Author's Note:

Joy to the world! My freakin' exams begin on the 15th of March and end on the 29th. Then I am free! Free to obsess over this story as much as I want to, free to actually begin the Outcasts properly and free to swim, fly, eat, drink, watch TV and most of all WRITE UPDATE AND READ my beloved Harry Potter series again.

And of course, I will finally get to move on to the second part of LotR… I've read both The Hobbit and The fellowship atleast five times each! FREE!

Well, if you've recovered from my 'free' shout-out, you might be ready to taste my next offering… Get ready to relinquish any remaining rights on sanity. This chappie is more than two thousand words long and pretty good as chapters go.

Read, enjoy, and review, people! I really need reviews, now, more than ever!

Well, in hopes that you'll enjoy this chappie,

Ciao… at least till the end of the chapter! ;)

Chapter 26: One Heck of a Long Story

Lily hastily grabbed a large part of her savings from the secret compartment in her closet and some change from the door side drawers.

"I'm going… out." She told her mother, slamming the front door behind her.

As she looked for a taxi in the busy street, she heard her mother's faint voice, "Don't to forget to take a nice handkerchief, dear."

Honestly, even if she were on her way to battle Voldemort, that's all her mother would say.

Rolling her eyes, she called, "Taxi!"

Almost like magic, a taxi appeared from no where right in front of her.

"To the police station," She said, wondering whether the driver would be surprised.

However, even if he was, he wasn't one to show it.

In barely a few seconds, the astonishingly agile car had managed to triumph over the horrible evening traffic London was dreaded for.

That was good, the short ride stopped her head from pounding 'He's in jail', 'He got arrested' in her head.

As Lily got down, the driver examined the meter carefully and announced "Twelve" as if he were announcing "It's a boy!" to a nervous father.

Lily struggled to count out the pounds; she couldn't even remember the last time she had used Muggle money.

Just as she was about to give him all of it, he spat out, clearly and distinctly, "Twelve sickles."

Lily stopped short, stared at him, doubted, colored and in understandable disbelief gave him the money she (luckily) had in her pocket.

He looked at her pityingly for a few second, then handed her a card. She had barely touched it before the cab altogether disappeared.

Walking into the faintly imposing building, she read it:

Malik's Super Cabs

Urban transport for the hurried witch or wizard of today!

It had a (moving) picture of a rather cute cartoon cab revving about the card.

She turned it:

To call one of Malik's Super Cabs, fully equipped with all Muggle amenities, simply yell "Taxi", while rolling your eyes. A state-of-the-art Malik's Super Cab will appear instantly to take you to your favored urban destination.

In small letters she could barely read, it read:

Malik's Super Cabs cannot be held responsible for any damage incurred to the eyeballs while rolling them.

Aha- so that's how-

"Ouch!" Lily had walked right into a bulky constable.

She tried to walk forward but he politely, but firmly obstructed her, "Excuse me, miss?"

"What?" she asked irritably, quickly sidestepping him.

He moved in front of her again.

She jumped to her right this time, but as huge as he was, he was faster than her.

Lily looked at him for a few seconds.

Then she feigned a left jump, she took another step to her right.

He was still blocking her way.

"Miss, please." He pleaded with her.

"Fine." She gave up. "I'm here to see…."

She cricked her neck to see into the barred cell on her far left. "Him." She finished, gesturing vaguely to an inmate.

He let her go after (very suspiciously) taking down her name and address.

Lily made her way to the cell.

Yes, indeed it was that same mop of untidy black hair sitting aside that adorable head. The chiseled features of the face were deemed extraordinarily striking by the pair of deep hazel eyes reminding Lily of her grandmother's delectable homemade brownies. The eyes were unabashedly fixed on her. The young man was standing, his well-toned body leaning against the graffiti splattered prison wall. He made standing look cool.

As she moved closer, he came up to the cold, unpainted bars.

"James."

"Lovely two-step you were doing with Constable Wickham there, Lils." He looked amused.

She blushed as he continued, "Won't you dance with me, as well?"

"Maybe if I can get you out..." She said pointedly.

He faltered a bit. "Er… Not just me."

He pointed to another familiar figure, asleep on a nearby bench.

"Sirius? What, you dragged him into this mess with you?"

