Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Plain and simple as that. So keep those little eyes moving along so you can witness my pathetic attempt to pretend I own everything.

Illicit Love

Chapter Seven

Days Go By

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You are still a whisper on my lips

A feeling at my fingertips

That's pulling at my skin

You leave me when I'm at my worst

Like a feeling as if I've been cursed

From the bitter cold within

Days go by and still I think of you

Days when I couldn't live my life without you

Without you

-Days Go By, Dirty Vegas

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Lily arrived back at her home with a loud thud and stumbled dizzily out of ht efirebox and into the sitting room. Mrs. And Mrs. Evans, Petunia, and Nick VonBurryn, who were all sipping tea, gasped at her appearance out of the flames.

"Uh...hi...?" Lily said, looking back and forth between the four.

"First you disappear without a trace, then you reappear several hours later, coming out of your fireplace. What's going on?" Nick demanded.

"I, er, came by helicopter," Lily lied.

"I didn't hear anything."

"Just never mind." Lily sniffed. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed."

Brushing the soot off of herself, Lily climbed the stairs to her bedroom, where she sat on her bed and let the tears flow down her cheeks. A knock came at the door.

"Lily?" It was Nick. "Can I come in?" Not waiting for an answer, he opened the door and sat on the foot of Lily's bed. "Are you okay?"

Lily swiped at her eyes and was about to nod, but decided that it felt so good to finally cry. She threw her arms around the teenage boy and started sobbing. Nick's eyes widened and he snaked his arms around the redhead and tried to comfort her. Lily felt an emotional dam rupture and she found herself spilling out to her best friend form childhood her entire life's story beginning from the day they graduated from primary school until that very night.

Shocked, taken aback, astounded, amazed, flabbergasted, thunderstruck (call it whatever you will), Nick sat wide-eyed, awkwardly patting Lily's back. He could not believe that Petunia hated her.

Wait. Scratch that. That was the least shocking thing.

Lily was a...a what?

A witch?

No way.

Seriously?

She had said she had a magic wand and she went to a school that taught her how to use that magic wand. She had several friends who also had magic wands and attended the same school. Her boyfriend also had a magic wand; and so did his parents, who hated her (er...her blood, anyway; but Nick couldn't figure out why someone would hate someone else for their blood. Maybe they were O positive prejudice...?). And Petunia hated her because Lily had a magic wand and she didn't.

Well, now didn't this whole magic-wand-witchcraft ordeal pose as a source of all this hurt, anger, and hatred?

If it was up to him, he'd snap all the wands in half. That would solve this problem.

But Nick knew that it was a hell of a lot more complicated than that.

He didn't even know what to think about this whole situation. He was stuck between sympathy and anger. Sympathy that her life was going to hell in a handbasket. And anger that he had been her best friend and she hadn't told him.

"So. When my hair caught on fire, you did that, didn't you?"

"What?" Lily asked, looking up at the blonde-haired boy.

"You set my hair on fire when I tried to kiss you."

"Not intentionally," Lily said quietly. "I was really nervous. Sometimes magic does that." She took a deep breath. "Nicky, please don't be mad at me. Everyone else is mad at me right now, don't turn on me too!" She gave him puppy-dog eyes – the ones he could never resist – and he caved.

"I'm not mad," he said. "I'm just upset that you didn't tell me. You went away and I never saw you again. My life became boring. I became boring. Do you know how it feels to go from popular to school nerd?"

"Well, no, not really," Lily replied.

"I suppose things are different in a magical school."

"No, actually, not really. There are the teachers' pets and the Quidditch players and the slackers. It's just like any other school."

"Will you promise me one thing?"

"What's that?"

"That we'll always be friends."

"It's a deal."

She gave him a grin, which he returned and she hugged him tightly before kicking him out of her room so she could get some sleep.

* * *

Sirius sat in his room, tossing a baseball in his hands. He decided he liked the baseball. It wasn't as small a Snitch (nor as fast), and it wasn't as big as a Bludger (nor as wild). It was the perfect size and – get this – it was used in a game where it was thrown, then hit with a thin, long club, and you ran around in circles to get points. The idea was completely fascinating to Sirius.

He had watched it on the television with his father and Elíha, thinking the whole thing was a surreal dream. After having the rules patiently explained to him five times, Sirius had decided that he wanted the Ultimate Job. He wanted to play baseball.

The only problem was, he wasn't good at it. In fact, multiply that by three or four hundred and you'd get how Sirius was. He sucked – that simple.

Carlos, Elíha, and he went out to try to play a game in the yard behind the building. When it was Sirius' turn to bat, he swung like the bat was a Bludger and ended up getting hit in the stomach. After he caught his breath, he tried to pitch. That wasn't so bad, narrowly missing his father and stepmother's heads. At least it went over the little bath mat that they were using as home plate. And for the life of him, Sirius couldn't catch. It took several misses and five times of being knocked in the head before he gave up and decided that baseball, after all, wasn't what it was cracked up to be.

