Love will last, even if you've been waiting for it for a long time.
Pairings: James Potter/Lily Evans
Ratings: Will be M
Summery: The summer before 7th year as seen through both Lily and James's eyes up till they fall in love and till they'll meet their faithful end. There will be lots of romance and some drama.
A/N: Don't own anything, just the plot.
The start of the summer.
In a town, streets littered with garbage and a dirty river running through it were several similar brick houses. To the people who had never been there it looked like a sad little town to live in. There was a disused mill with a chimney which was the only real recognizable thing in town. Every street looked the same and even though it was almost afternoon on a Saturday some shops remained closed due to recent burglaries. In one of the houses, red bricked like all the others was a 17 year old girl still sleeping in her bed. She lay sprawled out, her right leg out of the covers, hair everywhere and her mouth was slightly open. Every once in a while she would snore. The bedroom door that she forgot to close properly yesterday was pushed open by her shabby cat Jitters. Jitters meowed, but realized nothing happened. She jumped on top of the covers and lay down. Lily being awoken by the sudden feeling of something jumping on her back opened her eyes.
"Morning Jitters."
Jitters purred and bumped her nose against Lily's, greeting her. Lily looked at her alarm clock and jumped out of bed. Jitters jumped after her and looked at her funnily.
Lily laughed. "Sorry Jitters, didn't realize it was this late." She quickly changed her clothes and brushed her hair. Applied some mascara and blush and brushed her teeth.
She walked down stairs and saw her father sitting behind his desk writing something on a paper and checking his book. Her mother was nowhere in sight, neither was her sister. She went up to him and gave him a kiss on his cheek. "Morning daddy."
"Morning sleepyhead." He gave her half is bagel that was sitting untouched near his book. "Did you sleep well after such a long train ride yesterday."
Lily smiled and while answering poured some water in the kettle and put it on the stove. Even though she was off age, she knew her sister wouldn't appreciate her using magic and while she was not here right now she would have to get used to the muggle way again.
"Yes I did, I usually don't sleep in so late. The whole school year must have been more tiresome than I thought." She took a bite of her bagel and sat down, waiting for her hot water to be ready.
"You know, you could use your magic around me." He said realizing she was using the kettle.
"I know daddy." She replied, giving him a sad smile.
"Where is mum?" She asked changing the subject.
"At the grocery store. We're having a couple of people over, she wanted to get some stuff she forgot to get yesterday."He saw his daughter raising her eyebrows. "Just Vernon and his parents and sister. We still haven't met his parents and your mum really wanted you to be around when that happened. But you know your sister, she's a bit impatient and wanted to do it on the first day you were back. She wanted to do it yesterday, but we couldn't do that to you." He said smiling.
Lily grunted and rolled her eyes. "Great way to spend my first day back dad." The kettle gave a whistle and she got up from the wooden chair she was sitting on. She got a cup out of the cupboard and poured some hot water in it. She opened the refrigerator and got the milk and poured about one third in the cup. She put the milk back in the fridge and closed it with her foot. She opened the cupboard again to get the sugar, but it wasn't there. She opened another door and again saw no sugar. "Dad, where is the sugar?" She turned around and saw her dad grimace.
"We don't have any. Your sister convinced your mother that sugar is bad for you, so we only have sweetener." He made a face again and went back to writing.
Lily's brows furrowed and lips scowled. She opened the cupboard again and saw the box with sweetener and added some in her tea. She took a sip and made a face again. But her scowl quickly turned in to a grin. She placed her cup on the side table and ran upstairs to her room. Next to her bed was her 10 ΒΌ wand made out of willow, it was a bit swishy. According to Mr. Olliviander it was good for charms. Which was why she needed it right now. She ran down stairs again and muttered a spell under her breath pointing and swishing it towards her cup of tea. She quickly took a sip again and sighed.
"What did you do sweetheart?" He amusingly asked his youngest daughter.
Lily grinned at her father. "Just changed the sweetener for sugar." She replied nonchalantly.
Her father stood up and handed her his cup of coffee. "Could you do that for me?" He asked her humorously. Lily pointed her wand at his cup and did exactly the same as before. Her father tried his coffee and had a big smile. "I love magic." He replied. Lily smiled glad she was back at home for the summer, although she was already missing her friends and Hogwarts.
