Title: Light
Author: Amelia Bedelia
Chapter Two: Dreading

AUTHORS NOTE: I promised another chapter tonight, right? Well here it is!

Not much more to say. Enjoy!

Chapter Two: Dreading

Eurgh!!!

Lily screamed as loud as she could and threw herself down onto her bed. That stupid Potter!!! I hate him, I hate him, I HATE HIM!!!

A knock came on the door to the bedroom. "What!?!" she yelled.

On the other side of the door a tall, skinny, horse-faced girl slinked into Lily's room. Petunia… That was not what Lily wanted right now.

"Yes?!?" Lily asked sarcastically.

Petunia smirked, walked into Lily's room, and sat on the corner of her desk. Memo to self: use anti-bacterial spray later.

"I heard you screaming downstairs," Petunia drawled.

"So? It's not like it was a secret!" Lily yelled back.

"I told Mum and Dad I'd check on you."

"Well, isn't it just a zip-a-dee-doo-dah day," Lily said sarcastically.

"I thought that I could, you know, chat with you. See how you were taking on life, see how you're doing in your school," Petunia smirked, "see if you have a boyfriend…"

"Wait," Lily interrupted. "Just get to the point. Do you want some money or something 'cause you're not getting it."

"No, no, nothing like that," Petunia said. "So, do you have a boyfriend?" she asked, and before Lily could answer she went on. "I do. His name's Vernon Dursley and he wants to own a drilling company when he gets older and-"

"Petunia, cut the crap!" Lily yelled. "Do you want to know if I have a boyfriend or not?"

"Yes."

"Well, I do," Lily said. That was a total and complete lie. She had no boyfriend. She had one once but he was a Hufflepuff and a ditz. In fact, it was thanks to James that they weren't going out anymore. The Hufflepuff kid, Amos Diggory or something like that, thought there was something going on between Lily and James. Now they were over and that was the only time that Lily had been grateful for anything James had done.

"You do?" Petunia asked surprised. "Is he – er – one of your sort?"

"Yeah, he's a wizard," Lily said and sure enough she saw Petunia cringe.

"What's his name?"

Lily, under pressure, thought of the only guy name she thought about most.

"James Potter."

As soon as Lily had said his name she immediately regretted it, though she tried not to let it show.

"How long?" Petunia asked annoyingly.

"Weeks, months, maybe even years. I'm not sure! I lost track with all the fun we have together."

"Oh," Petunia mumbled and she set off to the hallway.

Once Petunia had left Lily lay back on her pillows and was an inch away from screaming – again.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()Hogwarts()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

After James had given Lily a dungbomb in the face, he walked up to his dormitory and watched Sirius' expressions on his face while he read his magazine.

It was very amusing watching Sirius after all, but James got bored after awhile. He looked at his bedside table clock. It read 2:30. It was time for his daily flying routine.

"Sirius, I'm gonna go fly, ok?"

"Mmm-hmm," he muttered.

James shook his head and reached under his bed and grabbed -

Nothing.

"Sirius, have you been using my Shooting Star again?" James asked.

"No."

"Then where is it? I put it under the bed yesterday and I went out again this morning and I -"

"Lily took it," Sirius said.

"She – she what?!?"

"Lily came in and took your broom. She told me not to tell you but I never actually said if I would or if I wouldn't."

"Sirius," James said, rounding on him, "Did you tell her where my broom was?"

"Well," Sirius said, thinking, "Yeah, I did."

James grabbed Sirius' Cleansweep and opened up the window.

"Wait! James!" For the first time in hours, Sirius took his eyes from the pages of Triple M. "What are you doing?!?"

"Going to get my Shooting Star back. Wait, hold on," James jumped down from the windowsill and opened his trunk. He pulled out his father's invisibility cloak and wrapped it around himself. He turned around and walked back to the windowsill pulling down the hood of his cloak. "Sirius?"

"Yes?"

"When I get back," James said, "you're going to be dog shit," and with a leap, James soared, invisibly, out of the window, leaving a stunned Sirius, standing, left behind.

