Welcome to the story! Author's Notes are on the bottom.

James and Lily hadn't seen each other in almost a month. Oh sure, they had written, but it wasn't the same. Not at all. Schedules being what they were, however, nothing could be done. Nothing, that is, until today.

James frowned and rested his elbow on the small dinette table in his kitchen. His parents' proud black owl regarded him blithely. Immediately, for no good reason, the old cuckoo clock he and Sirius hadn't been able to wrest away from the wall began to chime six o'clock. It was actually one or so in the morning, but that the wooden, manticore-shaped clock couldn't tell time was the least of his problems.

A flying robe hit him in the head. He sniffed it to make sure it was clean enough. Sirius was busily spraying his cologne everywhere.

"Hurry up, Prongs. The nightlife's just starting."

"Then it will still be there in a few bloody minutes," James said tersely. "I've got to owl Lily."

"Jesus, it's our first free night in ages! Couldn't that wait until we get home later?"

"We'll be too drunk later, if you have anything to say about it."

"Well, there's that."

James rolled his eyes at his best friend and ripped a blank sheet of parchment out of his book. He snatched up an inkwell and punched Sirius when he sprayed him in the head with cologne. Hopefully, the owl would reach Lily before too late.

"James Potter, Ma'am."

His smile had been sincere and his eyes had been bright when he had shaken hands first with Lily's mother, then with Lily's father. At the station, a nearby conductor had blown his whistle smartly at close proximity, causing everyone to wince and share an easy laugh. They chatted and James even helped heft Lily's luggage into the back of the family car. Only Lily saw his momentary look of marvel at the Muggle springs and the lock on the trunk.

Her mother was smiling broadly the entire time and her dad hadn't even pulled out the interrogating boyfriend stare. James had already seemed quite comfortable with her parents, even if afterwards he had dropped the subtle hint to Lily that he had nearly pissed himself.

"Good handshake, that boy," had commented Mr. Evans only last night at the dinner table. "When are we meeting up with him again, Lily?"

"Yes, Lily," chimed her mum, spooning out another portion of stew, "When will we see James again?"

"When?"

When?

The clock ticked two.

Lily Evans flopped over in bed, disrupting the linens further. She peeked up from a nest of orange hair and covered her face again. Time passed. It hadn't worked. Maybe if she just closed her eyes again….? No, there was no helping it.

Lily rolled off her bed and into in a sitting position. She checked her old, beaten wind-up clock. It read almost a quarter past two in the morning. The sky was still dark.

She tip-toed to the window and threw it all the way open. A fine mist of sweat covered her body, even under her thin pyjamas. The end of June was quite hot this year. She had been out of Hogwarts for a scanty few weeks.

The Evans' house was midway down the hill of the long street. Going up the hill led deeper into country, with more houses and parks and eventually open farmland. Going down the hill brought the town and commercial area. A cool breeze always floated down from the left, from the top of the hill, and Lily sat on her desk and stuck her head out the window for a full minute to catch the fresh night air on her face.

Like in the past few nights, Lily was able to lapse only into the uneasiest of sleeps. She would kiss her parents goodnight at a moderate point in the evening—or later than moderate, if she had spent the day with her witch friends—and then she'd read her spellbooks and scribble on parchment scraps until her eyes closed.

Often, she would begin to sleep unknowingly, only as her daydreams slid into real dreams. Lily thought of Hogwarts often, and how her life as a full-fledged witch should have been beginning and was instead put practically on hold as she hunted for her place in wizarding society and fell into her sister's wedding schemes. There was not one of Lily's friends who had missed war stories of dress fittings, hour-long marches across the church, and general tedium at Petunia's vindictive, well-manicured hands. James had said that it couldn't have been worse than being caught behind a Fire Crab on a tour of a creature reserve, but Lily wasn't sure she believed that entire story anyway.

Oh, James. Lily sighed and stuck her head back inside the window. That was another dilemma altogether. She hadn't seen her boyfriend since King's Cross after their last ride on the Hogwarts Express. James and Sirius were busily moving into their shared flat, and from James' letters his parents were not taking it so well. Lily had her share of the moving process, too; one of her best mates, Emmeline Vance, had rented rooms in a wizarding quarter of London and moving one of the most pampered witches in England was not easy. Between Emmeline, Lily, Dorcas Meadows, and Marlene McKinnon (the Gryffindor girls crowd from Hogwarts), the four had only just managed to set up the furnishings before Emmeline decided the wall hangings had to go.

Lily was more than a little envious of her friends. Dorcas had lived on her own since the first day of her return from Hogwarts. Now James and Sirius were sharing a flat and Remus would probably be joining them shortly. It looked as if he wouldn't be getting a lease from his current prospect. That made little Peter Pettigrew as left out as Lily; his fretting mother hadn't had the Galleons or the nerve to let her only son out into rented rooms.

Lily's parents had adamantly balked at her desire to go off alone. Why do that? they had said. Too much money wasted. You don't need your own place anyway. Petunia's not here anymore and you know we won't bother you. Save up for a house. Get a good position first. Your sister's wedding isn't far away, and she lived here for two years until she was married. There's no reason for an unmarried girl to pick up at seventeen. You'll be eighteen soon. At least wait until then to consider anything.

