Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series or anything that, that would entail. Unfortunately.

A/N: Woo! Wasn't sure I'd get this chapter done so quickly, what with recovering from surgery and all, but I'm all done and now I can blame any and all mistakes or confusing moments on my drug induced state while writing this, yay! :) As always thank you all you wonderful peoples for typing up reviews and I would be most grateful if that could continue as reviews are verrrry helpful in the writing process and in general make me happy to know what people think of my story.

Also: Last night somewhere in between falling asleep and dreaming, I realized that the show All in the Family could be turned into a funny parody of Harry Potter. Vernon and Petunia could be Archie and Edith, Dudley is Gloria, Harry can be Mike, and the Jeffersons can be...wait for it... the Malfoys! Lucius is George, Narcissa is Wheezy, and Draco is Lionel. You can even have Draco dating Hermione to bring the tension of Lionel's interracial engagement just like in the show! I don't know if this has been done before, but if anyone reading this decides that they would like to write that story, then full steam ahead! Just tell me if you do, because I would love to read it. :)

Okay. So enough babbling- read on!

Chapter 13

"Remus!" hissed Lily. She pulled her head out of the blazing inferno to check behind her; it would do no good for James to come back right now. At best she had a thirty minute time slot between now and when James got back from the store. She turned back to see Remus Lupin climbing out of the fire and absently brushing off his robes.

Throwing pleasantries out the window, she grabbed him by the front of his patchy robes and threw him onto the plush sofa. How dare he stand there brushing dust off his robes? He knew how anxious she was!

Indeed, Remus reluctantly brought his amber-eyed gaze up to Lily's clear green and sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Lily..." he sighed wearily.

"Remus." she responded firmly.

"Lily, I don't know what exactly I am supposed to say. After all this is not exactly a topic that I broach everyday..."

Lily paced impatiently. Usually she loved Remus' calm and collected way of going about things, but right now she just wanted to know what information he had gathered and now. She did not have the time for the long drawn-out philosophical explanation, examined from every possible angle, that Remus was sure to give. "Just tell me what you think. It's not right or wrong, I just want to know your thoughts on the subject. And don't even think about asking me what subject, you know."

Remus sighed again and said quietly "He's just like James." he licked his lips and continued, "I mean it's scary, how much they are alike. It goes beyond looks, it's the way he talks, the way he laughs, he even runs his hand through his hair in that same irritating way that James always does." he said smiling in spite of himself and unconsciously mimicking those actions.

Lily's eyes widened to the size of galleons, her hand pressed over her mouth. She didn't dare speak, for fear that Remus would stop talking.

"And it's not just James that he's like, there's some of you too...he's really smart, he's gotten only full marks in every class I've had with him and whenever someone asks him a question he's more than willing to help them out, not to mention those glaringly obvious bright green eyes that could belong to no one else but you.

Lily nodded silently. She had noticed these things as well, but Remus' confirmation really sent it home to her. This wasn't just a hunch, or collection of odd coincidences, this was real. Her son, was in her class. Her son, her precious baby boy, was right here and safe.

Eyes shining with joy, she came back to Earth, to find Remus face looming in front of her own. He was grinning and she latched onto him, hugging him tightly. "He's back..." she whispered blissfully into his shoulder.

"Yes," he said as he pulled away "But now that we know, what do we do about it?" Lily opened her mouth but Remus talked over her, "Don't say we should tell him, because that's easy to say, but can you imagine actually doing it?" Lily shook her head. "We can't just go up to the boy and say this is your mother, we need proof."

Lily sat down heavily on her favorite chair. Of course, how had she forgotten about that? It's not like the boy would just take her at her word and rejoin the family...Besides it looked like he already had a family of his own, what if he didn't want to be part of the Potter family? Her heart nearly broke all over again at the traitorous thought.

Remus, seeing her face fall, he broke in sharply, "Now, don't get discouraged. It's just going to take some time."

"But Remus...what if-what if he doesn't want to know us, me and James?"

"Oh, Lily, I'm sure he will," his brows furrowed. "maybe not right from the start...you just need to take it slow...I imagine that this is going to be just as much of a shock to him as it was to us."

"What's going to be a shock to who?" The voice startled the two so much as to send them springing apart like polar magnets. Finding the speaker they relaxed.

Rachael had wandered into the office, her sharp hazel eyes glaring suspiciously at her mother and godfather.

"Oh, nothing darling, just Order business. What are you up to?" Lily shot out quickly, trying to recover from the panic attack her daughter's sudden appearance had given her.

Rachael continued to look suspicious but she allowed the change of subject. "I just wanted to talk to you that's all, but if you're busy..."

"Oh no, sweetheart, Remus and I were just finished chatting...It was nice to talking to you Remus, James should be back in a little while."

Remus nodded and agreed to come back a little later, the door snapping shut behind him.

Lily took her daughter by the arm and sat her down on the couch beside her, stroking the red strands of hair out of her eyes. "What's up? Boy trouble?"

Rachael rolled her eyes, "No, Mum, although I think that I'm the only girl in school that doesn't have a crush on those Ivanovs."

