Chapter 1: A Pilot of Sorts

*BOOM*

It was a stupid idea to go camping. You never knew what the weather would be like, no matter what the weatherman said. It was just too unpredictable in England. You couldn't plan anything in advance. It was more spur of the moment weather. Unfortunately for me however, my dad was dead set on it. He apparently didn't care that it was hailing golf-balls and pouring rain out of the sky like it was a child that just lost its favorite plaything.

He didn't even like camping! It was probably just some stupid family bonding ritual he had read in a parenting book with Mum.

I was convinced they were trying to cause me pain.

*CRACK*

I felt cold air, rain, and pieces of hail start to pelt my face with their numbing fingers. I looked around in surprise and saw a huge hole in my window. A particularly large piece of hail was sitting in my lap and another one decided to hit me in the middle of my forehead. "Mum! dad! The hail put a hole in my window! We have got to accept that this camping trip is not going to happen. Because I am not riding in the car like this anymore!"

Dad sighed heavily and nodded. "We'll stop at the next place we see," he said, resigned.

I sent a silent thank you to Merlin then stole Petunia's blanket to cover the hole.

"Hey! Give that back! Use your own blanket, Freak!" Petunia shouted. She reached for the blanket but I moved my body to block her and she ended up scratching my face instead.

"Girls, stop it. there seems to be a house up here with lights on so we'll stop and ask them for the nearest hotel. Can you just...please, hold off on the fighting till then?" Mum asked, frustrated, looking back at us. "Please?" She asked again with big eyes and a plea in her voice.

I gave up right then, but Petunia never did know how to control her mouth. "But my blanket is going to get ruined!" She shrieked. "And it's the one Vernon got me for our two year anniversary," she continued.

I scoffed. "Two years and all he got you was a blanket. Way to be a lousy and pathetic boyfriend, Vernon."

Mum then gave me her death glare. The one that all mum's seem to have when you have truly irritated them.

I closed my mouth before it could say anything else.

"Lily, give her the blanket," Mum said in a fed up voice.

"But I'll get wet and probably lose some brain cells with the way its hailing!" I whined.

It was Petunia's turn to scoff as she mumbled in what she thought was an under her breath tone, "As if you had any to begin with."

Mum just sighed heavily and told me to move to the middle. She turned back around in her seat, clearly fed up with our behavior.

I rolled my eyes and threw Petunia her blanket but decided to brave the loss of my precious brain cells. I was not going to get even closer to her than I already was. I would probably pass out from the fumes of her perfume. But then the car jerked to the left and I went flying into her lap. I let out a very embarrassing squeal of surprise then looked up at her. She was looking at me in disgust so I decided to stay there a little while longer. I began whistling and checking out my surroundings, pretending I couldn't see her or feel her eyes burning through my skull. Slowly, I looked up at her an put on my cheeriest voice to ask, "Well hello! Haven't seen your around here before. Come here often? I'm Lily by the way," and stuck out my hand as if for a hand shake. She rolled her eyes and pushed me back to my seat (which was now soaking) while I snickered the whole way there. She was just so easy to taunt.

Finally, I felt the car start to slow down and looked out the windshield to try and get a good look of the house. I let out an appreciative whistle. The house was huge! It had to have at least eight bedrooms with a fairly large everything else. It had a tower for crying out loud! I always wanted a tower. I sighed. This was my dream house.

We stopped in front of the door and Dad got out to knock. The rest of us stayed in the car and waited in the cold while he asked for directions. He rang the doorbell and waited a little while before someone came to answer. The door swung open but it looked as if no one was behind it. Dad looked around then must have heard something because he looked farther down. My eyes followed him and I saw what looked to be a small person dressed in dirty clothes, standing in front of him. The person however had extremely large ears that tapered out to a point. Which meant that that wasn't a person but a house-elf.

Realizing that Dad was probably very freaked out, I excused myself and climbed out of the car. I walked up to the door and patted Dad on the arm to let him know I had it covered. He nodded with thankful eyes and stepped back a little, letting me do all the talking.

I stooped down and looked at the elf, who I determined to be a girl, and stuck out my hand. "Hi. I'm Lily Evans. Are your..." I faltered, not knowing what to call her "masters" so to speak. "Ummmm...is there someone I can talk to about getting directions?" I asked with a smile. The house-elf looked at me with a confused expression, like she was trying to recall something. She just stood there, so I spoke again. "Ummm...please? We're really cold and wet and need to find someplace soon."

With those words, the elf shook her head as if to clear it, and scurried away quickly. She didn't close the door however, which probably meant that she had left to get someone for us.

And...I knew it was rude, but she had left the door open and there was no one stopping me, so I took a step inside. Immediately, heat washed over my body and I could feel my blood start to circulate to my fingers and toes. I took a deep sigh and turned around to gesture my father in.

He hesitantly placed his foot inside and when nothing bad happened, he stepped fully in. I watched his face relax in much the same way mine had.

*BAM*

I jumped and squealed, looking upstairs, towards the source of the noise, wondering what had made it. I had just come to the simplest of all conclusions (a door slamming), when I heard someone clear their throat, obviously trying to get my attention. I looked around, startled...again, and faced a rather gorgeous couple standing a few feet in front of my father and I.

The woman had amazingly lush, long, black hair that shined and sparkled in the light, with large, twinkling, brown eyes. The man, however, had light brown hair that was starting to show through grey, and angular eyes that were a stormy blue. Or possibly hazel. I couldn't decide which.

Then I realized that I was standing in their foyer, gawking at their appearance with my mouth hanging open. I shook my head to clear my mind and held out my hand.

"Hi. I'm Lily Evans. This is my dad, Paul Evans." The woman firmly took my hand and looked at me with a small hint of recognition.