Her parents' arguments were reasonable, well-rehearsed, sensible, and suggested in love. Lily knew they were right. It was unusual for so many young witches and wizards to leave home so at so young anyway, but many wanted to get an early start owing to Lord Voldemort's fatal attacks. Lily shivered. She knew that when Caradoc Dearborn had proposed to Emmeline Vance at the end of school, both had taken the possibility of a shorter life-span into account. It was a sickening aspect to any life calculation.

Caradoc, Emmeline, and almost all of Lily's graduated school friends were involved in Dumbledore's organization, the Order of the Phoenix. Lily had only perused basic reading material on the Order (given to her personally by Dumbledore and then quickly reclaimed) but was yet to partake in any of its work. Dumbledore had promised to contact the former students by the beginning of July; and Lily checked daily for any communication.

Thinking of communication, Lily was startled to realize that she had been drooping asleep against the open window pane. She made to get up and close the window when she heard a scurrying of wings in the distance. The magical world had made her take note of such noises, so that Lily stepped away from the window just as a powerful, fierce black owl swooping into her room. It circled twice and hooted sharply, landing on her desk chair and pecking at the bowl of chocolates she kept on her desk. The sight would have given any other seventeen-year-old on the block a good turn, but then again, none of them had ever ridden a broomstick over a forest.

Lily wrinkled her nose at the waste of sweets and hoped her parents hadn't woken with the noise. The animal was devouring the candies, wrappers and all. Lily broke into a bright smile when she saw the scroll tied to the owl's leg. She had been too drowsy to recognize the Potter owl.

Hurriedly, Lily unrolled the letter and switched on her electric lamp. It flickered for a moment and shut off. Of course: Lily's wand was lying next to it and the magic of the cleaning spells she had used earlier still lingered in the room.

"Lumos," she recited, making a note to keep her wand on her nightstand next time. Lily held the bright wand tip up to the scrawlish handwriting on the parchment.

Dear Lily,

Hello, it's James. Obviously. The rents' bird was having a doss on our table after delivering more pies from Mum—Lily shot a shrewd glance at the keen owl eating all her toffee. That owl didn't take naps anywhere, especially after what was apparently a summer training regimen set up by Mr. Potter. More likely James had wheedled with the bird to make the trek from Diagon Alley to the Evans household because he and Sirius didn't have own an owl themselves. Not that James could just out and say that.—so we put him to work. How are things?

A new color of ink started the next paragraph.

Sirius says hello. He just broke my inkwell, the son of a Bludger. He's impatient for me to finish up so we can go out to the pub, but I told him he'd have to wait. Now he's pretending that he actually wants to wait so you won't get shirty with him when you see us tomorrow (or rather, later today owing to the hour). I say you should do it anyway.

Tomorrow! Lily flashed her wand to her calendar. That was the first day of the last week in June. James had promised he would stop by before July. Lily hugged herself cozily and continued to read.

Don't worry about fixing anything extra for him. He'll be pretty hairy by tomorrow, so a bone or two would do it. We'll be there a little after lunch but I don't know how long we can stay.

I miss you.

The sudden change of topic jarred Lily. Her heart pained her for a minute, but she firmly resisted the inclination to spiral off into a daydream. She cared about James maybe more than he knew; and even though they had only been dating since the beginning of seventh year, Lily knew that she loved him. It was unsaid, but not unfelt. She knew about the Animagi forms of the Marauders, after all, following a harrowing strain on her relationship with James during seventh year. But Lily would forgive him almost anything. Greedily, she followed the rest of the sharp-edged print down to the bottom of the page.

I wish we were less busy here, but Mum owls me at least twice a day now with pointers and treats for us. The plumbing's not too great all the time either and some of the furniture bites. Luckily for us, the flat is already magically hooked up and we don't need to bother changing out of your electrisital nonsense.

Now I've gone and left out the point of the paragraph, so I'll start a new one. I miss you, Lily. I miss seeing you and being with you. Sirius stopped peering over my shoulder just now. I hope he stays away. After this moving business is taken care of, you and I can start spending more time together again. Don't worry your head, Lily. I'll be ready and settled for your sister's wedding, if only you're prepared to find me one of those ridiculous Muggle suits.

Any more compliments on me from your Mum?

With love,

James

With love. Lily gazed at the sheet of parchment for a long time, memorizing the itchy, bold letters of someone who communicates with charisma and trying to envision the hands that made those letters. She bit her lip. It was unreal, the impact a plain old correspondence had. She should probably try to be stopping herself, telling herself it was a girlish fancy or an overreaction. How trite. But Lily didn't want to stop living like she was that day, with the exception of James' absence. That could change. And the weather could dry up.

Lily dimmed out her wand and placed the letter by her bedside. Then, she took the dish of sweets from the owl and gently encouraged it into the air. With a crafty hoot, the bird set off on its night flight and Lily spared a minute to watch it go. She moved to go close the window but thought better of it, and Lily fluffed her hair once in front of the mirror she couldn't see. Sleep would come easily now, even though it would be a long night.

Hello, hello, and here we are at another LJ story. This is the companion to Lightning at Hogwarts, but as you can see you can easily read one without the other. Since I am a better writer now than I was then, this story is hopefully a bit better as well. Suggestions are always welcome and I reply to reviews.

This is a prologue-ish chapter, with exposition and stuff before the real action. Leave me some ideas on how you like it. I have no idea when the next chapter is coming out; it depends on the feedback. Thanks…

"Winds from the east... Mist comin' in... Like somethin' was brewin', about to begin... Can't put me finger on what lies in store... But I feel what's to 'appen, all 'appened before...!" Bert, Mary Poppins (the movie).