A/N: Hia's peeps

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'Lil-y…'

The young red-head groaned and rolled over in her bed.

'Lily!' Came the voice of her sister, Petunia again.

'What?' Lily called out sleepily.

The door of her room opened and her bony sister walked in defiantly. 'I have to ask you a question.' She told her in a proud voice.

Lily groaned and covered her face with her hands. 'What is it?' She muttered out loud.

'I forgot what day it is. Can you tell me?' Petunia asked innocently.

Lily picked up her stuffed lamb, Fleecy, and chucked it at her sisters face. 'It's the first bloody day of the holidays and I was trying to get some sleep.' She told her crossly.

'Oh, I am sorry.' Petunia said in a long, fake apologetic voice. 'I'll leave you alone now, -after all, you need all the beauty sleep you can get.'

Petunia turned around and walked out of Lily's room, shutting the door with a click behind her.

Lily rubbed her eyes and looked at her alarm clock. It read 4:56AM.

Lily swore at Petunia under her breath and tried, un-successively to get back to sleep.

After about ten minutes, she gave up and moved to her desk with her blanket wrapped tightly around her.

She pulled out a piece of parchment and began to write.

Dearest Potter,

Due to some annoying incident of sisterly love, I had to wake up at 5:00, and as I'm sure you know, I don't like waking up early.

So sorry honey, but I'm afraid that I hate suffering alone.

Cheers,

The beautiful and talented Lily Evans.

Lily smiled to herself and pointed her wand out the window.

'Wloay ostpay.' She muttered, a neat charm that Jasmine had taught her for summoning post owls.

She waited a minute for a little black owl to fly into her room via the window.

Lily smiled at it and put three nuts into the small leather pouch tied to it's leg before handing it the letter.

'Now, I want you to make a lot of noise when you deliver this.' Lily told the bird patiently.

The owl clicked it's beak and flew out through the window again.

Lily smiled happily and leaned back in her chair.

* * *

James rolled over in his bed and put his pillow over his head.

He thought he could hear an owl tapping on his window outside.

'Hoot, hoot.'

James groaned and rolled off his bed with a thump.

He detangled himself from his blanket with difficulty and got up and made his way groggily to his window.

He fumbled with the latch before pulling it open and feeling the cold, fresh air on his skin.

Without hesitation, the owl flew inside and started doing laps around James' room, hooting merrily.

'Come here.' James called, getting annoyed at the little bird.

The owl gave a harsh hoot at James and dropped the letter on his head.

James started grumbling about stupid owls as he bent down and opened the letter.

His face broke into an un-willing grin as he read it. He shook his head and crumbled it into a little ball and chucked it into the waste paper basket.

His head turned to the owl and he pulled out his wand.

'Aintpay orangay' he muttered, and watched as one by one the owls feathers turned to bright fluoro orange.

The owl gave an undignified hoot and flew out of the window disgruntled, but not before giving James a cuff over the head with it's wing.

James smiled to himself and lay back down on his bed.

* * * * * * * * * *

Three hours later James woke up again to find bright sunlight pouring itself onto his closed eyelids.

He opened his eyes and blinked.

The first day of the holidays. The world was his, he thought. Thinking mischeiviously of the trouble he could cause.

He dressed quickly and headed down the large marble staircase to the kitchen where his father was sitting at the table sipping on his coffee delicately, Daily Prophet in one hand.

He looked up as James came in.

'Morning Dad.' James said cheerfully.

'What was that racket in your room this morning?' Were his fathers words. The first words in six months, thought James.

'Oh nothing.' James told him. 'A girl from school…'

His father chocked on his coffee. 'You had a girl from school in your room, making lots of noises, at five in the morning?' He chocked out, a flabbergasted expression on his lined face.

'No!' James said disgusted. 'It was only Lily, she sent me an owl.'

His father raised his eyebrows accusingly. 'How well do you know Lily exactly?' He asked sternly.

James looked at him shocked. 'What?! No, it's not like that, ew!' He said appalled.

James shook his head and crossed the room to the sink where he poured himself a glass of water.

'You have mail.' His father said in a mild voice, motioning to a light brown envelope sitting on the table.

James took it and slit the top open.

The parchment inside read:

Dear Mr Potter.

I'm writing to you on a very serious matter.

I manage a very respectable company. Hardy and Co.'s Post Owl delivery service. This is a very handy service specifically designed for the use of muggleborns, or witches and wizards who don't have post owls of their own.

It's a very worthy establishment and I'm afraid that you have abused it by you de-colouring our newest post owl, Soot.

A one-sickle fee has been taken from your Gringotts account.

Thank-you very much

L. J. Hardy.

James frowned, annoyed.

'Damn.' He moaned under his breath.

