Chapter 16: A Brief Glow

"Mumumumumumum," babbled twelve-month-old Harry, holding out his flour-covered arms in an unmistakable plea to be picked up. 

Lily had been in the midst of preparations for that night's supper when Harry had toddled his way into the kitchen.  As James often said, Harry wasn't a Marauder's son for nothing—he had a penchant for getting into mischief and wreaking havoc wherever he went. 

Today was no different.

Lily had set Harry in a cushion-lined living room, surrounded by his vast collection of toys, hoping he would stay occupied for even a half-hour so she could actually get something accomplished in the kitchen.  She'd thought she would be guaranteed fifteen minutes, at least.

Not so.

She had just turned her back for two seconds to check on the roast in the oven when she heard Harry's delighted shriek and knew, before even straightening up, that there was an overwhelming probability that something had gone awry behind her.  She almost covered her eyes and ran away—she did not want to see the inevitable war zone Harry must have created.  It would most likely involve some intense cleansing charmwork to restore things to normal…that's just how things involving Harry tended to be.

How right she was.  Lily finally turned…and groaned.  She picked up her wand and charged into the mess.

"No, Harry, the flour sack is not a toy—PEOWIRJ!!!" Lily received a facefull of flour for her pains.  She choked and coughed, waving her hands to clear the white clouds. 

"FLOOOOOOOO!" Harry yelled again and thrust his fists into the flour.  As he threw more of it into the air, he started shrieking out nearly unintelligible names of places.  "DIGON 'LYYYYY!  MOGGNA MOT!!"  Billows of powder rose into the kitchen atmosphere and settled onto his hair and what were formerly clean cotton rompers.  As Lily waved her hand ineffectually to get the flour out of her way, her wand emitted bright red and gold sparks, which delighted Harry further and prompted him to clap his hands.  More flour flew up.

"All right, that's it!  HARRY!"

Under his mother's stern gaze, Harry hastily retrieved his hands from the sack and sat still.  "Mess!  Mess!  Harry make mess!" he continued to babble, but in a rather subdued fashion. 

"Yes, yes, Harry made a mess," Lily grumbled, frowning.  She quickly sent the flour sack packing with a flick and swish of the wand.  Unfortunately the flour on her hands made the wand a little harder to hold, and it slipped out of her grasp as she shut the cupboard door.  It hit the floor, emitted more sparks, and sent Harry catapulting into the next room with a surprised squeak.

"Oh no!!"  Lily rushed into the next room in a state of panic only to find Harry perched on his cushions, perfectly happy albeit a little startled.  He looked up at her and smiled a wide toothless grin.  Then he raised his arms expectantly in his usual endearing way.

Lily gave a long-suffering sigh.  "You're getting far too heavy for this," she said, putting her hands on her hips and trying to frown sternly at her son, but failing miserably.  "You need to practice standing."

He blinked his great green eyes at her.

She sighed again and rolled her own eyes as she reached down and picked him up.  He squealed happily and clutched at her hair, turning the red strands white with the flour still on his hands.  "I swear that puppy-dog look must be an inherent Potter male trait."

"Indeed it is."

Lily turned with Harry (crowing wildly) in her arms to face the doorway, where James stood nonchalantly leaning against the frame, eyebrows raised.

"Lily, I leave you for ten minutes and come back to find absolute mayhem.  Why is there flour everywhere?"

Lily sighed again and picked up her wand, which had rolled through the doorway and now rested on the floor near James's feet.  She cast cleaning spells on herself and Harry, and made a face.

"It's your son's fault," she said.  "Can't leave him alone for five minutes, little bugger."  Harry squirmed eagerly in her arms as James reached for him.  "I thought you had a call?"

"Daaaaad!" cried Harry.  He kicked his feet in anticipation.

James took Harry from her and swung him in a wide arc through the air.  Harry laughed, flashing pink baby gums and the beginning protrusions of enamel, and waved his arms.  "I did.  It was Dumbledore."

Lily's eyes widened.  "What did he say?"

