Thank you to all of my reviewers; Cassie93 who always review, true fairy lights, who is a new but loyal reviewer, and Lezlah, shreya, and aussiechick249. I forgot to mention that the reason Dumbledore shut down the school is because he thought one of the teachers was working for Voldermort with good reason.

A thousand Lilies

This chapter is dedicated to Mediatorgrrl who offered to edit my story for me.

Lily and James disapparated. A second later they were standing in front of a huge mansion. "Welcome to Grodric Hollow." James said, his arm to indicate the huge mansion in front of him. It must have had about 50 rooms in the four story monstrosity. A huge gate surrounded the building. Lily stood agape with her mouth hanging open.

"You-you live here." she sputtered.

"Yeah, so" James replied.

"So, all of the times o called you rich-boy and spoiled I was actually calling it like it is."

"You mean you don't have a house like this." James said innocently.

"What do you mean, I don't live in a house like this. Of course I do. I'm also the princess of Spain and my father is Bill Gates."

"Bill Gates?"

"Richest muggle in the world. Owner of Microsoft."

"Microsoft?"

"Muggle thing, don't ask."

"You want to go inside instead of us standing out here looking like idiots?" James asked.

"But there is no one around to see us looking like idiots."

"So you agree that we look like idiots."

"When did I say that." Lily argued

"You didn't disagree."

"We don't look like idiots."

"So can we go inside now anyway?"

"Sure" Lily agreed.

James stepped up to the door and muttered a spell tapping the doorknob. The door swung open. "Come in." he said holding the door for Lily. Lily stepped inside the doorway. The inside of the house was even more amazing then the outside. The walls were a crème colour that went perfectly with the deep brown carpet. The furniture was all antiques and each room had a different theme. The forum's theme was place around the wall. The walls were covered from head to toe with pictures of different monuments. The Eiffel Tower, the Sears Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and so many more. Lily was amazed but James walked past it without a second glance. "I'll give you a tour after dinner. Until then you can put your trunk in the spare bedroom." he offered. Lily stared at the huge house, "Where is the spare bedroom?" she asked. "Oh, sorry. I'll show you." James walked towards a flight of stairs. Lily followed even more astounded with the rooms that they passed by. One had a theme of different colours and each piece of furniture, even the table were different primary and secondary colours. In another room that they passed by the theme was seashells. The walls were embedded with tiny seashells, no two seashells looked alike. When they finally reached the stairs Lily was amazed by the number and variety of rooms she saw. Her favourite, obviously, was the library. The theme was great minds thorough out the ages. Healers, headmasters, and Ministers of Magic had been staring down at her. Bookshelves stretched from the ceiling to the floor and must have contained thousands of books. James had pointed out that every magical book ever printed in England was there, when Lily had stopped to stare. They climbed two flights of stairs. "Every room here is a bedroom. Except for these three rooms there all spares. I think you would like the one on your left." Lily walked over and opened the door. James was right, she did like this room. The theme was underwater and a tank took the place of the east wall. Inside of it was every type of (vegetarian) fish imaginable. There was a soft blue lighting the same shade as the bed. Overall it gave off relaxing feel. "You like it" James asked, causing Lily to jump. "I love it." She put her bags down and turned to James, "So do I get to see your room?" "It's a little messy," James replied. "Show me anyway," Lily commanded. James turned around and walked out to the room in question. Obviously the theme of the room was Quidditch. A team was in the middle of a game. Various books and half-done pranks were strewn all across the floor. On a desk was a piece of paper and other objects. Lily sat on the bed and James walked over to the desk.

"It's certainly you." Lily said.

"Thanks." James said. He started fingering a quill. "So do you like the house?"

"I love it. It's the biggest house I've ever been, that's for sure."

"It's an ancestral home. It was built over 1000 years ago. We've modernized it a bit but other then that it's the exact same." James over to sit on the bed by Lily. "This place never really seemed like home thought until Sirius moved in around second year."

"So what's your favourite room?"

"The game room, definitely. I'll show it to you tomorrow after you've settled in."

"So was it always just the four of you?"

"What is this twenty questions?" James asked laughing. "Yeah, for a while we had a houself, Blinky, but when he died six years ago we never bothered to replace him." he turned to look at Lily who was sitting next to him. "Now it's my turn to ask you a question. Where'd you grow up?"

"In London. Did you mention dinner early?" Lily asked, trying to change the subject. She didn't like when people tried to find out about her past. She had plenty of reasons too. There were a lot of scars on her past that were bigger and worse then Jesse. She was successful in her dodge. "Yeah, this way." James replied. He walked out of the room leaving Lily to follow him yet again. Five minutes later they reached the informal kitchen on the second floor. The kitchen was the bigger then Lily's bedroom at her house. James walked over to a fridge wider then he was tall. "What do you want?" "What do you have?" "Everything." James replied opening the fridge to prove his point. "Spaghetti." James turned around to face a pantry that was, if it was possible, even bigger then the fridge. "Accio spaghetti." A box of spaghetti flew into his hand. At that point James turned to Lily. "I've never actually cooked before." he admitted. Lily stared at him not believing it. A second later she held out her hand. James handed over the box and went over to sit at a bar stool. "Pan?" Lily asked. James pointed at a cabinet and got to work stopping only to ask where different items were. After they ate dinner James gave the promised tour.

