Authors Note: Guys, this chapter is amazing. i know a bunch of people who will love it....like a lot. (Cough Taylor cough). Anyway, thanks to those of you who reviewed my last chapter! Hopefully there'll be another one soon!!


Chapter 2

Disaster Strikes

Lily had gone to the grocery store to pick up milk. It had been a perfectly innocent trip, and now she was walking back home. From the end of her block she could hear the screaming. She started to run, dropping the grocery bag in her haste. She burst through the front door and saw no one. She could still hear screaming, louder than before. It was coming from the back yard. Lily ran around the back of the house and saw her mother on the ground rocking back and forth sobbing and screaming. Petunia had taken several paces back and looked white. She was pointing at Lily now, hatred in her eyes.

"You. You did this." She all but whispered.

"What's happened? Where's dad?" Lily screamed frantically, running to her mothers side and placing her arm around her shoulders.

"Convenient, isn't it, that you should have offered to go for the milk when you did, isn't it? Couldn't have been planned, could it? Just a coincidence, I suppose, that they came only minutes after you left." Petunia said, her voice slightly raised now. She was still pointing at Lily, her eyes filled with rage.

"Petunia, who came? What did they do? Who was it? What did they want with dad? Where's he gone?" Lily asked, still trying to comfort her mother.

"As if you don't know! You sit there, acting so innocent, when all the time you know it's your fault!" Petunia raged.

"Petunia, tell me what's happened! Now!" Lily shrieked, standing and raising herself to her full height.

"They've taken him. They've take dad. Four men, long black cloaks. Wands. They've taken him. They were looking for you too, but you were gone. They, they said to tell you they'll return, and that you'll have to do as they say or else dad's a gonner." Petunia said, raving like a lunitic. She broke down in to sobs.

"Where did they take him? Who were they?" Lily asked, trying to understand.

"Wizards." Petunia said practically whispering, but still managing to spit the word as if it was too foul to stay on her lips any longer than absolutely neccessary. "They were after you. You shant go back to school after this!" Petunia cackled, still sounding crazy. "Oh no, mum won't let you after this! Polly will be so disappointed, Jimmy will want you still. No more witching for Lily."

"Petunia, what are you talking about? What did they say they would do with him?" Lily demanded, furious.

"This is all your doing you know! None of this would have happened if you hadn't been a filthy freak!" Petunia said, pointing again.

"Never say that again." Lily hissed, her voice lowered menacingly. She took a step towards Petunia.

"You're a freak! A freak! You'll be the death of us all! That's why all the boys liked you, isn't it? Because you cast your filthy dirty spells on them! You're a freak, and this is all your fault. You've killed out father!" Petunia cried. Lily was greatful that their imediate neighbors were not currently at home.

"I told you never to say that again." Lily said, her voice low, clam, and dangerous. She slapped Petunia hard across the face. "We had best to call the police, tell them dad's missing." Lily said. Petunia stood in shock, her hand to her face.

"We can't! They will kill him if we call the cops! The blonde man said so." Petunia informed her sister, still in tears and still raving. Lily ran upstairs, and, not knowing what else to do, wrote to James.

James,

My father has just been taken by four tall men in black cloaks. I was out, my mom is in tears on the ground, my sister is screaming that I'm a freak and that it's all my fault. We can't call the cops because they'll kill him, and she says they said they'll be back for me next, and that I'll have to do what they say. Petunia says I shant be allowed to go back to school. Please help me.

Yours,

Lily

She then had to wait until James sent her a letter. She vowed that she would buy her own owl the moment she got back to the wizarding world.

She did not have to wait long for James to send an owl. He had not sent one yet that day, and she got one within the hour. She attached her letter to his owls leg and sent him off, before she even read James's letter. She tossed the letter aside unopened, and ran back downstairs to find Petunia next to her mother on the ground in tears.

Lily had no idea what James would do to help her, but she hoped whatever he did would be fast.

Three hours later, as Lily was stirring the pasta in the pot, she heard a knock on the door. It would probabally be Vernon coming for Petunia, they were together practically every night. Lily went to the door with a smudge of tomato sauce on her forehead, and her dirty pron still on. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun. All in all, she looked filthy and disheveled. There were tear tracks on her cheeks, and her eyes were still read. Her nose was running on top of everything.

