Disclaimer: I don't own anything, yada, yada, yada.

"Hey, Moony," Sirius greeted Remus, who was sitting at the Potters' kitchen table. He plopped down in the seat opposite his friend and grabbed a piece of bacon off his plate. "What are you doing here?"

"I came by pretty early this morning to see James, but his mom said that you were here too and that you were both still asleep."

"Yes, well, we were up pretty late last night. I'm surprised that James isn't up and screaming for joy to all who will listen, actually."

"Am I missing something?"

"James found the girl from Diagon Alley last night," Sirius explained, finishing the breakfast on Remus' plate. "Apparently her name is Vanessa and they are now dating."

Remus looked mildly surprised for a moment but he quickly recovered. "Well, that's great, right?"

"Don't you think it's a little odd that she suddenly showed up right when James was getting closer to Lily?"

"Of course I do, but is it really our business?"

"Hey, whomever James starts to date will have to hang out with us. Besides, we are his best friends. It's our job to look out for him and tell him when he's being a blind idiot."

"Yes, well, somehow I doubt that James will see it that way."

"I'm just saying that I think he should be careful. Vanessa is a witch, and if she had really wanted to find James after she saved his life, it wouldn't have been hard. He's the Minister's son for Merlin's sake. Everyone in the wizarding world knows who he is. Something's fishy about her story."

"I get that, Padfoot, I do, but we have to remember that he hasn't been able to stop thinking about this girl since he met her. Now that he's found her, he's not likely to let her just walk away again."

"I know that. And that's not exactly true."

"What do you mean?"

"I talked to him yesterday just before I came back here. Peter told me that he was in the shrieking shack, so I went up to find him, and he confessed that he had almost kissed Lily but that Wormtail interrupted them. Apparently he forgot about the girl from Diagon Alley the whole time that he was with Lily. He couldn't decide whether he wanted to take a chance with Lily or wait forever for a girl who might never show her face again. I was sure that he was leaning towards Lily when I left him, but then he comes home last night only to tell us that he's dating Vanessa. It's just really…" Sirius trailed off upon hearing a noise. "Did you hear that?"

"No," Remus replied, looking confused. "Hear what?"

"I'm sure that there was a noise outside the door." He got up and opened the door, finding that the plant that was sitting outside in the hall was knocked over. "Hey, Moony," he said, waiting for Remus to get up and join him before continuing, "Was that like that before?"

"No, I'm sure that it wasn't." The two of them wandered over to the living room and peeked in. They were just on time to see a distraught Lily disappear through the fireplace, but they were too late to hear where she was going.

Sirius stared at Remus with his mouth open for a few moments before saying, "Do you think she heard us?"

"I would bet everything I own on it."

Sirius winced. "That's what I thought."

Lily awoke to the sun shining through the sheer curtains, and rather than get up, she buried her face in her pillow and gave a halfhearted attempt to go back to sleep. Now that she was conscious, however, her brain insisted on dredging up thoughts of yesterdays events. Lily smiled as she thought of how close she had been to kissing James. She was so much closer to kissing him, and kissing him by the end of the day seemed more possible than it had yesterday morning.

She finally lifted her head out of the pillow, deciding that breathing was more important than sleep. She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling thinking of things that she and James could do for the day, but her thoughts were soon interrupted by her stomach growling. She got out of bed and dressed in one of her new outfits and then headed to the bathroom to brush her teeth. If James was going to kiss her today, she was not going to have bad breath.

She finally proceeded downstairs to the kitchen, and she stopped just outside the door to congratulate herself on not getting lost. She reached up to straighten her hair, taking a deep breath and composing herself so that she would be ready to see James. Just as she was about to push open the kitchen door, she heard Sirius' voice from inside, and she stopped automatically to hear what he was saying.

"…yesterday just before I came back here. Peter told me that he was in the shrieking shack, so I went up to find him, and he confessed that he had almost kissed Lily but that Wormtail interrupted them. Apparently he forgot about the girl from Diagon Alley the whole time that he was with Lily. He couldn't decide whether he wanted to take a chance with Lily or wait forever for a girl who might never show her face again. I was sure that he was leaning towards Lily when I left him, but then he comes home last night only to tell us that he's dating Vanessa. It's just really…"

Lily didn't stick around to hear the rest of what he was saying. She quickly turned around, not noticing the plant she knocked down, and ran toward her only escape – the fireplace. She grabbed a handful of floo powder, ran into the hearth, and said, 'Diagon Alley,' thus disappearing from the Potters' den.

As soon as she arrived in Diagon Alley, Lily darted straight for the brick wall, quickly opening it with her wand before dropping the wand on the ground and exiting the wizarding world forever. Tears flowed from her emerald eyes as she realized that she would never truly belong anywhere.

