Ch.21, Sunsets, Aura Stones, and Secret Getaways.

The group decided to split up to cover more ground. Lily went with James, Len with Remus, and Melissa with Sirius. They weren't exactly looking for anything, but it would be fun anyway.

James and Lily held hands as they walked down a dirt path. The small forest got even more beautiful as they got deeper. The trees were so thick that they cast a greenish glow on the ground. The canopy of trees let in just enough rays of light to have this effect.

They came to a clearing, and looked around. It was amazing. The grass here was emerald green, and there was a waterfall leading into a pond. The waterfall was small, just big enough for one person to fit through. The water that flowed down it was the clearest crystal, and you could see stones underneath.

"Beautiful." Lily whispered. For some reason neither of them talked loud, almost as if to not disturb the tranquil area.

"You could say that again. I've never seen this place before." James answered. He walked to where he could reach the waterfall, and put a hand in the water. Both jumped away in shock as the water split, and revealed a passage just big enough for them to crawl through.

"What do you suppose is on the other side?" Lily asked.

"Only one way to find out." James said, as he crawled through the hole. Lily followed.

Len and Remus were taking a stroll down a path, that wasn't really a path. It was just an area left alone by shrubs. Probably because of the clearing visible just through the trees.

Remus looked at his girlfriend, and stopped smiling at the mischievous look in her eye.

"Len..." he started. But he was broken off by Len shouting 'tag' and gently hitting him on the shoulder. Then she ran off, laughing.

Shaking his head, he ran after her. They had reached the clearing now, and she had hidden. Remus searched around, keeping a close eye on the exit. (a small area not walled by trees.)He spun around as he heard leaves crackle, and saw his girlfriend sprinting for the exit. He laughed, he knew he could outrun her anytime. Apparently she knew this two, because she then turned around to squeeze through the tree wall. But she turned to fast, and tripped over her own two feet. And landed face first in a mud puddle. Remus caught up to her, and picked her up by her waist. They were both laughing, and walked over to the non-muddy part of the clearing. They sat down on the grass there, Len leaning into Remus' side.

Remus looked down in surprise to find her asleep. He smiled as she subconsciously snuggled into his side even more. The sun was setting, and from where they were sitting orange flooded the sky.

But then a bird (not a girl) just had to chirp loudly. She woke with a start, and looked up at him.

"Was I asleep?" she asked, with a smile on her face.

"No, you were beautiful." he answered. They were silent for a while, just enjoying each other's company, until Remus brought up the subject he had been contemplating all night.

"Listen Len, I've been thinking, and I think I've fallen in love with you." he said, smiling at her.

She looked up at him, a large smile on her face. "I love you too Remus." She said, and kissed him.

Lily and James exited the small tunnel, only to find the most beautiful place they had ever seen. There was a small canopy of trees. They were so close together, that no one could have fitted in between the trees. There was just enough sunlight coming through it to light up the place. A soft kind of grass blanketed the area, and there was a shallow pond in a corner. You could see fish swimming near the surface.

The entire place smelled like flowers. They realized that there were flowers growing on the trees. Not a sound was heard in this place, and it gave many impressions: peaceful, safe, and content. The entrance was hidden by the waterfall, and the water masked the scent. By the entrance, there was another large slab of rock.

Lily walked over to a small patch of flowers just beside a tree, and sat down. "This place is beautiful." she said. James sat down beside her, and agreed.

"It's so peaceful. Like a sanctuary." Lily said in a barely audible whisper, so as not to disturb the peace.

"Our sanctuary." James added. Lily nodded in agreement, and they saw the sunset just barely over the horizon of tree tops that made the sanctuary up. They stayed there for a while, enjoying the peace and quiet. They decided that they would not tell the others about their find. This was a place that they could come to be alone, and neither of them wanted to spoil that.

Melissa and Sirius walked along a river. The splash of orange in the sky above them told them the time. The water was so clear, that it was as if nothing was there. They had been walking, with Melissa's head on his shoulder, until she cried out and crouched to the water.

"What is it?" Sirius asked.

"I can't believe it..." she started. Sirius watched as she plunged her hand in the cold water, and took out a small handful of stones.

"Am I going to get any sort of explanation, or will I just be standing here clueless for a few hours?" Sirius asked.

"These are aura stones!" she said, obviously expecting some sort of answer. He just looked confused.

She sighed and started explaining what they were. "Aura stones are very rare. You study them in Advanced Divination at Hogwarts. When a person holds one, it changes colour, depending on their future. For example, pink means love or marriage or something, red means hard times, gold means success, black means death, so on and so on. There's a maximum of four colours per stone." She said.

Sirius's face dawned in realization. "So what colour do you have?" he asked.

Melissa put a stone in the palm of her hand. It took a while to decide, which Melissa obviously took for a bad sign. But finally, it turned two colours. Red and Pink.

"So, you'll find love, and hard times. That's a strange combination." Sirius said.

"Why don't you try one?" Melissa asked, holding out a stone. He took it, and a colour was quickly decided. The stone was mostly red, but there was a little splash of pink on it.

