Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his world do not belong to me

Author's Note: this chapter and the next will explain why Lily is living next door to Petunia. The next chapter should be up within the next day or two, I'm just fixing the last bit of it.

Reviewer Response:

Linwe and catchme: I had fnu writing that part!

mcgonagall: I've tried the grass bean, it was decent

tvnerdgirl: sorry, I sent the fast forward button into the shop but they said they need parts, guess you'll just have to wait like the rest of us ;-)

siriusgrl: thank you. can you believe I actually had to go back and check what you were talking about:-)

Late on the morning of September second, Sirius Black was sprawled across the couch, surrounded by loose sheets of parchment which were covered in loopy handwriting. A few feet away, Remus Lupin was slouched in a chair with a large book open in his lap. Lily was at a desk in the next room, charming and un-charming a pair of hand mirrors. Every few tries, she flipped impatiently through the book lying open next to her.

A knock at the door caused all three to pause in surprise. Puzzled, Lily Potter abandoned the gently glowing mirrors and hurried to answer the door while Remus put aside his book and Sirius gathered his papers.

Petunia Dursley followed her sister to the living room, looking as stiff and uncomfortable as she always did when visiting the Potter/Black house. Not that she did that very often, and only when Vernon Dursley was at work and wouldn't know she'd come.

"Would you like some tea?" Lily asked, tucking a loose trand of red hair behind her ear as she came further into the living room.

"No thank-you," Petunia answered shortly, her lips pressed into a thin line.

"Well, would you like to sit down?" An edge of anger sliced through her polite question and Sirius and Remus glanced at each other.

"I'm fine," Petunia replied coldly.

"Fine," Lily snapped back, sitting down next to Sirius who took her hand and squeezed in comfortingly.

"So what did you dream?" Remus inquired quickly, to forestall the argument he sensed brewing between the sisters.

"He's still in north Germany. He's in a forest somewhere." Petunia answered. She didn't wait for a reaction to her information, but turned and hurried away, eager to return to her safe muggle world.

Lily ground her teeth in frustration as the front door closed behind her elder sister. She knew Petunia resented her being a witch and that she blamed her for the spell gone wrong that had caused her to periodically have dreams about the whereabouts of Peter Pettigrew.

"So he's still in northern Germany," Sirius mused, trying to take Lily's mind of her sister's rudeness. "Considering the rate at which he was travelling a month ago, I thought he'd be at the North Pole by now."

"So what's he doing there?" Remus asked, leaning forward, a thoughtful frown on his face.

"There were rumours a while ago about a vampire coven in Germany, maybe he's looking for them," Lily suggested, determinedly putting her sister out of her mind.

"If that's true," Sirius said, "we'd better alert Dumbledore." He stood up, giving Lily's hand one last squeeze before disappearing into the office.

"Finish the letter to Harry while you're in there and we can send both owls off at once," Lily called as she stood up herself. Sirius made some sort of affirmative noise so Lily turned her attention to Remus. "Stay for lunch?" she invited.

"Love to," he answered. Lily smiled and led the way to the kitchen. While she contemplated the contents of her cupboard, Remus absently picked up the letter that Hedwig had brought them shortly after breakfast. The letter contained the happy news that Harry had been sorted into Gryffindor as had Ron Weasley.

Sirius joined them ten minutes later as Lily added the last of the carrots to the soup and set the spoon to stir by itself. "Owls are off," he informed them as he settled down across from Remus at the table.

"Good," Remus said, putting Harry's letter safely out of the way and Lily put bread and butter on the table.

"You guys could help you know," she commented without any real annoyance.

"Yeah, but you're a better cook." Sirius replied grinning. Lily hit him with a bread stick.

Sirius turned to Remus for sympathy but the werewolf merely laughed. "I think you deserved that Padfoot."

"What? Compliment a girl's cooking and she gets to hit you with lunch? How does that work?" he complained, then ducked as Lily made to hit him again. "Ok, ok!" he cried in mock surrender. Lily nodded in satisfaction and turned to the fridge for juice. Sirius took advantage of her facing the other way and leapt quietly from his chair before grabbing her around the waist and spinning her around.

Lily let out a startled sound that quickly turned to laughter and called to Remus for help between giggles and Sirius paraded her around the kitchen.

Remus snorted, moving his chair out of the way. "I think I'll stay out of this one. You may be the better cook, but he's better with a jinx."

"Yes I am!" Sirius agreed, coming to a stop by the window, holding Lily just high enough off the ground that her toes didn't quite reach it. She peered curiously at the floor and seemed to come to a decision. She twisted about so she could reach that one spot on Sirius's neck she knew would work. A moment later he let out a squawk and dropped her. Lily recovered her balance and checked on the soup while Sirius pouted.

"I knew you were ticklish!" Remus laughed. "No matter how much you denied it, I knew you were." Sirius ignored his friend as he returned to his chair, summoning bowls as he did since Lily was taking the soup off the stove. Remus leaned back and pulled spoons out of the drawer and the three friends enjoyed a nice lunch, reminiscing once more about their long ago school days.