"More like, he did the dragging…"

She looked up questioningly, but he only said, "Get us out of here first."

About fifteen minutes later, James, Lily and Sirius were strolling outside, the light from the setting sun silhouetting each of them.

Fortunately for James and Sirius, no bail had been necessary to rescue them from "The Horrors of Prison Food" as Sirius put it.

As soon as Sirius had exited the building, he launched himself on numerous strangers, hugging and kissing them, crying, "I'm free! Free!" at the top of his voice. Not all those strangers were female, unfortunately.

Sirius, then, restricted himself to kissing the ground at various intervals. This too stopped when Lily pointed out, "Eww… There's dog poo there!"

Other than that, they had a fairly uneventful journey to Lily's house.

However, Lily stopped abruptly at a park, a few minutes from her house.

"So… what happened…. And what story are we going to tell my parents?

James cleared his throat, "It all began when Padfoot, for reasons only he knows, failed to tell me-"

Sirius interrupted, "Hey, Lils? Can I go get something to eat? I'm famished!"

Lily handed him some money, but James stopped him, "Oh no you don't.

You have a very important role in this story, don't you forget!"

"No I don't!" cried Sirius indignantly. "Remus, yeah, Remus… now, he has a Very Important Role. Not lil' ole' me. And Peter, Peter… well, I'm definitely more important than him, but, then again… who isn't?"

"Ahem. As I was saying, Sirius failed to tell me that… well, that you were following me the night of the disastrous prank." He colored.

Lily started but said nothing, preferring to admire her manicured fingers.

"When he finally did tell me… yesterday. You had all ready boarded the train. I went after you, but even with his and Peter's help, we, er couldn't find you."

Sirius snorted reminiscently.

Lily felt there was more to the story, but didn't comment.

"For a while, we were incapacitated at the station."

Sirius snorted again.

"What?" asked Lily.

"Incapacitated my foot. He got knocked out."

Lily strived hard to suppress her giggles.

Sirius went on, " And you want to know why he was knocked out?"

Lily was shaking now, Sirius took it as assent.

"Because James Tristan Potter was trying to enter the girl's bathrooms!" He proclaimed.

The thought of macho man Potter trying to enter the girl's loo and to top it of failing was simply too much for Lily to bear.

"How'd he find it?" She asked amidst her laughter. Indeed, the location of the girl's bathrooms was not usually part of a boy's meager knowledge. Granted, if he was a perverted one, he might know where the showers were, but the loo?

James began, "That is quite irrelevant to the story,"

Sirius cut him off and related the entire episode, imitating the girls and everything.

At the end, James managed a feeble, "You were knocked out, too," but his ego was too damaged to say anymore.

"Well, go on…" Lily prompted.

"When we finally revived, most of the students had gone home." He added, "We crossed the barrier in search of you." As if he were saying, "I crossed the seven seas, climbed to the top of Mt. Everest and went to the moon in search of you."

"Well, that was stupid." Put in Lily, bluntly.

They looked taken aback as she continued, "Every break I spend the first night at Lara's house and she spends the last at mine. It's like a tradition. So while you two Christopher Columbus' were outside in the muggle world, I was taking the 12:45 to Wales."

They were silent. "You didn't know this… I presume?" she said.

James continued his story. " On the muggle side, I took out my wand-"

"In broad daylight?" cried Lily in outrage.

"Yeah, yeah, listen! I realized it wasn't mine… It was one of the fake wands from Zonko's." He held up a rubber duck.

"But Sirius…?"

"Lily, really, if I didn't have my wand, do you really think Sirius would have his?" He looked properly offended.

"Sorry."

"We wandered into London, firstly, trying to find Diagon Alley. 'Course, we didn't, we always floo there, so we ended up more lost than we were before. Then we looked for your house…"

"You don't know my address…"

"Well, Sirius identified one of those boothphones, like the one in Muggle studies… and we found a directory. I never realized up till then, that there were so many Evans in London. 'Course, we had no idea which one you were."

"It was my idea to start at the top of the list." Added Sirius.

"My dad's Abraham, so he's always near the top." Lily said.

James nodded, "Maybe, but remember, we had no transport, Muggle or otherwise."

"You should have called one of Malik's Super Cabs." Lily said.

"Oh yeah!" Sirius said, "Cute ad, right! With the itsy-bitsy car revving around!"