'What was that?' His father asked, not looking up from his newspaper.

'Nothing.' James muttered.

"Uh oh. You're late." Said an over cheerful voice coming from the round clock on the wall.

Mr Potter looked at his watch and swore. 'Shit, I am too.' He stood up brushing the left over crumbs from his toast off the front of his robes.

'Bye James. Tell your mother I'll be home for dinner.' He said to his son.

'Yep, sure.' James muttered flatly.

He watched his father grab his briefcase and apparate out of the kitchen.

James sighed and put a few pieces of toast in the toaster.

It popped down, then a moment later popped back up with the toast nicely toasted on both sides.

He buttered it and began eating, feeling slightly less cheerful than he had been before he came into the kitchen.

* * * * * * * * * *

Around that same time, somewhere on the oppistite side of the country, Jasmine Avery awoke with a start.

She could have sworn she had just heard the sound of a scream coming from somewhere inside her house. She shook her head and rolled over onto her side.

She was just imagining things, of course. There was no way what she heard could have been real.

She got up, dressed and headed out her room into the cold corridor.

Her house was a rather big house, and it was even more old. Her brother used to tell her it was haunted when she was little, and during thunderstorms she would take to hiding under the bed for fear of the vengeful ghost that walked around the house.

That was before her brother went away with her parents for a holiday.

She was left alone with the house elves and Vermont, the family servent, told that she was too young.

Her brother came back a week later changed. He no longer told her ghost stories, or played hide and seek with her in the garden, he spent his time in their fathers library looking through dusty spell books.

Jasmine sighed and headed down to the kitchen to get some breakfast, hoping not to meet any of her family on the way.

She had successfully avoided her parents the previous night, by retiring almost as soon as she got home.

She had a small feeling that her mother and father would be slightly less than welcoming after she had spent a year in the Gryffindor house.

She reached the kitchen to find her brother sitting at the kitchen table with another Slytherin boy from his year.

They were pointing their wands at something and chuckling.

Jasmine made a move to back away before they spotted her, but her foot scraped on the stone floor and her brother looked up sharply.

'Good morning Sister.' He said darkly, alerting the other boys attention to her.

'Oh, hello.' He said to her in a pleasant voice. 'Have we met?'

Her brother, Douglass, scowled. 'That's my sister.' He told his friend darkly. 'Jasmine.'

'What a pretty name.' He in a sickly-sweet voice. 'It suits you. I'm Lucious by the way, Lucious Malfoy.'

Jasmine smiled bitterly. 'Hi.'

Her brother was watching this display with interest, suddenly he smiled. 'Won't you join us, Sister Dear?' He said in a would-be warm voice.

'No, it's ok. I'm not all that hungry.' She said quickly, avoiding Malfoy's imploring eyes. 'I've got a Panadol, -I mean a headache. I just came down here for a Panadol.'

She hurried to the cupboard above the sink and quickly pulled out a white box. 'See.' She said, holding it up to show them.

Her brother rolled his eyes and turned back to the thing on the table and started poking it with his wand.

Jasmine, over come by curiosity, snuck a quick look at it.

It was a mouse, or was a mouse. It looked as though it had been set one fire, then put under the crucio curse, which was probably what had happened. As Douglass' wand poked it, it moved it's little poor desperately, as though begging for help.

The boys sniggered mercilessly at it's efforts.

Jasmine's throat gave out a sound of disgust and hurried away back up to her room.

* * * * * * * * * *

A couple of days later and the familier feeling of holiday boredom had kicked in for our Hogwarts chappies. Lily had had no contact with her school friends, if you exclude the cursed mail that she received from James not long after he had received his mail on the first day.

Her hair was now staying a delightfully sickening shade of yellowish orange and all oily, no matter how many times she had tried to wash it.

As soon as her mother saw her with her –ah, new attitude concerning the keeping of her "beautiful fiery locks", she had been grounded, on the spot, no questions asked, for until it was changed back to her normal state.

Lily had decided it was wiser to refrain from informing her mother that a boy in her year from school had done it to her, as her mother probably would have marched straight over to his house and demanded he change it back, or done something equally humiliating.

So that was the main reason she was currently sitting on her bed looking up a counter curse for her hair dipping her index finger in a bowl of melted chocolate frogs that came from the Hogwarts express.

She heard the phone ring downstairs and her ears pricked in hope that it would be Jasmine or someone from Hogwarts.

A moment later she heard her sisters heavy steps come bounding up the stairs.

'I'll just get the little witch- opps, I mean Lily for you.' She heard Petunia say into the phone with an over-sweet voice.

Petunia opened the door, shot her sister an innocent smile, chucked her the phone and backed out closing the door behind her.