She had taken a chance on James, and it had all been for nothing. He would never feel the same way about her as she did about him. She didn't belong in the wizarding world, she knew that, but after spending two days there, she didn't feel like she belonged in the muggle world either. Going home was her only option, and yet it felt so wrong. So much had happened; she had changed, and she didn't feel comfortable going back to the place that would be a constant memory of her crushed hopes and dreams.

Lily looked up through her tear-filled eyes, and spotting a park not far away, which was depressingly empty. Lily, who had finally stopped crying but had yet to wipe the tears from her cheeks, did not have the presence of mind to wonder why there were no children around on a Sunday afternoon. She sat down in a swing and began to gently sway back and forth robotically, allowing her mind to go blank.

After an indeterminable amount of time, the mundane motions that she was making were halted by her best friend's voice. Rather than squealing with joy as she once would have done, she merely stopped swinging without acknowledging her friend and continued to stare seemingly through the ground.

"Lily! Thank God I've found you! Everyone's been worried sick. Your father thinks that you've been kidnapped and he's got Petunia staying at Vernon's all day while he's out looking for you and I've been so scared that I'd never see…Lily?" Sylvia finally noticed that her friend was oddly out of sorts, and she once again became worried. "Lily?"

Lily finally looked up, and the sadness reflected in her eyes almost caused Sylvia to let out a dry sob. "What's wrong?" she asked her friend shakily.

Sylvia's words seemed to break open a barrier, and thoughts of James and all that had happened flooded Lily's mind once again. Sylvia could only watch helplessly as tears once again stained her friend's face. Unable to take it anymore, she pulled Lily up off the swing and into a deep hug, causing the girl to let out a huge sob before finally blurting out the whole story from the two men in her room to finding out about James and Vanessa. When she had finished, she pulled away from her friend, wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands and taking a few deep, calming breaths.

"Lily," Sylvia said softly, once she was sure that Lily wouldn't become hysterical, "You can't give up that easily."

"I don't know what to do," Lily replied helplessly.

"Well, sitting here certainly isn't helping matters. You need to go back to –"

"I'm not going back to the wizarding world," Lily interrupted, "ever."

"You need to talk to James. No matter what happens, you need to hear the story from him. Maybe it will make things better, and maybe it won't. Maybe you'll find out that it was all just a big understanding. And if you don't, then that's okay too because at least you will have had some closure. I really think that if you're going to come back home, you need that closure or you'll think about James every day for the rest of your life. If you are never going to see him again, then you need to say goodbye."

Lily looked like she wanted to protest, but she saw the look in Sylvia's eyes. It was a look that expressed wisdom beyond her friend's years, and Lily knew that this was one time when taking Sylvia's advice truly was her only option.

"I love you, you know that? You are the best friend that anyone could ask for."

"Yeah, I know. Aren't you lucky that I'm all yours?"

Lily smiled. "Thank you," she said softly, hugging her friend and then disappearing from the park. When she arrived at the brick wall from the Leaky Cauldron, she found it already open and she could see the back of a wizard walking away. She rushed through the wall, completely forgetting about her wand, not seeing it on the ground as she barely avoided stepping on it.

Lily didn't know where James would be, but she figured that his house would be the best place to look first. His mother still didn't know what had transpired, so if he wasn't there, she could wait in the bedroom that she had briefly known as her own. She never even got near a fireplace to floo, however, because straight ahead sat James with a girl that she had never seen before.

The girl was beautiful with long dark hair, and although she was sitting beside James with her head on his shoulder, Lily could tell that she was tall and lean. She knew at once with a sinking feeling in her stomach that this was Vanessa, and that there had been no misunderstanding this morning.

Feeling slightly awkward, Lily approached the couple, locking eyes with James when she got close and he looked up to see her there.

Sensing the tension in the air, Vanessa lifted her head from James' shoulder and opened her eyes. She looked from James to Lily, immediately joining them in feeling awkward. Finally breaking the silence, Lily addressed James, "Can we –"

"Yeah," he replied, not needing her to finish her sentence. He looked at Vanessa with a look that clearly said that they needed a moment, and she nodded, leaning over to kiss him briefly before getting up and saying "I'll be in the Three Broomsticks." She then left, leaving James and Lily alone and staring at each other.

"So it's true, then? You really are dating her?"

James nodded.

"I hope you're happy together," she said, unable to completely disguise the breaking in her voice.

James looked at her sadly, and felt the sudden need to explain. "I met a girl at Diagon Alley a while back and I think that I fell in love with her, but she seemed to disappear off the face of the earth."

It was killing Lily to know that he was talking about her and that she couldn't tell him so.

"I've found her now, Lily. It's Vanessa. She was the one who saved my life and…"

"That was ME you idiot!" she yelled, too upset to be shocked that she was finally able to reveal this tidbit of information.

But James didn't need to be told that, for suddenly, as though a veil had been lifted from over his eyes, he was able to really look at Lily, and he recognized her from the day that she had saved him. "Lily…" he whispered, looking at her and wiping away the tears that were running down her cheeks. He pulled her into a fierce hug, waiting for her quiet sobs to die down before pulling back to look into her eyes again. "I'm so sorry."

