A/N: AHHHHHHH! I'M SORRY! (I'll stop yelling now.) I really meant to get this up faster. No, I really did! It took a while to edit the entire prequel (and in doing so, I realized that the names for these fics are kinda lame…but I couldn't think of better ones so oh, well). Anyway, here's the first chapter…I hope you can remember what happened in the last fic…::hangs head in shame::

Disclaimer: Really, you should ask yourself this: If I owned Harry Potter, why would I be writing fanfiction?

Dedicated to absolutely anyone at all who put up with the wait and is bothering to read this…you are awesome beyond words.

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One Last Hope

Chapter 22: Pancakes and Lemonade

Amy ran flat out up the stairs, and upon reaching the top, grabbed the rail to swing herself around the corner, before racing down the hall, her heart pounding at a volume to match her thundering footsteps. She launched herself at a door, yanked it open and threw herself inside the closet, slamming the door behind just as her pursuer came around the corner.

The red-haired girl tried her best to keep her breathing quiet, even though she was gasping for air. She heard slow, purposeful footsteps start to come down the hall and she instantly froze, though she was afraid the pounding of her heart would give her away.

She quickly pressed herself into the shadows as the handle slowly turned before the door was thrust open, but as she looked up at the tall, ominous figure, she knew he could see her and her breath caught.

"Found you!" the figure yelled as he lunged at her.

"Brak!" Amy made a peculiar sound reminiscent of a parrot as she dived under her would-be captor's outstretched arms and rolled onto the carpet behind him.

"Hey, get back here!" he shouted, but Amy had already scrambled to her feet and was hurling herself through the house once more.

"Not this way!"

Amy nearly collided with the very petite figure of the girl who came racing up the stairs.

"Why - ?" Amy began to ask, but she was cut off as the other girl grabbed her arm and threw her out of the path of a second pursuer.

"Ha! You can't run, that's a dead end!" called one of the fast approaching figures behind them.

Amy turned to her best friend. "He's got a point, you know."

"Oh, shut up, it's not over yet!" Erin replied fiercely.

Unfortunately, at that moment, the wall came crashing into them…and so did their pursuers.

"Now it's over," teased one of them, grabbing Erin and carrying her away, upside down.

"Oh, no you don't!"

Erin fought to free herself the whole way down the stairs, but her captor hardly seemed to notice.

"You think you could hurt me?" he asked casually. "You're a toothpick."

"Shut up!"

Amy went a little more willingly with her own captor instead of fighting a losing battle, and thus was able to be carried bridle-style, which she had discovered was much more comfortable to be put through than the way Erin was currently dangling.

"Ha! We've won again!" announced Amy's captor upon arriving in the kitchen. He set Amy down on a chair, where she pouted playfully.

"No fair! You're twice my size!"

"And three times Erin's," the other boy teased, dropping his captive suddenly. "That's, what, every single game we've won now?"

Erin just glared at him from her awkward position on the floor.

Just then, an older, friendly looking blond woman entered, smiling cheerfully. "Who's up for pancakes?"

"Me!" Erin exclaimed, jumping off the floor, her previous mood forgotten.

"Your brothers hunted you down again, I see," Erin's mother smiled as her daughter started to invade the fridge, looking for whipping cream.

"But they're twice our size," Amy pointed out again. "Don't you think that gives them an unfair advantage?"

"Absolutely," Erin's mother replied, smiling down fondly at their latest houseguest.

Amy turned to stick her tongue out at the brothers in question, but they just sneered in response.

After getting off the train four weeks earlier, Amy had gone home with Erin, feeling nervous and out of place, as though she was imposing on her best friend's entire family. However, those feelings had completely evaporated within the next three days. Everyone in the household had accepted her as one of their own immediately, so that now Amy rummaged through their cupboards, forgot to remove her shoes when she put her feet up on the couch and stole pens without ever putting them back, just as though she were an annoying cousin who was visiting – but she only did these things because they treated her the same. They got to the shower before her, borrowed her things without asking, and stole her carefully horded pens. She loved every minute of it.

They could never substitute for her own family, of course, but they all seemed like cousins and an aunt and uncle. She would often feel slight twinges of guilt when she realised that she had more fun with Erin's family that she could remember having with her own in a long time. Especially since her mum had said she couldn't go back home…

"Pancake, Amy?" Erin's mother, who now insisted Amy call her Aunt Sheryl, held a pancake in front of her via spatula, effectively cutting short her funny face duel with Erin's brothers.