Lily lifted the receiver up to her ear. 'Hello?' She said into it.

'Lily!' An excited voice shouted gleefully back.

Lily frowned slightly and helld the phone a little further away from her ear. 'Who is this?' She asked uncertainly.

'It's Cara, from primary school!' She said excitedly. 'I've been trying to get through for ages, but your phones always engaged. '

'That would be Petunia's fault.' Lily muttered.

Cara seemed not to hear. 'So anyway, how've you bin?' She continued. 'And why did Petunia call you a little witch before?'

Because I have a wand and she doesn't. Lily thought smugly, smiling to herself. 'Oh, it's just that time of the day again.' Lily told her friend.

Cara laughed. 'So anyway, are there any cute boys at your school? Wasn't there one that you met before term? Wasn't he cute? What does he look like?'

Lily stared at the phone in utter disbelief. She hasn't talked to me for almost a year and the first topic of conversation is about James?' She thought desperately to herself.

'Well?' Came Cara's impatient voice.

'Well, yeah, he's kinda –I mean no! He's a dickhead! James Potter, the bigheaded, dickhead of Hogwarts!' She said angrily fingering some grotty strands of her hair.

'Uh huh,' Cara said disbelievingly. 'Hogwarts? What kind of name is that?'

'I reckon it's a cool name.' Lily said defensively, cursing herself for mentioning her school.

'Well I've never heard of it.' Cara said. 'Where is it?'

'Up north.' Lily said shortly.

'…Where up north?' Cara asked her.

'I dunno.' Lily said truthfully. 'We take a train to it.'

'Really?' Cara said getting excited all over again. 'So do we! What station do you use?'

'Kingscross.' Lily said glumly.

'Oh my God! Us too!' Cara went on.

'Yeah, cool.' Lily said in a false voice. 'I've got to go now. I'll talk to you later.' Lily told her.

'Oh ok then. See-ya.'

'Yep, see-ya.' Lily agreed, hanging up the phone and flopping backwoods on her bed.

* * * * * * * * * *

A week later, the un-pleasant hair colour had retreaded from Lily's hair and she and her muggle friends were sitting around her kitchen table talking and eating chips.

Jenny, who had been moaning about how hard one of her end-of-year tests were suddenly turned to Lily.

'What did you think of your tests Lily?' She asked innocently.

Lily looked up from her bowl of chips and stared at her for a moment.

'My tests?' She asked meekly. 'My tests were…interesting.' She answered.

Jenny looked only half satisfied with her answer, but turned back to Cara anyway.

'So, did I tell you about Mark?' She asked excitedly.

Cara looked up with interest. 'No. Who's Mark?' She asked.

'He's only THE cutest guy at my school who, like has a total crush on me.' She said airily.

'Ooooh!' Cara squealed. 'What's he like?'

'Well, he's really popular, and he's smart and he's-'

Lily let out a short laugh.

'What?' Jenny asked her annoyed.

'Oh nothing. Please do continue with your little story about how this guy has a crush on you, only try to make it a little different from your last five, they're getting boring.' Lily told her plainly.

Cara and Jenny looked shocked. 'Honestly, Lily.' She said in an angry voice. 'You've changed, you used to be cool. Now your just a bitch.'

Lily glared at her. 'Is that a fact?' She asked annoyed. 'Well hey, I'd rather be a bitch than a boring, lying bimbo who's too stupid to even think up good comebacks!'

'Why you little-'

"Arrrrrgh!"

She was interrupted by a loud scream coming from her lounge room where Petunia was watching TV.

Lily quickly got up and rushed in to see what the commotion was all about.

Two tallish boys were standing next to the fire-place, looking very dirty and holding onto what looked like a very old wizards hat.

Petunia was cowering in one of the armchairs.

'Oh dear God.' Lily muttered as she recognised the boys as James and Sirius.

'Potter! Sirius!' She yelled at them angrily. 'What the hell are you doing here?!"

James turned to Sirius. 'Yeah, Sirius. What are we doing here, you said we were going to Diagon Alley.'

'I lied, Lily's more interesting than watching you goggle at broomsticks.' Sirius said calmly, making his way out of the lounge room and into the kitchen.

James shrugged at followed and Lily ran after them looking very annoyed.

In the kitchen Sirius was introducing himself to Cara and Jenny who were looking very shocked and amazed by the sudden visitors.

'I'm Sirius Black, and this is James Potter. We're friends of Lily's from school.'

'Your James?' Cara asked looking amused. 'Your right, Lil, he is cute.' She said to Lily, eyeing James up and down.

Sirius burst out laughing as James raised his eyebrows at Lily.

'I never said he was cute!' She said, defensively, her face going as red as her hair.

'Yes you did…' Cara started, but stopped as she saw the murderous look on Lily's face.

