This is my first fanfiction! Don't forget to review! :)

Disclaimer: I do NOT own any of the Harry Potter characters or settings, sadly. If I did, I would probably live in a mansion somewhere in northwestern Europe and I would be rich and famous!

The Squib

"Patrificus Totalus" James shouted, exasperated. "I think you might be flourishing your wand too much, try it like this," his younger brother Albus instructed. After James tried again, it was obvious that he would be a squib forever. I tried to help him when I was younger, but he would get upset when I did better than him. I am James' and Albus's younger sister, Lily. They don't know that I'm watching the tutoring session. James would flip if he knew that I had seen how bad he is. I'm three years younger and I still do better than him. Suddenly, the dust behind the box I was hiding next to found my nose, and I sneezed really loud. "Alright Lily, you've watched us practice. Are you happy that I'm worse than you?" James said in a hurt voice. "James, I don't care that you are a squib," I said comfortingly, "I just want to help find a way to get your magic. Maybe you will gain it by behaving, or something that you don't usually do." "But I don't want to change myself, I just want to have magic like the rest of the family," James whined. There was no way that I could win this battle, so I got up, grabbed my notebook and left. When I got back to the Gryffindor Common Room, everybody looked at me like I was crazy. Nobody stayed out in the castle later than six, and it was already 9:30. The only exceptions were tutoring and detentions. "Where have you been?" someone called out. "I was tutoring somebody," I mumbled. I knew nobody would believe me, but I didn't care. It was the only lie I could think of. To get away from all the eyes, I went into my dorm room and collapsed on my bed. Tomorrow I would be going home for Christmas, and I really needed to get some sleep. The last few nights had been terrible. I had had a detention last night and the other nights I had been watching James.

The next day, I got a compartment on the train with Albus and James, since all of my friends were staying at school. It was so not fair that they do what they want and I have to spend holidays with my family, but I got more presents at home than at school. James was yelling that he hadn't learned a thing and Albus was telling him to be patient. I hate watching them fight, so I just looked out the window.

About half way home, Scorpious Malfoy walked into our compartment. He was the meanest when it came to teasing James, and nobody in Gryffindor could stand looking at him. "So, I heard you were in this compartment," he said to James, "I thought I should take this opportunity to hit you a few times. Would you like it to be done by Gray or Smo?" Gray and Smo were his big bully friends. They did anything he wanted them to, including beating up my brother. "Leave him alone," I said, more boldly than I felt. "Oh yeah? And how are you going to make me," he said with a snicker "Petrificus Totalus!" I said, whipping out my wand and stunning him. "Thanks, but I could have handled that easily," James said. When we got home, James locked himself in his room until dinner. We had turkey and stuffing, then for desert we had root beer floats and sundaes. By the time we had finished, it was like 10:30, so we all went up to bed.

In the morning, there were hundreds of presents under the tree! We ripped open the boxes and found candy and toys and I got a Firebolt 27! That is the best broom right now, and I flew out of the house and to the Quiditch Pitch. James had gotten a magic kit that would supposedly help him regain his magic. When he was a baby, James had magic, but something in his life changed and he lost it. After my game, I went inside to see that my brothers were experimenting with potions again. I hate when the experiment because they always end up making the house smell really bad. This time they were trying to make a potion that would bring James good luck and magic. I didn't want to watch them, so I went to help my mom with Christmas dinner. "Lily dear," my mom said, "would you mind setting the table, then doing the laundry, then making the salad?" "Ok, mom," I said, but I had no intention of actually doing those things. As soon as she left the room, I flicked my wand and all of my chores were done at once. I then picked up "Hogwarts: A History" and curled up in the big armchair next to the roaring fire. Soon, James and Albus came in with a big pot full of potion. "This has to boil for an hour before we can use it, so put it on the fire," Albus instructed James, "Oh, and Lily, mom said she needed all of us outside immediately." he added. We all went outside, where mom and dad were waiting for us. "We have a big surprise!" mom said excitedly, "Your Uncle Ron said that he would be happy to bring you three to Paris this summer, as long as he doesn't have to separate any big fights between all of you." "Oh my god really! I have always wanted to go to Paris and see the Eifel Tower and shop in the shops!" I said. "We know you guys have been saving your allowances for a while to get something nice, so we are going to give you each three hundred galleons for the trip," dad said with a chuckle. I was about to say that they didn't have to do that when we heard a huge "BOOM" from inside. Dad told us all to stay back while he went to check it out, so we waited with baited breath until he came out in one piece. He then hurried us all far away from the house. "Something blew up in the fire and I think there's more to come," he explained, all out of breath. "Oh my god," James said in a small voice, "that was my potion on the fire it's my fault that our house…"

He didn't finish before there was another huge bang and the whole house went up in flames. James sat there staring at what used to be our house, and silently started to cry. "James," I said in shaky voice, "We can rebuild it." But he didn't want to listen to me. He got up from his place on the grass and ran into the forest. "Don't worry, he'll be back." Mom said, but she too looked nervous. I got up and ran after him, with my mom and dad calling after me.