"Oh, yes please!" Amy squealed.

"Want some syrup, Amy?" asked Jon innocently. He was the older of the brothers, though not the tallest, and had brown hair that was very short, and as a result, Amy had discovered, it was very difficult to pull.

"Oh, no, I'm not falling for that again," replied Amy, who had not quite managed to suppress the memory of how extremely difficult it was to get maple syrup out of long hair.

"Oh, come on, like we'd pull the same stunt twice," remarked Eric, the taller, blonder brother.

"Oh, yes you would!" exclaimed Erin. "Like that time when-"

"Alright then, how about we play some Quidditch today?" asked Eric quickly, effectively muffling the voice of his sister. He was not exactly the sort of person who cared about subtlety.

"Quidditch? Can we really even call it that?" Amy asked teasingly.

The Waters had a fair sized backyard with a fence all the way around it, where Erin and her brothers had been playing Quidditch since the age of about three. Their mother had put a magical barrier around the yard so that their Muggle neighbours wouldn't notice anything, but it also meant that they could only fly within that constricted area. There was also the fact that the family didn't have the right Quidditch balls. Footballs (supplied by Erin's dad, who was determined to teach his kids Muggle sports as well) substituted for Quaffles, and foam balls of every sort were used instead of Bludgers (which had been banned by Mrs. Waters). None of these balls were enchanted in any way, so it was rather hard to unseat opponents with them when only armed with a baseball bat. The only real Quidditch ball was the Snitch, which Erin had been given for her eleventh birthday.

"Oh, you know you love it," Eric teased her back. But it was true – their way of playing (with no rules whatsoever) was just about as fun as real Quidditch looked.

"We may not play by official standards, but how would you know the difference?" Jon chimed in. "You've never even played real Quidditch."

Amy's only response was to stick her tongue out. She had been pulling a lot of faces since she had come to Erin's house.

"Oh, Amy dear," called Mrs. Waters from the stove, where yet more pancakes were flipping at increasingly frequent intervals, "Have you heard back from Tomas yet?"

"Yup," replied Amy, her mouth full. She swallowed. "He's dealing okay with me not being there, and he's really exited to see if he'll get a letter from Hogwarts this year."

"How's Tara?" asked Erin. Amy knew her friend felt guilty for keeping her away from her Muggle best friend all summer.

"She's okay," Amy nodded. "After all, you did let me spend a week at her house, and she understands that I er – can't go home."

"What'd you tell her?" asked Jon quietly.

"Mum's renovating the house," Amy replied, not looking up from her plate. It was still a sore subject for her. But as Mrs. Waters had said, it was pretty shocking to be thrown out of your own home.

Just then, I giant pile of feathers fell on Amy's plate, effectively distracting her.

"It's Dustbunny!" Erin squealed, pulling the now-sticky owl off Amy's ruined plate.

And indeed it was. Dustbunny was the largest and most appropriately named owl Amy had ever met, as it had so many fluffy feathers you could hardly tell it was an owl at all.

Amy stuffed her hand into the mass of feathers and grabbed hold of a leg. She undid a bit of string and pulled her arm back out, a letter clasped tightly in her hand.

"Who's it for? Who's it from?" Erin asked Amy, getting her elbows in the remnants of Amy's pancakes as she looked over her friend's shoulder.

Amy looked at the address and smiled as she recognised the handwriting. "It's from Harry!"

"Really? Well, come on then!" Erin grabbed Amy by the sleeve and dragged her up the stairs and off to her bedroom, as was customary whenever Harry wrote.

"Honestly, you'd think they had nothing better to do all summer," Jon muttered as Eric rolled his eyes after the fleeing girls.

That was, in fact, not at all the reason that Amy looked forward to Harry's letters so much. The mere fact that he was remembering to write and not forgetting her in his misery was reason enough to be happy, but it also made her feel that, despite all the things she wasn't allowed to know, she was still connected. It felt good to not be shut out completely.

"Dear, Amy," Amy recited to Erin, who she suspected only got this excited to humour her. "I'm still at Ron's. And no, I can't tell you what the big news is, I'm sure Ron will want the pleasure of telling you him – ow – okay, maybe not, but still…it's a surprise."

Erin groaned.

