a/n: oh sighhh.. how can romania lose in gymnastics.. ON THE FRIGGIN LAST EVENT?!?! oh yea.. Canada's first ever medal.. bronze. BRONZE. WHAT THE FUCK MAN!!!

enjoy this chapter; you may not think it's important but it plays out the future chapters

disclaimer: shut up.

Wow. This is a turn of surprise. My best friend did not get married, but she acquired a whole new boyfriend. I'm not living by myself. I have my roomie back with me again. Phew. At least I won't be lonely. It's been a whole month since the whole wedding-Death Eater scene, and I'm still healing. It's finally hit me that I'm an auror; that I need to protect others because it's my job. What a tacky job. Oh well, Mr Kurberra says that becoming an auror is a great honour which many wizards cannot achieve, that I should be thankful I got accepted. I'm thankful for working my ass off in those dumb exams they put us? Not thatnkful -lucky. I'm lucky. I'm not thankful for a job I hate. But... that's another story.

Constance and Remus are doing fine. They really do make a great couple. The con for their relationship - they're too gushy. Way too gushy. I mean, it's okay to be gushy around each other, but around everyone else? It's pretty hard to be eating when they're mutter God knows what to each other. But whatever. Because of their relationship, my friendship with Remus too is getting much stronger. And Remus is here at our house at least five times a week. Now, don't get me wrong; I don't mind Remus coming here. It's quite a blessing for him to come. I mean, this guy can cook wonders! But the thing is, sometimes he brings along James and Sirius. And now, the three of them have become regular guests at the house. Having Sirius here isn't that bad when Serene comes over. Those two are also together now, though they're still 'unofficial'. Like, seriouly. In the office, to others, they're suppossedly 'taken' by each other, but Sirius still flirts with other girls while Serene gets asked out by these weird muggle fellas. Oh well, they're meant for each other; they're both good looking, they're both huge flirts, and they're both outrageous.

The bad thing about this is James Potter. James Potter hovering around me when I'm trying to cook for everyone, James Potter hovering around me, asking me how to work the kitchen appliances. James Potter, messing around with the television and causing me to come out to fix it. James Potter. Sometime, I get a headache with him hovering around everywhere. I'm only nineteen, and I'm already losing hair. I've just found a few gray strands in my hair the other day. I completely freaked out and dyed it back using muggle hair dye. And just when I was dying it, who to come on over but James and Sirius. (Sometimes they come over without Remus. Which means whenever they like.) Just as I was dying, James comes into the room, taking the bottle of dye and squeezing it onto his stupid hair. And he uses up half the stuff, so my hair was hardly coloured. Oh yeah, he started complaining that his scalp was burning like crazy, so I had to help him wash out the dye. And when I tried to wash it out, he takes the shower head and sprays me with it - when my hair wasn't finished setting. So the result? My hair was three different shades while James had a weird burgundy spot on the left side of his head. So I had to look up a stupid charm to re-colour my hair, while James laughed beside me, pointing at his own hair. That day was a miserable day.

But the thing is, I'm not that irritated anymore. Like I said before, James is like a shoe. Something you can grow fond of. Something that you can no longer hate, no matter how hard you try. And you have no idea how hard I've tried. It's not working. So now, I must go ahead with my life and plant a friendship with him. Besides, having him around isn't that bad. I can always use his help. Well, usually, I have him, Remus and Sirius help me as much as I can. Like how I get groceries (the muggle way).

The three of them always seem so enthusiastic to go the the local grocery store. They get ecstatic when I take them to the big grocery stores especially. The practically run up and down the aisles like little kids. Wait, even little kids think they're immature when they see them running around the place. Although I usualy tell them to quit it, I sometimes can't help but join them running up and down, messing up cans and jars. Those three are infectious. They bring out the little kid in me. I don't want to grow up, and that's something I don't plan to do until I'm twenty. So whatever, I've got a few months to live it up right? Anyway, whenever I go to the grocery stores, I always make them carry my bags for me. Now don't get me wrong - I carry some myself. But I don't own a car, and I don't like public transportation, so I walk. And before they came, I always hauled a wagon with me. But with them, I can carry things freely. And they don't seem to mind heavy things. Especially Remus. He doesn't even seem fazed by the heavy stuff I ask him to carry, like potatoes and cans. He usually carries the burden as if it were just filled with cotton. I wonder how he does it. I don't ask James or Sirius to carry the produce of course. I leave that to myself. I've learnt a good lesson from that; keep fruits and vegetables away from them. There was this one time where Sirius took out my tomoatoes and started springing them at James and Remus. Remus, who's mature enough to not lead Sirius on, did not fight back. But James on the otherhand, took my baby carrots and whipped them at Sirius in retalliation. I was pissed of course; those thgings were expensive! But the good thing was that they traded in their galleons the next day and payed me back, and even offered to go buy the stuff back. I went with them. I don't trust them alone in muggle territory.