Her mother came home an hour later, Lily was in the garden reading Most Potente Potions by Phinias Bourne, this book was usually in the restricted area of the Hogwarts library. But because she was excellent at potions and Professor Slughorn thought so highly of her, he gave her this book to study for over the summer. Some of the potions in this book were dangerous, and the professor told her that she wasn't allowed to try out the most dangerous ones back home (he gave her a list with the forbidden potions), but he encouraged her to write down why the ingredients in the potions are dangerous to use and to see how some potions are very complex to make. She couldn't wait to start reading, so the first moment she got she started.
"Hey darling." Her mother said coming outside holding two sandwiches. Lily looked up from her book and placed her bookmark between the two pages. She closed it and dropped it next to her. She held out her hand and grabbed one of the sandwiches. "Thanks mum." She took a bite and moaned. "I've missed your sandwiches and cooking mum." She explained when she saw her mother looking at her funnily. "Don't get me wrong, I love the food we get at Hogwarts, but nothing beats the food you make." She said while taking another bite.
Her mother sniffed and gave her youngest daughter a small smile. "I've missed you so much Lils." Her mother got up from her chair and sat next to Lily on the lounge chair. She put her arm around her and squeezed her a bit. "And I'm sorry we have to do this dinner tonight. I just wanted to spend some quality time with you and hear about everything you've learned and done so far at that wonderful school of yours. But I guess we have tomorrow to do that and of course right now." She gave her daughter kiss on the cheek.
Lily swallowed her last bite and shrugged. "No worries mum, we've got a couple of months to catch up before I start my final year."
"That's true." Her mother said smiling. Her smile soon became a full grin. "So any boys we should know about?" She asked.
"Mum!" Lily blushing. "No boys." She exclaimed quickly.
Her mother wasn't done teasing her. "You sure there is no handsome wizard that catches your fancy?"Lily looked horrified right about now.
"No!" Lily wasn't able to look her mother in the eyes.
"What about that boy you used to rant about, I noticed that you call him by his first name now. What happened to Potter." She asked light-heartedly
Lily's cheeks were pink before, but now the colour was closer to a red tomato. "N..nothing is going on." She stuttered. "We've become friendly. He matured a bit. So he isn't the annoying twerp he used to be." She told her mother.
"Sure dear." Her mother said raising her eyebrows. She noticed her daughters eyes lit up the moment she mentioned his name. And the last time she saw her daughter this red was when she was 10 years old and accidently (or it might have been magic) poured an entire glass of red wine over an woman that was yelling at her 7 year old son in a restaurant. She was calling her son dumb and stupid. Lily got angry and the next thing they knew the woman's silk blouse was covered in red wine. She yelled at Lily, which made her father very angry at the woman. Lily cried after that, told her parents she didn't even know she did it, or how. Her parents weren't angry with her and her father actually told her that the woman deserved it, but she couldn't tell her mother, it was their little secret. Of course Lily's mother Dahlia knew about it but kept her mouth shut.
"What time are the Dursley's coming?
"At around 6 O'clock." Her mother replied.
"Alright, I'll be back around 5. I'm going out for a walk." She gave her mother a kiss on the cheek to let her know she wasn't angry with her.
Lily grabbed a small bag from her room and grabbed some muggle money, just in case she wanted to buy something. She also made sure she had some Galleons and Knuts if she decided to apparate somewhere where she would need money from the wizarding world. She ran downstairs gave her father yet another kiss on the cheek and went out the front door.
Meanwhile in a small community in West England was a wizarding town called Godric's Hollow. The residential streets are lined with quaint cottages and there is a small church. The street leading up to that church is called Church Lane and a lot of commotion is happening in one of the bigger houses.
Bang! A window is blown to bits. "Shit! Dad is going to kill us!" A bespectacled teenager with wild unruly black hair told his friend.
The friend a 5 foot 9 and a half, thin boy with longish black hair and grey eyes. He was smirking at his best friend. "Who says he'll kill us, Prongs. I could just use my charm and innocence and I'll be off the hook." He said smugly.
James was about to reply when a deep voice from behind them answered. "You innocent, I don't think so." James' father a man in his mid 60 told them amusedly. "How many times must I tell you boys not to throw a quaffle inside the house. We've got a big field for you boys to do anything you like, but you insist on staying indoors." James and Sirius looked at Mr. Potter sheepishly.
