Sorry it's taken me longer to update, I've been the busy bee! Hope you could all access the pictures, I am planning on putting the links in my profile if you can't (I believe Draco is a looker gave me that idea! Thanks!) Also, I got 15 reviews on the last chapter, so thank you so much to all who reviewd!

Song: "All At Once" by The Fray

Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same

Chapter 11: Maybe You Want Her

"Well he's certainly a Gryffindor!" Monica said, shaking her head and smiling after Lily (after casting a Muffliato charm around her and Monica's bedposts) had told her of the flirting between her and Ben this summer all the way up to the train ride. "Brave to the point of insane-"

"But the loyalty thing is what is going to kill him." Lily said with a sigh. "He and James are best friends! James picked him over Albus to be his best man and Albus actually understood because it's obvious how close those two are. He's, it's…it's not going to happen again." Lily tried to convince Monica and, quite frankly, herself. "And James is my brother. He's one of the most important people in my life. Nothing is worth hurting him over."

"If you say so." Monica gave a shrug of her left shoulder. "But Lily, it is your life. You are seventeen years old, you can make your own choices."

"I just want to make the right ones." Lily let the pygmy puff run around her bed sheet, already missing Ben's smiling face.

"Follow your heart." Monica said simply.

"You sound like my mum. She gave the same advice. Ohh, she's going to be tickled pink when she hears about this!" Lily told Ginny nearly everything and would owl her the next morning a detailed letter of what happened. She would make sure to send it to Ginny's work so it wouldn't be intercepted by her father.

"So none of your other family knows?" Monica asked disbelievingly. The Weasley family was not known for its secret-keeping abilities when it came to juicy romance gossip. Lily had remembered the theories that flew around during the Teddy/Victorie era.

"I think Albus has suspicions. Along with Hugo. Rose is too busy with Scorpius—did I tell you they finally are together?!—to be of any help and Roxanne has the biggest mouth of them all. And Emma..." Lily thought about her future sister-in-law who had asked her to be her maid of honor only two days before. "She's Ben's other best friend. I wouldn't put her in the middle of all of this."

"Honestly, your family web of relationships is more complicated than I could ever imagine." Monica said with a laugh. "Okay, enough about Ben. Tell me again the exact words Emmett said about me at the engagement party!" Lily burst into giggles and the girls spent the rest of their first night back squealing over boys.

--

There were a lot of things Ben wasn't sure about. The subject of Transfiguration, for instance. Why his grandfather hated the fact he was a wizard. Witches dressing their pets in robes. Driving slow. But there was one thing Ben was absolutely unsure about and that was what he would do about his feelings about Lily. The simple answer would be to just ignore the feelings, push them aside and to definitely not go after them. The more complex answer involved the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about her, wanted to be with her more than anything and snogging her was probably one of the best feelings he had even experienced.

"Well…" he said aloud, releasing a breath he didn't realize he was holding, as he looked around the kitchen. "What's done is done."

"Talking to yourself?" A female voice behind him nearly made Ben jump out of his skin. He whipped around and saw Emma leaning against the entrance to the kitchen, a smile playing across her face.

"Perhaps." Ben said with a cheeky grin. "Where's the fiancée?"

"Showering. He spent all afternoon on the Quidditch pitch and thought it'd be appropriate to greet me after work smelling like sweat and dirt." Emma shook her head, but the smile stayed on her face. "He said Hermione was a sight this morning." Ben nodded, remembering how the whole family tried to calm her down after the train pulled away. That's when Ben hung back, jumped on the train, kissed Lily and jumped off, apparating back to his car and making up a story about having to hide from an old girlfriend. Given Ben's track record with the witch population, no one questioned it.

"Yeah, Ron nearly put a silencing charm on her." He looked in the cupboard and found a tin of sugarquills. "Fancy a sugarquill?" He asked Emma, knowing they were her favorite.

"Of course," she said, happily taking the candy. "I told you I asked Lily to be my maid of honor, right?" Ben nearly choked as he sucked the quill. He wasn't surprised at the news, but hearing someone say her name aloud to him was startling. "It'll be great because you two get on well, so helping plan the wedding will be really nice. We've set a date as well, I doubt James remembered to tell you."