"Oh! I know who you are. Our son talks about you all the time. I think it's safe to say he's madly in love with you, dear." She let out a tinkling laugh and turned to shake my dads hand.

My mind wandered while Dad explained our situation, to her son could be. Maybe it was that handsome Ravenclaw boy, Michael Baugher, who had the windswept blonde hair and ocean blue eyes that attracted almost every girl in school. Or perhaps it was the devilishly handsome Adam Fletcher from Hufflepuff with the dark brown hair and grass green eyes that always held some deep emotion. I had caught him staring at me a few times...I had narrowed it down to Adam when I heard Dad calling my name.

I blinked and looked up at him. "What?" I asked, a little irritated that he had pulled me out of a daydream in which Adam ran down the stairs, gave me a huge hug, and planted a deep, passionate kiss on my lips...well...a girl could dream, couldn't she?

"Can you go get your mother and sister? These nice people have offered to let us stay the night until the storm passes."

I nodded and trudged out into the rain, running towards the car. I opened my door in the back and started grabbing my things. "You can get your things and start heading in. The couple that lives here is going to let us stay the night or until the storm clears up," I explained while shoving my book in my purse (so it wouldn't get wet) and my blanket up my shirt (again, so it couldn't be hit by the evil rain.) I tugged my suitcase out of the car and slammed the door shut, sprinting towards the house.

I was very winded by the time I got there and had to bend over double to regain my breath. Lily Evans + exercise = bad idea. Finally, I stopped panting and stood up.

"Follow me, Lily, and I'll show you to your room. Then we can go and take care of that scratch on your face," the woman (I realized I still didn't know their names) said, climbing the stairs. I followed her up and was just about to ask for her name when we reached the first landing and all thoughts flew out of my head.

The carpet was shaggy and a light blue while the walls had been painted and very clean white. It seems rather dull but the colors together made the hallway look like an ocean or something. That wasn't what had me dumbfounded though. It was the fact that this was only the second floor and there were at least four doors on each side. There was still the third level (at which it looked like the house ended) and the downstairs to think about. That was a lot of rooms. Why did one couple (and perhaps their only son) need so many rooms? I could understand if you were like the Von Trapp family, but not these people. It was simply a waste.

She must have noticed my halt because she turned around and gave a sort of giggle. "We have a lot of family and they like to visit often. So we just put them up here. It's easier than making them all get a hotel room. Plus, our son likes to have friends over and this way they always have their own room to go to if they're upset or have a different sleeping pattern than most people," she said with a smile.

Then she must have taken in my full appearance because she gave another small giggle. I looked down at myself and realized it looked like I had the biggest food baby in the world. My blanket was still under my shirt. I must have looked awful anyway. My hair sticking to my face, all wet and limp with a big scratch on my cheek. My make-up was probably running in long streams under my eyes too. I pulled the blanket out from my shirt and cleared my throat, a little embarrassed.

She turned around and I followed her retreating back down the hallway. The first door on the right she pointed out as her mysterious son's (that's what I was calling him until I figured out names) room, the second door was where her mysterious son's equally mysterious friend was currently staying. The first door on the left was the master bedroom on this floor. In other words: where my parents would be sleeping. The second door was the main bathroom. The next on the right was apparently too boyish for me, and then the fourth was her sons old play room that they never had the heart to change. The third on the left was where Petunia would be staying, and the last was finally my room. She opened the door and let me in. Well...she tried. I took one look at the place and froze to the spot. It was beautiful. The floor was, thankfully, a shag carpet, the color of wheat and the walls were painted as a mural with tall grass on two sides and breezy wheat on the other two. One of the wheat walls had a barn off in the distance with a windmill beside it and a bunch of horses and cows were scattered throughout the fields. On the grass walls there was an old, quaint farmhouse and little kids running around. The best part? It was painted to look like night time with fireflies glowing softly everywhere.

"We have family that lives on a farm and when they're here they get homesick. In the daytime, the sky turns to blue and the clouds come out with the birds and the sun. It's really pretty when the curtains are open and the sunlight hits it.

My mouth slowly started to water with pleasure. I took another step in and looked at the rest of my surroundings. There was a four poster bed made of dark wood and clothed in bed sheets the color of the sun. The curtains were a light grassy almost forest green and there was a big, dark wood desk sitting under one of the windows. There also happened to be a wardrobe like in Beauty and the Beast that I hopelessly fell in love with.

"So, do you like it? I mean, it's probably for only one night. This storm should let up by morning, but...I want you to have a nice place to sleep. I know James would want you to have this room. He mentioned that you wished you could live on a farm one time. Wow, I can't believe I remember that. It must have been a few years ago," she tinkled with a laugh again.

But I had blocked her out at the mention of the name. "Who...who said that about me?" I asked, trying to reign in the hysteria that was climbing in my body.

She looked at me curiously and cocked her head to one side. "Our son, James. James Potter? I figured you knew..."

I then began to laugh like a crazy person.

A/N: So this is just the beginnings of the story. I'll continue writing if enough people actually like the story. otherwise I see no point...maybe. I'd like at least five reviews but I know those are sometimes hard to come by so...yeah. All constructive criticism in accepted. I'm not going to get upset if you bash on my story. I'm sort of used to it. :) I'll try and have the next chapter posted in the next week. You'll never have to wait more than a week for chapters. Also, just to let you know, I am American. So if there are some things language wise that confuse you because you don't use our slang terms, I'm sorry. You'll have to bear with me because if I try and put it any other way I get confused and it doesn't sound right. I think that's it...so if you read this and plan on reviewing: Thanks! If you at least read it: Thank you also. :)