A boat slid toward the castle gates, its passengers unknown. And yet, they were passed through without inspection, without hesitation. They alighted from the boat; pushing it off to the side and watching it sail down the water's rapids, as if they had no plans to return to wherever they came from. They rapped on the giant door, and a man with a long silver beard answered. He smiled, his bright blue eyes glinting behind his half-moon spectacles.

"Wonderful," he breathed. "Right on time."

The two people nodded their heads low, and followed the headmaster into the castle, their steps echoing on the stone floor. The headmaster waved his hand toward a doorway.

"Right through here, gentlemen," he uttered, and the men stepped through with a pause at the foot of one of the four poster beds with red and gold draperies. They stared at the bed, and then nodded to each other, slipping a note under the mattress. They then turned to the headmaster and smiled.

"Everything is prepared. He will find it as soon as he enters Hogwarts."

The headmaster smiled. "Yes. I have no doubt that he will."

The men left just as quickly as they arrived, by disappearing on the spot. Dumbledore stood in the doorway of the castle for a moment, before nodding to himself and entering back into the Great Hall. His eyes fell upon one 6th year student, and knew that this was the year that would change his life completely. He stared upon the lightening bolt on Harry Potter's forehead, and thought about the note his son would receive in due time.

Present Day

A young girl with red hair stood in the center of a room. Four red and gold four poster beds stood at every corner, and trunks were open at the foot of each, displaying an impressive amount of books and clothes folded in neat piles. A book lay on the top of the made bed the girl was standing in front of. Nothing should have been odd about this room, and nothing was- if you were a wizard, that is. If you were a Muggle, however, you would find it odd that the girl was holding a slender stick, and making a very fluffy pillow float in mid-air.

But it was not odd at Hogwarts. And this was no ordinary thirteen-year-old girl; this girl went by the name of Lily Potter.

The door behind her opened, and she turned in surprise, her red hair streaming behind her.

A girl with jet black hair and sapphire blue eyes, by the name of Katie Chang, was peaking around the door. She smiled sweetly at Lily and said,

"Lily, your brother is looking for your. Says he wants to tell you something."

Lily put down her wand and sighed. "Thanks, Katie. Which one?"

Katie looked out the door for a second, sighed, and then responded, "Albus. Dunno what he wants, though."

Lily nodded, sighing a little at Katie's clipped tones. She was never one for complete sentences, that girl. She pushed open the heavy door of the Gryffindor common room and strode out into the corridor, thankful that at least it wasn't James who was calling her. With James, you never knew if he was calling you for a prank, or for copying your Potions essay. With Al, at least, Lily was sure that it wouldn't be a prank.

Lily picked out her brother from the crowds of people immediately. He wasn't hard to find- both he and James looked like their father, but Albus's eyes were so green that Lily could see them at the other end of the corridor. And that was a long ways away.

Lily smiled at her older brother. "Did you need something? Sorry it took me so long- I was talking to Katie for a second."

Albus leaned close to his sister, and whispered, "Have you talked to James at all this past week?"

Lily shook her head. "No," she said, confused as to why he was whispering. "Should I have? I mean, I talk to him enough at home as it is. One week surely won't kill him."

Albus rolled his eyes. "No, Lily!" he said gruffly, obviously irritated by her lack of seriousness. But, honestly, how could she be serious when Albus was acting so weird?

"Well, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that I've hardly seen hide or hair of him since last weekend at the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff. Don't you think that's weird?"

Lily laughed and prodded his arm. "Don't you think that not seeing him for a week is a positive thing, Al? After all, he tends to pick on you a lot."

Albus jerked away from her. "Yeah, but I just think it's weird. He hasn't even been to any of his classes! I know because I asked Will, and he said he hadn't been there all week! James may be a prankster, but he NEVER misses classes! Never!"

Lily sighed again. "Al, really. Whatever is going on is James's business. I don't think you should get involved. He probably has a good reason for not going to classes."

Albus looked astounded at Lily's lack of caring. His green eyes widened, and he leaned in close again.

"Lily, don't you get it? Mum will be furious with him if she finds out! He has his O.W.L.'s this year! And in her letters she keeps asking us about James because he hasn't written in a while, and what am I supposed to do? LIE?"

