Chapter 16 (wooooaaahh, who woulda guessed!)

It surprised Lily how fast things went back to normal in the Potter's house. James had taken her fear to heart and was making sure that he didn't go too fast or press her for emotions she wasn't ready to share. Sirius seemed to have forgotten the whole "I walked in on my best friend and his girlfriend" incident and the three of them spent their days lounging around the house, swimming (the Potters had a very nice pool) and getting out into the towns around James' neighborhood.

Sometime in the second week of break, the phone rang.

"I got it!" Lily yelled. She had begun to settle in very nicely, and had been answering the phone whenever she felt like it for the last couple of days. She pushed James' arm off of her shoulder and bolted across the room from where they were playing 2 against 1 wizard's chess and lunged at the receiver.

"Hello, you have reached the Potter's house. This is Lily speaking, how may I help you?" she recited in her fake telephone voice.

The boys could hear a few screams come out of the phone from their post across the room.

"He's got you answering his phone now?" Carmen's voice said into Lily's ear. Then Carmen raised her voice and James heard her yell, "You're a pig, James Potter!" at him through the phone.

"So, Carmen what's the call for?" Lily asked, dropping her accent and sitting down on one of the stools in the kitchen.

"Well, guess where we are!" Carmen said.

"Hmmmm," Lily made a noise as though she was thinking very, very hard before saying, " I dunno. I give up; where are you?"

"Well, we're about – what would you say girls – a minute away from you," Carmen replied, giggling madly. Listening carefully, Lily heard the faint click of the front gates to James' neighborhood as they opened to let a car through.

She screamed loudly. "Ok, it's the big white one, it's like the 10th on the right or something…I'll be outside!" and she didn't wait for an answer before hanging up the phone. She turned excitedly towards the boys and grinned. "Let's go!" she said, bolting to the door without any explanation.

Lily stood at the end of the driveway, shivering slightly in her pajama pants and watched as the car pulled towards her. James and Sirius were standing behind Lily, also watching the car as it got closer and closer. As the driver, Lily couldn't tell who it was through the windshield, pulled up to the curb, Lily ran over. The window rolled down and Carmen poker her head out of the passenger's side, grinning madly; Lily could now see that Liz had been the driver.

"Where did you get the car?" Lily asked as Liz turned the key and the engine died away.

"We hijacked it from my mom. She's away for a convention thing for like, a week, so we thought we'd take a trip up and see you!" she giggled and Lily stood back for her to open the door.

"You," corrected Liz as she opened her door and got out, stretching her limbs. "You decided to hijack the car, you thought it'd be a good idea to drive 5 and half hours, you-"

"Oh shut up, Liz and give me a hug!" Lily said, running to the other side of the car where she grabbed Liz in a tight hug.

"Missed you Lily," Liz said, when they let go.

"I missed you guys, too. I'm so excited! Here, let me help you with that bag."

James and Sirius meandered over to help with the girls' stuff and the seven of them walked back to the house together.

"Ok, who wants some wine!" Lily asked, holding the open bottle of white out for them to see and looking around the table.

"Me!" came answer from everyone at the table, and Lily began to pour. Even Liz had decided to have a little celebratory drink for the occasion. The group had decided that instead of going out, they would cook a nice dinner and stay in. They were partway through their main course of spaghetti and meatballs (and exquisite meal for 7 seventeen-year-olds), when the doorbell rang.

"Who could that be?" Lily wondered out loud.

James got up from the table and wiped his mouth on his napkin. "Lily, could you please set three more places while I get the door?" He didn't explain why, but Lily got up and began to fork spaghetti onto three more plates. People at the table moved around to make room for their mystery guests.

Just as Lily was placing down the plates heaped with pasta and filling the extra glasses with wine, James walked back into the room. Everyone exclaimed excitedly as they saw Remus, Peter and a tall young man with black hair and a thin stubble on his chin walk in behind James.

Sirius jumped up to greet them. "Remus! Peter!" he said, clapping each on the shoulder and beaming. Then he turned to the third guest. "And this wouldn't be Remus' infamous half brother, would it?" His eyes glinted evilly. Peter seemed to have perked up since they had last seen him; he was smiling coyly, but still not saying a word.

"Yes it is. Everyone, this is Romeo, aka Ray, my half brother, Ray, this is everyone, uhhh, Lily, Carmen, Liz, Sarah, Eve," Each of the girls smiled and gave a little wave, "and Sirius and James," the two boys each gave a little nod.

"Here, have a seat, guys," James said, motioning to the three new places Lily had laid on the table. They thanked him and took their seats; James passed the sauce and the cheese over.

"So, Ray, how come we've never heard of you before?" Carmen asked, flirtatiously. Sirius scowled, but she was still looking at Ray.

