I'm so sorry that its taken this long for me to upload another chapter, and this one is going to skip a looooot of time. The kids were in their 6th year when June died, and now we're about to start their seventh year of school, so we skipped about eight months. Okay so here we go.
Winter had come and gone, and then spring had too, summer had started, and now it was almost fall. Reed had been astonished at the speed of which time had passed after June's funeral. The teens had been away from each other all summer with the exception of Sirius, Reed, and James who all lived together in James and Reed's parent's house. The three teens were currently laying on the floor in the living room, Reed in shorts and a tank top, and James and Sirius in nothing but a pair of cotton shorts.
"It's too hot in here." Reed huffed lifting her head up and reaching behind her so she could tie her hair up in a ponytail.
"It was only 23 degrees out last week." James whined turning over on his stomach.
Reed looked up to see the small thermometer stuck to the glass of the sliding doors, 35 degrees. She wasn't sure how they hadn't gotten heat stroke yet. When June or their parents had been alive, at least they had been able to place charms around the house to keep it cool. The teenagers had no way of using magic outside of school since all three of them were still underage.
"How many days until we go back to school?" Sirius asked lazily, not even bothering to open his eyes.
"It's Friday," Reed muttered, "We leave Sunday morning."
Reed sighed appreciatively, only two days left until they would leave for school and she wouldn't be stuck in a house with two boys the entire time. She loved James, and Sirius was like another brother to her, but without Lily and Ruby there to keep them in line, it was hard to deal with them.
There were always clothes laying on the floor, and there was always food out on the kitchen counter, and it seemed like neither of them knew the meaning of personal hygiene, or that if you laid a wet towel on a chair that had a fabric cover it would leave a water mark on it. All summer she had felt she was babysitting two children and not living with two grown men the exact same age as her.
Then there was the problem of not having seen Remus since the beginning of summer. The two of them had been making plans the entire vacation, but for some reason they all seemed to be falling through. Reed had begun thinking it was her fault, and maybe once summer started and Remus wasn't around her as much, he realized how much he enjoyed being alone instead of tied down in a relationship.
Reed sighed and turned over on her side to watch Sirius and James. The two of them were still sprawled out on the floor. James cracked open an eye and looked at Reed. He smiled at her, "What's up Reedy?" he asked lazily.
"Just bored with being home is all." Reed murmured.
Sirius laughed, "I never thought I would say this, but I miss school," He paused for a moment before adding, "Not that I don't enjoy being home with you two, but you know, I'm missing our other friends."
Reed nodded her head, and rolled back over. There was only two days left until she would see Lily and Ruby again, until she would see Remus again. Everything would be fine again. Reed closed her eyes, still facing the two boys. Maybe she could take a nap. At least then a couple of hours would have gone by and she would be that much closer to seeing the rest of her friends again.
"How bad do you think it's going to get?"
"We have great and powerful wizards on our side, I'm sure this can't go on for much longer."
Reed slowly opened her eyes, a little disoriented, realizing that she was just waking up from her nap. She sat up, a blanket that hadn't been there sliding off of her shoulders and pooling in her lap. James or Sirius must have moved her from the floor and onto the couch after she had fallen asleep.
"If that's your logic James, shouldn't this have been over by now?" Reed turned herself around so that she was looking into the kitchen.
Sirius and James were standing behind the counter, mugs of something cradled in their hands as James clutched an issue of the Daily Prophet. Reed hadn't been exactly sure of what they had been talking about, but she was sure of it now as she read the large headline on the front of the paper, "Eight more found dead: Muggle born." Reed wasn't sure how many innocent witches and wizards, as well as Muggles had been killed so far, but she knew the count from the week was up to 52 including the eight from that day.
Things had been getting progressively worse since the New Year had been rung in. Reed wasn't sure when everything had started to go to hell. She remembered being in her first, second, third, and half of her fourth year being happy, and completely innocent to any of the mass wrong doings of her people. It had been half way through her fourth year when the first murder had taken place, and then the second and third, and by her fifth year there were a 100 odd deaths that had happened.
Of course hate crimes like that had always been normal, and Reed had always grown up knowing about them. Never before had they been so organized and been committed by the same group of people. Before she had even known it, they were calling it a war, and her parents and sister had been killed and now she and James were the only Potters left. Time had passed her by in her safe secluded world at Hogwarts. She was turning seventeen in a month, a grown adult in the wizarding world, and she was just now realizing the weight of the problems of her society. If anyone would ever come to ask her, Reed would have told them that it was this very instance in which she had realized she was an adult, and it was going to hit her fast whether or not she liked it.
"Reedy, when did you wake up?" Sirius asked looking over at the blond; James looked up, surprised and quickly threw the Prophet in the garbage bin.
"Just a moment ago. What were you two talking about?" She asked, slipping her legs out from underneath the blanket, standing, and stretching her sore limbs.
"It was nothing Reedy, just some stupid article in the daily Prophet is all." James said smiling softly at her.