"That's what I'd do," Lily replied, ignoring her older brother's shocked look. Just because Albus always played by the rules didn't mean that she had to. After all, what her mother didn't know wouldn't hurt her. She nodded again to her brother and said,

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm supposed to be working on my Charms homework."

She turned around and started walking back toward the porthole, but then stopped and gave her brother a fierce look.

"And don't meddle in this! It's none of your business!"

With those words, she re-entered the Gryffindor common room, not looking back again at her brother. But when she was safely away from Albus, she stopped and frowned. Albus did have a point. James's O.W.L.'s were this year, and they were fast approaching. Christmas was already on the way, and Lily knew that both her parents were expecting good marks from James.

Lily hurried up to her dormitory and grabbed her wand, abandoning her Charms homework. True, she was just going to figure out where James was, but knowing him, a wand would be pretty handy while talking to him, in case he tried to slip to her a product from Uncle George's still-running joke shop, which James visited often during their trips to Hogsmeade.

Lily thundered down the steps of the girls' dormitory, and looked around nervously before she ran up to the boys'. She was afraid that one of the prefects would spot her, as she was not allowed to enter the boys' dormitory for any reason.

She walked to James's room nervously, feeling paranoid as she glanced everywhere around her, praying that a prefect was not there. She had never been in the boys' dormitory before, and it made her edgy to think that she was somewhere she wasn't supposed to be. This kind of thing never fazed James- Lily knew that on several occasions, James had been in the girls' dormitory (for unknown reasons, but Lily suspected it was to pull pranks on the unsuspecting first year girls with his best friend Will).

Lily opened the door a crack, and found that the lights were off.

"James?" she whispered, opening the door wider. "James, it's me, Lily. Are you in here?"

Lily heard a muffled response, and she flicked the lights on. The noise had come from a messy heap of blankets on the floor. Lily crossed the room and pulled the blankets off of her eldest brother, grunting a little at his weight. James was lanky, yes, but he was also pure muscle, which was why he made a very fair Beater on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Plus, James had always had a certain fondness for hitting things with a bat.

"James, get UP!" Lily shouted finally, throwing the blankets on the bed and staring at her mess of a brother. He groaned and sat up, adjusting his long black hair so it would flatten. Lily frowned, imagining her mother standing there, yelling at him about needing a trim.

"What are you doin' here, Lils?" James muttered, and Lily winced, hating that nickname as usual. She shoved James and said,

"James! What are you thinking, skipping classes?! Mum will have your head if she finds out, and you know it!"

This seemed to get James's attention. He stood up in a hurry and flattened his hair again.

"Well, Mum's not going to find out, now is she?" he said flatly, his eyes piercing her. Lily frowned.

"I will tell her if you don't start attending classes!" she fired back, placing her hands on her hips and staring him down. It was easy to do this, because Lily was almost as tall as James, and that was saying something, since James was almost 6 feet tall.

James threw himself on his bed in a huff and groaned. "What's so great about classes, anyway?"

Lily gaped at him, clearly shocked. "Oh, I don't know, PASSING YOUR O.W.L.'S, MAYBE?!"

James raised an eyebrow. "Thanks for the information, Mum," he shot at her, glaring at her with his dark eyes. Lily sat next to him on his bed and frowned.

"Really, James," she said, softer this time. "You need to start coming to classes. What's wrong with you, anyway? You always go to classes!"

James shrugged, and started spinning his wand around and around in his hands. His wand was the only one out of the three children's wands which seemed to be similar to their father's. While Lily's wand was willow and dragon heartstring, and Albus's was yew and unicorn hair, James's was holly with a feather from a phoenix's head. It was so similar to Harry's that Lily sometimes wondered if that was done on purpose. She sometimes wondered even if the feather came from the same phoenix.

"I dunno," he finally said with a sigh. "Will says that the classes are a waste- that all we really need to know is all the stuff from our parents' pasts. So I've been hiding out here, reading up on it."

Lily gasped mockingly, and pressed her hand to her mouth. "James? READING? I didn't know those two things could ever be in a sentence!"