"I thought you were waiting two years. Shotgun wedding?" He asked innocently.

"Not even funny," Emma said pointedly. "No, we just realized since we want a small ceremony, it won't take long to plan and I finish up my healer training by February, so why not earlier?"

"Makes sense. So next summer?" He asked.

"June 8th." She said happily.

"Ah, right near my birthday!" He smirked. "So nice of you to throw me a party."

"James said you'd say that." Emma said with a groan. "Honestly, he knows you better than he knows me." Ben found that statement ironic and the expression must have shown because always intuitive Emma raised an eyebrow at him. "What is it?"

"What is what?"

"You're hiding something," Emma knew she had hit a nerve, Ben refused to meet her eyesight. "Tell me!"

"Nothing to hide," he said, staring at his sugar quill.

"Well I don't believe you, but I won't ask if you don't want to talk about it." She said, giving him a look. "Anyway, I'll find out soon enough when I live here."

"Come again?" Ben asked, puzzled. Comprehension dawned on Emma's face.

"Right. Let me guess, James forgot to tell you that my lease was up in December and since we're getting married earlier, I'm moving in here until we can find our own decent flat. Is that okay?" She asked, uncertainly. James walked into the room, fresh from his shower.

"Is what okay?" He asked.

"Emma moving in." Ben supplied. "Course it's okay, just cast a silencing charm around your room." He said with a wink that made Emma turn a deep red and James look proud. "But why would you two be looking for a new flat? You should just live here and I'll find a place in London."

"We're not kicking you out, mate." James told him. The last thing he would do would be to turn his best friend out on the street, just because he was getting married. Although Emma was the most important girl in his life, he and Ben were insanely close.

"I know, I just think this is the perfect house for you two to start out in. Plus, it's a Potter house. It'd do me no good to live here all by my lonesome." He said with a shrug.

"It's not about it being in my family," James reasoned. "You're a part of my family, this house is as much yours as anyone's." Emma slipped out of the room to give the boys alone time to talk it out.

"James, it's no trouble." Ben said honestly. "'Sides, what would I do with all of these bedrooms?"

"Throw parties like you used to and force couples to occupy them," James sniggered.

"Ah, the days of being nineteen." Ben remembered fondly. "But seriously James Sirius," James rolled his eyes. "It's fine."

"Alright," James said, convinced. "But just stick around til Emma totally moves in, alright?" He asked and Ben nodded. "You know I hate when the house is empty."

"Kreacher can't satisfy your needs?" Ben asked smirking.

"I'm afraid not," James said mock-gravely. "Speaking of, where is that elf? I haven't seen him in a week."

"Dunno." Ben responded, looking around the kitchen. "Maybe he's paying Albus a visit."

"That'll make his summer." James laughed. "What are your plans for tonight? Hot date?"

"Nah, I think I'm going into the office and doing paperwork. I like it in the night, no one to bother me."

"Ben Amherst, if I didn't know better I'd say you were loosing your touch." James joked. He started to leave the room.

"Remember what I said about the silencing charm!" Ben called after him, hearing James' laugh echo down the hallway.

--

Lily was busy scribbling notes in Charms, her first class of her first day, when a note landed elegantly on her desk. She instantly recognized Hugo's loopy script which he had inherited from his father.

I'm bored. Tell me a story.

Lily tried to hide a smirk. She figured she might as well tell Hugo now while he couldn't cause a stink about it. Plus, she was pretty sure he knew anyway. She answered in her own handwriting, culry and cursive.

Ben kissed me.

She snuck a glance at Hugo who's face was the pure definition of shock. He hastily wrote back.

NO WAY! Well that's good, right? It's a bit obvious you fancied him this summer. I hate to bring up a little complication though

Lily wondered which of the complications he thought of. She wrote back

Which one? The part about being four years apart, me still being in school, him being a notorious womanizer or James throwing a fit?

Hugo cracked a smile, he could imagine the words coming right out of her mouth.

Well Lils, it sounds like all of the above.

NEXT: Ben/Lily action via owl post!