"Really?" she replied. Lily raised her brows, her son was a heart-throb. It made sense, James was quite good-looking and had been a popular boy in his own day, himself. She smiled a little at the thought,

Oblivious, Rachael continued, "Yeah, they're good looking and famous to boot. The girls in the dorm won't stop talking about them. They have posters of them all over the walls in the dorms and when I manage get away from them, the boys themselves are following me around."

"They are?" Lily frowned slightly at that. Why would they be doing that?

"It's odd, they went from not talking to anybody but Psycho Sera, to following me around twenty-four-seven."

"Don't call her Psycho." reproved Lily on auto-pilot. Meanwhile the phrase 'following twenty-four-seven' had her mind was going back to a conversation about a week ago when James had wanted to hire bodyguards...but no...he wouldn't go behind her back would he?

"Sorry, Mum. Habit." Rachael answered, chastised.

"Don't make it one. Anyways, that is strange. But what's this about them being famous?" wheedled Lily.

"Seriously, Mum?" You've never heard of them?" Lily shook her head confused. "They're only the most popular teenage duelists in the country! Just about every girl in the United Kingdom wants a chance with those two."

"But you don't, right?" Lily asked uneasily, she turned a bit green at the thought of her two children dating each other.

"Well, maybe Roman," she smiled slightly, "but Alexei looks too much like Dad. It's weird and it grosses me out." she stuck her tongue out in disgust.

Lily sagged in relief, "Oh, that's nice." At least she wouldn't have to be keeping an eye out for incest on top of everything else going on.

Rachael turned to her mother, her brows furrowed in confusion. "You're acting strange."

Lily blinked guiltily, she never was good at hiding things."Am, I?"

"Yes." her daughter answered firmly, nodding her head.

Just then, James strode in carrying an arm full of bags and began setting them down on the counter. Lily, thankful for the distraction, stood up to help with the packages. "Hello ladies, what's new?" he grunted, hitching a particularly heavy bag higher in his arms.

"Not much, Rachael's just been telling me about her first week of school."

"Oh, how did that go?" he answered absently, still dithering with the bags.

Rachael began to speak but Lily talked over her, "Good, except the Ivanov boys have suddenly started following her around. Any idea why they would be doing that, James?" Lily fixed him with a gimlet eyed stare.

James looked nervous for a second before covering it with a wide grin, which he bestowed upon his ever-more confused daughter. "Oh, I'm sure they just have realized what a beauty our little Rachael is turning into. She looks just like you did at that age Lils." He turned the focus of his grin to his wife, who was pulling a face at the renewed possibility of incest between her two eldest children.

"We will talk about this James."

James' eyes dropped to the carpet as he said morosely "Yes, love. Yes, I expect we will." Lily patted his cheek and started putting away the rest of the groceries.

Elsewhere in the castle, Sera Walker was waking up to the sound of someone hissing her name.

"Sera! Sera! Serafina if you don't wake up right now, I swear I'll-"

Sera reached over lazily, picking up the talking mirror and effectively ended the hissed diatribe. "You'll do what, Josie? You're in a frickin' mirror, for Merlin's sake..."

The image of her sister huffed and drew herself up importantly, "Well! You know I could just leave you now and let you face Mum and Dad's wrath, you're just lucky you have a sister as nice as me!" Sera's older sister Josie, or Josephine as she preferred to be called, had always been a bit of a prissy prude in Sera's opinion. She worked at the ministry under law enforcement and she still lived at home with their parents, who were constantly trying to find matches for 'their beautiful daughter Josephine!' Nevertheless Josie was very loyal and had always looked out for her less-than-perfect little sister even if she was always in trouble.

"Yeah, yeah, all hail the Mighty Josie...what do you want, it's-" she picked up her watch from her bedside table and groaned "seven a.m.!"

"I just thought you'd like to know that Mum and Dad got a letter about your detentions for that soiree that you and those boys threw the other night and they are not happy. Nope, not one bit." she shook her head in an irritatingly condescending sort of way, that made her some of her blonde curls fly out of her slick bun.

Sera groaned again. This was not good news. "How long before the howler arrives?"

"Approximately..." she too, checked her watch "an hour."

"Great." muttered Sera, putting her pillow over her head. Unfortunately this could not drown out her sister's voice, which continued on as if her audience even remotely cared what she was saying.

"You know, you could have avoided all of this if you had just gone against the crowd and not thrown a party. I mean sure, they may sound glamorous and all of that, but really, what do you really get other than a rather horrible headache and a wish that you could remember more and undo the things you can remember? All in all, not that fun-"

"Josie, I really appreciate you warning me about the howler, but if you don't shut up, I'm going to throw you into the wall..."

Josie's blue eyes narrowed suspiciously at the pillow her sister was hiding under. "You're not still hungover are you?"

Sera threw the pillow off of her face to stare at her sister's image in disbelief. "Jo, the party was two days ago! No, I'm not still hungover!"

"Well, I didn't-" she spluttered defensively, while her sister started smiling at her. "What?"

