Thanks to Sarah for reviewing last chapter. By the way you gotta call my phone sometime so I can text you or something to let you know when I update so I don't hafta call your house and talk to everyone all the time… I think you know my #

Disclaimer: You know the drill, having seen it in many other fanfics... nothing belongs to me, except for a few characters and the plot; the rest belongs to JKR, one of the people who reviewed, or a singer/band that I decided to 'borrow' the music from. Or rather, from what my cousin told me to put in here; my name is Kira, it has a K and an R, but no J, and so I can't be mistaken for J.K. Rowling. I am not a professional writer, and do not get paid for anything I write (cuz I'm not professional.) Now, going on to my own stupidity, and not borrowing from my cousin. I may sing, but I am not a singer, so any songs I use are not my own (unless otherwise noted, which probably won't happen). So umm yea, that's the disclaimer.

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Chapter 4: Summer Break's Broken One

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The last couple of weeks until Hogwarts passed by very slowly for Lily. She spent a lot of time moping round and writing in her journal. She wouldn't say she was depressed necessarily, but more along the lines of upset that her parents had been ripped away from her so brutally. At least, she reasoned, they had left on good terms. No kicking and screaming, just a nice day of spending time together and doing some muggle shopping.

Sirius's mother, Celeste, had been pretty supportive of Lily in her time of need. Though she tried to make Lily move on some, she knew not to push too hard as that could be damaging to Lily. Celeste was a muggle therapist to teens that needed help dealing with problems, so she had a good twenty years of experience in dealing with feelings of trauma or depression. Basically she just lent Lily an understanding ear whenever Lily needed someone to talk to, so long as she wasn't already in session with someone else.

Lily figured that it was a good thing that Celeste was so understanding because she didn't know how Mrs. Black would have been able to put up with Sirius's antics any other way. Even though Lily didn't spend time with the others really when they came over, she realized that they cared about her and wanted to help her out. She couldn't let them; her sister's letter to her had left her with much to think about. She got into her workout sweats and went down to the exercise room, working out or going for a long run always helped her keep her emotions in check.

Jogging on the treadmill Lily mulled over her thoughts. It was all her fault, if she wasn't such a dumbass her parents would still be there for her to talk to. If she hadn't been born magical they would still be alive and she wouldn't be having this problem. Or at least if she hadn't left to go to her aunt's house she'd be with her parents, maybe she could've even saved them from Voldemort. Life just wasn't fair.

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The day before Hogwarts passed in a flurry of activity, well the first few hours did anyway. Lily had always liked to unpack and repack everything in a nice order before heading back to school, or back home for that matter. But Lily tried not to think about that. There was no home for her now. Sure she'd been staying with the Blacks, but they were probably anxious to get rid of her moping teenage attitude. She certainly ready for the trip tomorrow, everything was packed except for her pajamas and a change of clothes for tomorrow, along with the necessary accessories for getting ready, but all that was going into a separate knapsack so that way she wouldn't have to undo the combination lock that had been placed on her trunk. It was easier to keep the Marauders out of there if they had to crack the lock the muggle way, since she'd put on an anti-magic-unlocking charm on it.

After finishing up her packing, Lily headed to the library to pick out something to read to occupy her mind after lunch. She cautiously tip-toed down the hall, hoping to not catch the attention of the dreaded Sirius this early in the day. Lily had come to learn that he always needed to burn off energy before being able to function properly with normal people. Normal being her and his mom, his dad was a bit on the hyper side as well, Lily figured Sirius had gotten in from him. Sirius's younger sister was off with her friends, and had been for the last month. All in all Lily liked the whole Black family; they were so warm and welcoming, almost like her own family had been, if you ignored the whole Petunia factor.

Once in the library, Lily headed over to the muggle fiction section and grabbed a Dean Koontz book. She read the description and decided that a modern take on Frankenstein would be refreshing. It appeared that she'd made her selection just in time, because the tingling bell that signaled the meals went off in the rooms, it was some kind of magical system or something that made it able to be heard in every room of the house. As she stepped out of the library and into the hall, she had to jump back in order to keep from being trampled by the blurs that were Sirius and James.

