b Summary: /b Rhianna Graham a woman that was closely connected to Lily Evans and the Marauders she retells a tale to her daughter Lily about how she came to Hogwarts in her 6th year and met the people that would change her life forever. This tells the tale of her adventures and how it came to be that Rhianna left the only thing that truly ever meant anything to her. I'll rivert back and forth between Rhianna's thoughts and normal storytelling.

b Author's Notes: /b This is an AU story and you'll see why when the story progresses. Also Anna is supposed to look like Jennifer Garner and her daughter Lily is supposed to look like Emmy Rossum.

b Disclaimer: /b None of these characters belong to me they belong to the genius that is J.K Rowling. The ones that belong to me are Rhianna and Lily Graham and Isabella Hayward.

Prologue

i I stare down at the letter in my hands that the owl has just brought to me. Professor Albus Dumbledore wants me to teach. That's kind of rich isn't it? The man that exiled me away from all the people that I loved, and who loved me wants me to come back. Okay, so maybe he didn't quite exile me. He was trying to protect me. I was pregnant and scared out of my mind when I'd seen what Voldemort had done to others, and I had been foolish enough to accept the offer to go back to Italy. /i

i Before Lily and James died, I was ready to go back, take Lily, and go back to Scotland. But then it happened. My world was torn apart by the threads that seemed to keep my heart together, the very person that from the minute I met her on the train was my best friend. She was beautiful and kind and the best friend anyone could ever ask for, and she was taken away. How unfair was it that the world should lose such a beautiful soul? I remember a day that we just sat under a tree in the back garden of her and James' house and talked about anything and everything. Little did I know that that would be the last real talk I'd ever have with her. /i i The next week would be hell. /i

i Dumbledore asking me to come to his office and telling me I had to leave, and that I was in trouble but I couldn't tell anyone else. Not Lily, not James, and especially not Sirius. That was the first time my world seemed to split in half. The second time was when I received that letter from Dumbledore telling me that they were gone. Gone? I'd asked myself, "How could they ?" No, it couldn't be true. She would be okay. I'd go back and she'd be waiting for me. Sirius would not exactly be happy, but we'd had fights before we'd survive this, but Lily. Lily Evans-Potter, my best friend, the only person who knew everything about me, was gone. I'd never be able to talk to her again, and our children would never be able to play together. I sigh and look down at the only thing I have left of her world: a locket. I smile and trace it, then I hear someone knock on the door. /i

"Mum?" A quiet voice asks from behind the door. i Ah yes. My little girl, my little angel, the only other person I took with me when I left all those years ago. All right, no one but me knew she existed, but thats not exactly the point here. /i

I sighed and looked down at my hands. Then I looked over at the door. I brushed a tear that had been running down my face that I never knew had been there. "Come in Lils," I said softly. She opened the door and peered over at me and tilted her head innocently to the side with a smile. i My beautiful baby girl with her long curly brown hair and the stunning blue eyes that would set her apart from anything that the world would throw at her. Seeing her face or hearing her laugh could always brighten up my day. But today I'm not entirely sure it would as the world today just seems to be more horrible than it was any other. She had just come home from school and by the look on her face, someone told her I'd resigned. /i "I guess you want to know why."

Lily came over and sat down beside me and nodded. "Yes, Mum. I mean why would you quit? You love it here! You've said it all the time," she said looking at me, confused. i How could I explain this without sounding like I'm losing my mind, which quite possibly I may as well be going through right now. That world where I had Lily, Sirius, James and Remus...I'd say that other name, but it was far too horrible. He'd destroyed that world that day. And for that I will never forgive him. Peter Pettigrew, a man when I first met him I didn't understand at all why the other three even bothered to be friends with him. It confused me to no end. And he betrayed them for what? For a man or beast who would come falling to his knees after this war was through. I am willing to go back there and retake what I'd left behind. That man was too smart for his own good. /i

I sighed and looked at her and then back at the locket in my hands. Sirius had given me this on my 17th birthday. i He'd also told me that day that I would one day be his wife. It seemed like a dream back then that one day, after we left school and finished our training, that indeed we would be husband and wife, and we've have those 2 kids. Perhaps I was naive back then to think that I would live my dreams. Or perhaps I just wanted to believe that they would happen. Lily put her hand over mine. I looked up and met her eyes. They were looking at me imploringly for some explanation. /i "I'm going back to Hogwarts. Albus Dumbledore has offered me a place as a professor," I said quietly. I looked down and opened the locket. "Lils, there is something I have to tell you."