James stopped swooping Harry about and set him on his feet, then whispered a few words and flicked his wand.  Several cushions picked themselves up off the couch and began following Harry as he tottered about, ready to provide a soft landing so baby bum would never touch the ground.  "He asked me if we'd settled with Sirius to be our Secret-Keeper yet.  I told him we'd already discussed it, but that we hadn't actually gotten around to finalizing things."

"That reminds me…Sirius owled today while you were out—said he'd Floo in tonight to talk to us.  Something about a new idea he had.  I called in and had us connected to the Network."

James's brow furrowed.  "What did he—"  He was interrupted by a distinct popping sound, followed by a loud whoosh.  Sirius took a flying leap out of the fireplace and landed with a flourish in the middle of the room.

"Always have to be so damn flashy," mumbled James, as Sirius took a bow and Harry—now sitting on a pile of cushions—clapped his hands delightedly.  Lily merely shook her head and made disapproving sounds in the back of her throat.

"Just because you can't floo doesn't mean other people have to tone down their skills," Sirius told her, grinning maniacally as he ruffled Harry's perpetually messy hair.

"Whatever," Lily muttered, smiling at him as she reached up on tiptoe to smooth his close-cropped black locks.  Her smile quickly changed to a frown when she noticed the puddle of somewhat sooty water Sirius had tracked into the house with him.  "I'm glad you cut your hair, but why are you all wet?"

"It's raining outside, lovebirds," Sirius replied, squirming out from under Lily's hand like an unruly little boy.  "You two haven't set foot out the entire day, have you?  Rosmerta let me use the back fireplace at the Three Broomsticks to get here, but I flew to Hogsmeade from home and it started raining right before I landed."  He shook himself a bit, spraying water on the floor.  Lily looked on in disgust and then cleaned it up with a flick of her wand with more disapproving shakes of the head.

"So what news have you got, Padfoot?" asked James, sending a drying spell Sirius's way as they settled down.

"I had an idea that I wanted to run by the two of you," Sirius said, solemn at once.  The couple turned to him attentively.  He lowered his voice.  "It's about the Fidelius."  He checked his watch.  "Actually, Peter should be dropping by any moment now, too, now that you've gotten the fireplace hooked up to the Network…"

"Peter?  What does Peter have to do with—have you…have you reconsidered—"

"No, no!" Sirius looked outraged.  "I just had a thought.  Won't Voldemort guess, once he finds out that the two of you have gone into hiding, that the Fidelius would be a good choice?  And once he draws this conclusion, after he's searched everywhere for you, the next logical step would be to pin one of your closest friends as your Secret-Keeper.  He might think Dumbledore at first, but I think it's fairly obvious that Dumbledore's much too important a figure on this side of things for you to choose him to risk all…"  He paused.  "So then…the next person in line would obviously be…"

The couple nodded.  Lily frowned slightly.  "So…if we wanted to be utterly safe about this, we ought to—choose for Secret-Keeper someone Voldemort would never suspect, right?"

James scratched his head.  "That would mean…someone like…"

"…Peter."  Sirius finished the sentence.  "Voldemort would never suspect that you'd trust Peter with the secret."

"Why not?" Lily asked.  "After all, the four of you were all close friends in school."

"But you remember…well…Peter's…uh…skills back at Hogwarts.  Voldemort would immediately assume that you and James would entrust the secret to me, rather than to the other Marauders, simply because James and I are best mates and because Peter isn't, well, the sharpest tool in the shed."

"What about Remus?" asked James.  He didn't look too happy about the idea, but his narrowed eyes showed that he was thinking about it.

"That's another thing."  Sirius slid closer.  "Peter and I have agreed that there's something suspicious going on with Remus lately.  He's always rushing off to some meeting or event or other at the weirdest times.  Last few times I dropped by his flat in the dead of night, no one was home—and I hate to say this, but every time that's happened, some new Death Eater crime showed up in the Prophet the next day."  Lily and James both made indignant motions, and Sirius quickly held up a hand to forestall them.  "I'm not saying I'm sure about anything—I'd just as soon believe Moony's been over at some girl's flat, though I doubt it since he doesn't like to get into casual flings.  It's just that—it's been said lately that the Dark Lord's been sniffing out all the Dark creatures he can get hold of—he's not content with the giants and dementors anymore.  He's been recruiting like mad.  Word has it someone broke into the Registry at the Ministry and made off with a copy of the list of names of registered Dark creatures—including the werewolves."