"There's really not much going on around here right now, though. We're still playing Quidditch, Ron's getting better but Hermione still sucks, and we all wish we could see you play. All right…that's mostly me, but still. We're just waiting for our O.W.L. results to come in, I'll let you know how I did the second Hermione stops either congratulating me or pestering me (if it's the latter, then, well, never). Hope you're all well over at Erin's, and give my best to Erin and Nick. Where is he, by the way?"

"Still on vacation with his family," Erin recited, as though she had to answer this question frequently.

"Your completely-fine-so-stop-asking-me cousin, Harry."

"Not one for sentimentalities is he?" commented Erin.

"I guess not," replied Amy, folding up the letter and stuffing it into the side pocket of her trunk (which was still splayed out on Erin's bedroom floor) where she had stashed all of his other ones.

"What're you gonna write back?" asked Erin, flopping onto her mattress as Amy dug around in her trunk for a quill, some ink and parchment.

"Donno," Amy replied, smiling. "But I think I'm going to brag about how much fun I'm having," she continued, thinking about her cousin's complaint on being asked if he was okay. "Dear Completely Fine….."

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Amy's summer vacation turned out to be much more eventful than any of her past ones. And although she had a lot of fun, what with playing "Quidditch", having pillow fights with Erin every other night, and an incident that involved her nearly falling out of the tree in the yard she had tried to climb, Amy's good mood was often punctuated by the reports of random attacks and mysterious disappearances that would come to the family via newspaper, the Wizard Wireless or Erin's mother, who worked in the Improper Use of Magic Office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry.

However, everyone had made a valiant effort to lighten the mood on August 7th, the day of an attack, to celebrate Amy's birthday. The Waters had put up streamers and balloons, set off a few of Fred and George's fireworks, and made her a gigantic cake decorated like a smiley face.

"I designed it," Erin announced proudly as the cake was set in front of Amy.

"I would never have guessed," Amy replied sarcastically.

"Make a wish, hun," encouraged Mrs. Waters.

Amy thought for a moment. I wish Voldemort would explode into a pile of harmless dust. Then she blew out the candles to general applause.

"And here," said Mr. Waters, or Uncle Charles, as Amy now called him, coming forward with a wrapped package, "Is your present."

"Wah," Amy breathed, as the rather large package was placed in front of her.

"It's from all of us," Jon explained.

"Well, open it!" exclaimed Erin, as Amy just sat there, admiring the wrapping.

"Oh! Right," she said quickly, and ripped it off eagerly, her heart stopping as she saw what it concealed. "Oh, my…." Amy trailed off in wonder as she gazed at the magnificent new broom in front of her.

"Happy Birthday, hun!" cheered Mrs. Waters.

"It's a Cleansweep Eleven, just like Ron has," Erin explained, as Amy discovered the same thing by examining the handle.

"Oh, guys…" Amy trailed off, not quite knowing what to say. "You shouldn't have," she finished lamely.

"Don't be silly, it was our pleasure," admonished Mr. Waters, smiling.

"Besides, you're going to need a decent broom to have any hope of getting on your house team," added Eric.

"Well," said Amy, picking up the broom gingerly. It was vibrating, as though eager to fly for the first time. "I still don't know if I'll…Can I try it out?" her thought changed mid sentence; the eagerness of the broom was contagious.

"Yeah," cried Erin enthusiastically. "Let's play a game right now!"

As Eric and Jon nodded, Amy grasped the broom tightly, already feeling quite attached to it. And then suddenly her joy exploded.

"Thanks, you guys!" she exclaimed, pulling each and every one of them into a massive group hug. Then Jon and Eric were picking her up, and the family was heading to the yard, Erin bouncing and skipping with glee.

Then one morning, instead of waking to the sounds of general ruckus and occasional minor explosions, Amy woke because of the combined effort of the sunshine streaming through Erin's window and the melodies issuing from numerous birds outside said window.

"Whaaaa?" yawned Amy, rubbing her eyes and sitting up groggily. She blinked confusedly around the room, slowly taking in her surroundings, wondering why she felt so rested. Then it dawned on her and she felt a wave of horror wash over her; she had slept in.

Launching herself off the bed, Amy grabbed a random sweater (that probably belonged to Erin) and shoved it on as she clambered down the stairs. She stumbled into the kitchen and brought herself, panting, to an abrupt halt just before the table, where the Waters family sat gathered around the Prophet, all clutching mugs of hot cocoa in their hands.