Uh-oh…

-----------------------------------James-----------------------------------

James flew for an hour or two underneath his invisibility cloak until he found a telephone booth. Still wearing the cloak, he opened the door without any muggles seeing him.

James pulled open the telephone book from inside of the booth and flipped a few pages. He didn't exactly know how to use one of these books very well. In the magical world, they didn't need a book to tell the address listing of someone.

Evans… Evans… aha! Will and Christine Evans. James had heard Lily talk about her parents a lot and she always used their first name a lot.

"This is too easy," James mumbled as he memorized the address, but without warning the telephone booth door opened and a large man stepped in, pressing James into a corner.

Just my luck…

!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~Lily~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!

It was nearly 6:30 and Lily hadn't budged from her spot on her bed nor had anyone gone back in her room.

When Lily smelled some of her favorite foods, she left her room to go down to the kitchen.

She saw her mother cooking and gave her a peck on the cheek. Then Lily pulled out dishes, glasses, and silverware and set it on the table. Lily's mother was about to put the food on the table when the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it! Petunia called. "It might be Vernon! After all, he's coming back from Paris today!"

Lily shook her head and poured the milk while her mother put out corn on the cob, breaded chicken, and some rolls on the table.

Petunia

"I'll get it! Petunia called. "It might be Vernon! After all, he's coming back from Paris today!"

Petunia opened the door but didn't see who she thought would be there. In fact, he was quite the opposite. A boy not much older than her stood in the doorway.

Instead of being small and porky like Vernon, he was tall and slender. Instead of Vernon's controlled, blonde hair, the boy had black, messy hair. Also, Vernon would have dressed up in suit and tie, showing off, but this boy in the doorway wore nothing of the sort. The boy in the doorway had a cloak draped around his shoulders. Petunia narrowed her eyes. Like Lily…

"Hi. Is, uh," he looked at Petunia skeptically. As far as he knew, Lily didn't have a sister. She never talked about any siblings she had. "Is Lily here?"

"Who are you?"

"I'm…" James thought about whether or not he should use a fake name but thought it would be better if he just used his real one. "I'm James Potter."

Petunia narrowed her eyes even more. "She's not here."

"Oh. Well then can I just -"

Petunia slammed the door in his face.

Lily came running into the hall. "Petunia, who was that?"

"No one…"

"Petunia, I heard you talking to someone."

"Wrong house."

Lily, not believing her sister, went and opened up the door to see who it was. She saw a boy standing in the doorway, turned as if he were about to leave. He had obviously not moved, though. "Yes?" she asked. He turned around and she could have sworn she was about to faint if it weren't for the fact that both her parents were now in the room next to her.

"Hello, Lily," he said with a smirk on his face.

"Oh - my - god."

"How are you?"

"What are you doing here?!?" Lily whispered urgently.

James just smirked. Petunia had left the room, which left an awkward situation with a disbelieving Lily.

James opened his mouth to say something, but all of a sudden Lily's parents came running in followed by a scowling Petunia.

"Oh, Lily, you never told us you had a boyfriend!" Christine said, excited.

"Must've slipped my mind," Lily muttered under her breath with a smile plastered on her face.

"Yes, Petunia told us and we just had to come and meet him!" Will exclaimed, holding out his hand to shake.

"Oh," James said, a little confused. "I'm not - " but he was drowned out by Lily's voice.

"I need to talk to James for a second, ok?" Lily said and dragged James off to her fathers' study without waiting for an answer. She pushed James into a chair while Lily started to pace back and forth. Finally she spoke.

"Potter, you made a big mistake coming here."

"Evans, what's going on? Why do they think that I'm your - your – boyfriend," he spat, as if it was repulsing. Then he started to get a sly grin on his face. "Or did you tell them that you are madly in love with me and you couldn't face the truth that I wasn't your boyfriend and I had enough sense to like sane people and so you lied to your family so that they would think that you were going out with the most popular boy in school and the most - "

"Absolutely annoying and ugliest guy in the school!" Lily yelled to make him stop rambling on and on about himself.

"I was actually going to say - "

"Shut up, Potter!" She yelled, threateningly.