That reminds me; I need to go grocery shopping again. Those guys cleared out my fridge within a week. Not to mention that James is celebrating his twentieth birthday next week. Which brings me back to reality - within a few months, I too will be twenty. Apparantly, James wants his twentieth birthday held in 'muggle fashion'. So he started making a list of what dishes he wanted. One strawberry-banana trifle, three apple pies, a tray of lady fingers, five dozen chewy chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, and six large three topping pizzas. Oh yeah. he wanted a triple layered chocolate cake with chocolate cream inbetween each layer and chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles with "Happy Twentieth Muggle Birthday James' written in chocolate chips and icing. Did you notice that the whole cake consists of chocolate? And everything except the pizzas are dessert dishes? He's asked me to cook for the bash which I told him I would. Oh well. He offered to help, insisting that since he was the 'birthday boy', he had to help cook. Remus and Sirius immediately left the room when he asked them for their help. Constance had run off with a 'I think I have a phone call from my mother' (which she is obviously lying because her parents don't 'believe' in muggle paraphenalia) and Serene had coincidentally had to be somewhere on the afternoon of the preperations, but she promised to make it in time for the birthday bash. Apparantly; it's sort of a birthday bash because he's got a whole list of people and he's having it at his own place. So that means I must help him cook in his kitchen. He said he's already invited some of his Hogwart's friends and some others that I don't know of. I'm not one for bashes.

"Lily!"

I hear three voices calling my name while I'm sitting on the couch pondering all of this. I turn around and see James, Sirius, and Remus by the door. They seem excited.

"Yes?" I ask, with a tinge of annoyance at my thoughts being interrupted. They always seem to interrupt me.

"Time to go birthday shopping!" James announces, with a big grin all around. He's glowing with happiness, and I can't help smiling myself.

I look over to the clock; it's already 4:00pm. "Okay, fine. But this time, let me do the picking, okay?"

"Of course," he says, running towards me, taking me by the hands and pulling me up.

Truthfully, I'm quite pooped from the previous night where Serene had made me go with her to a 'double-date' with some guy she met off the street. I had a blind date, Mark, and we stayed out past two. I did have a good time, and I consider phoning up Mark. He was such a nice guy. Oh yea, did I mention that three days after Constance's wedding, I dumped Jeremy? Guess not. Well, I finally did it. He wasn't surprised, and said he fully understood. We're still friend. No, really. We're not like those couples who go 'we'll always be friends'. We actually are friends. Quite close friends. Anyway, I'm tired as hell right now, but seeing as it's James birthday and he's so excited, why not?

So here I am, hauling my ass off the couch, grabbing my wallet and heading out the door with the three musketeers and skipping merrily along down the road.

-----

It's the afternoon of August 30th. James Potter's birthday. James Potter's Twentieth Muggle Birthday to be exact. He's apparantly, the youngest of the marauders except Peter. And here I am in his kitchen, and surprisingly, Remus, Sirius and Constance are here too. Serene was in some sort of family meeting and couldn't make it, but as promised, will show up for the party. Peter couldn't make it because his mother was extremely sick. James had said he'd leave him a slice of cake... if it wasn't already finished.

"Okay, assignment time!" James announces with a smrik. "You ladies will do the pies, the trifle, the cookies and the lady fingers. Us men will handle the cake."

"Wait a second," Constance says doubtfully. "You're going to do the cake? Can you handle it?"

"Of course we can! All we need to do is follow instructions! And if it doesn't turn out like it's suppossed to, there's always magic!"

Always magic?! Nuh uh!

"Hold it!" I interrupt, giving James a look. "You said you wanted a muggle birthday. Muggle birthdays mean no magic, no matter how shitty everything turns out."

"Nothing is going to turn out bad, Lily. No worries."