So he retreated to his room and sat on his bed, thinking.

"Hey, See-ree," Carlos Delacruz said, entering his son's room. "You hungry, no?"

"Yeah, a bit," Sirius replied.

"Elíha's cooking – er – pizza, it is called?"

"Yeah. Sounds good."

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"Son, I want you to know that I'm very proud of you. And...I love you."

Sirius stopped tossing the ball and looked at his father, completely shocked at the Portuguese words that had come out of his mouth.

"If you love me so much, Carl, why did it take you nine years to invite me out? Five years ago, that run-in was just an accident. You didn't really want to see me then. Why now?"

Carlos looked away and sank down into the wicker chair in the corner of the room.

"I – I – was afraid that you didn't want me in your life."

"How could I not have? I grew up without a father – don't you think I needed some male influence in my life? Instead you went off to Canada, married a stripper, and toured around the world playing the electric guitar. You've played in Ireland and Britain several times, you could have seen me then. But no – I had to sneak out of the house to go see you. It wasn't that I didn't want you in my life. You don't want me in your life. Why, Carl?"

Carlos then looked at his son, tears welling in his eyes. "I had heard the awful things that you wizards and witches say about people like me. I've heard the evilness that is out in your world. I was scared."

"It's not any worse than what's out here in your world."

"You don't understand," the elder man said. "You don't understand what it's like to not have magic. What it's like to not have all that power and energy and happiness and cruelty in just one stick of wood. You don't understand how bad that concept scares people like us. Shazam! – love in an instant. Bang! – happiness in a flash of light. Boom! – death before having two seconds to think. It's horribly frightening."

"But Carl, you have all those things here too. I mean, look at television, that's happiness in an instant in an electronic box. Look at guns and knifes – that's death before having two seconds to think. It's frightening to me too, but I have to face it – it's part of my life. Just like magic. Both worlds are a part of your life. Just like I'm am."

The tears started flowing down Carlos' face. "What do they teach you in that school of yours?" he asked, starting to move over to Sirius, where he gave him a hug. "You're so grown up." He looked at his teenage son and smiled, tears still flowing down his cheeks. "You are absolutely right, my son. I shouldn't have feared what I didn't know anything about. I shouldn't have driven you out of my life like that. Can you forgive me?"

Sirius too had tears in his eyes. "Yes."

Carlos hugged Sirius tight again and clapped him soundly on the back.

"I really do love you, Sirius. And I'm so proud of you."

"Thank you. I love you too. Just never forget that I'm your only son."

Carlos pulled away, a smile playing at his lips.

"Well, actually..."

"What?" Sirius asked.

"Elíha is pregnant," he said timidly. "In seven months, you're going to have a little brother or sister."

"Really?"

Carlos nodded. Sirius smiled wide. The father and son left the room to go congratulate Elíha on her expectancy. And the night was full of pizza, celebration, and happiness.

* * *

James Potter sat in his room, looking at the pictures Remus had taken earlier that week when all his friends had been at the Bahamas with him. In one particular picture, Lily was sitting in a sophisticated pose on the sand. To James, there was nothing more beautiful than the woman in the picture. He looked at the picture of himself and Lily and felt that it was so right that they should be together. She should still be there with him, in his arms, forever.

Instead, the days went by. And he couldn't get his mind off of Lily, no matter what he did. His father had placed him in the Hole, where 'Muggle-borns are the scum of the universe!' was shouted at him for three hours nonstop until Jessica got Charles Damian Potter roaring drunk and stole the key from the pocket of his robes.

After what Lily saw, would she still want him? Would she realize that no matter how his parents felt, it wasn't the way he felt himself? Would she be able to even look at him after finding out what his family was really like?

Lily.

He hadn't known her long, had been technically in love with her for even less time, but there was something about this relationship that he couldn't let go. He couldn't give up, he had to make his father see that he wouldn't give up either. If he wasn't completely serious about this relationship, he wouldn't have been brought her home – maybe wouldn't have even been caught having a deep relationship with her. If Lily couldn't see that he was crazy about her, he didn't know what he would do.

Go mad, he supposed.

He'd have to be locked in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies for the rest of his life, living day-to-day with the whisper of her name on his lips, the tingle of her lips against his, the feeling the tips of his fingers that had once touched her skin, her hair.

And the days would go by, and he would never cease thinking about her.

He was only seventeen, but there was something greater – something deeper – about all of this that he couldn't bare to ignore. And he quickly discarded the idea that it was his hormones, as his mother would suggest.

Not true. All he knew was that Lily Evans was something else.

* * *

A/N: Hey all! I hope you all enjoyed the chapter.