She gave him a teary smile before replying, "I know. It's okay now." She knew that he was going to kiss her now, and she waited in anticipation as his face drew nearer to hers, but their lips never touched because, at that moment, Voldemort apparated not three feet from them and let out the most evil, bone-chilling laugh that Lily had ever heard.

"It's too late, Lily, child," he said, looking pointedly toward the sky where the sun had, moments earlier, retreated, leaving nothing but clouds scattered across a sky that was now quickly getting darker. "It's too late!"

"Lily, what…"

"Your dearest Lily made a deal with me, James, and she failed to live up to her end of the bargain. She belongs to me now."

"No! Tell me it's not true. It can't be true."

"I'm sorry," she whispered through her tears. "I'm so sorry."

"Why?"

"I just wanted to see you again."

"But Voldemort is dangerous, Lily. Why would you make a deal with him?"

"I didn't know. And he offered me my own powers...how could I say no to that?

James looked shocked and confused, and Lily could tell that he was trying to organize the information in his head. "Your own…but that's impossible. Lily, no wizard can give a muggle powers. It can't be done."

"But…" she was interrupted by Voldemort's laughter once again.

"Didn't you wonder why you were able to get into Diagon Alley that first day, Lily?" he yelled mockingly.

"How did you…"

"I told you, child. I know everything. Now, why not ask your dear muggle father!"

Lily watched, horrified, as her father appeared with his arms tied together. He was restrained by two men: Lucius and Avery.

"No…Daddy?"

"I'm sorry, Lily."

She ran to him, despite protests from James, who was trying to hold her back. "Daddy, what's going on?"

"I should have told you."

"Told me what?"

He sighed sadly. "My first day in office, a portrait spoke to me, told me that I was about to meet the Minister for Magic. My mind was spinning. I had always entertained your fantasies about magic, but I had never really believed them. A man came through my fireplace. He explained to me all about the magical world. They were in a war, Lily, and it was much more frightening than the magical world that you had always imagined. When your letter came from Hogwarts, I was horrified. You have to understand, Lily. I knew what that world was like. I had had meetings with the Minister of Magic, and he had explained the dark times they were going through. I couldn't let you be a part of that, not after I'd already lost your mother. I couldn't lose you too."

"You mean…"

"I never gave you anything!" Voldemort shouted. "You were already a witch; you just didn't know it. And now you belong to me."

"No!" James cried, trying but failing to run to her, an invisible force pushing him back.

"I might be willing to strike up a bargain, though," Voldemort pronounced. "The support of the muggle Prime Minister is just the thing I need to make myself impossible to oppose. He would be so much more valuable to own than a witch who can't even do magic."

Lily opened her mouth to protest, but Voldemort was too quick. "Silencio!" he boomed, and all Lily could do was look at her father, her eyes begging him not to sacrifice himself for her.

Her father looked at her sadly, his eyes apologizing for his past mistakes and for what he was about to do.

She ran to him and flung herself into his arms, holding on to him for dear life. "No," she cried softly.

"Lily, everything that has transpired up to this point has been the result of my own mistakes. I cannot let you pay the price."

"I don't care. I won't let you do this."

"I don't have time for this. Lucius, Avery, let's go." With a malicious laugh and a poof, Voldemort and his minions disappeared from Diagon Alley, taking Lily's father with them. Lily was devastated when she realized that she had let her father slip right through her fingers, and she collapsed to the ground sobbing.

G

I would like to say first that I'm so so so so so so sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up. Would you believe me if I told you that I was abducted by aliens and that they put my brain into the body of someone who can't type? I didn't think so. It was worth a try, though. You most likely won't read this until Wednesday or later, but I would like it stated for the record that it is Tuesday night now (and by the way, I really should be doing calculus homework), so I'm really only two days late. (Actually, being the idiot I am, I uploaded the document and forgot to add the chapter to the story, so it's Thursday or later. But I still wrote it on Tuesday! Please forgive me!)To be perfectly honest, I was going to finish the story before posting any more. The last chapter was going to be the longest one, and then I would be finished. But I've been having a bit of writer's block lately, and I couldn't make you wait anymore for this part of the story. I don't have any more written, though, so the next update might take a bit of time. I hope you can be patient, and in the meantime, review and let me know what you think please. It might light a fire under my bum and get me writing, you never know. Also, if you have any ideas for what should happen to Voldemort, they would be greatly appreciated. I really don't know what to do with him, and that's what's giving me such a hard time. If you've got any insight, let me know, and I'll be sure to give you credit for your idea. I love you all, and I'm sorry for making you wait.

P.S. If the next chapter is really short, I'm sorry, but you have to remember that it was going to be part of this chapter. Review responses are on my bio page as always.