Lily looked at me. I had a sure feeling that she was going to be in for a big shock. I'd told her from an early age that her father was dead. How do you tell your daughter that her father's in prison for something he never did? That was even a bit disagreeable for me to stomach. Lily was only 16. God only knows how she would take it.

"What is it mum?" She asked quietly.

I bit my lip and looked down at my hands. They were trembling, like how I was feeling inside. I got the courage from god knows where and looked her in the eyes.

"I have been lying all these years," I muttered and looked at her. She was looking at me oddly like I was some sort of maniac. "Your father, Sirius Black, isn't dead." I saw Lily swallow and the tears well up in her eyes. I'd only told her about James and Lily about three years ago. "The reason I didn't tell you was because he spent 12 years in Azkaban for the supposed murder of Peter Pettigrew and for betraying Lily and James."

Lily looked at me with sorrow in her eyes. The tears were running down her face. I knew that this would hurt her. She bit her lip and looked at me.

"But James and Lily were killed 15 years ago. What happened to him?" She asked, her lower lip trembling. She bit it like she usually did. I knew that she hated to know the answer, and that she didn't really want to know it.

I gave her the newspaper clipping and brought my knees up under me and then thought about the box that I had kept from her years before. I got up as she was reading it and went to my closet. I opened a panel in the wardrobe and brought out a box. I passed my hand over the lid. It was a beautifully carved box made of mahogany. My father had given it to me the first day I left for Hogwarts. He told me that I could keep all my secrets and everything else in it if I wished. He also told me that it had belonged to my great-grandmother who had passed it to his mother, and then she gave it to him because she never had a girl to pass it too. So I'd put everything in it secret letters, pictures, and all the girl stuff that you could think of were captured in this box. I blew the dust off of it, and came over to Lily, put it down on the bed, and sat down. Lily looked up. "This is all the stuff. I have pictures of him and newsclippings of everything that I know," I said. I unfolded an article and smiled as I saw a picture of James, Lily, Sirius and me in the past, waving. It was like the past was waving back at me. It was the summer after we had left Hogwarts. We were spending the summer at James' house. I remember that was a good summer. I remember one day, it was about a week before Sirius and I were to start our Auror training, and I was leaning back against Sirius and he was leaning against a tree. I was wrapped safely in his arms, and that's all I needed for some really odd reason. It was peaceful and quiet and nothing was disturbing us. He kissed my cheek, and then took out a ring. It certainly wasn't what I'd been expecting. The world seemed to stand still in that one minute until I through my arms around him and hugged him tightly saying yes. He'd joked that he'd never been able to even ask the question before I tried to tackle him.

Lily picked up the picture and gazed down at it. She looked at her father. She knew what James and Lily looked like because I have pictures of them all over the place. I even have a picture of Harry as a baby somewhere, and another picture from a newspaper clipping of him now.

She looked at me and said, "Where is he now?"

I shrugged and shook my head. Dumbledore never told me that, but I had always presumed that he was at his parents' old house in Grimmauld Place. She'd been there once and she always thought it looked so cold. It was a weird kind of cold, like there was no life in the place, like all of the lifehad been drained from the entire house and no one knew how to live in it. That's truly the only way I could explain how that place made me feel when I'd stepped into it. But being with no life, no wonder Sirius' mother looked like the walking dead. So that probably had something to do with it.

"I don't know. Dumbledore never told me that. He just sent me the clipping," I said. I took her hand and placed the pendent in her open palm and closed her fingers on it. "You should have it. There's a picture of me and Sirius inside. He put a protection spell over it when he gave it to me."

Lily looked inside and gasped. She gave a little smile as the pictures looked back at her. I rocked back on my heels and looked at her.

"I'll take good care of it," she said. She leaned over and hugged me. I hugged her back. She looked at me and passed me the pendant. I smiled and opened the clasp as she pulled her hair back and I put it on her. She then turned around and tilted her head. "You never told me how you two met. I mean, most people should know how their parents met."

I laughed and shook my head. That was certainly a tale to tell. I couldn't really remember everything, but she was looking at me with her puppy dog eyes, and I couldn't resist. I brushed my hair behind my ear and nodded.

"All right, I'll tell you. But first of all, I have to tell you that I'm going back, and I don't want to run this time," I said.