"But—"

"Peter and I have talked to the Ministry, and they're having Remus watched.  I hate saying this, but I think it's all for the best."

"I second that."  A new voice sounded from the fireplace.   They looked up to find Peter standing near the grate.  Sirius and Lily exchanged glances, wondering how much Peter had heard before he'd let on he was there…had he caught that tool comment?

James, in the meantime, had leapt up to clap Peter on the back with a huge smile.  "Wormtail!  It's been ages, hasn't it?"

Peter smiled wryly at James.  "It's been a long time…but whose fault is that, I'd like to know?  Certainly not mine."

"Sorry, Peter," Lily said quietly, giving him a hug as well.  "You know how it goes…new security measures and all that…"

"Yes, I know," replied Peter, hugging Lily back and making a face.  "Load of tosh, in my opinion.  New security isn't going to help protect anyone from You-Know-Who, not when he's gotten past so many high-caliber ones already."

"For once, I agree with you completely, Pete."  Sirius said.  He was down on all fours, lifting Harry onto his back for a ride.  Harry had already caught hold of his godfather's shortened hair, and was kicking his feet into Sirius's sides as though he really were astride a packhorse.  Sirius didn't seem to mind.

"What do you mean, 'for once?'" said Peter, mock-indignantly.  His eyes flashed as he smirked.  "I've been right before, you know."

"Yeah, yeah," waved Sirius dismissively, crawling about with Harry on his back.  Lily was finding it hard to keep from laughing—if it were even possible, Sirius was looking more like a big black hulking dog than he did post-Animagus transformation.  "Anyway I've told Wormtail about the Fidelius, you two."

"I agree with Padfoot in this case," Peter supplied.  "I think it would be safer to choose me.  After all, You-Know-Who would suspect Dumbledore or Padfoot first.  He'd never think to question me, and since I'm from a dwindling line of pureblooded wizards, I'll be a less likely target for any sorts of…well…attacks."  His small, beady eyes flicked from James to Lily to Sirius and Harry, then back again.

"So you think we should switch from Sirius to Peter?"  James turned to Lily, his eyebrows raised.  She looked speculative.

"Just…think about it," Sirius said.  "I talked about it with him and he's perfectly willing to go through with it—well, it did take a little coercion on my part to get him to agree,"—Peter scoffed—"but Petey was a brick about the whole thing once we'd gotten over that."  He set Harry down amidst protests and stood up, putting a hand on Peter's shoulder.  Peter looked at Sirius's hand on his shoulder and then back at the couple who were still sitting on the couch, deep in thought. 

"Let me know what you decide.  Although—if you still want me to do it, I'm perfectly willing to."  Sirius's eyes softened as he gazed from James and Lily to Harry, who was attempting to stand up by pulling on the edge of a low table.  "You know…you know for you, I would give—anything…"

"We know," James said, standing up and clapping Sirius on the back.  The two men embraced like brothers, and then walked together back toward the fireplace.  Then James gave Peter a hug as well—it ended up being somewhat awkward, as the height difference made the movements a bit jarring.  Peter laughed a little—his usual squeaky, nervous laugh—and ducked embarrassedly.  James and Sirius together could easily have been mistaken for brothers—what with their black hair (though James's was really a wildly messy mop while Sirius's was more tamable), dark eyes and lanky heights.  Next to them, Peter looked oddly out of place—he was much shorter, somewhere around Lily's height, and his mousy hair was already thinning in the center, bespeaking a bald spot by the time he hit thirty.  Despite the distinct physical differences, however, the three men stood together in front of the fire and regarded one another in friendly silence.

Lily joined them as Sirius took a pinch of powder from the jar on the mantelpiece, and gave both visitors a hug of her own.  She smiled genuinely at Peter.  "Thank you for agreeing to this, Pete."