And with that, the birthday catering starts. And I have to admit; as much as I dreaded this, it's actually quite fun. Constance and I already have the cookies baking away, the trifle put neatly beside the tray of lady fingers. We're now working on the pie which is actually quite hard to make. We bought an already made pie shell, and now we're trying to get the apple filling right. We sort of cheated, because we got already-sliced apples with apple sauce. So all we need to do is dump the stuff inside the pie shell, and put a pie shell... cover thingy.. ontop of that. And here's Cosntance, dumping it out onto the shell. I must admit, that stuff looks nasty. But it will taste good. I know it will. We set aside the three pies for baking, and take a seat on the kitchen table.

Oh yes; I forgot to tell you. Four days before the actual birthday celebration thing, James, Remus, Constance and I went to the muggle department store and purchased muggle things such as ovens, toasters, microwaves and fridges. James had been so interested in all the muggle appliances that Constance and I had that he decided to get some for himself.

Constance has already fallen asleep, resting her head on the table. I'm pretty pooped myself, but I stay awake. Looking over to where the guys are, I say that they're having fun. They all have wide smiles painted on their faces, making excited squeals now and then. Their three cake layers have already been baked, and fine. I was wrong. Their cake turned out nicely. Now, James is trying to make some frosting while Remus is trying to take the cake layers out of their pantry. Sirius is preparing the spirnkles and icing. They're like little kids again, experimenting with something completely alien to them, but having a ball at the same time.

"Frosting's done," says James, looking up at his buddies. The three of them start squealing with excitement again. "Okay, Remus. Cake layer number one!"

Remus lays out the first perfectly round cake layer on some sort of weird board. Sirius hands out frosting spreaders to them and they enthusiastically dip in, and frost the first layer.

"Uh, James; exactly how much frosting are we using for each cake layer?" Remus asks, as he looks at the first layer. I try to stiffle a giggle from where I'm sitting. They were too into frosting the cake that they practically used all their frosting on one layer of cake. Result? The frosting is like another four layers of the cake. James bites his lip, and then starts to swipe frosting off the cake. The other two, getting the gist, do the same thing.

"Cake layer number two!"

Before long, the cake layers were done, and it looked perfect. The ding of the oven told me the cookies were done, and I go to remove them, and putting the pies in their place. I'm carrying the tray of cookies, confused at where to place them for cooling. Constance has taken up almost the entire table, and the guys have the counter piled high. James comes over to me, with oven mitts on. He takes the tray from me and sets it beside the trifle carefully, afraid to knock anything over. After, he takes a cookie and pops it in his mouth. And not long after, he spits it out.

"HOT!" he screams, still spitting it out and trying to down a glass of water. "Hot, hot hot!!!"

"Well, they're obviously hot," I say, laughing with mirth. You should've seen his face! It was priceless. "They just came out of the oven. Of course they're hot. And no one suggested for you to try one."

"But they smelled nice and I was hungry!"

And learning from James, Remus and Sirius too reach for cookies. Sirius follows in James' footsteps by spitting it out and yelping for water, while Remus, the smarter one, had broken the cookie in half and takes a few small bites.

"Not bad, Lily," he says thickly, his mouth stuffed with cookie.

As I put the pies in the oven, they continue on with their cake. It's coming along nicely actually, with the nice, even frosting spread around the cake and everything. Sirius takes a tube of icing and is just about to do something when James stops him.

"Hold on!" he yells, scaring Sirius, who had squeezed out some icing.

"What?" Sirius asks, completely puzzled.

"You were gonna write on the cake weren't you?"

"Uh... yeah!"

"No!"

"Why not?!"

"You have horrible writing!"

I can vouch for that. There were five occasions during Hogwart's where I've been Sirius' project partner, and let me tell you; he doesn't have the best writing in the world. His printing looks like a four year old's while his cursive is even worse. Sometimes, you can't even tell what he's writing. How he became an auror and does paperwork is anyone's guess.

"I do not!" protests Sirius. We all turn to face him giving him a look. He scowls at us and throws the icing tube over to James. "You do it then, Mr I-have-perfect-writing."

"I do," James replies smugly, as he begins squeezing words out. Personally, I think James' writing is as bad as Sirius, but I don't comment, seeing as it's his birthday. Birthday people sure have such a great advantage. It's not fair really. But I'm not one for big bashes. When it's my birthday, I'll just have a small drink with Constance. Hoepfully, no one will remember it.