She pulled open the door and nearly fell over backwards. Standing on her doorstep was none other than James Potter. He caught her up in his arms and held her close for a few, all too brief, moments. She felt all of her troubles that she had been trying to hold back crash down on her like a wave. She started sobbing into his shoulder, and had to pull back to wipe her nose on her apron.

"Oh Lily, what's happened?" He asked, clearly distressed by the sight of her.

"I told you in the letter. They've taken him. Oh, James, I can't believe you came!" Lily hugged him again, and he pulled her close and held her tight.

"Shh, shh. Where's your mom? And where's your sister?" He asked softly, pushing her back.

"They're in the living room, probabally crying still. Oh, and James, before you go to them, I might have accidentally told her that you're my boyfriend. It was only to make her stop setting me up with that Derek bloke, please don't be mad. I needed an excuse not to like him." James laughed that that was the thing she thought of first after everything that had happened. He wiped the sauce off her forehead with his thumb and pushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear tenderly.

"Don't worry, I won't give you away." He said, stepping in to the living room. Lily went back to the kitchen to fix the dinner, still not believing that he was there. A moment later, however, when she heard Petunia's shrieks of 'Freak!' she knew that he was truly there, and not just a hillusination.

Lily rushed in to the living room to see James backing away from her sister, hands in the air to show he was unarmed. Petunia was pointing at him and shouting accusations.

"Pet, calm down!" Lily said. "This is James, he's a friend of mine and I asked him to come. He won't hurt you or anyone else." Lily tried to remain calm in order to pacify her sister. Petunia flew at James kicking and scratching at him, shouting that he was a freak just like Lily. James pushed her off and held her at arms length. "Shh, shh, Pet sit down. Come on, right here next to mum." Petunia sat and resorted back to her wailing sobs. "James I'm so sorry, I should have warned you. She's not the most welcoming of muggles when it comes to magic." Lily explained, walking over to James to look at the scratch on his arm.

"Really? I never would have guessed." James said. Lily looked up to his face and saw that he was chuckling. "Okay, first thing we have to do is figure out who took your father and why, then we have to figure out where they took him and how we're going to get him back." James said, making a list in his head.

"Oh, well that should be relatively easy, thank you so much for clearing that up James, I had not thought of that myself for even a moment!" Lily exclaimed sarcastically. "But the first thing we have to do is eat." She added as the timer sounded in the kitchen, signaling that the pasta was finished.

Lily put plates and silverware and glasses out on the kitchen table, strained the pasta and put it in a bowl, and then poured the sauce into the serving dish. She carried it all to the table and placed it in front of her mother, who served herself and then passed it to Petunia, who passed it to James, who served Lily. Lily smiled at him when he asked her if she wanted some, she rememebred complaining to him of how Derek hadn't, and favored him with a secret smile. She almost chuckled out loud of the memory of Derek serving her chicken.

"So, mother. I hate to bring this up, but who came to the house, when did they come, what did they say, where did they go?" Lily asked. Her mother was more composed now, her eyes were still red and puffy, and there were still tear marcks on her cheeks as well, but she was sitting up strait and not sniffling.

"Four men, dressed in black cloaks, all of them very tall, came to the house only a few minutes after you left, Lily, to get milk." Mrs. Evans started.

"Are you sure they were men?" James asked quickly. "Are you sure they were human?" He added.

"James, this is not an alien conspiracy theory right now." Lily laughed, but then stopped seeing that James was not kidding.

"They could have been dementors." James almost whispered. "Were they walking, or gliding?" He asked.

"Gliding?" Snorted Petunia, speaking for the first time. She gave James a distainful look, that said all too plainly what she thought of him and his intelect. "They were walking, with feet and legs, they were all human, and they were all men." She informed him, a hauty laugh barley concealed in her tone.

"You saw skin, faces, hair, heard then speak?" He confirmed.

"Yes, of course. They had their hoods pulled back. What are dementors?" Petunia asked, her curiosity finally getting the best of her.

