AN; so this is a sequel of sorts to Acceptance, though you don't need to have read that first, i would love it if you read it too :) you'll understand the references to his lycanthropy and her birthday gift more if you read that. I hope you enjoy 3

The roar in the distance, the earth shaking thump that followed, then followed by many more, always following the same pattern. Roar, thump, roar, thump. It was the sound that awoke her every night these days. Not because she was scared, on the contrary, she was excited. It could only mean one thing. Hatchlings. Tiny little baby dragons that the mother was protecting from other dragons as the shell cracked and split, tiny claws and tails emerging before, finally a head broke the shell completely and the new babies breathed their first puff of fire, or cried their first roar, trying to get their mothers attention. Yes, the sight really was something amazing to be observed. What came after it, was not so wonderful as the rest of the recruits on the reserve had to try pry the hatchlings away from the mother to do routine checks. One of which had only just been clubbed by a Hungarian horntail in the shoulder the day before, trying to do just that. Lily smiled thinking about how amazing dragons were. The miracle of birth happening right there in her own back yard. It reminded her of when she was younger and her god-brother Teddy Lupin had taken her to the tree house to show her a bird's nest that had resided there. The mother was out finding food whilst the two of them had watched one of the chicks hatch and start chirping almost immediately. The truly magical experience never truly left her, and here she was once again, dealing with much bigger, much more dangerous hatchlings.

Throwing off the covers and donning her flame-proof work wear she met her uncle Charlie out in the hall with a wide grin on her face. "The Chinese fire-ball?" Charlie nodded, looking just as excited as she was, the lines in his face becoming more pronounced as he smiled, but making him look ten years younger in spite of them. They rushed out the tiny house running towards the sanctuary at full speed, their smiles never faltering, even as they slowed when in seeing distance of the mother. "What should I do?" she whispered to her uncle, unsure of how to handle the sudden pressures. She had only observed before, but this time, she was going to be working hands on.

"Go towards the hatchlings and take them to the ranch as quickly as possible, I'll distract the mother. Don't forget to feed them! Josh will be there to help you out." Lily nodded, waiting for Charlie's signal before making the move, gathering the three babies together and leading them away with a piece of fresh meat she had summoned, running away, them chasing her, stumbling around a bit. She giggled with glee at her success, until one of the hatchlings caught up with her and tackled her to the ground, effectively maiming her arm. She pushed them away, levitating the piece of meat towards the ranch where the rest of the crew would check them over. She stood up, inspecting her arm. It was dripping with blood from a deep gash across her shoulder. She sighed knowing she couldn't see the wound to heal it so continued the small journey to the ranch.

Upon seeing her, Josh, her co-worker, ran over immediately, worry lacing his handsome features. "Oh gosh, Lils, what happened? I was just about to come find you when you didn't come back with the babies."

Lily shook her head as if it was nothing, secretly enjoying the attentions of Josh. "It's nothing, really. I just took my eye off them for a second and all of a sudden one of them was on me, after the meat in my hand. It was a stupid mistake. I know how the babies can get. I mean, look at Adam from his run in with the horntail." Josh chuckled softly with Lily instructing her to turn around so he could take a look at the wound. "How bad is it?" she asked when she heard him gasp.

He gulped softly. "Erm, it's not... bad per say. Just deep. But that isn't what I'm surprised at. When did you get a tattoo of a dragon on your back?"

Lily blushed a little. "I got it when I was seventeen, after I had spent my summer here with uncle Charlie. Sorry, I usually put a glamour charm on it. I know that you're not supposed to have them here. I just... couldn't resist." She whirled around on him, her face pleading. "Please don't tell Charlie. He'll kill me and I'd be out of here faster than you could say Hungarian horntail!"

Josh chuckled softly. "Lils, relax. I won't tell Charlie and besides, he loves you too much to fire you and send you packing for a tattoo. Just tell him you got it at Hogwarts. He'll understand. I do believe he has one on his shoulder with Adam's name and birth date on it. You know how happy he was when he found out about Adam. He can't penalise you for getting something that means so much to you when he has his son's name tattooed on his back." Lily smiled nodding with positive glee about the revelation of her uncle's discrepancy that he had so many times lectured her on.

