by S. L

Lily couldn’t help, but catch her breath at what was obviously about to happen, something she didn’t think she could let happen. So at the last second she turned away trying not to look too hurt. “No,” she said softly, almost hating herself.

“Oh,” Potter said sounding almost hurt himself, but he seemed to force himself to smile. “Well better finish packing then hmm?”

“Yes,” Lily answered somewhat distantly. “Packing...”

Which was how it came to be that several hours later both Lily and Potter’s trunks were neatly (or in Potter’s case, not so neatly) packed and waiting in the entry hall. Mrs. Potter had arrived several moments before and Lily was delighted to find that she was a rather short, but thin woman with a wide smile and an honest face.

“You’d better not have been doing anything to this darling girl!” Were the first words out of her mouth as she met her son, she was still dusting ash off her robes as the Evans’ fireplace was in need of a good cleaning. They were not very used to having visitors pop in through the fire.

Potter rolled his eyes and answered with a monotone. “No, Mum.”

Then Lily stood back with Potter and watched as Mrs. Potter and her parents got acquainted. Petunia had absolutely refused to see her off and had marched off to her boyfriends house the first moment she could.

“And this must be Lily,” Mrs. Potter said with a sweet smile, Lily was forced to look down on the woman as she smiled back. “Oh and we have looked forward to meeting you! Any girl whom can stand to be around our son for three months straight must be a strong spirit eh?” She gave her a playful wink before turning on her son again with a stern pout.

Then without any warning she swung her arms around her son and gave him an embarrassing hug, Lily refrained from giggling. “Mum!” Potter shouted ungainly, trying to push her away without offending her.

“Oh it’s good to see you Jamie!” She squealed, clapping her hands together joyfully. “We really must be going though,” she said turning to Lily’s parents, whom were smiling politely. Though Lily noticed that her father gave Potter a knowing smile.

“So soon?” Lily’s mum said courteously.

Mrs. Potter shook her head. “I’m afraid not, I left the little ones at home and I really must be getting back! Come along then children!”

Then with a flick of her wand and a couple of pinches of floo they were on their way. Lily barely even had time to give her parents a quick hug and a kiss before she and Potter were whizzing off to “Godric’s Hollow.”

She landed with a thud on something particularly warm and soft. They had fallen together and landed in a heap so many times that the feeling was a now familiar one. Though after the little episode in her bedroom, it was now an uncomfortable feeling. She couldn’t jump off Potter fast enough as they both made room for his mum who was bringing their trunks.

“Well then,” she said once again dusting off her robes. “I suggest that you two nip upstairs to Jamie’s room and put your things away. Don’t worry,” she smiled brightly. “We’ve arranged things as your letter said so it should all be quite comfortable.”

They nodded and started up the plain staircase that stood on the opposite side of the plain fireplace. Altogether the room was rather drab, all concrete and cold, it looked a bit like a cellar. “Oh and Lily dear if he gives you any trouble feel free to knock him upside the head for me! And James!” She added, her voice lifting over the rafters. “Do hurry as Sirius has been here all week waiting for you and is driving your sisters mad!”

Potter’s face lit into a smile as they climbed, but Lily coughed in shock. “You make your friend wait for you Potter?”

The boy turned to face her, his face slightly strained as he tried to carry his trunk up the stairs. Lily knew the feeling as she was doing the very same thing. “I don’t make him Evans! Sirius is family-he’s always here!”

Then he abandoned his trunk long enough to lean on the door and reveal his home. And what a home it was, Lily could barely take her eyes from it, it was quite large and lavish, but best of all it was cozy. Moving pictures of family vacations hung on brightly painted walls overlooking colorful and comfy furniture crowded with pillows.

Potter walked through paying not the least bit of heed to any of it, but Lily was mesmerized. It was quite lovely.

“I’ll just call for the house elves to bring our things up, just leave your trunk over there,” he motioned to where he’d left his own trunk as he pressed a large silver button behind a picture of a little girl with long black hair.

Potter was quite casual about ordering the squeaky little thing to bring up their trunks and proceeding to lead the way through the wonderful house up to a door marked ‘James Harold Potter.’

Lily had done her best to seem as casual as he, but in truth she really wanted to get a good look at this place. She especially wanted to look at all of those darling pictures that had covered the walls. However as she caught sight of the name plate on Potter’s door she couldn’t suppress a little giggle.

“Harold?” She said biting her lip.

He rolled his eyes and placed his hand on the door knob. “Believe me, I love ‘Harold’ as much as you do. The stupid plate’s my mum’s idea, she won’t let me take it off. Sirius still won’t let me hear the end of it.

