The White Light

"Al, Lily, Rose, Hugo, the guests are starting to arrive!" James called from downstairs, a cocky grin on his face. Ha had just set a bowl of chips on the table and ran one hand through his already messy hair as he answered the door.

Lily looked down from the railing at her older brother, she sighed, here James was in a pair of ripped jeans, one of his best graphic T- shirts, and even in a red tie, he had also spent around 20 minutes (a record for him) trying to get his hair to stand up the right way. But Rose, Hugo, and Albus had just pulled on a shirt and jeans and spent maybe five minutes getting completely ready. The only difference between them and Lily is that Lily had worn a skirt instead of jeans.

Just then, the doorbell rang and James raced to get it. "How wonderful it is to see you tonight Gre- oh… it's you Scorpius," James looked put out, not only because one of his greatest enemies was here, but he actually looked half decent. "Rose is upstairs." James told him, he murmured a thank you and was off.

Not five minutes later, the doorbell rang again, and wanting to make sure that James didn't make a fool of himself again, Albus answered it.

"Hey Al, what's up?" One of the boys yelled, he had long messy black hair and was extremely tan.

"Oh hey, nothing much Ben, this party for my and Rose's graduations, but other than that nothing."

"Cool, so, James ready yet?" Austen asked. He had light brown hair and almost yellow eyes.

"Yeah, but he's trying way too hard to impress Greta and almost said a pick up line to Scorpius think he was her!" Albus said laughing, Austen and Ben joined in, but they were all interrupted by a voice behind them.

"What about James and Scorpius?" a tall skinny girl asked, she had light red hair that looked almost blonde in the sunlight and had misty grey eyes.

"James said a pick up line to him- or, he almost did." Austen told her.

"Oh well that's a pleasant thought." Said the second Alice Longbottom from behind Greta, she had shoulder length black hair and big hazel eyes.

"Oh, hi Alice," Austen said, smiling.

"Hello Austen," She said.

Albus looked up at the presence of so many new faces so quickly, "OK, well, since almost everybody is here you can all come inside; the others are in the living room."

Everybody piled in, but then Albus noticed that there were two other people in the house besides his family, they were both laughing at something Lily and Hugo had said, one was a girl with black hair with a few neon red streaks, deep blue eyes and pale skin, and the other was a tall, tan boy with dark brown hair, and hazel eyes.

"Melony, Gary, how did you get in here?" Albus asked them.

"The back door was unlocked." Melony said teasingly, Albus grimaced.

Gary laughed and looked up, "No, Lily and Hugo let us in."

"Oh," Albus stated, "Well, then I guess-"

"Let's get this party started!" James, Austen, and Ben all yelled, everybody laughed at the new marauders and nodded.

"I'll go put some music in," lily called as she dragged the CD player out of the closet and put in a muggle CD by Paul Van Dyk that she really liked. She then went to sit next to Gary, Albus, and Melony on the couch, but after around thirty minutes of talking, and scheme finally found its way into James' mind. "Hey I've got an idea!"

"What is it?" Rose asked him nervously.

"Yeah," Scorpius said, "James with an idea at a crowded party is not good…"

"Will you at least let me finish Malfoy?" James asked him, receiving a glare from Rose. Scorpius did something that looked somewhat like a nod so James continued. "How about we play spin the bottle?" That received a chorus of 'No's from the girls and a chorus of 'yeses' from most of the guys.

"Fine."

"How about we play hide and seek in teams?" Lily asked "It's something, with this entire house and the forest outside our house that's plenty of space."

"Ok that sounds fine," Greta asked, looking out the window at the pitch black sky covered in grey clouds.

"All right but at least let me pick the teams!" James yelled, the other hesitantly agreed and James' mind began to race. "Ok so how about since everyone is dating someone here you just go with them, so Gary with Lily, Albus with Melony, Greta with me, Rose with Scorpius, Austen with Alice, and since Hugo isn't dating anyone and Ben is engaged then they can be on a team." Everybody agreed, and after Hugo and Ben agreed to seek everyone all went off to hide.

Albus and Melony ran upstairs, and Rose and Scorpius darted towards the kitchen. James and Greta ran outside and towards the back of the house and Austen and Alice ran outside and into the forest.

Austen and Alice had been running for around three minutes and figured they were far enough away, they didn't bother trying to find a hiding spot since with their version of hide and seek the seekers had to stun or disarm the person for them to be considered out. They both stopped because they were breathing hard from their run.

