A/N: Hey so I got some review just after the last chapter went up, and I got quite a few more over the weekend so since I had some time this weekend I decided to work on the next chapter. I think this has to be a record for how quickly I've gotten a new chapter up, especially as this one is really long! Yay! So I'm serious, if you guys review I will post faster!

Platform 9 ¾ was packed on the first of September, just like it was every year. Some students dragged their trunks to the luggage car while some were busy saying hurried goodbyes to parents and siblings. The platform was filled with the cries of younger siblings who wished it was their turn to go and of friends greeting each other after spending the summer apart. The clock on the wall took it all in with delight, just as it always did.

However, if you had asked the clock, it would have told you that it was looking for one set of friends in particular. And at exactly 10:47, it saw them. The clock watched as a small girl with fiery red hair in waves down her back jumped on the back of a lean young man with jet black hair as he talked to a group of 3 other boys.

"Hey Lily," said James as he looked at her over his shoulder. He had immediately moved his hands under her legs to support her once he realized what had happened. Sirius, Remus, and Peter were still laughing.

"Hey guys," she responded to the group at large. "How was the break?"

Remus was the first to respond. "Mine was ok, how about yours Lily? We heard you told Will you're a witch. How'd it go?"

Lily smiled. "It went ok in the end. He freaked out about it at first, but then he came around. I'll have to tell you more about it later. Sirius I know you spent most of the break at James' place. But what about you Peter what have you been up to? You hardly responded at all to the letters I sent you."

James and Sirius made eye contact at this. They had both experienced the same thing and were talking about it just yesterday. Something was up with Peter, and when Sirius pointed it out they realized it was probably the same things as whatever it was that had been bothering him over the Christmas holidays.

Peter smiled shyly at Lily. "My break was fine I guess. I mostly just hung out with my mum. We didn't really go anywhere. I wanted us to go on vacation or something but she didn't feel up to it. I did a lot of reading over the break though."

Lily laughed. "That sounds like something you would do."

Sirius interrupted. "Well as fun as this is guys I think we should move to the train. We should be leaving here in a few minutes."

James nodded. "That's true. Alright let's go." He turned and started to walk towards the train with Lily still on his back.

"James put me down, I can walk by myself," she said trying not to laugh.

"Nope. You got yourself up there, so you better like it."

"Besides," quipped Sirius, "your bum is higher now so we all get a better view." Lily guffawed at him and tried to kick him from her position on James' back as the other boys laughed and made their way to and empty compartment.

Two weeks after classes had started Lily couldn't sleep. It was a Sunday night and most people, not being too far behind on their homework yet, had gotten to sleep at a normal hour. But since Lily found that sleep was eluding her, she grabbed a novel from her trunk and headed down to the common room so she wouldn't disturb her roommates. She wasn't too surprised when she found Sirius still up, the only other one in the common room, still working on his Transfiguration essay that was due the next day.

"Well well well," she said, "look who finally showed back up."

He grinned as she sat at the table across from him. "Yeah well, what can I say? Sarah McDougal was much more interesting than this essay earlier this evening."

She smirked. "I was wondering where you sneaked off to earlier. James was helping me with this essay earlier. Looks like Remus was right though."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Remus guessed you were off with a girl, probably Sarah since the other girl you've been hooking up with lately – what's her name, the cute 5th year, is in Gryffindor and was here earlier."

"Christine," he replied absently as he scribbled something down on his essay. "Her name is Christine. But yeah, I was with Sarah and you know those Ravenclaws, she had already finished her essay on Thursday."

Lily laughed. "That is true. But at least you were out with a girl, James was worried you were off by yourself brooding."

Sirius didn't comment. Lily didn't both saying that Peter had pointed out that it was 'practically the same thing at this point.'

Lily let the silence drag on comfortably as Sirius continued to flip through pages in their textbook, pausing every now and then to write a sentence or two.

"Are you doing ok?"

Sirius waited until he was finished writing his sentence to answer. When he did look up at her he shrugged his shoulders. "I guess. I've been trying not to think about it. I guess I got through most of it at James' house. I've just been trying to keep busy since we've been back."

Lily nodded. She and the boys had agreed that Sirius' multiple hook ups in the two weeks they had been back was a product of him trying to keep his mind off the fact that he had been disowned a week before the came to Hogwarts. The Potters were his legal guardians until his seventeenth birthday in February.

"You know, we're actually pretty lucky you and I."