In response, James smacked her on the arm, but lightly, as he was obviously in a sullen mood. He stood up and walked to his desk, pointing to a stack of books all labeled with various things such as, Great Markings in Dark History, or A History of Dark Wizards. Lily sighed.

"James," she said, standing up and picking up a heavy book and flipping through the thick parchment pages. "Why don't you just send Dad a letter and ask him instead of reading up on all this junk? And how could you GET these books even? Aren't they in the restricted section?"

James nodded, shoving his nose in one of the books. "Yeah," he mumbled, his eyes flickering over the page. "But I asked Professor Gryffman for a permission slip because I said I wanted to read them for some extra credit."

Lily frowned. "Look, James, this is stupid, not attending classes because of something Will said. You need to promise me that you'll go to classes again. Otherwise Mum won't be pleased. Okay?"

Lily stuck out her hand for him to shake. He glanced warily at the hand, and Lily made a grunting noise. "PROMISE ME, James!"

"Fine, fine, I promise, I promise!" James announced, grabbing her hand and shaking it fiercely. "Anything to shut you up! But PLEASE don't write to Mum, okay?"

Lily nodded. "Fine. But only if you go to class tomorrow. And I'll know because I'll ask Will, mark my words."

"Fine. Whatever," James muttered, licking his thumb and turning the page. After a moment, he stopped reading and went to his bed, sighing as he tried to shove a sheet on it, and grumbling when Lily laughed in amusement. She crossed over and grabbed the sheet.

"Like THIS, James!" she said with a laugh, lifting the mattress up so she could slip a corner of the sheet underneath it. "Honestly, James, how have you gotten on? Hasn't Grandma ever taught you how to make a bed, because trust me, she made me take a crash course on it, something she likes to call 'Bed Making 101' and let me tell you- hey, what's that?"

James turned, now fully listening to what Lily had to say. She was holding up a folded piece of parchment that looked very yellow, ripped, and very old. The ink was faded in places, and smeared in others, but the words were still legible as far as Lily could see. She held it out to James.

"It's addressed to a Mr. Potter. And since you're the only Mr. Potter here…" She shoved it in his hands and waited, but James did not open it.

"What if it's not meant for me? What if it's for Al or… maybe even Dad? It looks old enough to be for him."

"Oh, shut up and read it," Lily said with a huff. "Are you James or not?"

James rolled his eyes, but followed his sister's words and untied the twine around the parchment. His eyes scanned the page, and his mouth fell open so wide that Lily thought that flies could nest in there.

"What does it say?" Lily asked, trying to peek over his shoulder, but he moved the parchment so she couldn't see it. "James, WHAT DOES IT SAY?"

James sat down hard on his unmade bed, his face obviously bewildered. Lily groaned.

"For Pete's sake, James. Tell me what it says!" Lily didn't mean to be nosy, really, but it was clear to her that whatever was written in the note had James's head reeling.

James gulped, and closed his eyes, breathing heavily. He opened them again, and said slowly,

"What does Dad always say about fighting You-Know-Who?"

Lily snorted. "Well, to start he says to always call him by his name. You know, Voldemort? And secondly, he says that it took a lot of guts, but he-''

James groaned, cutting her off. "NO, Lily!" he interrupted, sounding exasperated. "Fast forward to the wand Dad used to defeat him."

Lily frowned, obviously confused. What other wand would he use besides his own?

"His normal wand?" she asked uncertainly, not really understanding where James was going with this. James shook his head.

"Not according to this," he answered shakily, passing the parchment to Lily finally. She took it in her now-trembling hands, and her light brown eyes scanned the page, her finger drawing down a line on the paper.

The note was short, but plain and simple;

Dear Mr. Potter,

In order to learn about your future destiny, you must learn about the past. Your family's past, to be more specific. It will start with the Elder Wand, used by your father to defeat the Dark Lord. The wand is concealed in Professor Dumbledore's tomb at Hogwarts. Retrieve it, and your journey will start from there. Good luck, Mr. Potter.

The note was not signed. Lily's eyes were as wide as saucers as she looked up at James, who was silent and staring out the window. After a moment, he looked back at his sister's shell-shocked face, and said,

"Looks like Dad hasn't told us as much as we thought."