"Hypocrite," she muttered softly with a smile. Josh returned her smile before turning her back around and inspecting the cut again.

"Hm, you may have to go to the first aid station. I don't know if I should be healing this without cleaning it with solution and whatnot. You're better off seeing the matron." Lily groaned. Chuckling, Josh took her hand and pulled her towards the first aid station. "I know how much you hate it Lils, but you gotta go when you get yourself maimed by a Chinese Fireball baby."

Lily looked down at their entwined hands, feeling slight butterflies erupt in her stomach. She hadn't found anyone she liked since her Hogwarts years... five years ago. Well... except one. But he had betrayed her. Let her down. Cheated. He didn't count as far as she was concerned. At twenty two all she wanted to do was hang around at the sanctuary with the dragons. She never thought that she'd be feeling butterflies with one of her co-workers. What was the saying? Don't dip your pen in the company ink? Josh was watching her closely as a small smile came to her lips when she was staring at their intertwined hands. He shrugged it off, putting it down to blood loss. She would never be interested in him. She was Lily Fucking Potter. She only had one love in her heart. Dragons. It would always be about the dragons. He loved the way her face would light up when she saw a baby or when she got to ride one of them. Even when she needed to help with an injured one. Her face would light up with happiness. The happiness of being needed, of being wanted. Of being around dragons.

How could he ever compare with that?

Of course, he couldn't, he decided as they got to the first aid building. Giving her a softly kiss on her head he sighed. "Go get yourself cleaned up missy, then straight back to bed. Those hatchlings will still be there in the morning." He smiled, masking his feelings for her by pushing her lightly towards the building.

Once a nurse caught sight of her, Lily was immediately pushed face down onto a bed, the matron muttering something about them not making her job easy and how she was lucky she wasn't burnt. Lily giggled softly as she continued to mutter to herself. She poured cleaning solution onto a cloth, pressing it harshly into Lily's wound, making her scream and curse at the woman. "My my, what a sailors mouth you have. That isn't any way for a lady to talk is it?" Lily rolled her eyes, ignoring the comment from the incredibly up-tight traditional woman, whose main belief is that dragons were for men, women should either be nurses or housewives. Lily, obviously thought it ridiculous but the woman constantly made her views known to the young girl whenever she was there with a burn or a scratch. After healing it and dressing it the matron gave her to go ahead to go back home. "Be careful about keeping it clean, and you'll have another nasty scar for you to wear oh-so-proudly on your should be beautiful skin." Again, Lily ignored her walking out and making her way back home, collapsing face down on her soft, warm bed.

It was noon again before she was awoken by Charlie. "Lils, your dad has owled me again," he sighed rolling his eyes. "I really wish you would answer his letters, Lil. He's worried about you."

Lily sighed sitting up in her bed, grimacing at the slight pain in her shoulder. "Look, Uncle Charlie, I appreciate that he wants to talk to me or see me or whatever. But I'm not ready to go home. I'm not ready to leave this place. I love it too much here for them to try to convince me to stay home with them from now on. Please, don't make me go back, Charlie. Please."

Charlie shook his head in slight disappointment. "You can't avoid them forever, Lils. They just want you to go home for your birthday. They want to throw you a Potter-Weasley party like you used to love. Is that so bad?"

"Honestly? Yes, it is. I'm not twelve anymore, Charlie. I'm almost twenty three. I just, I need space from my family. I'm finally finding my place in the world and they can't stand that!" She stood up and walked over to her wardrobe. "If you don't mind, I'm going to change and then go down and get something to eat before I go back up there to see the hatchlings okay?" Charlie sighed, nodding before exiting her room. One of these days, he swore he was going to get through to the girl that they didn't want her to stay somewhere she wasn't happy. They just wanted to see her, if only for a few hours.