"Not at all," Peter replied, his eyes twinkling back at her.

"Take care of yourselves, all right?"

"Yes, Mother," Sirius said, rolling his eyes good-naturedly.  Peter just laughed.

Lily smirked at Sirius.  "Good boy.  Next time, doggie treat for you." 

Sirius made a face, then grinned at James.  "You ought to come out with me sometime, Prongs.  Stop this staid married life you've got going on…it's boring.  Last time I took Peter and Remus with me it was a laugh…you remember Peter can't drink more than two Butterbeers in a sitting before getting tipsy?  That night he took harder stuff…by midnight he was hitting on everything in sight, even I was embarrassed for him—"

"Oh, shut it!  As if you were any better—" Peter tried to get in a good blow to Sirius's head but missed.  Lily jumped up and surprised them all by doing it for him.  Sirius shied away, rubbing the sore spot and laughing.  With a jaunty parting wave, he tossed powder carelessly into the fire and stepped in.  "Morgana's Malt!" And he was gone.  Peter gave the couple another small wave, smiled at Harry (who was preoccupied with watching the toy snitch flutter lazily about the room and didn't notice), and left for the Leaky Cauldron.

Lily frowned slightly.  "I was wondering how Harry learned about Morgana's Malt.  Now I know."

"What??" James looked extremely confused and a bit startled.

"Harry was pretending the flour was floo earlier…he kept calling out names of places, Diagon Alley, Morgana's Malt…I told you Sirius is a bad influence on him.  We'll have him frequenting pubs with Harry in tow before he outgrows his rompers."

James just laughed and shook his head.  Harry looked up from fingering his toy snitch and beamed at his parents.  Lily soon found herself unable to keep the smile off her own face as she and James headed back to the sofa.  "Do you think Sirius will ever settle down?"

"Sirius?" James snorted.  "Not bloody likely."

"Perhaps in a few years."

James looked doubtful. 

Lily amended, "Make that…in many years."

They laughed, then lapsed into silence.  Harry began to fuss.  Lily set him in his playpen with a bottle and he hushed immediately.

"…Peter," James said finally, as though continuing a conversation they'd been having the entire time.

"…Remus?" Lily responded.

Harry sucked on his bottle intently and stared at his parents with wide eyes.

James blanched and shook his head slowly.

"It all boils down to…do we trust Sirius with our lives?  If we do…and he says Peter is the best choice…then…"

The statement hung in the air over their heads before being dissipated by the next abrupt comment. 

"I'm hungry."

Lily sighed dramatically.  "You're always hungry.  What's your problem, anyway, Potter?  Starved as a child?"  She poked him in the ribs before taking off.  "Goodness knows you're thin enough."

"Heyyyyy…"  James gave chase and stopped on the threshold of the kitchen.  A smile spread itself over his features as he took in the candlelit room—the rich colors and textures of the set table, the aroma of warm food.  Lily had always been quick with the cleaning charms.

"Happy Anniversary," Lily said softly.  Within two seconds she was enveloped in a tight embrace.

James fingered the glinting silver baubles nestled against her ears—a memento from that Halloween night nearly two years before—and sighed contentedly.

"We've come a long way," Lily said lightly.

"Mm," agreed James, burying his face in her hair.  She clasped the back of his robes gently as they stood still and held close.

"I have a little something," James finally murmured.  "In my right pocket…get it yourself, will you, I'm rather busy at the moment."

Lily smiled against his shoulder and retrieved a tiny velvet box.  A sparkling pendant tumbled out into the palm of her hand.  As she held it up to the light, its facets sent slivers of brilliance across the room.  "Oh, it's beautiful," she breathed, turning it between her fingers.  "Thank you, James…"

"It's a crystallized phoenix tear," James explained, still holding her.  He noticed, looking past Lily's red hair, that he could see the hazy sky through the kitchen window.  It had stopped raining.

"Aren't these incredibly rare?" Lily asked wonderingly.  "Where did you get this?"

"Oh, it's just something I had lying around…" James grinned.

