Disclaimer: JKR owns everything - I am merely playing with her toys. Please review.


Lily Evans was gone again, James realised, when a Point Me spell failed to find her. It was the fifth time in the week that he'd gone looking for her and had no success. He'd been reluctant to use magic to find her - Remus had impressed upon him principles such as not pestering someone when they wanted to be alone - but now he found himself cursing the spell's short range. He was worried about her. That's right; popular, bigheaded James Potter - who could likely as not have any of half of Hogwarts' female population at his beck and call - was worried, concerned, anxious, that he couldn't find the one girl who disliked him, hated him.

He wandered out onto the grounds, listlessly, ignoring the pelting rain that drenched him to his skin, his thoughts on anything but where he was going. Something, though, led him. James was thinking about Lily, about her soft hair, and how recently her bright green eyes were so often reddened with tears. He was thinking about Lily, and later, afterwards, he would say it was magic.

James found himself walking past the corner of the furthest greenhouse. He meandered a little further, unsettled, distracted. Without thinking, he entered the shallows of the forest, which looked as forbidding as its name - but at least it might give some cover from the ever increasing rain.

What finally brought him out of his daze was a wall. He'd never seen it before, and he'd come close to missing it as it was. It was covered over with ivy, and was hidden behind shrubs and rough groves of trees - but it was blocking his way, and his curiousity had been piqued. He followed it, trying to find a gap, and without realising he was further into the Forbidden Forest than he'd ever been on his own - but there was a door, of weathered wood. It reached from the foliage of the forest floor up to an arch well above what height James felt he could climb. There was a keyhole, but there was no key, and so without much hope, he hefted his shoulder against the oak. It shifted, easily enough - it had not been locked - and as it opened quietly, James heard singing.

James slunk through the archway, and then stifled a gasp. Here, hidden in the midst of the ominous and sinister Forbidden Forest, was a garden. It wasn't the neat, formal arrangement of greenery and colours that he was accustomed to from the Potter Manor, all flowerbeds and hedges, but a certain kind of wilderness. Beautiful, in its own way. More beautiful, even. Wildflowers grew in abandon, and a coppice of drooping willows grew tall along the wall. From the tall branch of one hung a swing, James noticed. That was when he saw Lily.

She swung back and forth effortlessly, her long red hair, slick and darkened with the rain, draped behind her. She was singing, he realised. He'd never heard her sing, and he was amazed. Lily had a high, pure voice, but every now and then it broke with hiccoughs. James hurried over to her.

"Lily!" He grabbed the rope of the swing, bringing it to an uneven stop. "Lily," he repeated. The girl turned and stared at him, her singing stopping abruptly.

"Potter," she said dully. "You should leave. Let me be."

"Lily," James said again. "I had to find you. I've been so worried." And at the distraught look on his face, her resolve broke, and she started to cry. She leant against James' Quidditch-broadened chest, and sobbed.

"My parents, James." She hiccoughed again. "They're dead. Dead because I'm a witch." James felt his heart fall. "Witch, witch, witch, witch…"

James stroked her hair softly, and started to croon softly, singing the same lullaby that he'd heard her song. He stood holding her gently in the rain, not saying anything, long into the night.