As expected, Harry was still waiting for him when he got downstairs, his head floating in the emerald green flames. "So?" he prompted, looking hopeful. Charlie sighed shaking his head, causing a disheartened expression to cross Harry's face. "I just want to talk to her Charlie, will you please bring her down for me?" A pleading expression crossed his face. "Please." Charlie nodded shouting his niece.

"What now?" she said running down the stairs. "Charlie I really wanna go see the hatchlings! I should at least get to see the one who tried to claw me to death for a bit of meat!" Charlie shot a worried look at Harry as she mentioned her previous run in with the Chinese Fireball.

"Just come here please," he said, knowing that she would run away if she knew her father was waiting for her.

"What do- Oh, hey dad," she said turning around to go back out.

"Lily Luna Potter come here and talk to your father right now!" Charlie demanded. Rolling her eyes she turned around again, crossing her arms, taking a protective stance. "I will go see the hatchlings and I will expect not to see you for at least thirty minutes. You can see them when you have had a much needed talk with him."

Lily's eyes flashed daggers. "You can't tell me what to do!" Charlie raised an eyebrow giving her a look that said 'try me' before turning around and locking her in the house, jogging off to tend to the newborns. Lily glared at the door for a few moments before sighing and turning to face her father. "Let me guess, you want me to come home, you don't want me in Romania anymore and it's about time I grew up and stopped chasing after dragons, taking a lovely boring Job over at the ministry, following in your footsteps just like James and Al and Teddy."

Harry gaped at his daughter, feeling hurt that she'd think that's the only reason he would floo her from half way across the world. "No, Lily, not at all. I was actually just going to ask you if we could see you on your birthday? Everyone here misses you so so much and even though we're proud of you for taking a hold of your life the way you have, we'd like to see you once in a while." Lily looked down not saying anything, feeling guilt bubble up in her stomach. "Look, Lils, I know that you tried a few different things out before going back to Charlie and the dragons, and I want to tell you how proud of you I am that you've found something you love so much that you're willing to fight for it the way you feel you have to. Which you don't by the way, your mother and I are proud of you no matter what. Please, Lil, we just want you home on your birthday. Even Teddy is begging me to get him an international floo licence so that he can see you."

Biting her lip, Lily looked up. "Promise me you won't try to convince me to stay home with you?"

Harry nodded quickly. "I promise, Lil, we just miss you, it's been two years already. I want to see my little girl, all grown up. Which, by the way, when did you dye your hair that colour?" he said eyeing up her inky blue locks.

Rolling her eyes Lily smiled fondly at her father. "Bye dad, I promise I'll come home. Just let me know when."

"You could come now?" he said biting his lip. Lily looked longingly at the door leading to where the hatchlings were. "How about later today? Your birthday is in two days, Lil. And I'm sure everyone would be ecstatic to see you."

Lily nodded slowly. "I'll be over tonight. Just... let me go see the baby dragons? I have a score to settle," she giggled pointing at her shoulder. "Little bugger dug his claws right in."

Harry chuckled. "Okay, Lil. I'll be waiting!" Lily nodded before running off to the door, finding it finally unlocked and taking off down the driveway. Harry pulled his head out of the fireplace beaming to his family. "She's coming tonight," he said to a round of cheers. The brightest smile in the room came from his godson, Teddy Lupin, whom Harry knew was incredibly close with his daughter when they were younger.

Walking back from the barn at nine o 'clock that night, hand in hand with Josh, Lily had the biggest smile on her face. He listened to her with an amused smile as she excitedly rambled on about how much she loved the dragons. Chuckling he pulled her into the house and up to her bedroom to help her pack for her weekend at home. "Oh they're just so cute! I wish I could take one home with me!"

"Lil, you're leaving for a couple of days. The dragons will still be here when you get back." He pulled her close into him, their faces mere inches apart. Lily nodded, watching his face closely. She stood up on her tiptoes as he slowly leaned in, their lips slowly closing the gap between them.

"Oh he- Woah! I'm so sorry!" Charlie said as he walked in on them, just seconds before their lips met. He turned around rubbing the back of his neck. "Lil, your dad's downstairs, ready to take you home." Lily sighed, grabbing her stuff and throwing it in her old school trunk quickly, then levitating it downstairs, not looking back at a crestfallen Josh who stared after her with longing in his eyes.