"Yeah, this and your Invisibility Cloak." Lily made a face at him.  "No, really, where did you find this??"

"Well, if you must know, this was my grandmother's."

Lily looked faintly startled.  "I thought all of your grandmother's things were destroyed when…" she trailed off.  They both knew she was referring to the attack on the Potters' estate when they were in their sixth year.  Needless to say, it was something they very rarely brought up.

James attempted to make light of the conversation.  "What, my dear, do you think Gringotts is for?"

"Sickles, Galleons, grandmothers' crystallized phoenix tears, husbands' anniversary gifts…" she prattled, smiling.  "But yours is in the bedroom."

James lifted an eyebrow at her.  She batted his wandering hands away and pushed him into a seat.  A faint cry was heard from the next room.

"Best put Harry to bed," she called as she hurried out.  James adjusted the candlelight and poured the wine as he waited for her to return.

Lily came back and began uncovering the dishes.  James breathed in deeply and choked.  Lily had to summon several glasses of water and slap him on the back repeatedly before he managed to stop hacking and coughing.

"It smells…" James was shaken by another coughing fit; tears streamed from his eyes.  "…interesting."

Lily leaned in for a quick whiff and immediately jumped away.  "AAGH!  But I followed the recipe!" 

She looked so abashed that James felt sorry for her; after he'd finished his third glass of water, he picked up a fork and took a small piece of…whatever that unidentifiable mass was.

"NO!" Lily knocked the fork out of James's hand with perhaps more force than necessary.  The spurned utensil went flying across the kitchen while James sat with his hand frozen midair, momentarily stunned.  "Don't eat it, James, it might kill you."  She laughed a little sheepishly, then summoned forth platters of food that had been keeping warm in the oven.  "Lucky I had a backup meal ready…though I was preparing for Harry's making a mess of the food, not for my own culinary mishaps…"

James sniffed cautiously at the new dishes and smiled.  The fragrant roast was reminiscent of Hogwarts welcoming feasts.  Memories of Hogwarts gave him pause—he was supposed to let Dumbledore know when they were going to finally complete the Fidelius…

Neither of them said much during supper; when they did speak, it tended to be in disjointed phrases, snatched out of thin air and yet comfortably comprehensible to either of them.  By the end of the meal, they had come to quite a solid understanding of what they would tell Sirius when next they saw him.

As they cleared the table languidly after they'd finished, in silence fringed with unease, Lily made a surprised exclamation and dropped a plate.  Luckily, the china had been spelled unbreakable and bounced a few times before settling peaceably on the floor.  Neither of them noticed; Lily was pointing out the window and James was following the line of her arm and finger.

"Been a while since I saw one of those," smiled James, stepping closer to the window for a better look.

"It's lovely," sighed Lily.

The rainbow glimmered for a few more seconds, its colorful bands wavering on puffs of humidity rising into the cooling evening air.  Then it disappeared as unexpectedly as it came, leaving the sky clear, a faded mixture of dark blues and grays and yellows.  The couple turned away from the window and continued cleaning up, feeling a trifle deflated.  Then they caught each other's eyes and smiled.

It was later that night when Lily finally voiced the sense of foreboding she had been feeling ever since Sirius had owled that morning, asking them to meet about 'something important.'  They were standing, arms about each other, watching Harry sleep underneath the gentle swaying of his quidditch mobile.

"I don't like it," she said suddenly.

James's arms tightened around her.  "I don't, either," he replied softly.

Lily wriggled around in his arms so that she faced him directly.  "I keep remembering Trelawney's…and…"

James attempted to roll his eyes and laugh it off; he didn't quite succeed.  "Oh, come now, Lily, you don't really think that old crackpot Sybill really had anything resembling a real prediction, do you?  She's the biggest phony I've ever seen!"

Lily merely gazed at him steadily.  James sighed.  If Lily could have seen herself…well, that puppy-dog look about the eyes wasn't so much a Potter male trait as it was a Lily Evans trait.

