Sirus, Peter, and I spent the first two hours of the trip back to London for the Easter Break trying to get James to just go and ask Lily if she wanted to come to his house for Easter because if he just did it he'd shut up about it.

"Come on, if you want to do it, do it," said Sirius. "Otherwise stop talking about it!"

"No, I'm going to do it..." said James.

"You've been saying that for the past hour," said Peter.

"Yeah, but I'm really going to do it now," said James, messing up his hair.

"Go on, then," I said, even though I knew he wouldn't go.

As expected, James didn't budge. He continued sitting firmly on his seat, his fingers curling so tightly around the edges of the seat that his knuckles were as white as a skeleton's.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Remus, can you go and get Evans? Let's get this over with."

I had no idea where Lily would be and I didn't want to have to walk up and down the train to try and find her, but I didn't argue because it would be better than listening to James at that moment.

So I stood up and walked out of the compartment into the carriage, and began making my way down the train, trying to subtly look into every compartment to see if Lily was in there.

I was wasting my time by looking in every compartment though, because of course she was in the Prefect's carriage, and thought I was coming to sit in there too when she saw me.

"Hey, d'you reckon you could come to our compartment for a second?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure, why?" Lily asked as she stood up.

"James just wants to ask you something," I said, leading her out of the prefect's carriage and back up the way I came.

"Potter?" said Lily. "Oh, what does he want to ask me now...?"

"I'll just let him ask you," I said, as we arrived at the compartment, and I slid open the door to see James sitting on one side, frozen on the seat and his face pink, and Sirius and Peter on the other side, looking amused.

"Remus said you wanted to ask me something, Potter?" said Lily, looking at James and leaning against the door

"Uhm, yeah... do you have any plans on Easter Sunday?" James asked, messing with his hair.

"Uh, no, why?" Lily asked hesitantly.

"Well, maybe you could come to my house? Bring your chocolate, bring your family..." said James, not moving his hand from his already messy jet-black hair.

"Potter, I... I don't want to go out with you," said Lily.

"It's not a date!" James said quickly. "Sirius and Remus and Peter and their families will be there too..."

"Oh... if they're all going to be there, it's just a family and friends catch up I suppose... alright, I'll ask my parents tonight," said Lily. "Do you have a telephone?"

"No, both my parents are magic," said James. "But there's one in a town near my place."

"OK, call me tomorrow morning on that," said Lily, opening my trunk and grabbing a quill, ink, and parchment from it. She wrote a telephone number on it and then handed it to James. "This is my home telephone number."

"Alright," said James, taking the parchment, his face going even pinker. "I'll call you."

"OK," said Lily, stepping out of the compartment. "Talk to you tomorrow, then!"

"Yeah..." said James, but she'd already left.

"God, you really are a hopeless romantic, James," said Sirius, laughing. "I think the one thing you're not good at in the whole world is talking to Evans."

"I can't believe she said yes!" James said, sitting down and moving his legs around excitedly. "What time should I call her in the morning, though? Six o'clock?"

"We don't even wake that early when we have class, as if she'd be awake then during the break," I said.

"Oh, yeah... maybe seven? No, she might want to sleep in since it's Easter Break... eight? Eight-thirty... I don't know! I don't want to do it too early because I don't want to seem desperate, but at the same time, I don't want to seem... not desperate. Ugh, does any of this make sense!? I don't know..."

James continued to blabber on, only stopping when the Trolley Witch came by and Sirius shouted us all a load of sweets, and as soon as she'd left, he continued to blabber on about what time he should ring Lily the next morning, and I found myself zoning out and looking out the window.

It looked like a really nice day outside, the grass green and the flowers bright and colourful. It would be nice to run out there with the other marauders in their Animagus forms. Maybe I could play fetch with Sirius.

It took hours, and by the end of it I had a headache from James's blabbering, but the train eventually stopped at Platform nine and three-quarters, and I could move my legs.

"God, this is going to be so awkward..." said Sirius, peering out the window. I noticed he was looking at his parents, who were standing on the platform waiting for Regulus.

"If you want we can wait here until they leave?" James offered.

"Oh, if your parents don't want to wait, it's OK..." Sirius mumbled, but James shook his head.

"We saw them only three weeks ago, they can wait a little longer to see us," said James. "We'll wait."

"See you next Sunday, then," I said to James and Sirius, who both smiled and waved at Peter and I as we left the train.

"See you, Remus," said Peter when he saw his parents.

"Bye, have a nice break," I said, walking over towards my own parents.

"Remus!" Mum cried when she saw me, embracing me in a bone-crushing hug. "You're sixteen! How was your birthday? How was your term?"

"Seeing any girls?" Dad asked me.

