Well here is my next chapter, hope you all enjoy. I think that I am going to have a flashback to their seventh year in each chapter, just to add background and understanding. Things will start speeding up in the next chapter. This chapter is going to start with James POV and then switch over to Lily's. Sadly they aren't going to meet in this chapter, but I am pretty sure that that will be occurring in the next chapter. If you would review I would be very grateful. ;)

Almost Encounters

James sat at his usual seat in Florean Fortesque's Ice-Cream Parlour. He was strategically sitting in a corner so that his back was covered, but it still allowed him to see everything going on in the building, and the nearby window gave him the ability to see into the rest of Diagon Alley.

Random books and papers were spread out all over the table and nearby chairs to not only discourage anybody from sitting next to him, but to make it look like he was doing research on his next book. Only those who were in the Order knew he was keeping out a watch for any suspicious activity. It really was surprising how much information he picked up, and in the case of emergency he could start fighting against Death Eaters if they attacked and the Auror's hadn't arrived yet.

Thinking back to last nights work, he automatically had to suppress a yawn. He had been working on an operation for months now to find out any information on Lucius Malfoy that would prove that he was a Death Eater, or even sympathetic to their cause. If the stakeout had welded anything productive, he would have been able to handle the long hours, but their work was agonizingly slow, and nothing of importance had happened for weeks. Lucius was too good at concealing his whereabouts and his support of Voldemort.

James sighed as he looked at all his stuff. He was bored with this. His first book had sold very well, so now he felt as if he needed to be writing something that was worthwhile, but the stupid parchment remained blank no matter how hard he stared at it.

At first it had been easy to pretend to be a spoiled rich kid who thought he was a great author. People had never taken him seriously. But, as Voldemort grew stronger and stronger, it was difficult to keep up the façade. He was itching to get out there and do some good. He knew his work was important, but at the same time he felt he needed to atone for his past. Fighting evil in any of its forms would be a means of repaying what he had let happen to Lily all those years ago.

'There you go thinking about Lily again,' he thought. 'Its been eight years! You have a girlfriend for Merlin's sake. Just stop obsessing. It really isn't healthy.' James grinned wryly and thought he sounded exactly like Sirius. He really needed to stop talking to himself.

The sad thing was, that no matter how hard he tried, he caught himself thinking about her all the time. Even the main character in his last book was based after Lily. She had the beautiful red hair, green eyes, and spitfire personality. Sirius had teased him about it to no end, and he had taken it because that was what friends did.

He spooned at the melted ice-cream that had pooled at the bottom of his sundae bowl, still lost in thought. Suddenly his ice cream was in his lap, and there was something attached to his legs. His wand was drawn in an instant, ready for anything

"Don't point your wand at me," a young voice piped. "I am just a kid, and I hate it when people point their wands at me. I think it's rude, because they don't even know me yet." The voice took on a hint of smugness, "Of course after they get to know me they usually end up pointing their wands at me anyway, but I can live with that. I usually deserve it."

"What are you doing down there?" James started to say, but then realized there was a much more important question. "Do you even realize that you just spilled ice cream into my lap?" He tried to look under the table to view his attacker.

I am hiding from my mother." She stated imperiously. "Don't look at me! It will look suspicious and rather ridiculous if your head is under the table when she walks by."

"And why should I help you hide from your mother? Is there a particular reason she's looking for you?" James said trying to hold back laughter as he cleaned up the ice cream in his lap trying not to look "suspicious," to appease the little girl.

"Well, I might have accidentally started a fire in the robe shop, but I am not admitting to anything." The little girl said innocently. "Thanks for hiding me, Mom's temper will usually calm pretty fast, but it's not fun to get caught when it's just getting started. Plus it was an accident…well mostly"

"What's your name, kid?" James asked casually. Now here was a child after his own heart.

"My name is Elizabeth Marks, what's yours?"

"I am James Potter; it's a pleasure to meet you."

"Didn't you write that book "Animagi Adventures"? I loved that book! My mom bought it for me and I thought it was really neat. When I was a kid, I used to pretend I was the main character Rose."

"Yes I wrote that-"

"Quick, here she comes! Look like you are doing something important." Elizabeth said urgently, as she slid her body further under his chair. This girl was definitely a professional troublemaker, and he liked it.

"Okay, I think that she is gone. Thanks for the help and sorry about the ice cream." A young girl of about eleven sat in the chair next to him, on top of a rather expensive transfiguration book. Her dark brown curls framed an elfin face with eyes that danced with impishness. "I better get going. Rule number five, never hide in one place for to long, your luck will run out"

With that she skipped out without another word, leaving James with a rather bemused look on his face. He couldn't wait to tell Emmaline about her.

Flashback

Where was that little tramp? Setting fire to several flammable dress robes with her new wand was not the way to start off their new beginning. Things were not going at all how she had planned. She wanted as little attention as possible, and fires were generally not in the discreet area.

As she passed Florean Fortesque's Ice-Cream Parlour, she caught a glimpse of someone quite familiar. She stopped and stared for a moment, figuring that he wouldn't notice. It was not fair for someone to be that good looking. She stumbled off, dazed, not able to quite comprehend that she had just seen James Potter.