"Oh, nothing..." She continued to smile deviously at her now jittery looking sister. It sounded to Sera as if Josie had only ever heard of the effects of drinking, let alone been to a party. Which, honestly made sense what with Josie's proper nature. Josie was never one to let go of her control, not even for a second, getting drunk would be out of the question in her mind. Then and there, Sera made a vow to get Josie drunk before the year was out.

Obviously freaked out by the creepy grin her sister was giving her, Josie made a quick excuse about having to go to work- on a Sunday, her day off, mind you- and exited the frame.

Sera wiled away the hour before her howler arrived by getting a bit more sleep. When the scarlet, smoking letter arrived she had only to place a silencing ward around her bed and wait for the shouting to end. Four minutes later, Sera stumbled off of her bed for the showers, ears still ringing with shouts of "DETENTIONS ALREADY?", "-CAN"T KEEP OUT OF TROUBLE-" and her personal favorite, "FIND NEW FRIENDS!"

Sera snorted in a quite unladylike fashion. As if that was going to happen. No, she quite liked her friends, thank you very much. They were about as different from her old stuffy parents as it was possible to be. Her parents believed that because she was the youngest daughter of the Walker clan, that she was supposed to be a little princess that wore frilly little dresses and always did what she was told. Well, she supposed Josie had furthered their impression of that, as she had, by and large, fit that model to a 't'. But she was not that kind of girl and they were better off forgetting that wish.

Brushing her teeth, she wondered just what had changed to make her mum so different from Luna's mum. They had grown up in the same house, played together, gone to school together, and they had always seemed so close... Yet Sera's mum was all high society, and cocktail parties, while Luna's mum had been more of a mythical creature hunting trip, and mad experiments in the basement kind of witch.

But then, she guessed it was like with her and Josie; growing up together didn't make you the same person. Besides, her and Josie got along just fine despite all of their differences, why couldn't her and Aunt Rihannon?

She just wished that she had the same sort of relationship that she had always envied in Fred and George and one that she was coming to see in Roman and Alexei. They both had this bond that she would most likely never have with her sister, no matter how much time passed. It was like they were incomplete with out the other one around...like two halves of a whole. One could stand alone and be as strong as ever, but together they just seemed...more right. They understood each other without a word and there were no awkward silences or any second guessing involved when they interacted. They were just natural.

Heading down the staircase, she spotted the pair walking her way. She noticed that Alexei was rubbing his ears in a disgruntled sort of way and asked "You two get a howler as well?"

Roman grinned and nodded wickedly.

Alexei glowered at his brother and fixed his emerald stare on Sera grumbling "Prick stuck it under my pillow."

Sera's face split into a smile, he looked so cute when he pouted like that. "Aww...it's okay Lex, the pain will go away soon. Then you'll look back on this and laugh." she pecked him on the cheek.

"Tell that to my pillow, it set it on fire..." he muttered ruefully.

"And your hair." stated Roman, plucking a singed strand for examination. Alexei yelped and shoved his hand away with a half-hearted glare.

"So what did your howler say? Ours was the usual, get your arse in gear sort of thing." Alexei asked contentedly.

Sera's smile faltered a bit, "Pretty much the same, with an addition of finding new friends."

Roman placed a hand over his heart in mock shock. "Find new friends!" he pulled Alexei closer to him "Are we not good enough for you Miss Walker?" Sera hit him. "Ow!"

"Don't be daft. They've been telling me that for years and I haven't done that yet." she said reassuringly, taking a place between them both. She hugged them both to her as they walked to breakfast.

"Good. Hate to see you become boring." commented Alexei. Seeing her look he quickly amended "Not that I think that could actually happen."

Arm in arm, they strode down to the Great Hall, just missing a frantic redhead as she flew past them.

"Ginny!" yelled Rachael desperately. She needed her best friend, and she needed her now. "Wake up, now!" she screamed, shaking her sleeping friend from her slumber.

"Wha-?" Ginny tried to speak but was interrupted before she even could get the words out.

"I am completely wigging out. Earlier, I went down to my Mum's room just to talk, you know? And when I walked in-?"

Ginny had apparently found her voice and she sighed "Did you walk in on your Mum and Dad again?"

"No!" she shouted, blushing as dark as her hair at the memory. "Worse! I walked in on her and Remus!"

Ginny's jaw dropped. "No...Professor Lupin?"

"Yes! I walked in and they were holding each other and talking about how they were going to have to tell 'him' and that it would be a shock, but 'he' would understand!" Rachael spat out wildly, making crazy gestures with her hands. "Then when I asked what they were talking about, they jumped apart and acted like everything was normal!"

Ginny reached out and held her best friend, stroking her hair back from her face. "Poor you."

"Poor me? More like poor Dad...he'll die when he finds out..." The girls just stared sadly at each other, realizing the impact such a revelation would have on Mr. Potter.

A/N- okay this is a bit of a crazy chapter...lots going on and a bit of background information... tell me what you think- should I have waited until I was weened off of the hydrocodone? :)