"My birthday and the term were good," I said, pulling away from my mum and hugging my dad. "And no, I'm not seeing anyone, Dad."

"Any girls catch your eye?" he asked as I pulled away from him.

"No," I said. "I'm good not having a girlfriend."

"Alright, well you know you can tell us about these things..." said Dad.

"Oh my god, why are you so interested in my non-existent love life all of a sudden?" I asked.

"Well, you're sixteen!" said Dad. "When I was sixteen, I lost my virginity!"

"What the hell!?" I cried. "Dad, I don't want to know about that!"

"So, you're a virgin?" said Dad, raising a stern eyebrow.

"Yes," I said. What was going on with him? "Alright, let's just go..."

Dad took Mum and my hands and apparated with us back to our apartment. I wanted to change the subject from talking about my love life with my dad, so I decided to bring up the topic of going to the Potters' for Easter.

"That sounds like a lovely idea," said Mum. "The Potters are lovely people. Should we bring a plate to share?"

"Everyone's bringing chocolate," I said.

"I mean real food, Remus," said Mum, and I smiled.

"Alright, I don't mind," I said.


The next morning, I received I letter from James which contained only three words:

She said yes.

Even though it was only three words, I knew exactly what James was talking about. Lily and her family would be spending Easter Sunday with us.

I sent a quick letter back to James just saying, Sounds good, then went into the living room to see what my parents were doing. Dad was sleeping on the couch, and Mum was watching The Sound of Music.

I just left them to it, because I didn't want to listen to my mum sing along to the songs when they came on.


Easter was only a week after the break started, so that meant when I saw Sirius, James, Peter, and Lily, it had only been a week since I'd last seen them, but it somehow felt like it had been so much longer, and I couldn't keep the smile off my face when my parents arrived at the Potters' place at Godric's Hollow and I saw the four of them in there near the entrance hall, eating chocolate by the handful.

"Hey, Remus!" Lily cried as the four of them got up to come and greet me.

"Mum, Dad, Remus and his parents are here!" James called out, and soon James's, Peter's, and Lily's parents were coming out to greet my parents.

"Sorry we're so late, Hope wouldn't let me and my wand help her speed the cooking process up," said Dad.

"Oh, you didn't need to cook anything," said Euphemia, taking the tub of mini pies from my mum. "But thank you, Hope, they look amazing!"

The adults all walked into the kitchen, and the marauders and Lily went back to where they were sitting before, around a huge bucket of chocolates.

"Just a warning, Remus," said Lily. "My sister and her boyfriend are here."

"Oh, OK," I said. I met Lily's sister, Petunia, last summer at the beach. I didn't remember her too well, but I did remember finding her annoying. I'd never met her boyfriend, but I for some reason imagined him to be way out of Petunia's league.

It was only fifteen minutes until I met Petunia's boyfriend, and unlike I'd expected, he was not out of her league at all. He was a large boy of about eighteen, his face pink and fluff of hair between his nose and his top lip, which probably meant his face had been shaved and he was halfway through growing a moustache, but it was in that awkward stage of growth where it just looked bad.

His name was Vernon Dursley, and it was clear that no one at the table where we were eating our lunch wanted him there, except for himself and Petunia.

"Why is he here?" Sirius said to Lily, his voice so low that only she and the other marauders could hear him.

"Because Tuney was complaining about having to deal with my frea... with my friends," said Lily. "So, our parents let her bring Vernon to keep her entertained."

"So, does he know that we're wizards?" James asked.

"Oh, yeah," said Lily, "Petunia told him that I was a witch like a week into their relationship. I got annoyed and told her that she wasn't supposed to tell anyone, but she didn't care. I wouldn't be surprised if her entire school knew."

"But most of them wouldn't believe her, probably," I said.

"Yeah, I guess," said Lily. "It took ages for Vernon to believe her. She was heartbroken that her own boyfriend thought she was lying."

I observed over the day that Vernon hated magic even more than Petunia. When Euphemia used her wand to quickly clean up the dishes, Vernon called her lazy straight to her face for not doing it by hand.

I was glad to see him go, even if it meant Lily was leaving as well. The moment she left, though, Euphemia and Fleamont began bombarding James with questions about her.


The second half of the Easter Break was extremely uneventful: I just sat at home and tried to study for the O.W.L.s, worrying about the fact that they were only two months away, but I spent more time worrying than I did studying.

When we went back to school, there was a poster on the noticeboard that set us all at unease, however, it was not about the O.W.L.s.

MISSING

Name: Amelia Hughes

Age: 12

Gender: Female

Blood status: Muggle

Height: 5 foot

Weight: 100 pounds

A first-year muggle-born girl had gone missing over the Easter Break, and now there were a million posters about her around the school.