At this Sirius stopped writing and looked at Lily. He was surprised at the look she was giving him, like she wasn't quite here, but thinking of something else, something that made her sad in a resigned way. "Lily, I've just been disowned by my parents, who are probably legally insane. My father beat me and they could never accept me. My brother hates me even more now, and any path I had that would have reconciled us has been cut off forever. Forgive me if I don't feel like I'm in any way, shape, or form, lucky."

Lily smiled a sad smile, still not really there before she seemed to come back to the present and looked at him. "Yeah, but no matter how much our families can't accept us, and no matter how much abuse we take, physical or emotional, no matter how much we feel like we can't measure up, and no matter how much our siblings hate us when all we want is for things to be the way they use to be, at least we have our friends. At least we have each other, and at least we have James, and Remus, and Peter. And at least we know we always have somewhere to go, no matter how bad things get, someplace we'll be accepted and loved and cared for. And in that way Sirius, we are kind of lucky. It's not that I think you shouldn't brood, or feel upset, I just wanted you to remember that, and to let us help you."

Sirius looked at her and was too shocked by her insight to do anything but nod.

She smiled sweetly, still a little sad for the both of them. "I'm actually feeling much more tired now, so I'll see you tomorrow." And it wasn't until after she had climbed the staircase that Sirius realized that maybe Lily could understand what it was like.

Lily knew she was dreaming. Although her peripheral vision was clear anytime she tried to focus on something the details became hazy and she was left with a vague outline of what she was looking at. Time seemed to be skewed, almost as if she was in shock. But even though she knew she was dreaming she couldn't wake up. And oh how she wanted to wake up.

She was in the street looking at her house, but her house was wreaked. Some of the columns holding up the porch had collapsed causing the front part of the roof to sag. There were large holes in the walls and nearly all the windows were broken. The back left corner, where she knew the kitchen was, looked like it had burned away most of that part of the house. She was vaguely aware that all the other houses on this street were in a similar state. There were cars everywhere, sirens and people bustling about. It was like all of the people around her were moving in real time, and she was moving in slow motion. It felt like she was in water. Everything had the blurry quality of a dream, her movements seemed slower than everyone else's and the noises around her all seemed strangely muffled and muted - except for one.

She turned as she heard Petunia's voice, reaching towards her, desperate for some comfort from her only remaining family. Trying to grab onto anyone who could offer her some comfort, an anchor, in this strange and confusing time.

"Oh Pet thank god you're here. I was so worried that you were home when –"

"How dare you come here," her sister screamed. "How dare you show your face! This is all your fault. It was those freaks like you that did this, that killed mum and dad and practically the entire neighborhood. I can't believe you. You always were a worthless piece of shit. A freak of nature and abomination! No one should be able to do those things you can do. And look at what happened to mum and dad. They couldn't protect themselves from those – those – monsters! That's what you are, you're a monster. You always have been. You always were out to steal them from me, and now look what you've done! If they had never had you none of this would have ever happened. Those monsters came here for you - they never wanted anything to do with us! I wish you had never been born, that you had never been a part of my family. I can't believe you have the audacity to show your face here after this. I never want to see you again."

Lily felt the tears rolling down her face, felt as if she was reeling from the unexpected blow her sister's words brought her. She felt utterly and completely alone. The one person she could reach out to, the one person she could latch onto in the face of her parents death wanted nothing to do with her ever again. And was she right? Was this all because of her? What would she do now? Where could she go? And Lily felt her mind swimming in confusion and in slow motion felt her self falling backwards. Just when she thought she would hit the concrete, her body jerked, and she woke up.

The first thing Lily did was reassure herself that it was a dream, but in the dark in her bed with the hangings closed she felt just as alone as she had then. Just as sure that it wasn't a dream and that her parents were dead and her sister hated her. Lily reached up wipe the tears from her face before getting out of bed and quietly sneaking out of her room.

Her bare feet made almost no noise as she quietly stole up the staircase to the 6th year boys dorm. Easing open the door she stole over to the third bed, the one she knew belonged to James. She pulled back the hangings and shook James' shoulder. "James," she whispered in his ear.

He stirred before turning over and half opening one eye to look up at her. "Lily? What are you doing? What happened?" He seemed a little more awake after he spoke and sat up.

Lily was still crying, and through her sobs managed to whisper, "Oh James it was horrible. I had the most horrible nightmare. My parents were killed, by Voldemort I think, and Petunia was there and she," she chocked back a sob, "oh she was just awful. She told me it was my fault they were dead, that I'm a freak and they'd have all been better off without me, and oh James it just seemed so real!"

James was shocked. Lily was it a serious state of upset and her crying was becoming a louder. He threw back the cover and scooted over in the bed. "Come here Lils." She crawled under the covers with him and he closed the hangings before casting a silencing charm on them so that she could tell him what happened and cry to her heart's content without waking his roommates.