"Lumos," I said quietly, not wanting anything to hear me. I had been in the woods for what I judged to be five or six hours, meaning it was about 11 pm. I still hadn't found James, but I had found a stray dog who had started following me. "Can you find James?" I asked, looking at the dog. "As long as we are out here, I might as well give you a name. How about… Search? No, that's too corny. Maybe Chase? Yeah I like it. Your new name is Chase!" I was happy with that name, and he barked at it, so I guess he likes it to. Now that I had a partner the search, I knew it would take a little less time, especially with a dog. His sense of smell could track James from a mile away. "I wish you could talk, Chase." I then had a brilliant idea. Whipping out my wand, I thought back to all of my transfiguration lessons. After a few minutes, I remembered the spell. "This dog may think but he can't speak, so make his speech the English way." I recited. Suddenly, Chase was talking! "Hi, you are an interesting human you smell like fire do you like cats I hate cats they bother me." He said all that very fast, then jumped back in surprise. To test his new voice, he said "hi?" timidly, almost as if he didn't believe it had come from his throat. "Yes Chase," I said, trying to suppress a laugh, "You can talk now. So I expect you will be a big help in our little expedition. Now, James always runs through the woods in a general eastern direction, but since he is trying to loose us forever, he probably went west. Here is a scrap of his clothes, try to pick up the scent." Chase smelled the shirt and then took off into the wild woods.

"James? James?" We were walking through the woods calling for my big brother, when another dog came into view. "Quick, you must go! It is not safe here! Go now, I'll hold them off!" he said urgently. That's when I saw them. Four men surrounded the clearing where we stood. I was scared out of my mind, but then I saw James tied to a tree, and the only thought in my mind was finding a way to free him. "Chase," I muttered so that the men wouldn't hear, "I need you to run and keep them busy. I'll get James then help you." "Ok," Chase replied, "If I don't see you within twenty minutes, then I will come looking for you." They split up, Chase running of with four men chasing him, and I ran to free James. "James, it'll be alright, we love you even without magic, and we can rebuild the house. Please come home with me. We are all so worried about you." I pleaded. "You don't get it." He said sadly, "I got my magic, but they have my life tied to the life of the dog in the center of the circle. You have to take the dog with you when we leave, otherwise they can kill me anytime." "Ok James," I said. I was really scared now. If he was tied to the dog that I had just sent into battle, then I had probably just killed my brother. I turned around and, to my surprise, the dogs were alive and the people had been killed. "James," I said excitedly, "The dogs won! You won't die, I just have to find the reverse spell!" At that moment, I saw the gash in the side of the dog's side. Not only was he bleeding, a pool of blood was gathering around James. As fast as I could, I got a deer skin and knotted it around his stomach to slow the bleeding. I then looked frantically around the camp for anything that could help me break the connection between the dog and my brother. "Lily," James said in an anxious voice, "The book is near water, under a hill, beneath an animal and in a nest. They gave me that riddle before they tied me here." "Thanks, I'll check near the river." I said and ran to the river I saw on the way to the camp. I still had no idea where the book could be, but the riddle was my best bet. "Chase, can you smell for some animals?" I said. "Sure, there is a lizard in that cave over there, but it's dead. Up in that tree is a bird in a nest." He informed me. "That's it! He said it's beneath an animal in a nest!" I said almost too excitedly. I climbed up the tree to where the bird was resting and shooed him away, but there was no book in the nest. "Chase, it has to be under a hill, not above a hill. Try to find a cave. Where's that lizard you found?" I said, getting more and more nervous every minute. "It's in this little cave down here. I'll check under the lizard." He splashed down into the stream and swam into a cave that I had overlooked. "I found it!" He called, and then swam back downstream to where I sat on a little mud bank. "Good, now let's go save my big brother!" I said while I ran back to the little campsite. James was still on the ground, gently petting the dog, who he had decided to call James Jr. "James, I have the spell, so hold still while I fix you guys up." I took the book from Chase and opened it up. Although the pages were wet, I could still read the one spell written in it. "If Jr. should die, then so will James, that's not how it should be. Break the bond and they will be free to live happily." I said, pointing my wand at James's stomach area. "You saved me and my puppy friend. I got my magic, and I realized why I was a squib." He said in a gleeful tone. "James, that's all very good but we are still in the woods. Mom, dad and Albus are at Uncle Ron's house, and we really should be going there now." I urged him. After helping him up, I tore a branch off a tree and made a crummy walking stick. "I think our is that way, so Uncle Ron's would probably be in that general direction." He said, pointing in two directions. "Don't worry," I told him calmly, "I know where to go." And off we went, James leaning on my shoulder, into the dark woods, with two caring dogs at our side.

"I found out that my magic comes from love. When I was little I loved you and our family, but then everyone was telling me what to do and I hated you guys. When I was all alone, I realized that I love my family unconditionally." James said, sounding ashamed that he had ever hated us. We were in the living room of Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione's house, all sitting near a cozy fire with mugs of hot chocolate. James and I were telling the story from the woods. Both Chase and Jr. were with us. We had decided to keep them as pets. I had lifted the talking spell because they had gotten very annoying. "We are all just glad that you are okay, and that you have magic now! Cheers to a new James!" Dad said happily. "Cheers!" we all said, raising our mugs and clinking them together. It had been a day since I found James, but at first he was too shaken up to talk about it at first, so we let it go till the next day. Now, with all of us together, how families should be, I knew that things would start going our way.

A week later, we all went to the site of our burnt down house. With more than five capable witches and wizards, rebuilding the house was easy. We also managed to rebuild everything inside, from the teakettle to the wallpaper to couches and furniture. The one thing we did do differently was making a forth bedroom. Since James was a wizard, there was no way he would be bunking with Albus anymore. They would probably end up blowing the whole house up again!

I hope you enjoyed it and don't forget to review!:)