"I don't know, Lily," he said, struggling to keep his tone bright.  "But Sirius does have a point.  Choosing him was a logical decision—and one that's easily arrived at.  It's part of the same reason we aren't choosing Dumbledore, isn't it?  Though he's been volunteering every time I talk to him."

"I know, and…but…"  Lily frowned.  "I just can't shake this feeling…that somehow, something horrible is going to happen…and when I think of Harry…he's so small, James…"

"Shhh…you'll wake him," James said, rocking Lily slightly as though she were a baby, like Harry, who needed calming.

Lily buried her face in the curve of James's neck and inhaled deeply, willing herself to stay calm.  The scent of her own lilac clothes-cleansing charm, soap, outdoors, and a faint, barely distinguishable smell that was uniquely James rushed forth to comfort her and she relaxed slightly in his arms.  The two of them spent several minutes merely standing there, breathing and listening to their heartbeats gradually coincide.  Harry mumbled in his sleep and turned underneath his blanket.

"What do you think Harry will be when he grows up?" Lily asked suddenly.

"A quidditch superstar," James answered without hesitation.  They seemed to have come to a tacit agreement that the discussion of fears was over for that evening.

"I know I've asked this question before but at times like these I really can't seem to help myself…" Lily lifted her head and glared at her husband.  "Don't you ever think of anything other than quidditch????"

James pretended to think very hard about this.  "Well…sometimes.  But not often.  Other thoughts do come.  In spurts."  He spun her around slowly.  The two of them began to sway to some silent melody.  The last remnants of the afternoon's shower dripped quietly from the roof outside, creating an irregular rhythm.  "Anyway I can't wait for him to start talking…walking…running…I'll teach him to fly as soon as he can walk…I'll let him play quidditch in the house…hell, I'll play with him…"

"I'm sure you will."  Lily responded dryly.  "We'll see about that when the time comes."

James ignored her.  "And then we'll teach him some basic things before he heads off to Hogwarts…we really have to think of a way to get the Marauder's Map out of Filch's clutches…Harry can't possibly go through all seven years without using that map to plot mischief, I won't allow it…"

"Are you planning for your son to outdo you in detentions?"  They pivoted and continued to dance.

"Welllll…" James looked pensive.  "Probably not, eh?  Hopefully McGonagall'll let him off easy."

"Yeah, great old softie, McGonagall is." 

James looked appalled.  "Lily!  Are you addressing our deputy headmistress with…disrepect???"

"No.  Just making fun of you.  But back to Harry…I suppose he'll be Head Boy?"

"Of course…with a pair of Head students as parents, how could he not?"

"And he'll get all the O.W.L.s possible and top marks on the N.E.W.T.s…?"

"Wouldn't be surprised if he set some new records…"

"Captain of the quidditch team…"

"Ha!  He'll probably get on the team his first year…I can see it now, 'Harry Potter: the youngest person to make a Hogwarts quidditch team in a hundred years.'"

"Surely they won't allow that…"

"They will when they see what a great player he is.  You don't think I'll send him off to Hogwarts before making sure Quidditch Through the Ages is ingrained in his brain, do you?"

Laughter.  "I suppose not."

Lily rested her head on James's shoulder as they continued to dance.  "I hope he's never alone." 

Her voice was so muted that James nearly thought he had imagined her speaking.  He looked down at her, trying to see her expression.  But her face was hidden by her hair and a fold of his robes.  "Of course he won't.  He'll have all his friends—you know he'll be popular—and Uncles Sirius, Remus, and Peter, and the Hogwarts professors, and Dumbledore…and us."

"Will he?" Lily's voice was muffled.  Her head was still buried in James's shoulder. 

James was silent for a moment, gazing down at her.  A worried look crept into his eyes.  "What's—"

Lily lifted her head.  Her eyes were twinkling.  "He'd better have a flock of siblings, too, James Potter.  Our son isn't going to ever want for company."

James's expression cleared and he cracked a smile.  "Assuredly not."

The two of them continued dancing, heads leaned against each other, late into the night.

Words Aft:

Well then well then well then; I am finally here with my new chapter 16!

