I looked up at the boy in the Quiditch Teams arms holding the huge trophy. I couldn't help but smile up at James, so happy and childish. He held the trophy up again and the whole common room screamed. I laughed.

Jackie, a fifth year, held up a camera and said, "Hey, why don't we take a picture of the whole team?"

The team murmured laughs of agreement and a placed James on the floor. Sirius came up aside me and pushed me out of the way. I scowled silently. "Hey! Why don't we add the seventh years!" he shouted. "'Cause you know McGonagall is going to miss the hell out of us!"

I couldn't help but laugh. The Quiditch team shook their heads in agreement and so did Jackie, smiling. He was probably happy getting all of this attention from the seventh years.

The team was already in a position for the picture. The seventh years gathered around the team—boys on the right side and girls on the left. Most of us started giggling uncontrollably.

Jackie counted with his fingers to three and said, "Say Gryffindor!" We all chanted our house name. I laughed and looked at Alice, who was beaming. She was so competitive.

I pushed her a little and whispered, "The game is over. No need to be competitive anymore." She turned around and smiled. Alice shook her head and raised her left hand to show me a ring on her left hand.

My mouth opened and my eyes widened. I reached for her hand and was dazzled by the glittering stone on her marriage finger. Her engagement ring was beautiful. "You're engaged?" I managed to say, still staring at the ring on her finger.

Alice nodded, smiling broadly. Her complexion was glowing with happiness. Her eyes were lit with excitement, and every movement she made was with eager gracefulness. "Frank proposed after the game. He knew how much I enjoyed Quiditch,"

I smiled, exuberant for my friend. I glanced over at Frank who was laughing excitedly. His smile was wide with joy and happiness. I could just picture the two together—happy, forever.

It made me wonder, if I was ever going to get married, and to whom. Was it going to be James, the one who has been chasing after me since I was in fourth year?

I shook my head at the memory and looked up to the night sky. It had been almost a month since that day, and now we were only a day away from our N.E.W.T testing. June. We were in June already! Reality had hit me like a meteorite falling from the sky. I was going to be so tired in the morning—including a N.E.W.T testing day—oh this was just going to be lovely. Thank heavens it was going to be Charms—that was easy.

I grabbed a piece of parchment and started doodling—drawing nothing but squiggly lines. Each little doodle was growing bigger and more mature, like I had in these past six years. I grew up here, and changed here, into loving the obnoxious and arrogant prat James. Discovering how much a toerag my old mate, Severus, turned out to be. Learning that I loved the marauders no matter how immature and crazy they were. Figuring that Alice and Frank were meant to be together—forever. All of this happened in my years here, and it was going to remembered and treasured forever.

I shook my head. I could feel tears coming on. This wasn't the time to be thinking about this stuff, and yet, it did seem like the right time. It was quiet and peaceful, besides Clarisse's little outburst of snores. This was the time for me to realize how much I learned to love this place (technically I loved this place before I stepped foot here). This was my home for six years, and now it was just going to be my old school and a bucket full of memories in a matter of days.

I crushed the piece of parchment into a tiny ball and threw it under my bed. I thumped back into my bed and lay there with my eyes opened. The things I destined the most were starting to unravel around me, and I was starting to accept them. I wanted my father back. I wanted all the tears I had shed for Severus to be gone, and never were shed. I wanted my years here not to be over. I wanted to go home to a home that was welcoming, and not full of misery and the ghost of my father following me everywhere.

And the thing I was too afraid to admit myself, to face it, to even think about it:

I didn't want to face the outside world alone.

A/N: Hello, this is just me ChuddleyCanons. I hope you didn't forget about me, but I reckon you did anyway. I just want to announce I just had a majorly huge (I don't care if that doesn't make sense. That was just how large my writer's black was) writer's block, and while I had that writer's block, I went on vacation and missed four days of school and my birthday (I was coming home from my vacation spot that day [that fourth day I missed school]).

I was originally going to post this on my birthday, but I had a lot of homework to catch up on, and then that weekend I still had homework, and the next week I still had homework. And then that weekend I was just lazy—actually, I think I had a birthday party to go to, and then I was just lazy. Then that week I was lazy, and then last weekend I had my birthday party so I couldn't write then. But, most of the time I was being 'lazy' I was writing other stories (not even my twilight one. My writer's block was huge) such as a Sirius Black and OC one, but that won't be up for a long time. I need to be done with my twilight one before I post that.

So, I'm done with my excuses now. Haha, I am really sorry.

Next time I haven't updated in a while, review and tell me to 'freaking update already.' That will definitely get me to update.

So, this is one of my favorite chapters because there's not a lot of fluff in it (even though I don't [or I think I don't] write it a lot) this chapter. It's basically about Lily realizing that her days here at Hogwarts are numbered in just days, and that she will have to be facing the outside world soon, where her father was murdered.

Please REVIVEW. Reviews make me happy, and a happy me makes more chapters

~ChuddleyCanons~
p.s. this is a long A/N