"Yeah, that's them." Agreed Lily. "Great color scheme, don't you think! Very striking! Here look!" She took out the card and Sirius fervently admired it, "Uhhmmm, also 'Malik's Super Cabs'! The phrase has a certain ring to it, doesn't it?"

"Very catchy!" Lily nodded.

James became annoyed, "Excuse moi, mademoiselles…"

"Oui?" asked Sirius and Lily in unison.

"As I was saying… we tracked down the first address, but our sense of direction being…"

"Zilch" Lily commented.

James ignored her, " Unaccustomed to muggle areas, we got lost. By that time, it was past sunset. We were tired, hungry, thirsty…" trailed James.

"Yeah," Sirius took up the threads of the story, "The closest eatery we could find was…the er… Blinking Mule, was it?"

James nodded.

"You two went to the Blinking Mule?" Lily looked astounded.

"Yep, why?"

"That's not an eatery. That's a bloody tavern. I've read about it somewhere. Apparently, the alcohol level there is higher than anywhere else in England. The beer is almost a hundred percent alcohol… It's almost illegal."

"That explains a lot." James said darkly. "As usual, we went inside and ordered two butterbeers."

Lily groaned, "You don't get butterbeer in the Muggle world. The bartender probably heard only 'beer'."

"Well, whatever he heard, he asked us what we wanted it mixed with. I was a bit surprised, but thought, you know, local customs… I told him we wanted it pure."

He paused.

"Let me guess." Lily smiled, "Then you two proceeded to get totally drunk."

"Well, technically… Yes," He conceded. "But soon enough, they realized we had no money to speak of… but I guess, cause we were minors, they simply chucked us out."

Lily nodded thoughtfully, "Yeah, the wasted beer would have cost a lot less than another lawsuit."

"Really?" Sirius asked interestedly, "A fast way to make money, perhaps?"

But Lily deliberately ignored him.

James went on, "So it was around… what… midnight….by then."

"And you two stone drunkards were still wandering the streets of London…"

"Yep. Then, we met one of your…er, pleasemen, I think?"

"Policemen." She corrected.

"Yes, he came up to me and asked very politely, 'Are you drunk, sir?'

And I, being the perfect gentleman at all times, replied, 'Of course not, ma'am. Have a pleasant afternoon.' He then requested me to walk across the white dividing line on one foot… then I…"

Sirius took it up, "Prongs, idiot that he is, picks up one leg and stares at the line for a few seconds. Then he tells me, ' Padfoot, come over here and hold down this line, will ya? It keeps on wiggling away!' "

James continued, " And Padfoot, crazy old kook that he is, goes up to the line, actually bends down on all fours in the middle of the freakin' road and says, 'I'm trying, Prongs, but the damn creature won't lay still.' "

"Needless to say," Sirius smiled, " The officer took us into his custody right then."

"And the next thing you know, you're waking up in a blinking police station with a blinding headache and a wicked hangover." Lily concluded, laughing.

James began to grin, "So, I guess this means… you're not angry with me anymore?"

Lily didn't say anything. It had struck her that James had gone through all this trouble for her and, so, it was unlikely, he was also going around with Cassie.

"James, why weren't you honest with me? Tell me what Cassandra said. It's been killing me." She admitted.

James was surprised. He hadn't even imagined that… was it possible? Was she jealous of Cassie?

He boldly voiced his question.

"Well….yeah. A lil bit."

Sirius smirked. "A lil bit! Understatement of the mil-len-nium! Man, you were the fiery, fearsome, red hot, green eyed monster of jealousy and with your red hair and green eyes, I mean that literally, Miss J!"

Lily glared at him pointedly.

"I'll go get something to eat, shall I?" Sirius ran off to the other side of the park.

This time James didn't object.

Author's Note:

Tell me, was that a cliffie or not? I can't tell anymore….

Hmmmmm… did you like my plus sign line breakers? Not as nice as the star thingy () but hey…

K, next chapter will appear only on appearance of reviews…

It'll feature…. A Talk between LJ (long awaited, long needed)

Meet the Parents… and also Petunia (imagine the fun! Prongs, Padfoot, Petunia, Vernon with Lily in the middle)

And…. Maybe getting back to school? Let's see….

Ciao, again.