"Dementors guard the wizard prison, azkaban. They suck joy and happiness out of places, they can sometimes even steel your soul. Be grateful that your father was taken by wizards and not dementors." James told her somberly.

"Grateful?" Petunia shrilled. "He could be dead or waiting to be killed! I hardly think that is something to be grateful for."

"Death would be welcome over a life without a soul. Believe me, my uncle's soul was taken by the dementors." James told her, looking down at his plate. There was silence after that remark.

"Well, anyway, these four men in black cloaks came in and asked for your father." Mrs. Evans continued, clearing her throat. "The man with the blonde hair asked me where my husband was. I asked him who he thought he was, barging in to my house uninvited. He pushed me down and asked Petunia where her father was. I tried to stand up, but one of the other men, the one with the black hair, stood over me and held me down. Then the three other men went out to the back yard. Petunia backed into a corner and stayed there. Then the men came back, dragging your father between them. The blonde one who had pushed me down asked where my other daughter was. I asked him who he was talking about. He sneered at me and said the pretty one with the flaming hair, the powerful one, we need her help. Tell her that if she ever wishes to see her father alive again she will cooporate and do what we want. Then they left with your father." She told them, sniffing hard at the end of her tale.

"Which direction did they go? Is that all they said? How did they leave?" James asked after a brief pause and a look at Lily. He looked worried, maybe even scared.

"They got on broomsticks. The blonde one had my husband on his broom with him. They hadn't even gone in to the air when the disappeared." Mrs. Evans told him.

"A spell, maybe a cloak. Disillusionment is my guess though." James told Lily.

"That's well and good, but what are we going to do about it?" Lily asked him. "We're stuck, we don't know who they were, where they went, or how to get my dad back."

"Yes, but we do know why they wanted him. They want you." He told her, smiling.

"You say that like it's a good thing." She shivered and shoved some pasta into her mouth.

"It is. It means that your father is safe. Until they get you, they won't kill him. He's their bargaining tool." James told her, his smile broadening.

"You know what that means though, don't you?" She asked him.

"No, what?" He asked, his smile falering.

"It means they'll come back for me, and when they have me they'll kill him." Lily said, looking away from her mother and sister. James rose from the table and started to walk away.

"Where are you going?" Lily called to his retreating back.

"To write a letter. I'll explain later." He said.

"Parchement and quills are on the desk, my rooms the one at the end of the hall!" Lily called after him. He waved his hand, aknowledging that he had heard her. Lily began to clear the dishes from the table and put away the leftovers in a tubaware container.

Petunia and her mother had disappeared somewhere, probabally to conspire or cry, Lily did not care. She walked outside to get some fresh air. Perhaps there would be some clue as to who the mysterious house guests had been.

There was not, of course, but as she walked down the street she did find her grocery bag with the milk in it dropped carlessly on the sidewalk. It looked perfectly fine, so she picked it up and brought it back home with her.

As she entered she saw James at the top of the stairs. He walked down to meet her and told her to come upstairs. She went and shut the door to her bedroom behind her.

"I wrote to Dumbledore." James said, sitting on the bed.

"You didn't. James! You know I am not getting along with him right now!" Lily said, sitting down on her desk chair.

"I know, that's why I didn't tell you it was him I was writing to until now. I already sent the letter, there's nothing you can do now." He said smugly.

"James! What did you say to him?" Lily asked, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes in frustration.

"He needs to know Lily. I told him the your father had been taken and I told him everything your mother told us. He's the only one who can help us. I hope to be an auror some day, but unfortunatley that is years away from happening. He's the only one who will know what to do." He said. Lily sighed, realizing the logic in this.

"What do you think he can do though? He won't come here, will he?" She asked.

"I don't know." James said.

"How did you get here, anyway?" Lily asked suspiciously.

"I took a train and then I took one of those taxi cab things." He told her calmly.

"How long are you going to stay for?" She asked.

"However long you need me. Until I know that you're ala safe."

"How chivalrous." Lily said sarcastically. "Do your folks know you're here?"

"I doubt it." He said.

"What about Sirius? Did you leave a note at least?" Lily said, looking at him like he was insane. Which in all probabillity he was.

"Ah, relax, they'll figure out I'm gone later." James said with a wave of his hand, calm as could be.

