I was going to kill Dorcas, well and truly kill her. She had made it her life mission to get me and James to hook up. In her eyes the two of us were meant for each other. I was willing to bet she would mention it in job interviews, it would be the highlight of her entire life.

I mean, the man had a very beautiful ass, but I wouldn't go so far as to say he was my soulmate.

Not only was I going to have to keep an eye out for whatever passive aggressive comments came from Petunia but now I was going to have to keep a look out for whatever Dorcas had planned. They didn't train you for this kind of stuff in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

But first I had to find somewhere to hide, preferably where Amos Diggory couldn't see me.

While I had been yelling at Dorcas from the doorway, the man had practically stuck himself to his compartment window and stared at me the entire time. If there was one person who I was more determined to not end up with than James, it would be Diggory.

The man was nice enough I supposed, but every conversation I had with him made me want to light myself on fire. It was always about what Diggory ate, or his struggle to pick out which robes to wear in the morning -which didn't even make sense because we all wore a uniform- or what dinner his family was having and on and on. He never seemed to pick up on the fact that I didn't care.

Not even when I told him that I didn't care to his face.

I scowled at Diggory, gave my trunk a good kick to get it onto its wheels and hurried past his compartment. I desperately searched for a compartment that had people I could get along with for the train ride. If I sat somewhere that was empty Diggory would for sure come and find me and then I'd have to put up with him.

Oh the horror.

I wandered up and down the train cart looking for people I knew. Unfortunately for me, there was no one around, or at least no one that I was willing to spend the entire train ride in the company of.

So yeah, I ended up locked in the Prefect meeting room. It was a nice place to read a book silence, or do your homework, or like I did for most of the ride, take a nap.

It was a glorious nap. I didn't get to sleep a full eight hours all that much, but for once I slept like a baby knowing that I didn't have any responsibilities to take care of.

When I finally stepped off at King's Cross, platform 9 ¾ was full of families embracing each other happily, a colourful crowd of robes and witches hats and animals screaming in their cages. It was like doing an obstacle course as I wove through everyone on my way to the exit. Petunia would be irritated the entire ride home if I made her wait too long as I had learned all too well throughout the years.

In the sea of colours there was one dark spot that drew attention from everyone. I caught a glimpse of Regulus, Sirius's brother, stepping off of the Hogwarts Express. He had a blank expression on his face as he was greeted by a tall, severe looking woman with black hair, and an equally tall man whose hair was as long as Sirius's but tied back. Neither parent rushed forward to hug their son, they weren't even trying to touch each other let alone their son. Regulus bowed to them formally, to which they nodded and then turned their back on him. A small house elf stepped forward and grabbed Regulus by the hand and that's when I saw Regulus finally smile.

Petunia may have been a nightmare to live with but I could say with a fair amount of confidence that she wasn't as bad as the Black family seemed to be.

When I stepped through the barrier the first thing my eyes landed on was Petunia who was standing five metres away from the wall, the edges of her mouth pulling downwards in disapproval. Her blonde hair had been curled, half of it in a ponytail with a scarf tied like a headband. She was still tall and as skinny as ever. And very much up the ass of every single fashion magazine in existence judging by her outfit.

I gave a sigh and prepared myself for her. It was exhausting to be around Petunia, not that I paid much attention to her sniping these days, but every once in a while I'd have a bad day and her snide comments would be the straw that broke the camel's back.

"You certainly took your time," Petunia snapped when I was within hearing distance. I clenched my jaw and told myself to behave because mum wouldn't be happy if I ran her eldest daughter over with the car.

"The platform was full, it's kind of hard to navigate around everyone," I ground out as pleasantly as I could. Petunia simply sniffed, her nose in the air, spun on her heel and marched away from me.

"Thanks for offering to help with my stuff," I muttered under my breath.

"At least your people coming through the barrier are dressed normal instead of those ugly dresses you all wear," Petunia called over her shoulder as she walked ahead of me, her handbag swinging from her arm. They're robes but whatever.

"That's because they're muggleborns, everyone else just Apparates from the station," I informed her as politely as I possibly could. It had been seven years, why Petunia continued to act like she didn't know anything about my world was beyond me. She acted as if magic was contagious, and believe me, if it was, our relationship wouldn't be hanging by a thread.

We walked in silence, her in front and me following behind, like always.

Petunia led us to our old family car. She unlocked the doors, didn't bother helping me get my things into the car and instead took her seat as the driver. I worked as fast as possible to shove my trunk into the back seat and hurried into my own seat before Petunia could leave without me. I stared out the window at the world around me and left Petunia to her driving.

Muggle London was always bustling, full of people rushing to wherever they needed to go, someone always on a street corner trying to sell you something, children crying. It was its own kind of magic in a way, but maybe it was because I spent all of my time in the wizarding community, but it no longer felt interesting to me. It no longer felt like something I was a part of, it was stranger now to see people not using magic, or owls swooping over people's head as they delivered their post.