Lily just nodded in understanding, though a smile still shined on her face. Her middle name was horrible (she was named after her granddad), but she wasn’t about to let Potter find it out. After all Lily Cyrus Evans, did have her dignity.

Potter grunted one last time, rolling his eyes as he leaned back against his door, introducing Lily to madness.

Literally, it was madness. First off, it was the messiest room Lily had ever seen, in the muggle sort of way. Then you add the magical factor and everything loses control completely.

There were lights flashing, alarms ringing, and even a miniature Quidditch game being played up close to the ceiling. On the shelves books snapped at one another, figurines transfigured too rapidly to be able to tell what the original figure was, a small glass dragon even tried to set Lily’s hair on fire as she stepped into the room.

What made her truly lose it was when something large and fuzzy crawled over her foot, swimming through the sea of dirty laundry and old bed sheets. She couldn’t help, but to scream and throw her arms up into the air as she fell down to the floor, helplessly.

Which of course meant that she pulled Potter right along with her, whom was considerate enough to even land on her legs, trapping her quiet nicely. She squirmed against the idiot, feeling extremely girly, trying to hold her nose against the smell and keep herself from drowsing in the hopeless mess. Nor did she want to meet up with whatever had crawled over her foot. If there was a rat in the room she was leaving. Bond or no bond.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew!” She chanted, waving her hands about her face as if she could blow the mess away. Never had she felt more like a girl than she did now, whimpering and on the verge of tears. Whether they were from her disgust or merely moisture that, that smell brought to her eyes, she didn’t know.

Potter snorted behind her and rolled off her legs, without thinking Lily immediately jumped up and clung to him when the furry thing resurfaced once more. She let out a little shriek in the back of her throat, cringing at the thought of what she must look like.

At that Potter burst out laughing, and to her horror, he even bent down into the rubbish that flooded his room and pulled out Lily’s ‘rat.’

“Is this what had you so frightened?” Lily calmed her breathing and opened her eyes enough to find herself staring at what looked to be a little gerbil.

“ A mouske?” She asked in a strangled voice, still unaware that she was bruising Potter’s arm in her hold.

Indeed it was a mouske, a magical creature, whom was actually quite useless. They were loyal pets though, providing entertainment and though you wouldn’t believe it, they had the loveliest song. All and all they were quite harmless and entirely sweet.

“Oh,” Lily continued in her sad little voice, simply staring at the thing, refusing to admit that that was what had scared her. Surely there was a rat in that mess somewhere.

Potter raised an eyebrow and put the thing back down next to an old bottle of butter beer. Lily caught another flash of it’s curling black tail before it disappeared into the mess again.

“Easily frightened are we Evans?” He said beginning to pry her fingers from his arm.

That was when she realized that she’d been taking out her fright on him, she jumped away from him faster than she’d run from the mouske. “Sorry,” she said still in her high voice.

She definitely didn’t want to admit it, but she had been scared. Rats terrified her almost as much as heights, ever since she’d had this dream... The mess didn’t help either. She was an entirely organized person and the idea of staying in this room for a week and sleeping on that floor absolutely disgusted her.

“Don’t you...” she began, her eyes darting about the room lest the true rat jump out at her from beneath an old T-shirt. “Well I mean, don’t you have another room Potter? I d-don’t know about-”

He snorted. “Oh come on Evans,” he picked himself up, hauling her to her feet as he did so. “What’s wrong with my room?”

“Well,” she bit her lip and turned to face him. He stared at her in amusement. Had she been herself this would have made her a bit angry, but right now she was just worried that a rabid rat would be attacking her from behind.

“I mean to say that...” she turned to make sure there was nothing behind her. “Umm, I don’t know if I can sleep- there-” she looked to the floor. Mrs. Potter had said another bed had been set up for her, she could almost see it too, hidden beneath the pile. It seemed the mess grew and had taken over the room, not that that would surprise her. After all this was the magical world and this was Potter. “Oh you can’t think-” She looked at him hopelessly, hoping he’d understand and for once, hoping she wasn’t offending him.

“Fine,” he said sighing, giving in. Though Lily thought that it was a little early for him to give up, usually they went through another fight or he waited for her to beg or something. “Maybe we’ll share the guest room with Sirius.”

He said this slyly, almost kiddingly, but Lily didn’t even notice. She was just glad that she wouldn’t be here. Now that she’d got it into her head that there was a rat in the room she couldn’t stay here! Gross! She didn’t even realize that she’d just agreed to sleep in a room that was occupied by the two people that annoyed her most. James Potter and Sirius Black.