She met up with the rest of the occupants in the household down in the sun room where breakfast and lunch were held. The spread on the table consisted of simple sandwiches, which was a little odd because normally they had lunch as their biggest meal of the day. She shrugged her shoulders and sat down next to Remus, who handed her a plate.

"What's going on?" she inquired. Mr. and Mrs. Black were not at home, another oddity. Well, for Mrs. Black it was, she worked from her home office for the therapy sessions. Mr. Black generally was on call, as an Auror he had been getting called out on duty more and more often lately due to Voldemort. He generally was a part of the after-shock for a Voldemort attack, he wasn't quite that big a threat so far, or so the head of the department thought.

As if on cue, Celeste walked into the sunroom to join them for lunch.

"Try not to fill up too much on lunch today, we're having a small celebration tonight to have everyone come over to bid you farewell." That was the last thing that Lily wanted to hear, after all she'd spent a good portion of the summer avoiding everyone, well ever since that had happened. She did not want to have to spend any time with sympathetic eyes and words other than for meals, and even then, they didn't bug her about it, but she knew they were thinking the dumb thoughts.

"Well, I'm tired, I think I'm gunna head upstairs and go to sleep."

"Okay, honey, I'll come wake you up about an hour or so before the party, so you can get ready in time." Celeste said to her, understanding that she wanted to be alone.

"Oh, okay" with that Lily headed upstairs to her room.

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At about 5 that evening Celeste headed up to the bedroom that Lily had obtained upon moving into their house. She carried a box for Lily that she had purchased earlier that day in Diagon Alley, she wanted Lily to have something nice to wear that were wizard robes, kind of a semi-dressy outfit for the party that was to take place at seven.

"Lily? Are you in here honey?" Celeste cautiously opened the door, not wanting to startle her, or walk in while she was getting dressed. Not seeing Lily on her bed, she opened the door a little further and coming in, closed it behind her. She called for her a little louder. "Lily!"

The bathroom door creaked a little but, so Celeste turned towards it, maybe Lily was just in there applying makeup or washing her face to wake up some. When she walked over to the door to check it out though, no one was in there, although Lily must have been in there recently. Her clothes were in the hamper, hanging over the side a little and the mirror was a little fogged. A hand touched her shoulder, scaring her, and she muffled her scream. Whipping around she realized it was Lily behind her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, I was in the closet looking for clothes when you came in. the door closed on me, I guess from when you opened the bedroom door."

"It's okay, I should have realized that. I'm just embarrassed that I jumped. You'd think being related to Sirius I'd learn not to be surprised about anything by now, but sadly that's not the case." Celeste handed her the box that held the robes. "These are for you. I figured you might not have a pair of semi-dressy robes and when I saw these I just had to get them for you."

Lily took the box while remembering to say thank you and brought it over to her bed to open. Upon lifting the lid, she saw a set of celadon green robes in a ramie-cotton material. It was beautiful.

"Oh, Celeste, thank you! They're beautiful. You shouldn't have. I'm going to wear them tonight. They're not too dressy to wear tonight, are they?"

"No, they'll be fine. Actually I have robes in a similar material that I will be wearing. Only mine are lavender." Celeste smiled, pleased that her gift was a good one. She stood to leave. "I'll let you get ready. See you later, Lily."

Lily said goodbye and went into the bathroom to fry her hair. After deciding to wear it in it's natural state of curly, she pinned the front part back and applied some lip gloss and clear mascara. She headed back into the pain part of her bedroom and pulled a pair of sweatpants out of her knapsack, then headed to the closet to see if she'd put her tank top in her Hogwarts trunk. Finding it, she quickly changed into her lounging clothes and put her robes for the night on a hanger until she was ready for them.

Returning to the bedroom, Lily grabbed her book and curled up on the bed, eager to pick up where she'd left off.

An hour later and nearly done with the book, lily stretched then got out of the bed to finish getting ready for the mini-party that the Blacks would be having in a little more than a half hour.

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A/N: I do know Sirius's family isn't really like this in the books, but you know what? That's why it's called a fanfic, and I want my story to work out so that its not like Lily's stuck with James, considering she'll put up with him, but their not exactly friends, more like some-what friendly acquaintances.

Love it? Hate it? Review and let me know what you think.