"Actually, we don't really-" Remus started to say before Ray interrupted him.

"No, it's fine, I don't mind." His voice was husky and much deeper than Remus'. He took a sip of his wine before continuing. "Actually, I just got back home from being away for a while. See, I went away to school as well, except I chose to attend Durmstrang Academy; I tried to get the little brother to go there, too, but he decided that Hogwarts was more his style," Ray nudged Remus with his shoulder and grinned, revealing straight, white teeth and making all of the girls droop. Sirius and James both moved so that they had their arms around Carmen and Lily, noticing the threat this new guy was posing. Ray continued, "So, I graduated from school and went home, and as it turns out, I'm oretty good at getting myself into trouble." He stopped to roll some spaghetti onto his fork and taking a bite, "Oh, this is very good, delicious. Who made this?" he asked, searching the table.

Lily blushed a little and James threw Remus a look as she said, "I did," in a very girly voice.

"I helped!" Liz added, making everyone look up in surprise. Ray nodded at her and took a sip of wine. "Well, thank-you both." He grinned and the other three girls began whispering together; Lily heard Carmen say, "See, I told you we should have helped with the cooking!" and then Sarah shushing her and turning back to Ray.

"So, what happened next?" she asked, intent on hearing the rest of Ray's life story.

He laughed and rubbed his chin. "You really wanna know?" he asked and they all nodded eagerly. Peter was also staring very intently at their storyteller, almost as though he was taking notes. "Ok, well, I managed to get myself into very deep trouble. A buddy and I got the very bad idea of knocking over the local apothecary – with a stolen car." He paused dramatically as the full effect of the retelling of his crime settled upon his audience.

"Then what?" Eve finally asked, her voice hardly above a whisper. Even the boys' interest had been piqued by now; Remus, however, did not look the least bit excited. He had finished his first glass of wine and was a fair way through his second, a sour expression on his face.

"Well, the cops got a call and met us before we could even step outside the store. They checked the car license plate and found it was stolen, got us for that. Plus, my friend, Frank, had some drugs on him, so that went against him, too. We ended up in a juvenile detention center for a while. I'm actually 19 but they let me stay instead of moving me to a low-security prison because I only had a few months left on my sentence when I had my birthday." He leaned back in his chair. "I just got out last week; Frank's still in because he got an extra six months for the drugs. I didn't have my wand on me at the time, because Frank's a muggle, but the Ministry got word of my arrest and were not very happy; suspended my magic license for a year after I got out, but it's a small price to pay for skipping jail or Azkaban." He drained his glass and threw them a cocky smile.

The table was silent as Ray finished his story. Remus was the first to speak.

"So, everyone finished with their dinner? Good, I'll clear. Ray, why don't you be a help and wash the dishes?" he began to lift up people's half empty plates from the table and carried them into the kitchen. Ray stood and turned to follow him.

"I'll help you wash!" Liz offered, standing as well.

Remus appeared back into the room for his second load, "Ray's quite capable of washing the dishes on his own, I think, thanks Liz." He headed back into the kitchen with more dishes.

Lily stood and took James' hand. She looked around the table. "Let's go elsewhere, shall we?" she raised her eyes and motioned up their stairs. Everyone stood and followed her up to their various bedrooms.

A few minutes later, Lily had changed into her pajamas and brushed her teeth. She was about to climb into bed when she changed her mind and walked over to the door. Opening the door, she combed the corridor to see if anyone was around. Carmen had ended up in Sirirus' room, Remus had gone to bed early, as had Eve and Sarah, who were sharing the guest room. Liz and Peter were still downstairs, with Ray.

Finding the hallway deserted, Lily shut the door behind her and tip-toed across the carpet to James' door. Turning the knob, Lily opened the door and found James on his bed, reading. James looked up when he heard the door shut, and smiled when he saw Lily.

"Hey, crazy night, huh?" he said. He moved over to make a space for Lily to climb up on the bed next to him.

"Tell me about it. I guess Remus doesn't approve of his brother's antics too much," she paused for a second, propping herself up on her elbows and looking up at James. "Do you think they'll be ok?"

"Yeah, they'll be fine," James said easily. Then he placed the book on his side table and kissed Lily on the forehead. "Let's just go to sleep and try not to worry about it."

Lily nodded, and turned out the lamp next to her as they settled in for the night.

Heyyyy there. Back with a new chapter, hope to add one more at least before I leave on the 30th. Head's up: I'll be away for five weeks and the only back for 6 days before I'm away again for 2 weeks so don't expect anything for almost two months!

Sorry, but I hope you keep looking forward to stuff until then and after I get back!

Jes xo