A/N: Hey y'all and thanks for reading so far! We've got 48 reviews already – that's so awesome! Let's get more, okay?

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"Jamie – who is that – she's not another one of your long-lost cousins, is she?" James asked skeptically.

Lily looked at him awhile, and then said, "No, I don't think so. It's more than likely that she's a – well, a 'long-lost' sister…"

"I thought you only had one sister?" James asked, starting to get slightly confused.

Lily sighed and muttered, "I thought I didn't have any cousins."

The two lapsed into silence for a couple of minutes. They were both so sure that they had met one another somewhere, sometime, in the past. Yet, they were both just as sure that they had never laid eyes on one other ever in their lives until the Feast on September 1st.

He's so different – and he looks so different, too. How could he possibly be my cousin? Those pictures – the ones that just passed through my mind – I swear they were memories, more than anything. But where was that place – that large house, those squeals of laughter, and that name – Jamie… When did that happen?

Lily's thoughts rushed around in her brain. No matter how hard she tried, her thoughts refused to straighten out in her mind. Giving up, she got up from her seat on the floor.

"Well, I'd better get going. I wouldn't want to be late for Charms, now, would I?" Lily said.

"You actually like Charms?" James asked, gaping at her.

"No – well, yeah, I do. It's just it's so easy! I mean, honestly, you'd have to be a Squib or something – no offense to those who are – not to be able to pass!" Lily said, grinning. But her smile faded as she caught the expression on James' face. "Well, of course, it could be that I'm just good at it…" she added quickly.

"Well, never mind me – I never have been able to get the hang of Charms, but it doesn't really matter. I guess you could always help me out on the weekends or something like that," he said, winking at her. Then he got up too. "Coincidentally, I have my favorite subject too. There sure are too many coincidences that are happening, aren't there?" James said, smiling. (A/N: Ha – this is like what happened when we were chatting – we had too many 'coincidences' too!)

"What is it? It isn't Defense, is it? You seem like the DADA type," Lily said, scrutinizing him for a moment.

"No, that's Sirius. Really, you'd think he'd prefer something else, but no – he wants to be an Auror when he's out of Hogwarts. Course, he's also into Quidditch, so I guess he's okay. No, my favorite is Trans –"

He stopped when he heard a groan from Lily. She had wrinkled her nose at the mention of Transfiguration, and he looked at her, slightly surprised.

"How can you even think about Transfiguration? I mean – it's just so, so, un-meaningful, and downright boring. Grr – Professor McGonagall just drives me nuts! She's just so damn annoying!  I don't think she likes me much, but it's not my fault if I've been on the verge of falling asleep nearly ever class, is it? I almost put a Silencing Charm on her once, but Lauren knew what was on my mind and kept me from doing anything," Lily ranted.

James smiled at her sudden outburst. Changing the subject he said, "Lauren's the brunette, right?"

"Yeah, and Micki and Dani are the blondes – the twins."

"Hmm – I think those are the two Sirius was talking about the other day," James said, giving Lily a meaningful look. Lily tried to read it, but sighed and failed.

"Well, I'd better get going," James said, standing up.

"The two muttered quick byes and parted. James ran back to his dorm to get his stuff and then ran back to the Transfiguration classroom just in time for class.

He walked in hurriedly, and saw that his friends had left a seat empty for him in the back. Walking up to them, he saw that they had already started making plans for the weekend. When they saw him, they grinned at him and beckoned him to come closer.

"Get a load of this, Prongs – just wait till we get to put our 'new abilities' to the test…" Sirius said, his eyes glinting.

"Oh, uh, right – um, did we plan all of this for this weekend?" James asked guiltily.

"Yeah, don't you remember? We don't have a prefect meeting or anything, do we?" Sirius asked.

"No, I hope not. It's just that, I planned to meet Lily this weekend – we're going to do some studying… It just so happens that she's good at Charms, and she doesn't like Transfiguration, so I thought we should get together. She was talking about you, by the way," James muttered.

"Since when did you care so much about family?" Remus asked.

"I don't know. I don't care that she's my cousin. She's just really cool, that's all. And when didn't I care about family? You know what my dad's been through. I was too young when my mum died, but it's not as if I don't care," James said, sitting down and sighing heavily.

"Did you get to talk to the twins?" Sirius asked, changing the subject.

"No, but I tried to hint at Lily about you, but I don't think she understood."

"That's okay. Anyway, we'll set this for the weekend after next. Does that suit you, cousin?" Sirius asked, teasing him.

"The weekend after next is the prefect meeting," James said, grinning.

Sirius groaned and slid down in his chair. James could be extremely annoying when he tried.

*

Lily was taking her time in getting back to class. Her talk with James had brought back some strange memories, and she wanted to sort them out at leisure. What did she care if she had Charms next? Professor Flitwick wouldn't mind. She was his best student, after all, and he'd always given her some leeway. She didn't intend to miss class altogether, but she knew that if she waltzed in a couple of minutes late and provided a good enough excuse nothing would reach Professor Scoresby's ears. (He was the DADA professor as well as the Head of Ravenclaw House.)

Lily directed her thoughts back at her strange memory. As she walked down the corridors, not taking any interest in where she was going, she shut her eyes for just a moment to see if anything else came back. She expected to remember something, but she didn't know what to expect to see. And what she saw was far from anything she could have expected.

*flashback*

"Lee, hurry up! Daddy's calling. He's taking us with him to see his big office!" called a child's voice.

Instead of another voice, the boy was answered by a giggle.