Just as he had set his wand down she crawled into his arms, still sobbing. "Oh James it was just horrible, and I woke up and I still feel like it's real and I can't convince myself that it's not because I was so convinced they were dead and I just felt so alone and like I had no place to go and I'm so scared!" James just held her as she sobbed into his chest, reflecting on how completely natural it felt to him that Lily had just crawled into his bed after having a nightmare.

"It's ok Lily. It's not real. Your parents are fine. And Petunia may be awful but she's full of it. Even if that did happen it would never, ever be your fault, and their lives would never have been better without you. You need to stand up to her and be proud of who you are. Just because she is jealous of you and doesn't like you doesn't mean the rest of us don't love you. You're a wonderful person and there are plenty of people who care about you. You could always come to me, you know that." He chuckled slightly and she laughed into his chest. "I'm guessing you do know that or else you wouldn't be here right now. It'll be fine Lils, don't worry." He rubbed her back as he held her and after a while her sobs quieted. When he looked down she had fallen asleep. He smiled and kissed the top of her head before he leaned back against his pillows and felt back asleep himself.

It was early in the morning when Lily woke up in James' arms. It took her a minute to remember what had happened and why she had come up to his room last night. The she remembered her nightmare. However after some good uninterrupted sleep and the comfort of James' embrace she was able to tell herself that it was just a dream and to forget about it. James was still asleep, and sticking her head out of the hangings she saw that it was still an hour before any of the boys would be up, and at least a half hour before any of her roommates would be awake. As she carefully disentangled herself from James so she wouldn't wake him she realized how glad she was that she woke up this early. This way she could sneak out of his room without any of the other guys knowing she had been there in the first place. As good of friends as she and James were, and as natural and comfortable as she had felt in his embrace last night, she really didn't want to deal with the questions she'd have to field if their friends or her roommates found out she slept here the better part of last night. As she climbed into her room and headed to take an early shower she just hoped that James wouldn't mention it to any of their friends either, and that she could find some time to talk to him about it later that day.

Lily found James that afternoon during their shared free period. Sirius and Peter were in Divination, and Remus was in Ancient Runes, which Lily had decided to drop after her OWLs.

As she strolled along the front lawn she saw him under a tree near the lake. He looked like he was working on something, with one book open in front of him and another stacked next to it. As she got closer she saw he was writing on a piece of parchment, using another book as a table. She sat down next to him without saying anything.

"Hey Lils," he said without looking up. "Not working?"

Lily shook her head. "Nope. I'm a day ahead on the work so I figured I'd come sit outside and enjoy the weather." She pulled her scarf around her. "How long do you think the weather will hold?" she asked.

James looked up and the scattered cloud cover. "Well, let's see. Halloween is in what? 2 weeks? I'd say we'll get some warm enough weather until then maybe. But by the time November runs around I think we'll be stuck doing work inside again until the spring."

Lily nodded. "I guess we should take advantage of it while we can then huh?"

He nodded absently, and went back to writing. Lily leaned back against the tree trunk and James' left shoulder and wondered how she could bring up the topic of her nightmare last night. After about five minutes of silence she felt James roll up his parchment and set both his books off to the side.

"Lily," he said.

She looked at him. "Hmm?"

Showing a bit of nervousness he ran his hand through his hair, "What's wrong?"

Surprised, she responded. "Is it that obvious?"

He ran his hand through his hair again. "Well no, I mean not really. It's just that after last night I thought that maybe something was up, and I don't know it was mostly just a guess."

She smiled and leaned her head against the rough bark of the tree, looking up at the sky filtering through its leaves. "I had a nightmare." She paused briefly and added, "a really, awful nightmare."

James mimicked her position, keeping his left shoulder in contact with her right one. "I remember that. You said something about your parents being killed and your sister."

"Yeah. I had this dream, and I don't know it was kind of fuzzy like I didn't know what was going on. And then Petunia was there and I wanted her comfort so badly. But then she just started saying all of these horrible, awful things and it was like I just knew. My parents were dead, and she said it was all my fault - that they would have all been better off without me. And you know what? I believed her."

James sighed before turning and pulling her into a hug. "Lily even if something did happen to them it would never be your fault. You didn't choose to be who you are, you were just made this way. Being magical is something special and Petunia is just jealous of you because you are such a wonderful gifted person. You need to learn to stand up to her."

He felt Lily nod into his shoulder. "I know. She just – I just – I guess I just want us to be sisters."

"Yeah, but Lily, if she can't accept who you are that's your problem. You don't need to change who you are just to try and win her acceptance. You can't be responsible for someone else's happiness. You can only be responsible for your own."