I would like you all to know that, as sweet as it sounds, some people are sickened by the thought that James is only 17 and 'professing' his undying love to the girl of his dreams. I don't know where I personally stand on this subject, but hey, look at Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. They were only, what, 14? Well, I do find it hard to believe that someone could instantly know they were in love with someone after a few times of being with that person. James is a teenage boy, like it said before, and he does have hormones, but I do believe that you can feel very strongly or deeply about the person you are with. Sadly enough, that has never happened to me. J

Okay, this isn't normal for me to ramble on things like this. I shouldn't have to defend my story, but it cut me real deep when someone once told me that it was stupid that my characters were professing their undying love at the age of 16 (in my story Free Falling). I don't know why it did, but it did.

Next chapter will be more fun and less sentimental. These last few chapters have been in my head and they weren't exactly happy ones. So, next time we'll have pranks, snogs, laughs, jokes, and everything more!

Anyway, I'll get on to the Thank-Yous. Oh, by the way, I learned how to make an html document. Isn't it cool? *grins*

* * *

THANK-YOUS!!!

* * *

Eleana23

Anonymous – NO!!! HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME? Not that you're reading this anyway, I'm sure. But WHY??? You can't leave me like this! My Beloved Anon!!! You're discarding me for school? But why? I've got lots of homework to do too, and I still find time to write and sometimes read. Well, I truly understand. We all have moments where we can't get the things in life done that we really want to. I'll miss you and your long, *sniff* spacious reviews. *sobs* Why...why...why...? *sobs again* Goodbye! Don't forget me!!! (You're probably not even reading this, are you? *sobs more*

*wipes eyes* Where were we?

Quinn

Pickle Princess

Oliverwoodschick

wacky girl 2002

Clavel – "In your face, Flanders!" – is that from The Simpsons? Wohoo! I love the Simpsons. It's my favorite show! But, living out in a cow-town, I don't get and television channels, so, sadly, I hardly watch the Simpsons. *sobs*

Martini Addict – I'll be there for the dinner events too! I'll drink along you with and Mrs. Potter. But I've never had a martini. (Um...in all actuality, I'm not even the legal drinking age...) But I'll do it anyway, 'cuz I'm a rebel! (Okay...so I'm not really, but I can pretend to be!)

KaTiE

Kristatwen

Beauty Full

Uknowwhoslittleprincess

Gooey Gooey Coca Beans

Jess the Great – You're adding me to your favorites list? I'm honored! *blushes*

Dark Angel

The Lady Lillian - *Blushes extremely profusely* Thank you so much! You have no idea how much your kind words mean to me. I really want to take up writing as a profession – it's my ultimate dream. This is one dream I ain't givin' up on. (Oh, look at my grammar, I might as well give up now! *winks*) I don't care if I become famous or not (preferably, famous, though), I just want to write a novel. But there are so many other wonderful writers out there (i.e. JKR, Mary Higgins Clark, Tom Clancy, etc.) that are so much better than me, so I sit and revel in thoughts like, Why would someone want to read my book when they could read Harry Potter? and things like that. I know, I'm bad. And that's the only thing keeping me from writing anything. But hey, I'm still young...I can't give up... But Thank You, thank you, thank you! for boosting me! (P.S – You got the long note of the day!)

Meghan

Ma'hi – Do you speak French? If so...*jealous drool* I've got 4/5 years of Spanish under my belt. But I so want to learn French!!!

Rhi and Tiff

Majestyic – Charles Potter is not a Death Eater. But he should be! He is pureblooded non-Slytherin and would never be a Dark worshipper. He's just...snobbish. He's really not that bad, just very pigheaded in his ways. Chauvinistic and all. I never thought about Lily getting revenge though...hmm... Uh-oh, I better call the plot-bunny catcher, because I'm seeing something happening here... We'll see. And if I get a chance, I would love to read your story. Please don't be mad at me if I don't. I always try, and sometimes I forget or I don't get around to it.

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You guys! I'm so shocked, amazed, astounded, taken aback, flabbergasted, thunderstruck (or call it whatever you will *grin*) at everything you all have said to me, lifted me, praised me. You have no idea how much it means to me! Every review I read twice, thrice, or more and I take into my heart! I take my writing seriously. If you're happy, it makes me happy. So, for your souvenir this time, I'm giving each and every one of you a big, bear-sized hug. Cheesy as it sounds, you deserve it. So, you get your bear hug and possibly a few tears on your shoulders and we're all a happy family. I'm so attached to you guys.

I love you all!

Oh, jeez, I'm starting to sound really cheesy.

Next time we'll have a better souvenir. I just wanted to hug y'all now! *sobs* My goodness, there have been a lot of tears in this chapter and note!

Happy reading!

Lots of loves,

~Lavender