Okay, I now have an occupation for Lily's dad. Any words between markings like "this" are what someone is saying, but if it's only like 'this' it means that a character is thinking.

Disclaimer: You know the drill, having seen it in many other fanfics... nothing belongs to me, except for a few characters and the plot; the rest belongs to JKR, one of the people who reviewed, or a singer/band that I decided to 'borrow' the music from. (Though the music factor will be decided on how brain dead I manage to get while writing this chapter.)

Thorns by Faerielights

Chapter 2: Decisions

Last Chapter:

A door opening and closing followed by the faint thud of a briefcase hitting the ground announced the arrival of Jonathan Evans. Lily rushed out of her bedroom and downstairs to meet her father in the front hallway.

"Daddy!" Lily hollered as she hurtled towards her father.

"Pumpkin!" he replied, swinging her into his arms for a hug.

(A/N: they talked a lot more than just this, but instead of showing their whole "greeting ceremony", I'm just going to skip to them going into the kitchen to talk start their discussion. Lily already informed her dad of her letter from Hogwarts, now they'll be discussing whether or not Lily will go, and if she does, how to break it to her grandmother and sisters)

They then walked into the kitchen of their mansion (A/N: did I mention that they are rich? Oh well, if I didn't now you know that they are rich. Sorry, cuz I know it's one of the typical viewings of Lily's family... She's not conceited about it... and it helps us better understand how Harry has all that money in his vault at Gringotts). Lily's father is the owner of a muggle amusement park, and her mother is a well-known fashion designer. Their house is two stories, and kind of shaped like a square, with the center kind of cut out, like a courtyard in a way. It's a white house with pillars in the front (to hold up the porch) and it has a huge yard with various things that'll be mentioned in upcoming chapters.

The Evans family has a butler and a maid, but other than that, there aren't any servants, because they want their children to be able to fend for themselves somewhat. (A/N: Of course that doesn't mean that they don't enjoy trying to spoil their kids rotten every now and then, like on birthdays and on Christmas.)

Even though they have a maid and butler (who cooks sometimes, or helps cook.) Mrs. Evans enjoys cooking and usually does it herself.

Now, back to the story.

When Jonathan and Lily were on their way back to the kitchen, they found Nana Evans, Petunia, and Violet all sitting in the dining room, waiting for Elizabeth to come in so that they could have dinner.

After Dinner:

"Violet, Petunia, why don't you help your grandmother back to her room? Lily, your father, and I need to discuss where Lily will be going to for school next year, we have a few options and need to think them out before taking the appropriate measures."

"But mum!" Petunia whined (A/N: annoying little brat that she is, sorry that just sort of slipped out.) "I want to stay here and help too!"

"Besides," Violet added, "what happened to desert?"

"Do not disobey your mother, girls. I believe I have some treats upstairs reserved for good girls. You two seem like good girls, so I'll be glad to share my treats with you" Nana told her grandchildren gently.

Two obedient though reluctant "Alrights" were heard.

As the three disappeared up the stairs, Elizabeth turned to her husband and said, "I suppose Lily has told you about the letter already?" a nod from Jonathan. "What do you propose we do about this? I mean, we both know how your mother feels about that sort of thing, after all look at what she did to your sister after finding out that she was one."

"I know Liz, but let's look at this logically; we can't exactly hold Lily back from becoming one, if that's what she's destined to do. We don't want her growing up and holding it against us or anything like that."

"Yes, but we also don't want her grandmother to disown her either."

The whole time this was going on, Lily just sat there at the dining room table and listened to her parents talk about her. She figured that they probably would remember that she was sitting there, waiting to be included in this conversation with them. Apparently her parents had forgotten that she was there though, because they got up and brought their conversation into the kitchen, as Elizabeth began to make tea for them to have.

'Should I speak up so that they know I'm still here,' Lily wondered. 'Or should I just wait for one of them to acknowledge me? I think I'll just make a small noise, like clear my throat and see what happens, and if they don't say anything, I'll just be quiet.'

"Ahem" Lily cleared her throat gently, but to no avail as her parents were relatively wrapped up in arguing over whether or not Lily should be sent to Hogwarts because of her grandmother's almost definite reaction.

'Well, that didn't work out quite as I had hoped, so I guess I'll just sit here quietly and keep from making any more noise, for a few minutes at least.' However, the rest of her body didn't exactly agree, her nose started to tingle, in that annoying pre-sneeze sort of way. Lily sneezed pretty hard and fell off of the stool she had been sitting on, making quite the ruckus (A/N: She didn't get hurt though).

Elizabeth and Jonathan Evans stopped their arguing and looked over to see their middle child sprawled out on the floor with a kitchen stool on its side.

After checking to make sure that Lily wasn't hurt, they resumed their conversation, including Lily this time.

"Lily, do you want to go to this school, or would you rather go to Darrel Academy with Petty?" Asked John.

"Mum, dad who's Aunt Jo, and how come Nana disowned her?"