Flashback

Lily looked down the table towards James Potter, her fellow head. He had always been an enigma to her, and she just didn't understand him in the slightest. It was basically driving her nuts. He could be so obnoxious and irritating one moment, then really sweet and loyal the next. It didn't help matters that she had recently discovered that she found him extremely attractive.

All of his little friends didn't make sense either. They had seemed to be such a close knit group, not really associating with anyone else; but now they were all single-mindedly ignoring each other with a ferocity that was almost scary. All of Hogwarts wondered what it was that had torn the group apart. Stories were flying around about what the reason could possible be, and each got bigger and more exaggerated as time went on. It had been almost a month since this behavior had started, and still there was no reconciliation.

Lily hadn't been able to get Sirius to say one word about it, which was odd since they had become friends after their incident in the summer, and he was normally much more open about things. Surprisingly, they had a large amount of things in common. Prior to her friendship with Sirus, Lily hadn't paid to much attention to the boys. Most of the Gryffindor boys held a grudge against the Gryffindor girls, because of a certain incident that had happened in their first year involving frogs, flies, and nakedness they hadn't quite gotten over and it had caused quite a dent in male friendship as the years went by.

Things had remained like that until around fifth year when one of the girls had started dating Remus. Then James had decided that he was obsessed with Lily and things had snowballed so that the boys started to hang around the girls with more frequency. Although this year, ever since the boys had detached from each other and Judy and Remus had broken up, there wasn't the same interaction. The most aggravating thing was that James had stopped asking her out, something she hadn't thought she would ever miss. Had she turned ugly or something?

Lily sat staring at James until breakfast was over and was jolted out of her reverie by her best friend Alice who poked her rather viciously in the side.

"We are going to be late to Ancient Runes, and it is entirely your fault. Hurry up you slow poke." Alice said impatiently, and then noticed what Lily had been doing. "Are you staring at POTTER? What on earth is the matter with you? Let's get going, UP, UP, UP!"

"I was not staring at Potter…I was just zoned out and he happened to be in the general vicinity that I was looking in." Lily protested, "Besides, we still have five minutes to get to class, and the professor always starts class a little late" Lily said as she hurriedly shoved a piece of toast in her mouth, picked up all of her various things, and walked out of the great hall.

She was unable to concentrate in any of her classes, mostly because she could feel the full moon coming, and it filled her with a restless energy. Through her heightened senses she could feel an evil in the woods, and she was itching to get some fighting in. She had been at school for three months, and there hadn't been any trouble at all so far, she was almost...bored.

Lily sat in the common rooms, impatiently waiting for the time when everyone else would clear out so she could leave. At about ten thirty the only person left was James, but the stupid boy would not leave. He seemed to be waiting for something as well.

"Potter, do you think I could go over your transfiguration notes? I think I may have missed something in class." Lily said in a desperate attempt to get him out of the common room.

James looked up, his eyes brooding and cynical. "The almighty Lily Evans wants to cheat off of the lowly Potter?" He said with a smirk.

"It's not cheating. I just want to see what I missed," Lily replied in a dignified tone.

'Just go and get the stupid papers,' Lily thought, growing more irritated at Potter.

James slowly went up to the boys' dormitory and as soon as he was out of sight Lily dashed out of the common rooms, almost tripping in her haste.

She knew that she needed to slow down or the chances that she would be caught were much more significant. She was already wearing her leathers underneath her school robes, she just need to get to the suit of armor on the third floor where she had stashed two of her swords, and various other weapons, including stakes, whips, and even a gun. She was lucky that the House Elves only cleaned inside the suits of armor every second Friday of the month. Finding a hiding place that was not used by others was difficult in a school like Hogwarts. She couldn't even count the number of places she had found that had dung bombs hidden in them

As she slipped into the chill night air, she could feel her adrenaline start to pump as she ran into the Forbidden Forest, 'Lily you are so messed up,' she thought. 'You are seventeen and running into a Forbidden Forest to kill Vampires and all sorts of other evil things that want nothing more then to see you in a grave. This is definitely not a normal thing for a teenage girl.'

Lily suddenly tensed. She had caught the scent of a faint trace of foulness in the air. She realized that she would have to go deep into the woods to track this creature down, as she started running off the well worn paths to follow the trail. The moon peeked high over the horizon and the power it lent started to flow through her veins.

When the moon was up, it was like there was a completely different world around her. Everything was sharper. She was able to see the life-force of the things around her. The plants and trees had an intensity that allowed her to see every strip of bark and every leaf in minute detail. They also reflected a dull silver that gleamed from their center. Flashes of brighter silver could be seen between the trees, the life force of the animals that lurked deeper in the forest. Those things that were evil and wished to harm others did not give off a life force, but instead there was a void where a soul should have been.

As Lily ran deeper and deeper into the forest she began to feel more and more at home. She had actually been to this forest before she had even known she was a witch as well as a Guardian. When her family had become Guardians, they had first been charged to protect this forest, which had been their home. When each child turned eight, they traveled here and received the Blessing of the Moon where they then were able to train in the magic that only the Guardian's had access to.