"James, I heard you two talking about the war…"
"Reed, it was nothing, I swear-" Whatever James was going to say after that was cut short as a curt knocking came from the front door.
"I'll go and get it." Reed muttered, a little annoyed that James wouldn't tell her something she already knew.
Reed could hear Sirius reprimanding her brother as she left the living room and walked down the hallway to the front door. There was another knock just as she was reaching the door and another as she started to unlock it.
"I'm coming! Merlin, hold your horses." It was already 6 in the evening, what could anyone possibly be so impatient about. Reed finally unhinged the last lock on her front door and pulled it open. Looking up, she screamed.
Standing before her was Lily Evans and Ruby Taylor, both with trunks and owls in hand. Reed could feel her eyes start to tingle with the familiar sensation of tears starting to form. At least this time they were finally tears of joy, and not sadness or uneasiness. Lily let a huge grin settle on her face.
"Are you just going to stare at the two of us all day, or let us in?" She asked.
"Oh. Oh yeah, come on in, my fault. Terribly sorry." Reed wiped at her eyes, brushing away the tears that hadn't yet fallen.
"Completely alright Reedy," Ruby smiled wrapping an arm around the girl's shoulders as they walked into the kitchen together.
They had barely gotten half way into the room before the boys saw them and broke into huge smiles and booming laughs. James set his cup down and nearly ran over to where Lily was standing, scooping her up into his arms and swinging her around.
"Hey there Darling." He smiled lowering her so that she could touch the ground on tip toes.
"Hey there yourself." Lily smiled back placing a quick, but very heartfelt kiss on the other teenager's lips.
"Gross, take it to your room." Ruby said from the other side of the room where Sirius was currently hugging her as well.
"When did the two of you decide to come without being invited?" Sirius asked jokingly.
"Probably about four hours ago." Lily said rather seriously, her face had fallen slightly.
Reed could tell she looked a little worried, "How about you two come upstairs and put your things away while Sirius and James make us all a little something to eat." Reed suggested, sending a look towards the boys.
"Sure, that sounds nice." Ruby said picking her things back up and following Reed and Lily upstairs to Reed's room.
Once the two girls had put their things down and changed into more comfortable clothing, Reed sprung the question, "What happened Lily?"
"How do you know it was something wrong with me!' Lily asked indignantly.
"Please, you'd think I haven't known you since our first year at Hogwarts."
When Lily didn't speak up, Ruby did for her, "Her sister was being a right twat."
"RUBY!" Lily nearly screamed.
"What? It's true! She made you cry and everything! I don't understand why you even talk to her anymore. If my sister did that to me, I would have hit her."
"What did she do?" Reed asked, her interest and concern piqued.
"Ruby had come over this morning. We were going to surprise you guys and come tomorrow to spend a day before we left for Hogwarts. Mum and Dad were so excited to be meeting another witch, especially a pureblood like Ruby. We were having so much fun with them asking her questions and what not, it was actually turning out to be a pretty happy evening."
"Until her sister decided to be the most unintelligent woman I have ever had the displeasure to meet. As soon as Lily's parents were out of the room, Petunia started calling Lily things like freak, and how she was happy this was her last year at Hogwarts so she wouldn't have to see her at home anymore during the breaks. Poor Lily ran up to her room crying."
"I don't know what you expected me to do!" Lily said trying to defend herself, "She's my older sister! My only sister! You don't abandon family, no matter how angry they are with you!"
"You should have seen her Reedy, she wasn't angry with Lily, she down right acted like she hated her, her own sister! You're right, family is family Lily, but you don't have to love them." Ruby said crossing her arms.
"Of course you have to! If you can't love your family who can you love?"
"Do you expect Sirius to love Bellatrix?" Reed asked after a moment of silence.
The three girls sat on the floor, thinking about it before Lily sighed, "I suppose not, but my sister has never killed anyone."
"She's just an ignorant wench." Ruby said hotly, "If I had been 17 already, I would have hexed her all the way to next year!"
"Well whatever happened with your sister, you can forget about it now." Reed said leaning over and taking Lily's hands in hers, "You two are here with us now, and we're going to school for the last time. We're going to have fun. We're going to get into trouble that was probably entirely James' and Sirius' fault. We're going to pass our N.E.W.T.S. because you make us study. We're going to go out with a bang. Then we're going to graduate, and go our separate ways, but keep in touch because we all love each other." Reed took a small breath, "Do you understand? It doesn't matter what happened this morning, because it's in the past and there's nothing you can do to change it. So we're going to make the best of it, because you two are here hours before you were originally planning. So, let's go downstairs and have fun for the rest of the night, okay?"
Lily smiled, wiping away a stray tear that had formed during Reed's small pep talk, "Right. It's in the past and there's nothing I can do about it. You're absolutely right, let's go have fun." Lily said squeezing Reed's hands as the three of them went back to the kitchen.
I am so sorry its taken me so long to update. I know this was a filler chapter, and so it was probably really boring to you guys, but the next chapter they're going to school and things are going to pick up! I promise! Read and Review, they mean a lot to me