerly. "V, hurry and send out the wedding invites. Your brother simply cannot wait a single second more for me. I swear, he's so impatient."

Adonis lets out an amused scoff. "The delusions you create in your head fascinate me."

The blonde Hufflepuff gasps in delight. "You hear that, V? Is it just me or was that a confession of love?"

"It's just you," Adonis deadpans.

"Alright," Vera interrupts them. "Either take this somewhere far, far away from me or shut the hell up."

Nora opens her mouth, but she doesn't get the chance to say whatever she is about to.

A very familiar voice reaches Vera's ears before she has a chance to prepare herself.

"Let's head to Honeydukes, yeah? I hear they've just stacked up on sugar quills."

Vera tenses. Her best friend and her brother both betray her and turn to face the source of the noise. Nora wriggles her eyebrows at her and winks. Vera glares at her.

That's it. Vera is officially getting a new best friend.

"Oi, Archer!" another voice calls out.

Not knowing if the voice is calling her or her brother, she turns and finds Sirius Black grinning at her.

"Long time no see."

Vera raises a brow. "If by long time you mean less than twelve hours since our last class together, then yes. It's been an extremely long time."

She refuses to look to the side of the long-haired Gryffindor, for she absolutely cannot stand to look at James Potter's stupid face right now.

Sirius laughs. She looks at Peter who is standing beside him and smiles warmly.

"Hey, Pete. Did you get that Charms assignment in last week?"

He nods shyly, smiling at her. "Took a while but I got it in finally."

The two of them are in the same Charms class and Peter had asked for help on a particularly difficult assignment which Vera had gladly provided.

She suddenly brightens, eyes locking onto a pair of brown eyes to Peter's right.

"Remus! I just remembered I have something to show you. Remind me again in History of Magic next class."

She found this cool book on werewolves in a muggle shop over the summer that she wants to give to Remus. She's not sure if it's written by a muggle or if an actual werewolf wrote it, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Remus smiles warily. "Knowing you, it's either the most fascinating thing ever or utterly repulsive and I should be scared for my life."

Nora and Adonis snort at the same time. Nora shoots him a smug look to which he glares at her.

Vera grins. "You have good reason to be scared."

Remus shakes his head at her.

In the three months Vera dated James, she grew close to the other Marauders. She never thought she would actually like hanging out with them, but here she is now. Loving the strange comfort their company brings.

Involuntarily, Vera's eyes slide to the left. James Potter stares right back at her, a warm look on his face and a slight tilt at his mouth.

He has the nerve to smile at her.

He broke up with her and now he's smiling at her.

But Vera can't show him how much that little fact is affecting her. That would mean losing, and Vera never loses.

So, she smiles back at him.

She smiles her irresistible smile that absolutely no one on this planet can resist.

No one except, apparently, James Fucking Potter.

"Vera," he greets, tipping his head down.

She wants to claw his eyes out.

"Potter," she addresses coolly.

If she wasn't paying attention, she wouldn't have been able to catch the way his eyebrow subtly raises at the fact that she called him by his last name.

When they were first fooling around back in May, she never used his first name. It was always Potter, idiot, arsehole, or toe rag. She used those four names exclusively. Then he asked her to be his girlfriend and she started calling him James.

I love the sound of my name rolling off your lips, he had said.

What a fucking lie.

Vera hates the way her heart fluttered when he said those words. She hates that she allowed herself to feel something—albeit a very, very small something—for him in that moment.

She was so stupid, it's pathetic.

But what's more pathetic is hoping that James will acknowledge the fact that they used to date and that they broke up.

Obviously, he doesn't. Instead, he acts as if they're merely classmates.

As if she's never had his dick in her mouth.

The urge to roll her eyes is so strong that she almost does it. But she holds herself back. Because she will die before she lets James Potter know that he has an effect on her.

"Good game last week, Potter." Adonis grins cockily. "Although you're going to have to up your game a bit before the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw game."

James draws his attention away from Vera and smirks at her brother. "Believe me, Archer. You won't even realize you're losing until everything's said and done and Gryffindor has won by a landslide."

Adonis snorts. "You keep telling yourself what you need to believe, mate."

James starts to say something but a shriek cuts him off.

"Lily!" a girl screams. "You fucking bitch! You're dead once I catch you!"

Another girl laughs loudly. Vera catches a head of red hair vanishing into a shop as a fuming Marlene McKinnon follows her.

Vera also catches the way James's eyes trail behind the ginger girl the entire time she's running into the shop and even after the commotion has died down.

She really, really wants to punch that fond look right off his face.

Vera likes Lily, she really does. Lily is beautiful and sweet and kind to everyone and has a great sense of humor. She gets why anyone would fall for her.

But that doesn't mean it eases her anger at James for liking another girl while in a relationship with her. Why did he waste three months of her life if he was just going to choose someone else over her in the end?

Sirius claps James's shoulder.

"Can you make it any more obvious?" he asks the hazel-eyed boy amusedly.

James blinks back at Sirius, not realizing what he said for a second, before he answers by shoving his best friend.

Vera doesn't realize she's clenching her jaw until Nora shoots her a look that says she's about to burst out laughing. She immediately masks her face with indifference.

"Seriously, James," Sirius says. "Have some decency. Your ex is right there."

All six heads turn toward Vera. She's going to kill Sirius Black. It's not even a question anymore.

But the thing about Vera is that she has a talent for convincing everyone around her that she doesn't care about something even when she does.

She pastes on a charming smile that only Nora and Adonis can tell is fake. She lifts a brow at the boys in front of her, letting out a small chuckle that leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

"Pads, we broke up over a month ago," Vera replies easily, the smile never once slipping. "A month is a lifetime in my world. I have no interest in Potter's love life."

Sirius hums in response. James smiles.

"Yes," he tells Sirius. "We're friends."

Vera wants to throw up. She really, truly does. She has never wanted anything more.

She remembers how James said he wanted to stay friends after he broke up with her. She said yes in the moment because there is no reason why they can't be friends.

She doesn't have feelings for him—never did. He also never had feelings for her. Their whole arrangement was casual and went on longer than any of Vera's past flings. It had been time to end it. She should be grateful that James did it and saved her from the awkward talk that she always has to start.

But she's not. She's fucking pissed.

Even after a month, the anger hasn't simmered down, and Vera is afraid it may just burn her alive if she doesn't do something about it.

And as James laughs at something Nora said and his dimples pop out, Vera suddenly can't take it anymore.

She decides right then and there that she is going to get James Potter back no matter what.

𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿'𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲 !

um so like hi surprise

i'm super excited for this book even though i don't have that much planned yet lol. let me know if you like it so far!!