Lily nodded again and she digested his advice while they were both silent for a while. After a few minutes she said quietly, "You didn't mention to the guys about last night did you?"

James smiled. "The part about you having a nightmare, or the part about you crawling into my bed?"

He had a teasing smirk on, but Lily blushed red all the same. "Either."

James dropped his smile when he saw her blush. It made him ache that she could come to him for comfort like that, but not admit it to herself or anyone else that she needed him that way. "Neither," he assured her.

"And McKibbon dives, but it's a miss. Another goal to Slytherin! And that brings the score to 90-40 in Slytherin's favor!"

A loud chorus of boos were heard throughout the stands, but the Slytherin section and about half the Ravenclaw sections were cheering loudly. James Potter was cursing. His first game as captain and they were down to Slytherin by 50 points! They were nearly an hour into the game and goals weren't coming easily. He had to admit that Slytherin had an amazing team of chasers this year – two 5th years and a 7th year and they worked together seamlessly. Meanwhile Gryffindor had to replace Tracy London who had graduated last year. And although James and Daniel Cummins, a returning 4th year, felt comfortable in the game, it looked like their new 3rd year chaser Aimee Randall needed some more practice. James swore again as he lost Dan lost the quaffle. He had picked Aimee for the team because he knew she had a lot of potential, and if he could train her well by this time next year she's be superb, but in the meantime they were losing.

Meanwhile, Lily was sitting in the stands with Remus, Peter, Aly, and her other 3 roommates.

"Who's the new girl," Aly asked in Lily's ear.

"Aimee Randall," she said. "She's a third year. She's friends with Rachel and Samantha."

"Ahh, I thought I recognized her. It was hard to tell from that far away though. I forgot she said she made the team."

Lily nodded. Those three went everywhere together and were fast friends. Lily and Aly were some of the only older students they knew, and they occasionally ate lunch with them. Rachel's older sister was one of the other Gryffindor 6th year girls.

"James says she had a lot of potential but she looks pretty nervous from here."

Remus leaned over to join in the conversation. "Aimee? I don't know she looks like she's doing fine, but those Slytherin chasers are doing extremely well. We can barely keep up. It's all McKibbon can do to keep them from scoring every other shot."

Peter agreed. "The Slytherin chasers may be better than ours, but we have better beaters – Sirius and Janice, that 5th year are really pretty good. James just needs to use them to our advantage. We aren't going to win this game on goals. We need to find the snitch and soon. Slytherin's seeker isn't all that quick and if we can distract him maybe Carl can find the snitch. Slytherin's best shot at winning this game is to outscore us by more than 150 and if this game keeps up for another hours I think they could do it."

James meanwhile had realized the same things and called a timeout. As the other 6 players touched the ground he quickly gathered them together and started giving directions.

"Alright you guys this is what needs to happen. There chasers are really good. Aimee, your doing fine don't worry and just play your best, I didn't really expect us to outscore them today. What we need to do is hold them off until Carl can find the snitch. Carl, the Slytherin seeker, LeVay, keeps getting distracted watching the game, especially when there's a foul – he hasn't figured out he can use that time to look for the snitch yet. So Sirius, I want you too keep trying to disrupt any rhythm the chasers try and build up. Chasers, we're going to have to play a little dirty to slow the game down and disrupt their passing but try to not get called for too many fouls. McKibbon, keep doing what you're doing and when they do get fouls, do what you can to keep them out. Janice, I want you do let Sirius handle the chasers, and I want you to do everything you can to distract their seeker so the Carl can have so freedom to move about the pitch. Remember guys the way we are going to win this game is to slow them down for as long as we can to give Carl to find time to get the snitch. Got it?"

They all nodded their heads in agreement as James heard the whistle telling them time was up and to get back in the air. "Alright, let's do this then."

Another hour into the game and the score was now 170-70. James had managed to intercept a pass from the Slytherin keeper for a quick score, but their only two other goals had come from Aimee. All the chasers were starting get into close contact with their counterparts and both teams were starting to play dirty. However, it seemed that because Aimee was so small she easily got the call in her favor when she got into a bad tussle with another chaser. She had scored two of three penalty shots. Janice had been able to distract LeVay pretty well, and sure enough every time there was a penalty he would get caught watching instead of looking. Carl was frantically searching high and low for the snitch before they ran out of time, and Sirius had managed to do a good job disrupting the chasers, even though it meant that he spent less time protecting his own chasers from bludgers. Dan had already narrowly avoided having his arm broken and McKibbon had taken a sore hit to the shoulder when he refused to get out of the way and let the quaffle go through.