-----

7:00pm of August 30th. Truthfully, this bash is quite boring. There are a few people from school I know, like Francis Wood and his wife, Adrianne. They brought along their cute little boy, Oliver, who's only two. I spent half an hour with that kid, and I must say, sons aren't that bad are they? Eh well. I'm still up for that daughter.

There's also Lorin Macmillan, along with some girl I don't know. Serene's here, and attracting some male attention, though she seems to belong to Sirius at the moment. Then there are these people I don't know, and some of James' cousins which I don't know either. Boy, do I feel comfortable in here.

I enter the kitchen to check on the food. Constance had finally woken up an hour before the party and is now somewhere having a nice chat with the Woods. I don't know what to do, so I'm going to stay in the kitchen. Not only do I know practically no one there, but the people who are out there seem pretty boring. Or maybe it's just me that's boring. I wouldn't know. Here's an interesting fact about me: I'm not that interesting.

So here I am sitting at the kitchen table holding a martini when this guy walks into the room. His hair is jet black and messy, and he's almost a head taller than me. Guessing by the hair, I'd say he's James' cousin. One of them. I don't know his name.

"You must be Lily Evans," he says, walking up to me. That's weird. I don't remember being introduced to this guy. Oh well, play it smooth kiddo.

"Must be," I reply, giving him a look-over and sipping my martini. Not that bad; he's got a great sense of style without being too glittery. Nice male touch - ruggedy-casual yet classy. Nice body; maybe he works out. He seems pretty young. This guy's something. Let's keep him here for a while.

He chuckles and holds out his hand, which I gladly shake. "I'm Dexter Potter, cousin of our dear James Potter."

Dexter? Okay, that's quite a nerdy name. But, yes. there's a but. Dexter. Let's play with his name. Deterrrr, Dext, Dex. I could call him Dex! That's way cooler than Dexter. And it sounds sexy. Dex. Dex Dex Dex Dex. Dex. Thumbs up girl.

"So, do all the Potter boys have the same messay hair?" I ask, trying to make small talk. I'm now facing him and flipping my hair a bit. Although he has the same hair as James, he looks completely different. I dont know how, but he's extremely different.

"Oh, yes, all of us Potter men do. But I like it - no nuissance with a comb."

"So how exactly did you get my name?"

"James told me I'd find a redhead in the kitchen. He told me to come fecth her. And I must say, this little redhead piques my curiosity."

I pique his curiosity?! SCORE! "How so, may I ask?"

"You're sense of humour is quite dry and funny at the same time."

This is getting good. Not only is this guy super hot, but he likes me too! Okay, okay. Breathe, breathe. He might not like me. I'm not too sure. He only says I've caught his attention.

"Anyway," he says, draggin me out of my thoughts. "I've come to take you back to the party."

"Oh, yes right. But do I have to?" I ask, looking quite glum. I'm not faking that one. I really don't want to rejoin the party.

"It's James' birthday, and I think he really wants you there."

"How would you know?"

"You've caught his fancy."

Oh. I've caught James' fancy. Not Dexter's fancy. James is my friend, and nothing more.

"Come on," he says, holding out an arm. "I'll escort you."

Now that's more like it!

So, the party wasn't exactly all bad. I spent the entire night with Dexter. He's such a great and decent guy, I wish I were with him. He's so nice and charming, and really funny. My favourite joke was his bar joke: Did you hear the joke about the guy who walked into the bar? He said ouch. I've also learned much about Dexter himself in those few hours. He's just turned twenty-one three months ago, and is a Healer (which I'm very impressed by). He too is a member of the Order, but wasn't there on my initiation because he had to tend to some patient who swallowed a Nifler.

Anyway, I don't think anyone minded that I got in touch with Dexter, seeing as they seemed to be in their own worlds. Sirius and Serene went off somewhere in the kitchen, while Constance had another talk with the Woods, playing with little Oliver. Remus was being flanked by a crowd of girls, while he helplessly tried to get away. James was ecentric at first. He went around the whole room and greeted everyone and even pulled a few pranks. He also came around to where Dexter and I were sitting, talking about families and making jokes. Soon though, he looked a bit deflated and glum, but he still had a good time (I think).

By the end of the party, I was completely on cloud nine. I've met the hottest guy ever created, and was asked out by him for dinner on saturday night. I gave him my address and he promised to owl me. This is so great! Nevermind about muggle-Mark! I have someone even better and more intellectual! I guess everything has it's good side right? And you know what? He said that I caught his fancy too! HIGH FIVE BABY!