Lily saw more rooms then she had ever thought possible to be in one house. The tour finally ended in the pool room. They had an inside and outside pool obviously. They started walking around the pool. "Do you have a swimsuit, Lily?" "Didn't really expect to need one at school, so no."

"You can borrow one of the spares."

"Do you not have spares of anything?" Lily asked getting overwhelmed by the wealth of the house.

"I don't have spare," James started, then he stopped. He looked shocked that he, in fact, had spares of everything. "I never really thought about it before." They walked in silence for the length of the pool. "Hey Lily," James said out of the blue. "Yeah," Lily turned to look at him. James grabbed her arm and pushed her into the pool. Lily came up sputtering. James offered his hand to help her out. "Thanks," Lily said and then pulled him in. James fell in with a loud splash. He came up and pulled himself over the edge where Lily sat laughing. "What you do that for?" James asked indignantly. Instead of dignifying that with a response Lily returned it with a question of her own, "Where are the towels?" James stood up and walked over to one of the cabinets on his left. He pulled out two towels and flung one at Lily. Lily reached up and grabbed it out of the air. She started to dry off her mane of hair. She walked over to one of the seats where James joined her.

"So what do we do know?" Lily asked.

James looked at her with a straight face. "We admit how much in love we are and kiss and live happily ever after." He said it with such a straight face that Lily actually believed that he thought that. After seeing Lily's expression he burst out laughing. "I was kidding. Learn how to take a joke Evans."

"So your back to Evans."

"I refuse to be on a first name basis with someone who can't take a joke." Lily had to laugh at that. "Seriously it's your pick."

"Well I'm all for that kiss you mentioned earlier." At that James was so surprised that he fell over backwards. Lily helped him back up while laughing. "And you said I can't take a joke. At least I managed to stay upright."

"You win." James admitted with a laugh of his own "Now what do you want to do?"

"Do you mind if I go to bed? It's been a long day and I didn't exactly get a lot of sleep last night."

"Sure. So you remember the way to your bedroom."

"Yes. I think so. No," Lily finally realized feeling lost. James stood up and led her back to her bedroom. The bathroom's to the left of your bedroom. "Thank you," Lily said. As he walked in the direction of his bedroom she added in a voice to soft to be heard, "For everything."

Later that night James got out of bed and walked over to Lily's bedroom. He opened the door and looked at Lily. He wondered how she could be so beautiful and so amazing even while asleep. For the first time he realized why he was always showing off in front of her. He loved her. He sighed and walked back to his bedroom.

Lily woke up. She had thought she heard the sound of a door closing. She thought about where she was. Of all the people she wondered why she had told James. A minute later she knew. No matter what had happened he had never given up on her or forced her to do anything she didn't want to. He was the first male since Jesse that she had actually talked…okay yelled……to without fear. She trusted him and some how knew that he would always be there for him. She might even love him some day.

………………………………...

Lily woke up the next morning surrounded by lilies. She sat up with a smile on her face and looked around. A note was on her nightstand. She picked it up and read A lily for my Lily. Follow the path of lilies. Lily stood up and saw the path of lilies. She opened her door and saw the path went up the steps. She followed. On the steps lay another note. Lily, still smiling, picked it up. This one read: There are a thousands lilies, one for each time I thought about you last night. Lily continued walking as the notes got more and more frequent. They read in order, Love that we cannot have is the one that last the longest, hurts the deepest, and feels the strongest; It's hard to tell your mind to stop loving someone when your heart still does; I miss you when something really good happens, because you're the one I want to share it with. I miss you when something is troubling me, because you're the one who understands me so well; I miss you when I laugh and cry, because I know that you are the one that makes my laughter grow, and my tears disappear. I miss you all the time, but I miss you the most when I lay awake at night, and think of all the wonderful times that we spent with each other for those were some of the best and most memorable times of my life; and I don't know if I should smile because she's my friend, or cry because that's all she'll ever be. The next to last one said: It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return, but what hurts even more is to love them and never find the courage to let them know. Lily was almost crying by this point. The final note read I love you Lily and I always have. I only have three regrets; that it took me this long to figure it out; that I never told you before; and that before this year I didn't act like someone who deserved your love. At that Lily really did burst into tears. She had finally reached the end of the lilies. James was sitting there at a table. They were on the roof and the table was outlined with lilies. James looked at Lily, when he saw the tears a look of concern grew on his face. "Thank you, but I don't love you James." Lily fled back to her room. James just sat there staring at the place where Lily had been standing just a minute before.

A/N

Yea for summer vacation. I love it. Is anyone not on summer break right now. It is the reason why I can update regularly now and why my chapters are a bit longer. Has anyone seen X men? I went and saw it this weekend it was awesome even if sad when (spoiler) I thought the professor died. But he came back to life in the end and can walk. I want them to make another one but someone said that they read there wasn't going to be anymore.