"Where are you going to sleep?" Lily asked, buisness like again.

"With you?" James asked hopefully. "Couch then." He said in response to her silent look. She did not need words to communicate her thoughts, at least not on this subject.

"Okay, I'll find sheets and pillows and things for you. You brought clothes?" Lily asked, looking around for a suitcase of some sort.

"Nope. I came as soon as I got your letter, no time to pack." He said sweetly, and somewhat embarrassed.

"How did you pay to come here on the train? You didn't sneek on? Tell me you didn't sneek on Ja-" Lily started to lecture, but was stopped short by James's interuption.

"I didn't sneek on." James cut her off. "What?" He asked, she was glaring at him accusingly again. "No, I really didn't Lily. My dad keeps some muggle money in a jar in the kitchen for when he has to use muggle transport. He won't miss it, don't worry."

"That's not what I was worried about, don't worry. I can't believe you stole from your parents." She told him dissapprovingly.

"What? I had to! I didn't have any other way of getting here. What did you want me to do? Get spotted by muggles flying around on my room in the middle of the day?" James asked logically.

"I suppose not. Well, come on I'll make your bed up for you. And I want you to write to your parents tonight. I'm not kidding James, they'll be worried. Just send them an owl." Lily said over her shoulder as they started down the hall. He did not respond, he just followed her down the hall quietly. "Here, hold this for me will you?" She asked, stopping in front of a linen closet and handing him two pillows, a fitted sheet, a regular sheet, and a quilt. "And don't mistreat that quilt, my grandma made it." Lily added, starting down the stais to the living room.

"What would I do to it?" He asked, somewhat curious.

"I don't know. Nothing I should hope, my grandmother made it." She said, grinning slightly at how easy it was to confuse him. "Here, you can put those on that chair and help me unfold this couch."

"It unfolds? Into what?" He asked.

"A bed silly, what did you think? You didn't think I would put you on he floor did you?" She asked, slapping him gently on the arm. She lifted off the cushions and handed them to James, who placed them on the floor. She then grabbed the handle of the couch and pulled, unfolding it into a double bed. She then gave James one corners of the fitted sheet and took one herself. She showed him how to tuck it under the matress, and then they did the same with the regular sheet. "Okay, you're done." Lily said, smoothing the quilt at last and throwing the pillows on the bed.

"Thanks Lil. You going to bed now?" He asked.

"I think so. You can watch TV if you want." She said.

"Do what?" James asked her, puzzled, sitting on the matress and bouncing up and down.

"Here, I'll show you." Lily told him exasperated, flopping down next to him and grabbing the remote from under one of the pillows and flicking on the television. James was fascinated by the moving pictures, never having experienced a television before. They channel surfed for a while, and the Lily finally surrendered the remote to James. She leaned back into the pillows, laughing at his amazement that the push of a button could cause an entire story and picture, and the people in the story.

Lily leaned back on the pillow, intending to just rest her eyes for a minute while James played with the television. She opened her eyes what felt like five minutes later. James was shaking her awake apologetically.

"Lily, you're tired, it's late, go upstairs to bed." He suggested.

"O-Okay." Lily said yawining loudly and widely. "Nanight James, see you tom-m-marrow." She said, yawning again.

James sleaned into the pilows sighing as he watching Lily stagger up the stairs. She was so beautiful. I wonder if she'll ever love me James asked himself as her figure dissappeared around a bend in the hallway. His heart had leaped when he had first seen her, standing in her doorway, the light from the hall outlining her. His heart had given an even bigger leap when she had told himthat she had told her mother that he was her boyfriend. His heart had soared through the roof at the sight of the little heart on the date of his birthday. Well, to be honest, that heart may have been there for another reason, but still, it was there just the same. He reasoned with himself. And of course there was the fact that he had been the person she had run to when she was in the most trouble. James felt somewhat guilty that he was so happy when she was so distraught, but just being with her was enough to make him the happiest person on the planet.


Authors Note: So, what do you think? What should Dumbledore do? Any feedback or suggestions? I have something written, but I'm not crazy about it, so anything you can think of would be welcomed with open arms. Thanks! Review!