Suddenly, after receiving a pass from Aimee near his own goal, James felt a Slytherin chaser come up from below him and grab the quaffle. Knowing that if he lost it the chaser would be one on one with McKibbon James held on to the quaffle for dear life. He and the other chaser both had two arms on the quaffle and were currently locked together and tumbling through the air. Before James knew it, everything went black.

Lily was standing on her tip toes in the stands and James wrestled with another Slytherin chaser. She bit her lip as she watched them tumbling over each other through the air. From the other side of the pitch she saw Sirius chase down a bludger and aim it towards them, trying to break them apart and make the Slytherin chaser back off. But when neither of them moved Lily watched from afar as the bludger made contact with James' head and still holding the quaffle and the other chaser, they all fell to the ground.

All at once, Lily, Remus, Peter, and Aly gasped along with the rest of the Gryffindor fans. As a group of the professors and Madam Huely came rushing on to the field to tend to James, there was a cry from the announcer.

"Oh no that had to hurt. It looks like Potter just took a nasty hit to the head. Thankfully he was practically attached to Noring which slowed his fall. Madam Huely and Professor Dumbledore on the pitch as well as Professor McGonagall. Play will resume as soon as – wait! Look at this! There goes Carl Jennings in a steep dive, it looks as if he's seen the snitch. Yes! Ladies and Gents it looks like this game is over! Final score, Slytherin 170, Gryffindor 220! What a long and difficult game."

As soon as they saw Carl land clutching the snitch, surrounded by the rest of the team sans Sirius who was standing with Madam Huely as she checked over James, Lily, Remus, and Peter ran down to the field to see how James was. Because of all the crowds, they didn't get to James until he was already in the hospital wing. Madam Huely had bandaged his head after finding there was no skull damage and was going to get him a revival potion when Lily led the others into the hospital wing to see Sirius sitting on the end of the bed.

As soon as she saw him, Lily proved by her temper that she was a red head. "Sirius Orion Black what were you thinking! I mean who hits their own team member in the head with a bludger and their best friend nonetheless you could have killed him!"

Remus was quick to jump in. "Whoa Lily calm down. He didn't mean to you know that, you're just worried. I'm sure James is going to be fine, tell her Sirius."

Sirius' eyes had widened when Lily had started yelling at him and now he was quick to appease her. "He's fine, there was no skull damage, it was mostly a glancing blow. Madam Huely just went to get him some revival potion. He'll be up in just a minute."

Lily knew she was just mad because seeing him unconscious, falling out of the sky like that had terrified her, but she crossed her arms and looked angry all the same. She would apologize when he woke up and said he was fine.

Just then Madam Huely came bustling around the corner, a potion in hand, and poured it down James' throat. After about 30 seconds all four friends sighed in relief when his eyes opened.

"Mister Potter."

"Huh?"

"Do you know what day it is?"

James groaned when he realized where he was. "Yes, it's a Saturday and I was in the middle of a quidditch game against Slytherin and oh Merlin Sirius please tell me if you were going to knock me out that we at least won the bloody game."

"Yup, he's going to be just fine," said Madam Huely. "I'll want to keep you overnight just for observation though. Standard with head injuries as I'm sure you know by now Mister Potter." And with that she bustled back to her office.

Sirius smiled and looked at Lily before he looked back and James and answered. "Yeah we did. Everyone was so distracted by what was happening to you that when Carl finally found the snitch he had no competition and picked it out of the air like it was a daisy."

After another hour of recounting the final moments of the game and discussing the entire thing in detail everyone left the hospital wing, except James to go grab dinner. Lily promised that she would stop by later and bring him a book and his Potions homework so that he could at least get something done if he was going to be stuck here and miss the party. Much to James' delight she offered to miss it with him and stay in the hospital wing, but James told her to go and have fun, as long as she came down to visit him for a little while after dinner.

As they all walked back to the tower Lily turned to Sirius. "I'm sorry I yelled at you," she said. She knew that he knew why she had acted that way, there wasn't much more to say than that.

Sirius nodded. "I know." He slowed his pace so that Remus and Peter were all the way down the hall before he continued. "I know why you did it Lily love. You care about him – it's obvious. Don't worry about it. You did what any best friend would have done – worry." He paused as he considered saying something about Lily caring for him even more that as just a friend, but decided against it. It really wasn't his place to say anything.

A/N: So I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. It was a fun one to write, especially the Quidditch game. The next chapter will be SUPER EXCITING (you guys have all be waiting for it and with only 7 chapters left don't you think we should start getting those two together?) so if you guys want it faster you should review! :)