Ignoring this, he said, "Come on, lets go show the others." and they left in search of their friends. They found Remus and Len pretty quickly, though Len had fallen back asleep. Remus tried not to wake her, and failed marvelously as he tried to get up without disturbing her.

"Well now that I'm awake, what's going on?" she asked as she took Remus' outstretched hand to get up.

"Len, you're not going to believe this! I found some aura stones in a river we followed!" Melissa said excitedly. She scowled as Len looked just as blank as Sirius had.

"Haven't you ever heard me talk about them?" Melissa said with a frown.

"Oh, er, yeah! Plenty of times!" Len lied.

"I thought you were the most expert liar of the group Len?" Remus asked with a smile.

"I don't like to lie to my friends. I'm told it's easy to tell if I'm lying when I don't want to lie." she said with a sheepish grin.

"Anyway, aura stones... (insert explanation from before) We thought you guys might want to try them." Melissa finally finished.

Remus shrugged. "Can't hurt to try." he said, as he took one and the colour quickly changed. This was the most amount of colours yet, with four on one stone. There were equal splashes of pink, red, blue and a small splash of bright yellow.

"What does blue mean?" Sirius asked, as she had only explained pink, red, gold and black.

Melissa looked at the colour sadly. "It means pain." she said.

This was no surprise to Remus, as his monthly transformations weren't exactly happy. He ignored it, and asked about yellow, which turned out to be joy. He then handed a stone to Len, and she put it in the palm of her hand.

Two colours immediately flowed into the stone. Two more soon joined. She had pink, red, gold, and another new colour: green. Melissa shrieked.

"What? What does green mean?" Len asked, not liking the fact that Melissa wasn't telling her. Actually, she was bouncing up and down. This got anoying after a while, and she began to turn to the others for an explanation. But then, Melissa grabbed her arm, and told her what green meant.

"It means kids! It means that you're going to have kids sometime in the future!" she said, making Len blush a very deep red. She was, after all, in a deep relationship with someone standing right next to her, and she had just been told her future has something to do with kids.

The group laughed at the blush on her face, while Remus was attempting to hide his own blush. He then quickly suggested that they find Lily and James to see their colours.

The group spent hours searching. Even in their animagus forms, Len and Melissa couldn't find them. They decided that they might have gone back to the house, so they went back and waited there. All the while, Melissa was teasing Len about her colour. Then Sirius just happened to notice that Remus was blushing too, and now they were both teased mercilessly.

Lily woke up to find herself in the sanctuary. She was leaning against James' shoulder, and he was dozing against her head. She smiled, and saw that the sun had gone down.

"James! James, wake up!" she whispered as she gently shook him awake.

"What time is it?" he mumbled as he slowly woke up.

"Too late, the sun's gone down. The others will be looking for us." Lily said as she got up.

"You know, I don't think it matters if their looking for us." he said, with a sly grin. He put his arms around her waist, and kissed her. She kissed back, and after about ten minutes, Lily broke away.

"James Potter, you know full well that if Len and Melissa transform and fly above us, our nice little sanctuary might be discovered." she said in a mock scold.

"Allright, allright. Let's go."

They left through the tunnel, and dried themselves off afterwards. Then they used wand light to find their way back. The moon helped a little, because it was a few days from being full. Remus had already arranged to go to St. Mungos for his transformation, and he had agreed to test something called the Wolvesbane Potion. Of course, Len was extremely worried, what if the potion had strange after-effects?

As soon as the couple made it back to the house, and went inside, they were immediately confronted.

"Where were you?"

"Where have you been?"

"We looked all over for you Prongs!"

"We couldn't find you anywhere!"

After they said that they had just been walking around, Melissa cheered up.

"Oh, and Lily, you won't believe what I found in a river!" she said.

"What?" Lily asked.

"Aura stones! Can you believe it? Tones of them!" she said happily.

"What stones?" Lily asked, dumbfounded.

Melissa scowled. "Didn't anyone listen to me in Hogwarts?"

Lily and Len started whistling innocently. This made the boys go into hysterical fits of laughter. But Lily and James stopped when they heard what aura stones actually were.

Lily took one in her hand after hearing an explanation of what all the colours meant. Hers changed colour very quickly. She got: pink, a splash of red, gold, and green. This made her blush of course, and Len and Remus blushed even more as Melissa took the liberty of telling the two Len's colours.

After they were all done teasing each other, James took a stone. It took a few minutes to decide, during which the group continued to tease three blushing people. But when it finally did, everyone focused. James' colours were: a large splash of red, pink, yellow, and the smallest splash of bage, which according to Melissa, meant bad tidings for loved ones. James chose to ignore this colour.

That night everyone was talking about their colours. Lily noticed with a sinking feeling that James was unusually quiet. She realized that he was probably thinking about the bage.

Lily was right, James couldn't get the colour out of his head. He thought about how it would be impossible for him to live if something bad happened to Lily. All that night he was haunted by dreams of screaming and bright green light. At five am he decided it would be better not to sleep, and so he took a leaf out of Lily's book and read. She was right- it did distract him.

Sorry the chapie was so short! I just wanted to fit in some important things like the colours and the sanctuary. And for those of you reading this for the romance part, the 'I love you' s on Remus and Len's part was important too.