James sulked in his chair. "So, what's the story?" he demanded.

"Well," Lily muttered looking uncomfortable, "I was just coming to that part."

"I'm waiting," James sang in an annoying tone.

"Ok, fine!" She took a deep breath and told him everything that happened talking at hyper-speed. "You see, you obviously made me mad so I took your Shooting Star. You got me mad some more and I was thinking about you - no! Not that way," she said seeing his face.

"Oh really?" came that annoying voice.

"Anyway," she continued, "I thought about how mad I was at you." She gave James a look. "Petunia - oh yeah, she's my sister, very annoying - well, she came to me gloating about how she had some boyfriend and she wanted to know if I had one," Lily looked up at James' expressionless face.

"Well, I said yes." Again she looked at his face, but it hadn't changed more or less since the last time she looked. "She asked who, even though she doesn't go to Hogwarts. Remember how I was thinking about how mad I was about you playing pranks on me? Well, I panicked and thought of the first male name in my head and yours was first…" James now had his head in his hands and was moaning quietly. "Now," Lily exclaimed rounding on him, "why did you have to come to my house?!?"

"I thought that was obvious! I want my Shooting Star back!"

"Well, why didn't you just send an owl?!?" said as though it were the most obvious choice.

"Are you kidding?" James asked, now standing up and moving inches in front of her face. "Would you have given it back?"

"Well, no. I was actually planning on keeping it till next summer," she said casually while James' jaw dropped.

"Next summer?" he whispered. "No - wait - you can't do that! I'm the star Gryffindor Chaser! I'm the captain of the team Lily! I need to have a fast broom! I can't use one of the school's old ones!" James yelled. "You know what? You're just a devil in disguise sent here to torture me."

"Ooh, how did you find out?" she said in mock surprise. "I'm a devil in disguise as an angel," she said, twirling her hands around in the air. "Anyway, I never heard of a rule that the "star" Chaser needed to have the best broom there was. And you ticked me off! I will, however, give it back if you don't play pranks on me for the rest of the year - INCLUDING your friends - " James groaned out loud. He had just, of course, lost his best target for pranking. " - and you also have to play along with this whole," Lily wrinkled her nose in disgust, "boyfriend/girlfriend thing. If you don't then I won't hear the end of it from Petunia and you won't get your broom back." James gave her a piercing glare and saw that she wasn't joking.

"Fine."

Lily smirked and pushed him outside. "No wait!" Lily dragged him back in by the collar of his robes.

"What now?!?" he asked irritated, crossing his arms.

"We've been "together" since Christmas last year, we can't call each other by our last names, and no one - I repeat no one - knows about this at school. We both have reputations we want to keep. Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it."

"Good," Lily said and dragged him back into their kitchen. "Sorry," Lily said to her parents. "I just wanted to talk to James for a little bit. You know," she muttered, hoping she was giving James an affectionate look in which he returned it, "school stuff," she finished.

"Ah," Christine gave Lily a knowing smile. As if she knew what was really going on, Lily thought miserably. They didn't pursue the topic anymore. "I don't think that we have been properly introduced. I'm Christine and this is my husband William."

"Hello Mrs. Evans," James said and shook her hand. He did the same to Will and then said, "I'm James Potter."

"It's a pleasure to meet you!"

"Same for me but I'm really sorry. I have to go back to school. See, I only came here 'cause I just had to see Lily's face again." James put on a dreamy look, turned, and took a hold of both of Lily's hands. He looked straight into her eyes. Damn, she thought, impressed. He's a good actor.

"Oh," Christine said, sounding disappointed. "Well, can't you just stay for dinner? I made enough for an army!"

"Well," James whispered. He looked at Lily and he started to feel his hands getting crushed into dust. Not only that, but Lily's bright, green eyes were drilling holes through his soft brown ones. "All right." Immediately he felt his hands loosen.

"Great!" Christine squealed.

AUTHORS NOTE: Thanks for reading!!! I won't have a review section this time, but I'll have one for the next chapter!

Thanks for reading!

Yours truly,
Amelia Bedelia