Amy slid silently into the chair that had become "her chair" over the summer and automatically accepted her own mug of cocoa from Mrs. Waters. "Thanks Aunt Sheryl," she managed passed the barrier that was forming in her throat. She coughed slightly, trying to get rid of the sticky feeling on her suddenly dry tongue. A quiet morning in the Waters household could only mean one thing. "What's happened?"

"More Dementor attacks down in London," replied Mr. Waters sombrely, glancing at the Prophet, which lay folded in the centre of the table. "And one in Hogsmeade. A few people were kissed, and a Honeydukes employee died…Hubert Quinton I think was his name…"

"I knew him," murmured Jon, looking steadily into his lukewarm cocoa. "I used to see him in the Three Broomsticks after work."

They were all silent for a while, until Erin pulled the Prophet toward her and leafed through it as though searching for something that would distract her. Amy just stared out the mist-filled window, clutching her mug and letting the steam from her cocoa warm her face.

Despite the chill of that morning, the afternoon soon became hot as the sun peered briefly through its curtain of clouds. Mrs. Waters made lemonade for everyone after they all came back from the backyard thoroughly exhausted from playing Muggle football with Mr. Waters, who had insisted that they not levitate the ball.

"Thank you!" Erin chirped at her mother before gulping down her glass of lemonade. Amy followed suit. No sooner had she finished the last drop than she was swept off her feet, and the next thing she knew, she was dangling by her ankle, looking up (or down, from her point of view) at Jon's smirk.

"You let your guard down," he chuckled down at her.

Amy grumbled something along the lines of, "Always testing me…."

"Hey!" yelled Erin's familiar voice, and next thing she knew, Amy's head was right-way-up again, and she found herself playing the rope in a tug-of-war.

"Now, now everyone, let's all calm down," came the unconvincing voice of Erin's other brother, coming from a direction in which Amy's head couldn't quite turn. By the time he was close enough for Amy to see, Eric was mercilessly tickling her sides, making her laugh uncontrollably.

"Oh, dangit…. Amy, I can't save you from both at the same time!" cried Erin, trying to kick Eric without letting go of Amy's hands. "Hey mum! Dad!"

But her parents were too busy making great efforts not to laugh.

"Clearly I missed something."

Everyone froze at the new voice, then slowly turned their heads towards the living room. Amy craned her neck, hoping to see the person that would match the familiar voice.

"Hi," greeted Nick from the doorway.

"Oops," apologized Amy as best she could from her current position. "We sorta forgot you were coming."

"Gee, that just makes me feel all warm inside," replied Nick sarcastically, brushing soot off his jumper. Clearly he had just arrived by Floo Powder.

"Nick!" cried Erin suddenly, sprinting forward and letting go of Amy, who let out an indignant "HEY!" as she swung towards the floor (luckily Jon was holding her high enough so that she merely swung helplessly back and forth).

Erin grabbed Nick by the shoulders, which was quite an amazing feat, seeing as he had grown quite a bit over the summer and she had remained as short as ever. "You're on our team!"

"What?" inquired Nick, caught between amusement and bewilderment.

"They're ganging up on us, look!" Erin pointed to where Amy was dangling, her face becoming redder and redder as the blood rushed to it.

"Oh, no!" said Eric warningly, taking a threatening step towards his sister. "Nick has to be on our team. That way it's boys against girls."

"No way!" Erin argued back. "You guys already have the advantage!"

"So?" said Jon, watching as Amy continued to swing like a pendulum.

"What are you talking about?" asked Nick.

"Every once in a while Erin's brothers like to play their favourite game of Capture the Silly Girls, which is a reference to…well, us," explained Amy, finally coming to a stand-still (or, rather, a hang-still).

"Oh," said Nick, a rather evil-looking smile spreading across his face. "Well, that does sound fun…"

Amy tried to twist her neck around to glare at Nick, but by the time she did, there was a splash, and Amy found herself looking at a lemonade-soaked Nick, who was turning exasperatedly to Erin, whose hand was holding an empty glass still aimed straight at him.

Nick let out an over-exaggerated sigh. "I guess I'm on the girl's team…"

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A/N: Whoohoo! First chapter posted! Although I'm currently planning, like 23 chapters for this fic…um, anyway! Please review to let me know what you think, fell free to berate me for my lack of updating. Once again…terribly sorry about that.

A shout goes out to Lady Jarine for all her support, and to please finish my birthday surprise!