[x]

Soft pattering rain fell upon her window as she sat on the bench just below the ledge. She liked watching the rain. Droplets fell down, joining with one another in a random pattern, making them unpredictable, just like she loved being. Lily prided herself on being unpredictable and random, it was one of those Slytherin traits that she had enjoyed gaining. Unpredictability. No one expected her to be a Slytherin, no one expected her to throw in her job as potions brewer, not that anyone really expected her to be good at potions. No one had ever thought she would run away to Romania and they definitely didn't think that dragons were amongst her favourite things to watch. Everyone had expected her to be the little goodie two shoes just like her brothers, following in daddy's footsteps. Yes, unpredictability was her favourite trait because it proved she was different.

"Y'know, I liked your hair better before. It was much less... emo." Lily jumped, her heart racing as she turned towards the man standing in her doorway, his hair an amused shade of blue. Grinning like an idiot he moved into the room as she jumped up and ran towards him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. "It's good to see you too, Lil," he mused chuckling. "I missed you these past couple of years."

Holding him close to her Lily began to cry softly into his shoulder. He was the only person she truly missed when she left. "Oh, Teddy. I missed you so much!" She pulled back with a smile looking over his features as they both fell grim, feeling the weight of all their history fall onto their shoulders. Lily wiped her eyes and sat back down on her window bench. "So uhm... how's Victoire?"

"I wouldn't know... we haven't spoken since the night you left." Teddy stared her directly in the eyes. "I never kissed her you know. She kissed me. She said she still loved me. She was just drunk." Lily looked down, unable to keep his eye contact. She had hoped they could avoid the issue of why she had left in the first place. He walked over to her and held her hands in his, kneeling at her feet. "Lily, you know I only loved you. That night that you came into the shed was the greatest of my life. You were so helpful, so supportive. You didn't care that I could have potentially tried to rip your throat out again, you just cared that I was in pain. You wanted to help me. No one has ever done that before. No one." Lily blanched when she remembered the night before her eighteenth birthday, before deciding to change the subject.

"So uhm, are you getting any closer to full transformations yet?"

Teddy sighed. "It's getting more painful. I am now totally covered in fur and I get a snout, but my brain is still all human. It scares the hell out of me."

"I'm sorry I never found a cure..." Teddy shook his head.

"I don't blame you. It was Victoire's and my fault. I didn't run after you. I didn't try to stop you. I didn't try to explain. I just... I don't know. I'm so sorry, Lily. I really am so sor-" she cut him off by pressing a kiss to his lips, unable to deny the want she felt for him any longer. Victoire no longer mattered. Dragons no longer mattered. All that mattered was Teddy. Her hands found her way into his hair as she slid off the bench and into his lap. With a quick wave of her hand the door closed shut and a little click informed her of the lock turning. Teddy smiled into the kiss pulling her closer to him, leaning backwards until he reached the floor, her directly above him.

[X]

Hours later the two of them laid down on Lily's bed, curled up together tightly, her head on his chest, his arm around her shoulders, playing with her hair softly. "So does this mean I'm forgiven?" he whispered, the smile on his face only getting wider as he stared down at her. Nodding her head with a smile she began to trace patterns on his bare chest, her fingers dancing across the flesh in random lines. He mirrored her line tracing but instead of making it random he traced the scars that now littered her skin, so different from the last time she saw her. Burns, cuts, scars all marring her beautiful milky white skin. "So what happens now?" he asked, a slight fear of loss lacing his voice.

Lily sighed finally turning her head to look into his eyes. "Now we move on."

Teddy sat up quickly, looking down at her, hurt evident in his eyes. "What do you mean move on? I – I thought-"

"Thought what, Ted?" she asked sitting up, hurt and anger swirling around in her dark brown orbs. "That we'd just go back to how we were just because we had sex? It doesn't work like that, Teddy. I have a job, a life, something completely separate from this. Completely separate from this life that I didn't even want to come back to. Yes, what we did was nice and I believe you when you say what happened wasn't your fault but I've changed, Teddy. Our situation, everything has changed."