"But because I'm obviously not going to kill you, you're both being punished by doing chores." Both Sirius and James groaned. "You brought this on yourself boys." He laughed. Mr. Potter pointed his wand at the window and muttered Reparo. He turned his attention back to the mischievous boys. "Chores without wands, hand them in." He said holding out his hand.
James' eyes widened. "But father, that's not fair." He responded childishly.
His father merely laughed. "Don't be such a child James, your off age. Tell you what if you boys degnome the garden. I might give them back early. Maybe a bit of competition won't hurt. You know whoever got the most gnomes wins." James and Sirius looked at each other smirking. A bit of competition wouldn't hurt.
"Alrighty Mr. P. You can count on us." He and James scrambled out of the living room and went to the backyard.
When both boys got outside their eyes widened again. The yard was full of gnomeholes. "I hate him." James groaned.
Sirius flashed James half a smile. "We best get to it. Wish I had a spare wand though." James nodded and walked to the right, Sirius walked to the left.
"How do you propose we do it without cheating." James asked his best friend.
Sirius pondered for a bit. "I got it! Do you have some sort of coloured tape in the house." James raised his eyebrow. "We could, I don't know tie some tape around their legs or arm, both different colours of course and we'll count afterwards."
James laughed. "That sounds like a plan. Although I don't think they would like that very much. We would have to hold them longer than necessary and they would certainly bite. I don't fancy having gnomesalavia on me mate."
"Fine, got a better idea."
James gave him his infamous grin. "Of course. We'll just work side by side and count out loud. Easy, right." Sirius frowned at him but nodded.
"Alright Prongs." Sirius walked over to James and squatted down. "Ready?" James squatted down as well. "On the count of three." "One." Sirius began. "Two." James said next. "Three." They both yelled.
Sirius was the first to grab a thick and ugly looking gnome. "Gerroff me." The gnome yelled. "No can do." Sirius grabbed hit by its leg and swung it around. He threw it over the hedge and yelled "ONE!"
James frowned. He looked to his left and saw one of the gnomes poking its ugly head out of one of the holes. Before he got to it he heard Sirius yell "Two!"
"Shit!" James quickly grabbed the gnome. "Ouch!" he yelled when the gnome bit him in his left thumb. He grabbed the gnome by the ankle and swirled it around. "One!" He yelled reluctantly.
"Three!" he heard Sirius yell. James saw two gnomes sticking their heads out of the hole to his right. "Great, just what I need!" He grabbed them both by the ankle and swirled them both around. "Two and three!" Sirius looked around and saw two gnomes flying over the hedge.
"It's on Potter!" James smirked. "You bet it is!"
Inside the house Mr. and Mrs. Potter looked outside the window and smiled. "They're such wonderful boys, don't you think." Norena Potter said to her husband. "I think they've matured a bit. I'm glad they can enjoy themselves still. With the war closing in on us, I'm afraid it won't be much longer before they have to grow up completely." He said grimly.
Norena sighed. "I'm afraid he has to grow up even quicker. When are we planning on telling him, well them really." Harold Potter grabbed his wife's hand and kissed it. "Soon, I promise. Let them be teenagers for a bit longer."
James' parents stood there for a little while longer and both retreated to the den. An hour and a half later both boys came back inside looking dirty. One of them looked defeated and the other looked smug. "Let me guess. Sirius won." Harold Potter laughed.
"He cheated. He threw one of the gnomes at my face." Both parents, including Sirius laughed.
"It wasn't on purpose mate. It just slipped. Besides I beat you by ten. So minus the one that slipped I still won." James smiled.
"Here boys, as promised." Harold gave both boys their respective wands back.
"Boys, your father and are going to the city. Get some new clothes for one of the upcoming party's. We'll be back before dinner." Norena gave both of them a hug. "Try to stay out of trouble." She added.
James and Sirius both nodded. "Padfood let's play some Quidditch in the wonderfully degnomed garden."
"Sure Prongs, I'll just go grab my broom. I'll get yours. You'll get the quaffle from the frontdoor." James nodded and went his way.
Both boys played some one on one Quidditch for hours.
So this is the first chapter. It's not that long, but I want to know if people actually like this before I continue posting more chapters.
If you have any feedback or comments, please review. I try to stay cannon, so if you find something that is not accurate, please tell me!
Next will be about the big family dinner with the Dursleys and more adventures happening with James and Sirius, maybe some Remus and Peter as well.
Thanks! X Tanja88