The two shared a look, and then Jon slowly nodded at his wife, which only confused poor Lily even more. After all, she only knew that she had an Aunt Jo from sneaking around and listening in on one or two of her parent's conversations when they mentioned her. She couldn't let her parents know that she had an inkling of an idea about who her Aunt Jo was. I mean, her parents might get mad if they realized that they had been overheard when discussing Jo.

"Well, you see, honey... Aunt Jo is my sister, my twin sister actually. She found out that she was a witch shortly after she turned 11, like you found out today, and she went off to Hogwarts that September, like you may be doing this year..." Mr. Evans let his voice trail off, still unsure as to whether or not he'd allow his daughter to go to that school. He'd heard from Jo that it was a lot of fun, but there's always a big difference between your sister going somewhere and your daughter going somewhere!

"How come I never heard you talk about her before, daddy? I mean, if she is your sister, I would have heard you talk about her, right?" an inquiring look from Lily

"The reason why you never heard of her is because... well, shortly after she left, my mother, that is, Nana, decided that she didn't want anyone with magical blood in her family. I think it's because she had a bad experience when she was younger, but I'm not positive about that, since it's an extremely delicate subject with her. All I know is that she had Jo move in with her sister (A/N: Jon's aunt) after she came back from her first year at Hogwarts. I haven't really seen Jo since, but I have talked to her a lot."

"Will Nana stop loving me after she finds out that I have magic in my blood?"

"Of course not, honey. It just might take some time for her to get used to having a witch in the family again," assured Liz Evans.

After Lily had been reassured that her grandmother would think no less of her for being a witch, Lily went off to bed.

"Jon, I really do hope that your mother won't be as quick to disown Lily as she was your sister. I mean, if she was able to do something like that to her own daughter, what about her granddaughter? I don't want Lily to have to go through the pain that your sister had to go through." Liz said, worried.

"Don't worry about it honey. My mother has had about 24 years to change her opinion of magical folk (A/N: this is making Lily's parents 35, or rather, her mom 35 and her dad about 36 or 37.). And I doubt she'd say that Lily could no longer be called family. Lily is my mother's favorite granddaughter after all."

The Next Day:

"Nana, can I talk to you for a minute?" Lily said, last night she and her parents had decided that they would let Dolores Evans know about her granddaughter's newfound abilities as soon as possible. What her parents did not know was that Lily intended to tell her grandmother by herself. She thought of it as her burden that had to be unloaded by her, not by her parents.

"Sure doll, what can I do for you?"

"I was just wondering... Do you believe in magic?"

For a split second, Dolores Evans's face showed a look of regret, but it was quickly wiped away as she turned to look her granddaughter in the eye. "Why do you ask doll?"

"Because..." Lily began hesitantly. 'Oh stop it Lily,' she said to herself. 'Nana won't stop loving you just because you're different from Petty and Vi.'

"Because..." Dolores prodded gently, not knowing what she should expect to hear from her sensitive descendant.

"Because, well I got a letter saying that I am a witch, and it asked me to go to a school called Hogwarts, but I don't want to go if it means you'll not let me be related to you anymore, like you did to Aunt Jo. I don't want to be not related to you, and if you don't want me to go to the school, I'll stay home and be normal just like everyone else." As it was, she started out talking pretty fast, but when she ended her little speech, Lily was rambling as though she had had too much caffeine.

"Lily, doll, I'm not going to stop loving you just because you are a witch and have magical blood. What I did to your Aunt Jo, I didn't entirely mean to do, and it was just a result of my being in shock," came the reply. (A/N: I'm not sure what brought on that change, but it's good, cuz we can't have Dolores hating her favorite granddaughter, now can we?)

Needless to say, Lily was extremely happy about all of this, and threw her arms around her grandmother, squealing "Thank you grandma you're the best!"

Petunia had been standing outside of the room, listening to the conversation and decided that she was going to get Lily in trouble for lying about things like that to their grandmother. 'I never did like Lily anyway; she's just such a snob and sooo weird. Little freak. Oh well, now I can get her in trouble for lying to Nana about stupid things like being a witch. How ridiculous!'

She walked into the living room and was about to tell her parents about Lily's outrageous lies, when the strangest sight met her eyes. Someone had just stepped out of the fireplace, and was now hugging her parents.

"AAAHH!!" she screamed, and then fainted.

Lily and Dolores heard a shrill scream, and then a plomp, as something hit the ground. As quickly as they could, they hurried out of Dolores's room, and headed towards the living room, where the scream had come from.

Once they entered the living room, they saw Petunia lying on the ground, with Lily's parents trying to wake their eldest daughter up, and another person, that Lily had never seen before, standing nearby wondering what to do. It was, after all, not the type of circumstance where she'd be able to just use the Enerviate spell to awaken a muggle.

A/N:I think I'll just leave it like this and try to get out the next chapter really soon. Let me know what you think of this so far.