And in just a few months, after I was out of Hogwarts, I would be choosing to leave it behind. Maybe once I finished Hogwarts, Petunia would allow me into her good graces again, maybe she'd think I would go back to normal. You'd think that after all of these years I would've stopped trying to gain her approval.

I gave a sigh and forced the thoughts out of my mind, this was the kind of thinking I saved when exams came around. This wasn't what I wanted to think about on my winter vacation, it was bad enough I was going to have to put up with Petunia's constant commentary, I wasn't about to mope around thinking about what I was going to do after Hogwarts.

Petunia gave the steering wheel a sharp yank that sent me flying towards her. I gripped my seatbelt tightly as she straightened the car, cursing about terrible drivers. I had several comments ready to make but decided to keep them to myself in the hopes that she wouldn't push me out of the car while she was driving.

We eventually pulled up in front of our house with Petunia stomping on the breaks right before she drove into the kitchen. She threw open the door and hurried into the house, leaving me to take my stuff out of the car.

The minute I stepped indoors I was assaulted by mum.

"Oh sweetie, I've missed you so much!" mum cried, squeezing the breath out of me. I gasped when she released me from her stranglehold and planted a kiss on her cheek.

"Hi mum," I replied with a grin and threw my arm across her shoulders. She led us towards the kitchen where my dad was cooking lunch in his favourite frilly apron.

"Hello darling," my dad greeted me, turning his head over his left shoulder as he continued stirring sauce. "Did you have a good trip back?"

"I had to hide in the Prefects meeting room to avoid a boy, but other than that it was fine," I replied, taking a seat next to Petunia who moved her tub of ice cream away from me, at the kitchen table.

"It's not that Potter boy you've told us so much about is it?" mum asked, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards. The apple that was on its way to my mouth paused halfway as I watched her and dad exchange a look that I could only describe as if they knew something. I looked over at Petunia who simply rolled her eyes but said nothing.

"No, not this time around, it's this boy named Diggory, he's even worse than Black," I said.

"Is Black the Potter boys friend?" Dad asked. He wiped his hands on his apron and turned the stove off. I nodded in agreement.

"Now that I think about it, James hasn't been irritating for a really long time," I added, frowning as I tried to think of instances where I was annoyed by James. There was the time he annoyed me by having all of the answers I needed for a Charms assignment, and the time he annoyed me by playing exceptionally well during one of the Quidditch matches. Not to mention it was beyond irritating how he knew what to say at the right moments all the time.

"Yes, people change over time, what a shocking concept," mum replied sarcastically. I stuck my tongue out at her in response and kept chewing on my apple. "Petunia are you packed for tomorrow?"

"... Yes," mum narrowed her eyes at Petunia. Petunia tried to keep eye contact as long as she could but I swore I could see sweat starting to bead at her hairline.

"So I'll take that as a no then?" mum replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Ugh, it won't even take that long, and even if I don't finish, Lily can just use freak powers to pack it all into my trunk," Petunia whined. Sometimes it really was shocking that this woman was older than me what with the way that she behaved. She slammed the lid on her tub of ice cream, aggressively threw it into the freezer and exited the kitchen with an aggravated growl.

"I'm not seventeen yet so no I can't!" I hollered after her. All I got was her bedroom door slamming shut in response. I couldn't help but giggle at her antics.

"So where exactly are we going for our winter break?" I asked mum. Dad spooned spaghetti onto a plate and poured his sauce over it. He slid the plate over to me with a grin.

"Oh, your friend Dorcas heard that we were going away and she said that her family has this cottage that they're not using and asked if we would like to use it. We told her we couldn't possibly, but she absolutely insisted, said something about the universe wanting it that way. Well, we couldn't refuse, it sounded great," mum replied. Her head was stuck in the fridge looking for some juice. I snuck past her butt and opened the drawer next to the kitchen sink looking for a fork.

"Really, Dorcas? I didn't even know that Dorcas had a vacation cottage, let alone that her family used it," I said with a raised eyebrow. I forked some spaghetti to my mouth and hummed in appreciation at the taste.

"Didn't you know that they had some sort of vacation cottage, as close as you two are, I thought she would've mentioned it for sure?," mum asked. "What kind of juice do you want sweetie?"

"Cranberry, and no I had no idea that Dorcas had a second house. At all."

"Well, anyways, it's absolutely lovely that they're letting us use it since they won't be there this year!" mum exclaimed. She put down a glass of cranberry juice next to my plate and ruffled my hair. She joined my dad at the sink and the two of them started doing the dishes together.

"Yeah … great," I mumbled. I knew Dorcas was stinking rich, but I hadn't realized she was rich enough to own an entire second house. And it just sat around waiting for everyone to come around for holidays every year. I wondered what she would have told her parents she needed it for. This entire trip was starting to stink the more and more I heard about it.