Lily sped along through the underbrush, hardly making a sound. She knew she was getting closer when she could see a darkness flitting through the trees. It had started running from her which made her grin. Lily loved the hunt. As she approached, she could see that this was definitely a vampire. Being prepared with the stake was probably a good thing. The best approach with vampires was to go for a full frontal attack since Vampires were devious creatures and the straightforward approach confused them.

The Vampire was rather surprised when she rushed him with her stake in hand, but was able to duck out of the way. One frustrating thing was that they were particularly hard to kill because they had amazing reflexes and could move with the shadows. The trick was to keep them away from your neck and any exposed skin. Being so close to blood drove them crazy and they would drop their guard if you manipulated them correctly.

Seeing as Lily was rather attached to her blood and she didn't want to lose it, she resorted to the tactics that she had learned in various fights that she had gotten into with Petunia. The vampire kept launching himself at her, trying to get to any skin possible, but she kept him away by putting her hands around his neck. This didn't particularly get her closer to killing him, but did manage to keep her alive.

After ten minutes of rolling around on the forest floor, in the struggle to get to Lily's neck, the vampire decided to change its tactics. He pushed off Lily's abdomen, tearing himself from Lily's grasp and effectively launching himself into the branch of a tree. Lily gasped in pain. She was sure that she had at least one cracked rib, possibly more and laid limply on the ground, fighting for breath.

'Pull your self together Lily. He is going to come after you. Think of something quickly!' She could see the vampire approaching and she didn't have a stake anymore because she had dropped it. 'Stupid, you're in a forest. There are stakes everywhere,' she thought, furious at her self. She lay still as her hand searched for a branch of wood that she could use as a makeshift stake.

As the Vampire lowered himself to her, she slowly moved her hand to the branch that was currently digging into her thigh. She moved as fast as she could with cracked ribs and thrust the stake into the heart of the Vampire. There was a faint look of surprise on his face as he exploded into dust all over her.

She hated it when that happened. It was like have someone cremated on top of you…gross. She lay there in exhaustion, her chest heaving as she tried to take in shallow breaths. "I really need to do something about all of this getting hurt business." Lily muttered as she tried to sit up. She needed to find some direct moonlight to help her heal faster.

Without warning something shifted, and with an unnatural suddenness Lily could feel evil. As she stumbled into a clearing of trees, out of the depths of the forest burst a werewolf and a stag. The stag leapt in front of her as the werewolf advanced on her. A low growl filled the clearing and Lily grasped the sword on her back and slowly unsheathed it. It had silver etching all over it, and silver was toxic to werewolves

As the werewolf prepared itself to pounce, the stag lowered its horns and looked like it was about to charge.

'I can't let an animal die to try and help me; it is not this creatures fight' Lily thought, panic rising in her stomach. She had already fought a vampire, and she really didn't want to fight a werewolf on the night of the strongest full moon. She couldn't understand how she hadn't felt it before, if this was its first month as a werewolf it would have sent out overpowering signals to her, and she was certain she hadn't felt it in the forest before tonight. In fact the last time she had felt a werewolf was fourth year.

Slowly advancing, the werewolf bared its teeth. As her panic continued to rise, Lily felt a strange tension growing in her chest. As the grip on her sword tightened she felt a strange thrumming come from the pommel stone. It had started to glow and as the tension in Lily grew stronger, the stone grew brighter. It finally reached the point where Lily thought that she was going to explode.

There was a light that seemed to spill out of her skin and she seemed to rise off the ground, with each beat of her heart the light grew stronger. Through the light she could see the stag and the werewolf, but they were changing. The light gave a final pulse and Lily slowly came to the ground. Where the stag had been was a prostrate James Potter, and in place of the werewolf was a very naked Remus Lupin. James just looked at her with awe in his eyes.

"James?" Lily asked, "What's going on?" Everything started to go bleary, and the last thing Lily could remember was strong arms about her waist as she collapsed to the ground.

End Flash Back

Lily walked down the street still in a daze. It took running into a display of Quidditch balls and having the bludgers start to attack her to knock her to her senses. She walked down the street and to the Leaky Cauldron.

"Tom, I need some Ogden's right now." Lily said, a sense of urgency in her voice. As the firewhiskey trailed its way down her throat and warmed her belly, Lily seemed to gain control of herself.

Lily sensed more than saw Elizabeth pull herself onto a stool next to her. "I am sorry, Mama. I didn't mean to drive you to drink. It really was an accident." Elizabeth's contrite voice changed into something that had a definite note of accusation in it. "Didn't we agree that if I am not allowed to drink, you can't drink either? Cheater."

"Elizabeth, why don't you go and get ready to go to the Weasley's? I will be up in just a minute." Elizabeth groaned and started up the stairs as Lily got another much needed firewhiskey. She really needed to prepare herself to deal with memories of the past and the very possible risk of seeing James.

There was no point in denying that she still definitely had feelings for Austin James Potter.

The End…For now

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