Austen looked up trying to think of something that would help time go by faster, "So, Alice, are you looking forward to your seventh year at Hogwarts?"

"Yeah I'm really excited, but sad at the same time, you now, I mean I've spent practically my whole life there, it'll be kind of sad to leave, but still, I can't wait." Alice said, looking down at the ground.

"Yeah I know what you mean, well, do you want to sit down?" Austen asked, and Alice nodded.

They both sat in silence for a few minutes, just looking around and trying to relax. Alice could see why the Potters loved living here so much; the forest was so soothing and reassuring, but still… this section of the forest, so close to the drop off to the north gave her the chills. But then a noise zapped Alice out of her trance.

She swiftly looked up and looked around, "I think I heard something."

Austen smiled, "Man, Hugo and Ben are good, I can't believe they are already this close, come on let's get ready, I don't want to get caught that easily." He stood up and looked around as well, "Ok, let's just starts walking, maybe they haven't seen us yet."

Alice started walking with Austen in the lead, but then something stopped her from moving and she looked up. There was a blinding white light surrounding her that created a cone shape that pointed towards the sky, and it wasn't coming from any spell.

"Austen wait, what's happening? What is this?" Alice yelled. Austen turned around, and his eyes got wide and he tightened the grip on his wand.

"Alice! Are you Ok? Are you doing that?"

"No!" Alice yelled. She slowly started to walk towards the white wall that wasstarting to look like a hologram; she reached out her right hand and tapped the surface trying to see if she could get through it, but where she had hit it a ripple that was like water spread across the smooth surface revealing a solid impenetrable wall. Alice tried that two more times before giving up. She looked around and she could feel herself slowly getting lighter "Austen help!"

"OK, stand back!" Austen yelled as he pointed his wand, "Reducto!" The entire wall shook as the spell collided with it, causing Alice to extend both of her arms to keep her balance and nearly fall down. She put both of her hands against the barrier now, trying to get through, but couldn't. She took a few steps back and decided to cast a spell, "Stuplify," but still couldn't break through.

Alice screamed, "Austen help!" She fell to her knees and started to grab the ground, she could feel herself starting to become air born now. After a few seconds the grass that Alice was hanging on to ripped and she got dragged a good ten feet up into the air.

"Alice no, uh… try to apparate!" Alice closed her eyes and let her body go limp so that she could concentrate as much as possible, now wasn't the time to mess up and apparition…. She felt her head fall back so that it was facing the sky and her body was completely vertical, she figured that what Austen was seeing probably looked pretty demonic. "Just relax and focus on where I'm standing." Alice took a deep breath as she tried to apparate, but when she opened her eyes, she was still inside of the wall of white light, slowly floating towards who knows what.

"I can't!" Alice yelled down at Austen, he looked just as terrified as she felt. But Alice just realized that now she couldn't move, and she was now starting to rise faster. "Austen!"

"Alice, I… I don't know what to do! How can this be happening… what is going on? Alice!" Austen yelled up at her. "Reducto! Stuplify! Expelliamus!" Austen fired every spell he could think of, but none of them worked.

"Austen, I-" But what Alice was saying was cut off by her scream as a bolt of lightning came down and ran through her, causing her to lose consciousness almost instantly.

"Alice!" Austen yelled as she was lifted up through the clouds in a blink of an eye. Austen didn't move until the light had not been seen for at least thirty seconds, then hi fell to the ground with his head in his hands, he just sat there for two minutes until somebody else's cries got his attention.

"JAMES!" Austen recognized Greta's voice; he looked up towards the house only to see the same white light, and then a few minutes later the flash of lightning. Five minutes later he saw it over the house once again, this time with Lily being caught, and once again three minutes later, only this time Austen saw a flash of bleach blonde get lifted up into the sky, Scorpius. Austen knew that he hated him, but he still felt sorry for him, what had just happened to the four of the?, Austen finally relaxed, or, he relaxed as much as he could with the situation given, and started walking back to the house after not seeing the light for at least ten minutes. He met up with Greta, Rose, and Gary, who had seen the light too. Austen told them what happened to Alice, he already knew that the same thing had happened to James, Lily, and Scorpius; they quickly found the others to tell them the news.

About two hours later, around one in the morning was when Harry and Ginny got home. At first they were very angry about why everyone was still here since the deal had been that they would be allowed to have a party if everyone had left by midnight, but when they saw the looks on everyone's faces they stopped and asked them what happened, but they had a hard time believing them.