Jenny, who had been keeping quiet until now suddenly spoke up. 'Hey, lets go to a movie or something. This is boring.'

Cara nodded her head. 'Yeah, there's a cinema just around the block from here. You guys want to come?' She asked.

Sirius and James looked at each other and shrugged. 'Sure, why not?' James said, shooting a glance at a scowling Lily.

'Fine.' Lily said unexcited.

'Excellent.' Jenny said, flashing a smile at James.

Out on the street Jenny and Cara started walking, but Lily held James and Sirius back. 'If either of you mention Hogwarts or magic at all, as soon as we get back to school I will personally turn you both into hairy little flubberworms.'

'You know, I might feel a tiny bit threatened at that if I didn't know how bad you are at transfiguration.' James told her smartly.

Lily glared at him. 'Just watch it, Potter.' She told him.

'Sure, sure. Whatever.' He muttered, absentmindedly.

He hurried to catch up to the girls while Sirius remained with Lily looking at her with an expression of amusement on his face.

'What?' Lily asked him fed-up.

Sirius placed an arm around her shoulder. 'Did you really say that James was cute?' He asked grinning at her.

Lily stared at him in disbelief. 'What do you think?' She asked annoyed.

Sirius' grin widened and he started humming. 'Da-Dum-dum-ta-dum' He dodged Lily's violent arm and bounced away after the others.

* * * * * * * * *

Later that evening, after Cara's mum had dropped Lily home, she was sitting in the lounge room watching the six o'clock news.

She heard her mothers car pull into the gravel drive way.

The front door opened and her sister appeared carrying two bags of groceries.

She gave Lily a quick glance before hurrying on to the kitchen to put the groceries away.

A moment later her mother appeared.

'Hello Lily-dear.' She said in a surprisingly warm voice. 'How was your day?'

'Fine.' Lily lied. Having to sit through an hour and a half of Sirius' taunts about her and James was not exactly what she would normally call fine.

Her mother nodded and was about to walk away when she seemed to suddenly remember something. 'Oh yeah, we're having company tonight and Petunia has requested that you "try to act normal" and not cast any weird rituals.'

Lily chocked. 'Weird rituals?' She spluttered outraged.

Her mother ignored her and walked away into the kitchen to start cooking dinner.

Lily turned back to the TV, still fuming, to catch the last of a news report.

"…Experts are baffled to the circumstances surrounding the deaths saying that the body's are all in healthy conditions. The only lead that the police have is an odd green symbol that was left hovering above the house…" A picture of a snake coming out of a green skull was shown to the top right of the news readers head. "…Police have asked for anyone who has any information on this incident to report it immediately by calling 1800 55 57 80. Now onto the weather with George Micheals."

Lily shuddered and switched off the TV.

She heard a small meow coming from the front door and went to open it for Isis.

The street was dimly lit outside by one street light a couple of houses down.

She peered out into the shadows and little tingles spread slowly up her spine.

The news report flashed through her mind and she hurriedly scooped Isis up and shut the door.

She carried the grey and white cat up to her room and deposited her onto her bed while she sat down at her desk chair.

Her homework lay where it had been left unfinished the previous night. A potions assignment that they had to complete before they got back to Hogwarts.

Lily had given it a glance before giving up on it. They were meant to name all the potions that needed a kneazles paw in it, then chose one and make it.

Lily, who having read about kneazles in a book the previous year, had found it too cruel and gross.

She closed her books and pulled out a fresh bit of paper and started to draw on it.

She wasn't sure what she was drawing at first, she was just putting sketchy little lines on the paper. She saw it turn slowly into a tree and started drawing an owl on one of the top branches.

A knock sounded on her door and she looked up. 'Come in.' She called.

The door opened and her sister entered wearing a red turtleneck top that made her neck look twice its usual size.

'Good evening Lily.' Petunia said sourly. 'How are you.?'

'Actually, I was just about to do a "bizarre ritual" to jinx the dinner tonight. How about you?'

'Maaaaaarm!' Petunia screamed. 'She said she was going to Jinx the dinner tonight!'

'Oh grow-up Petunia!' Lily told her exasperatedly. 'I've got better things to do than ruin your stupid dinner.'

Petunia gave her an un-pleasant scowl. 'You'd better not, or I'll make sure your life is a living hell!' She threatened. 'Oh yeah, and that picture sucks.' She added before turning and storming out of Lily's room again.

Lily poked her tongue out through her door at Petunia and chucked her drawing in the bin.

* * * * * * * * * *

Hey! It's finished! Don't you all love me for finally getting it done? Not really because this was such a pointless chapter. Oh well. Who cares, they get back to Hogwarts next chapter, -thank-god…

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