Lily nodded and looked down at the locket around her neck and gave a slight smile. "All right. Well, I've heard a lot of great things about Hogwarts, so I guess it'll be a new experience," Lily said. I rolled my eyes at her and burst out laughing. That was certainly one way to put it, but I had always hoped she would be able to go there because I know she would have a great time there, as I did. I bit my lip and thought about the first time I went to Hogwarts.

"All right. Well, it started September 1st, and I went through the barrier, and there was this train..."

Rhianna walked through the barrier. Her parents had just dropped her off and left. She looked around. She didn't know anybody and wasn't sure she would make any friends. She was entering her sixth year at a new school. She'd been taught in Italy for all her life. She climbed onto the train, trailing her bag behind her, looking for an empty compartment. She found one and went inside. She lifted her trunk up on the shelf and sat down. She brushed her hair out of her eyes when she heard the compartment door slide open. She looked at the door and saw a tall guy with shaggy black hair and beautiful hazel eyes. He seemed to be just standing there looking at her.

She then heard a voice say, "Padfoot what's wrong?"

The owner of the voice appeared. Looking over the stranger's shoulder, Rhianna noticed that he was just a little shorter than the boy with gorgeous eyes. This other boy had brown hair, hazel eyes, and glasses to go with it. He gave Rhianna a smile.

"Hi," he said. He pushed the other guy who he'd called Padfoot out the way and walked into the compartment. He grinned and sat down across from Rhianna. "I'm James."

She smiled and nodded. "I'm Rhianna,but my friends call me Anna," she said quietly.

Another two people entered the compartment. One was kind of small, and he kind of looked like a rat. She gave him a small smile. The other boy who sat beside her was rather nice looking. He had fairer hair than the rest. But Anna's eyes were fixated on the first boy that had appeared. He was still just standing there watching her as well.

The one sitting beside her and grinned and said, "Well its very nice to meet you, Anna. I'm Remus, and the one sitting beside James is Peter, and the other one is Sirius," he said. James was watching Sirius. So that was what his name was. i Kind of suits him, that name, /i Anna guessed. She looked at Sirius and he tilted his head. She thought she saw him blush, but he sat down beside Remus.

James raised an eyebrow but shook it off. He wasn't going to interfere, but he knew his best friend had a thing for this new girl. She i did /i look pretty. He brushed his fingers through his dishevelled hair and was kind of sad he hadn't seen Lily yet, but he knew she had prefect duties first.

"So Anna, where do you come from?" Peter asked suddenly.

Sirius suddenly came to attention. He seemed to be listening intently and waiting for an answer, but at the same time looking very complacenet about it.

"I'm from Italy. I was born there and went to school there until my dad got transferred. So I'm coming to Hogwarts for my last two years of school," she said as she smoothed out her clothes. "My parents are both wizards. They like the quiet, normal life. My dad grew up in England, but my Mum's Italian, so that's why we decided to move there, for a more private life. But when he got transferred, they asked him whether he wanted to go to America, or come here, and he said he'd rather come here. So here, I am happier than ever because I've only come to England for holidays to see my grandparents, and they've always begged my parents to let me come stay with them." Anna shrugged a little and looked down. She rarely ever blurted anything out like that to anyone. She just felt at ease with these five people and she sensed that they would probably make a big impact on her life.

The four friends nodded, and then the compartment door opened again and Rhianna saw a girl with long flowing red hair and stunning green eyes. She was looking at the boys, until her eyes landed on Rhianna and she grinned.

"Your the new girl? I'm Lily Evans," she said.

Anna smiled and nodded. "I'm Rhianna Graham, and yes, I'm the new girl."

Lily walked over to James and kissed him on the lips. i Ah, so they were together then, /i Rhianna thought and smiled as Lily sat on James' lap. They looked happy together, a which Anna always thought was very rare in couples.

Lily looked over at Sirius, as he seemed to be preoccupied with something. She wondered what was up with him, and then looked at James.

She leaned down to her boyfriend's ear and

whispered, "Whats wrong with Sirius? He seems very preoccupied with something."

James smirked and looked over at Sirius who was now (oh my i god, /i gasped James) i reading /i something. But that wasn't the unusual thing. The book was i upside down /i .

James grinned and shook his head. "I think he likes this Rhianna girl," he said to Lily. She raised an eyebrow and looked between the two.

To be continued...