"So that's it then?" he asked, a coldness creeping into his voice. "Even though I just told you I love you, even though I'm willing to do anything to get you back, you're just going to leave again after this weekend and forget? Never come back? Do I even have a chance at all?"

Lily looked away from his piercing glare. "Things change, Ted. People change."

"Fine." He scrambled out of bed, picking up his clothes angrily and putting them back on in a haste before walking out of the door and slamming it shut, retreating to his own room in the attic. Lily flinched as the door slammed shut but she knew she had done the right thing. Dragon Keepers just weren't supposed to have relationships. They weren't supposed to get married and have kids and everything else that Teddy wanted out of life. And then there was Teddy himself. His transformations were getting worse, his body was unable to cope with the slow progress of the lycanthropy gene. He wouldn't ever be able to have children because he couldn't risk the gene being passed on to his own child.

Besides, there was still Josh. She knew she was beginning to have feelings for him, and he was the perfect person for it, really. He was a dragon keeper, he knew what she had to go through, how tiring it was for her and it was clear that he had feelings for her too. But... could she honestly see herself spending the rest of her life with him? Teddy, she knew right from the beginning how happy they could be, how happy they were until Victoire got her claws back into him. But she can't just uproot her whole life for him. She had a commitment, a job, a good happy life. She needed to go back to it. Surely Teddy knew that?

[X]

For the next two days, Lily went through the motions, speaking when spoken to, keeping her happy mask in place even though her mind and heart were raging war inside her body, confusing her to no end. But, at least, she thought, she would be leaving in the morning back to her safe and happy life in Romania. One without confusion where she could forget about everything but her job. It wasn't until Sunday night after everyone had gone home did she allow herself to truly think about the repercussions of going back. Would Teddy ever forgive her if she didn't say goodbye to him? If she left without a word for the second time?

She was just about to get up and go into Teddy's room when there was a soft knock at her door. She opened it to find the exact person who she had just intended to see. She smiled shyly, hoping that he wasn't here to try and convince her to stay again. "Can I come in?" he asked softly, his voice holding slight tremors. Frowning Lily nodded opening the door, instantly becoming worried about him.

"Are you okay, Ted?" she asked softly, watching his whole body shake lightly, as though he were a little jittery.

Teddy shook his head pointing out the window at the moon. Lily understood then, tomorrow was the full moon. "I er, I just wanted to give you your birthday present since you weren't really there downstairs and I thought you'd appreciate this." Lily nodded slightly with a smile instantly becoming nervous. The last time he had given her a gift away from her parents it had been an expensive charm bracelet that had made her realise she had fallen in love with him. With trembling fingers she reached out and took the offered box. It was much smaller this year and much more squared. Inside she found a tiny little silver dragon hanging from a clip. "It's for your bracelet," he said to clarify. Lily nodded staring at it in wonder, watching as it moved it's head around in the box.

"It's perfect," she whispered softly. "Thankyou."

"Lily... is there any way we could make this work?"

"Ted, you know that my job is my entire life, it's a twenty four seven job. Please don't make this any harder than it is..."

"Then can we at least have a proper goodbye?" She nodded placing her gift down on the bedside table before wrapping her arms around Teddy's neck, standing on her tiptoes and kissing him softly. Hs arms wrapped around her waist pulling her further into his body before back her towards her bed. "I'm going to make sure you never forget this night... I want you to remember just how much I love you, Lily. That's never going to change, I promise you that."

Lily stared up at him, sadness in her eyes. "You know I'll never stop loving you, Teddy. But after tonight, we have to move on. You have to move on."

"What if I don't want to move on?"

"Then we can't do this." Teddy sighed nodding his head, leaning down to kiss her again softly before slowly lowering them down to the bed.

AN; so i decided to cut it off there, and continue in a new chapter since it seemed to be dragging on a little in this section of the story. So look out for a new chapter :)

Reviews are love guys :3 - please no faves without reviewing!