"I'm not Lee – I'm a hippogriff! Roar – I'm going to beat you up!"

A small redheaded three-year-old shuffled across the second story landing. She walked up to the railing, and stuck her head through, apparently looking for the boy who had called her. She looked everywhere, but couldn't see him. What she didn't know, however was that he was behind her.

He stuck his hands out and tickled her, screaming, "Rah – I've got you now, hippogriff! I'm someone from Daddy's office and I'm taking you in!"

The effect wasn't what either one had expected. The girl was small and thin, and the tickling had made her squirm just enough that she slipped through the railing completely – and fell.

Her screams were heard throughout the house. The boy at the top just watched her, too shocked to say anything. He didn't know what to do, and just plopped down and started to cry.

Soon, however, the screaming stopped, and more sobs joined that of the boy's. But, there was another sound, too; it was someone else's voice.

"Lils, are you okay? What happened? How did you fall? Oh, it is all okay now, Lily. Daddy's here now," the man said, soothing her.

The boy at the top just swayed back and forth – too shocked to say a word. His black hair lay as messy as ever on his head. His hands wiped his tear-stained face, and rubbed his blue eyes – the blue eyes behind silver frames.

*end of flashback*

Lily jerked her eyes open, drawing in her breath painfully. Had that girl – had that girl been her? And that man – was that her father? But no, he looked so different from the pictures she had seen of him in her aunt's house. And neither she nor Petunia looked anything like him. Then who was he? And who was that boy? He looked so familiar… He looked like – like…

"Lily, where have you been?"

Lily whirled around to see Micki framed in the doorway she had just passed by. Lily spotted Lauren's impatient face behind her, and from behind her, Lily could hear Dani's voice.

"Come on Lily, class starts in a minute!" Lauren called this time, shoving Micki out of the way.

"Oh, it's you guys," Lily said, shaking her head as she finally got out of her trance. "For a minute, I thought it was part of my – uh, never mind, let's go."

At first, she thought she was still reliving her memories, but as she realized that the reminiscence had passed, she smiled at her three friends and walked inside. She had brought her stuff with her, which was lucky. She didn't feel like walking back again; she expected more memories to come and overwhelm her.

"Are you alright, Lily? What happened – James didn't do anything, did he?" Lauren asked cautiously.

"Don't be daft. What would he do? Honestly, Lauren, he's my cousin, remember? And I'm fine, really. I just – I don't know. I'm a bit tired."

"Well, never mind that – tell us about James!" Dani called. She had been hopping impatiently from one foot to another, and now the other three knew why.

"He's nice, I guess. Sirius seems to like you two, though – or something or other. James was hinting something about Sirius, but I was too confused – I mean, tired – to really bother."

"Sirius – do you mean the other prefect?" Micki, said, her eyes lighting up.

"Yeah – that's who I'm talking about – the good-looking one," Lily said, winking at them.

Lauren rolled her eyes at the three of them. "Honestly, don't you three have anything better to talk about instead of boys?"

Lily, Micki, and Dani just laughed at her. As uninterested in boys as Lauren tried to be, she had, on certain occasions, flirted more than Dani and Micki had ever tried to do. Of course, more guys took interest in Lauren than she took in them, so she wasn't as interested in them as the twins.

"Okay, we'll stop. We'd have to anyway – Flitwick's here. Let's go to the back – we can talk then," Dani said.

The four got up and walked over to the desks in the corner next to the window. Lily couldn't help but smile as she felt the warm sunshine on her face. But as she looked outside, she saw her own reflection on the window. Without realizing what she was doing, she lifted up her hand to touch it. Her face – it hadn't changed much from the pictures on the mantelpiece in her aunt's house. And it hadn't changed much from the memories she had had either…

"Lily, sit down? What are you doing? What's out there? The Quidditch teams aren't practicing, are they? It's too early in the year for that," Dani called, walking up to her.

"Oh, nothing – I was just thinking about what a nice day it was and such. I like Fridays, don't you? I like them a lot – especially since we get the mornings off," Lily said, smiling to herself.

"Yeah, I guess that's a good thing. It's a good way of having leisure – without the younger kids running around. Honestly, I don't think I was so annoying when I was thirteen. Third years can be so immature," Dani said, shaking her head.

Lily smiled even more. Dani, catching the expression on her face, said, "What – I wasn't annoying. I wasn't immature, was I?"

"Oh, no, you weren't any more immature then than you are now," Lily reassured, now grinning widely.

"See, what did I tell – hey, that's mean!" she squealed, taking in the full meaning of Lily's teasing.

"Settle down, girls. Class has started," called Professor Flitwick.

"Sorry, Professor, we didn't realize the time," Lily said, shrugging and smiling at him sweetly.

"It's alright, now, Miss Evans. Just take a seat and settle down."

Dani gave her a thumbs-up and they both sat down quietly, still grinning. Lauren rolled her eyes at the two, and Micki did a strange imitation of Lily and started batting her eyelashes at them, making Dani have to duck under the desk to hide her laughter.

But as happy as Lily looked on the outside, she was confused to no end on the inside.

Who was that black-haired boy? And was that man really my father?

She listened to her professor silently and did whatever they were told indifferently. She didn't feel like talking, so avoided attracting attention in class as she sometimes did in Charms.

By the time the class was over, Lily had made up her mind. She was going to write a letter to Aunt Stacy.

No, even better – I'll write to Dumbledore. He may not want to tell me the truth to my face, so I'll owl him. Boy, won't he be surprised.

*