That's right, folks!  I had to actually write it between updates! …and homework!  …and projects!

Hurrah!!!

Anyway.  This is a bit longer than usual; probably because of all the dialogues and the spacing I put in between each line by a new person.  Ya, well.  ::shrugs::  That, and it's chock-full of suggestions from everblue3 and my own usual inanities. :)  The next update WILL NOT come for a while; I don't plan on sleeping much for the next week or so and it's not going to be because of fanfiction…..(sigh.)  I'm thinking mid-to-end-of-May?

As for your individual notes:

In answer to advice given by everblue3…well, this is what you asked for (and I quote!):

*discussion of Lily's bad cooking

*Dumbledore's warnings

*a meeting with ALL marauders (Peter included)

*stupid baby antics courtesy of Harry (maybe some words?)

*mention of quidditch in some shape or form

*fun w/ Padfoot

*discussion of how Lily and James have gotten over their problems…

*during Lily's cooking, a flour-covered Harry who keeps making clouds of white flour all over, getting it in his hair (James was at the fire talking to Dumbledore…when he leaves, everything's fine…when he returns, mayhem.)

*this should be a rainy day (end with a rainbow)

*with Harry's help, even James can't eat Lily's cooking

*quidditch in the house

*everblue3 (11:28:49 PM): I'll even let you use the James and Lily watching the rain scene

*for the end --- have to have them with heads on each other's shoulders...NOT KISSING AT THE END, and certainly no "happily ever after"

I tried.  I think I might've been able to include nearly all of them.  What do you think?  ;)  Chances are I'm talking to you about this over aim right now so uh…yeah.

Lady Marie – I knowwww…this makes me sad too, to think they end up…you know.  Which is why I want to do the sequel-ish thing I have in mind…haha…if it pans out, you'll see it when I post the last chapter of this fic. ;)  Anyway, thanks for reviewing!  Hope you liked. :)

KirbeeDesirae – Thanks for the review!  No, I don't care how many times you say it…comments like that are *always* appreciated. ;D  And I like James and Harry's relationship quite a bit myself.  There wasn't too much of that in this chapter though…argh.  And we're nearing the end!!  Oh, that's making me sad…

Princess Pixie ice – Get some sleep!  Haha…every time you review it seems like you're about to drop off!  ;D  I am glad you reviewed though…and that you liked the last chapter.  Sorry I didn't update earlier…erm, I've been busy?  Heheh…well, that's not much of an excuse but it'll have to do for now…tooooo much work between now and the second week of May…TOO MUCH.   Bah!

Kellie – Thanks for reviewing again!!!  Y'know, you guys always say your reviews are dull…but you don't seem to realize that THEY'RE NOT DULL TO ME! ;D  I like reading them a lot!  Okay, getting the ff.net email every time someone reviews is a thrill in itself.  Really!  Haha…so really, thanks for reviewing.  I'm glad you liked. :D

Jessey Hicks – Actually, I didn't like "Because You Gave Up On Me First" because James was a prat.  But I'll trust you when you say that it gets better and perhaps sometime when I've got a bit of spare time I'll check it out again. :)  And I agree with you… "The Last Potter" is very sad!  Sigh……

Anyway, I'm glad you liked the last chapter. :)  Thanks for reviewing!!

Shree – Thanks!!!  That was a kickass review ;)

ljpottafreak – or Kelsey, whichever you prefer ;)  Hello!  I feel very flattered by your review. :)  AAAAND thank youuuu for adding me to your favorites!  Awwwwww…yeah, I'm smiling a big silly idiotic smile right now. :D  ßlike that, but bigger.  Thanks so much for reviewing, I'm glad you like!

yoriko sakura-chan – Thanks for the review!  I know…the ending is coming up!  :(  That makes me sad, too.  But I'm glad you liked what I had so far…really, these reviews just about make my day. :D

Hrm…I think there's something screwy with ff.net's line spacing.  Er, I dunno how to fix it.  Therefore I am leaving it.  (The Ostrich technique: wherein you leave things be in hopes that they will somehow fix themselves.  I'm fairly expert at this.)