“Yes, yes of course,” she said absentmindedly, still checking over her shoulder. “That will be wonderful.”

Potter chocked, obviously he had been kidding and hadn’t realized how out of it she really was. Still he soon smiled and decided that he liked Evans this way.

“Alright then,” he added cautiously. “Let’s go find Sirius then...”

Lily nodded and walked off absently, followed by a startled Potter. Inside Lily was fuming with anger for herself. That was twice she had let Potter see her at her worse. Once when he’d found she was afraid of heights, and, well he didn’t know she was afraid of rats, but instead thought that she was afraid of a silly little mouske.

Now, on top of all that, she’d just agreed to share a room with both Potter and Black. There was no way she was going to be able to keep her sanity through this holiday.

“Are you- okay Evans?” Potter asked catching up to her, there was slight worry in his tone. Though when he looked at her, with his head cocked, she could still see that mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Fine,” she said shortly, picking up her pace. She was leading Potter about his own house, though she hadn’t a clue where she was going.

Potter just shrugged and caught up to her. “Alright then, but just to let you know, we’re going in the opposite direction. Sirius will be in the den- it’s that way.” He pointed in the opposite direction that they had been walking.

Lily bit her tongue and made a gesture at Potter, which he took to be a motion to more on.

“JAMES!” Was the sounding cry that echoed through the room as they entered, Lily cringed and stepped back.

She was in a room filled with people, or at least that had been her first assumption. After the welcomes had calmed down a bit, and Lily had still remained unnoticed, she realized that there were only four other people besides her and Potter in the room.

“Hi, you must be Lily,” said a tall and very pretty woman who looked to be a couple years older than Lily. “I’m (A/N what did I say her name was again? I can’t remember... Rebecca or something?), James’ older sister, and that’s Chelsea, our younger sister.”

Lily smiled and said hello, both the very young girl (whom looked about eight) and the older one had the same untidy black hair James did. Though, she noticed smugly, on the girls it looked like casual curls that just bounced off their backs. And both, she noticed happily, didn’t have the troublemaking aurora about them, both looked like perfectly nice and respectable girls.

Sirius bound up to her next, giving her an overzealous hug, which received an enthusiastic push in the opposite direction. “Oh don’t be like that Lily, I missed you so,” he held his hands over his heart dramatically.

“Oh shove it Sirius!” The last girl demanded pushing her brother onto the floor. “He of course forgot to introduce me,” she mumbled stepping forward. “Hi, I’m Heather, the unfortunate sister of this idiot.”

Lily smiled thinking that she’d like this girl the most. She looked to be just a couple years younger than her brother meaning that she probably attended Hogwarts and Lily had never known it.

Being polite Lily just smiled at the girls, shifting her weight slightly forgetting Sirius still lay slumped comfortably at her feet. Seizing his chance he grabbed her by the ankles and threw something up into the air.

Next thing Lily knew two sturdy arms had caught her ‘round the middle and her lips were pressed firmly against those of James Harold Potter.

I HAVE NOT GIVEN UP ANY OF MY STORIES, none of you seem to get that... hmm... then again it could be that I’ve become so lazy in my updating... yeah it could be that couldn’t it? Just to let you all know though “A Time out of Memory” is NOT over yet and that’s what I hope to update next... we’ll see. I’ll try to catch up, but think of it this way, school for me ends in like a month and then I’ll have three months of summer to work on these stories! Then there’ll be no excuses for me! One month guys- just one- June ninth or something like that... okay that’s a little more than a month, but still... Okay hope you liked this chapter and umm... look for one- later? I don’t know when yet, but we’ll see! Thanks to my reviewers and anyone who reads.. and basically anyone who puts up with my idleness! Also a special thanks to my betas, Britz, Selena, and Angel Star88!!

A-man (soon right...), lilmissperfect (I fixed the chapter mix up at least), Lydia, arwen, Lady of the Dragons (sorry, not quite yet...), smileygirlo6, Siris_is HOT, Lila Mae, Madelaine, HermoineGranger ( times two!), dragonqueen*aratthond, Hpfanatic04, jessica veela, AngelStar88, Brittanie, Brigadoonia, SAKURAnTOKYO ( times two!), lily, wildcat, Skipy Lily, krissy, Embyr Black, nuttinbutfaith, Samiralie, Sammi (SORRY!!!!), RaspberryNile (I AM REALLY SORRY!!!! But thanks sooo much though!), Twistie, (SORRY TO YOU TOO!! But really thank you so very much for sticking with me!), Airhead, Say My Name