What if Dorcas was acting when she told me she was disappointed I was leaving for holidays? What if she had hijacked my winter vacation and was the reason I had to leave Hogwarts this year? This seemed exactly like something Dorcas would do. The only question was, how exactly did James Potter of all people fit into this?

I handed my finished plate to my dad, and absentmindedly planted a kiss on his cheek and mums. "I'm gonna go see if Dorcas has sent any letters since I left." I rushed out of the kitchen, banging my hip painfully into the corner of the wall in my hurry, and sprinted up the stairs to my room.

I rushed to the window and stuck my head outside looking for any circling owls but didn't see any. I was actually going to kill her.

The rest of the day was spent listening to various bangs coming from Petunia's room as she threw shoes and who knew what else around her room in frustration. The easy atmosphere around the house was occasionally punctuated by a muffled yell that came from her behind her muffled door of, "I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR!"

Mum and dad acted like they couldn't hear her existential crisis coming from her room and I followed suit. Mostly because I knew that if I tried to help at all, Petunia would have an even bigger meltdown than the ongoing one she was currently in the middle of. As far as Petunia was concerned, I knew nothing about fashion, couldn't tell navy apart from black, and could pass for a twelve-year-old boy most of the time. Or, God forbid, I contaminated her clothing with my Satan powers or some shit. I'd hate for her to break a heel by chucking it at my head.

Dinner passed well enough, Petunia acted as if I wasn't even present and ignored every question I asked. She went on and on and on and on about Vernon, a man I had only met once and had already decided that I disliked him. She must've been really serious about him to tell him that I could do magic.

At least I assumed she had told him, that was the only explanation why he greeted me with, "Oh, so you're the abnormal one."

First of all, who the hell even greets someone like that, what kind of bullshit? Second of all, I didn't understand why he was looking down on me, at least there was something interesting about me. The only thing worth noting about Vernon was his incredibly ugly, stomach churning mustache. How on earth Petunia could stand to kiss someone with something that hairy over their top lip, I would never know. One of these days I was going to shave it off in the middle of the night and then she was really going to disown me.

I won't lie, I zoned out for pretty much all of Petunia's spiel about him. All I knew was he had gotten some sort of promotion at work (as far as I could tell, the reward for doing boring work well was getting promoted to do -wait for it- even more boring work). It was something to do with drills, no one really knew what it was and we'd been hearing about it for two years now.

Petunia shot me smug looks the entire time she talked about Vernon, unfortunately for her I didn't give a shit.

That night I fell asleep to the dulcet sounds of Petunia's continued panic at what she should pack for the trip. Morning came bright and early and so goddamn cold I didn't want to get out of bed. But drag myself out of bed I did, my hair tangled and a bird's nest on top of my head. My breath smelled disgusting I almost passed out from the brief whiff I got of it.

I had to get to the bathroom before Petunia did otherwise I'd never get washed. She spent almost two hours in there literally everyday. She didn't even come out looking any different than she did when she woke up.

By the time Petunia managed to drag her way out of her room, a scowl etched onto her face (as usual), I was already washed and dressed in my baggiest sweater and my favourite jeans. I skipped down the stairs as Petunia slammed the bathroom door shut hard enough to shake the walls on the second floor.

I was waiting for the day when she left some sort of scratch on mums cream coloured walls and all hell broke loose.

Mum and dad had all of our stuff ready by the door, dad was slowly packing them into the back of our car while mum checked off the things that she had packed for the fifth time probably to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. I grabbed a bowl and poured myself cereal, which I ate so fast I might as well have inhaled it.

Once I had rinsed my bowl, I grabbed what was left of our bags and dragged them out to the car, mum still had her head buried in her purse counting off the last of the things in her list. Mum hollered for Petunia to hurry the hell up, and after another five minutes, Petunia finally graced us with her presence and wafted down the stairs, her nose stuck in the air, her blonde hair pulled into a painful looking ponytail. I rolled my eyes and crawled into the left side of the back seat of the car.

Petunia slid in on the other side as if she was the Queen herself and very obviously turned her back on me. I rolled my eyes at her and turned towards my own window. With a cheery, "Here we go!" from my mum, we were off.

It turned out to be an incredibly long ride, I thought any second we were going to drive out of England and into Ireland or back to Scotland. The city and its noise faded into the distance as we drove, replaced by fields and forests. The amount of snow that was on the ground increased the closer we got to the mountains until eventually everywhere I looked, snow was all I could see.

Petunia and I said absolutely nothing the entire ride, which was just as well, it was better than bickering with her the entire ride.

"We'll be there soon girls," mum said, turning around in her seat to flash us an excited grin. Her dark blonde hair had been pulled into a bun on top of her head, her lack of makeup making her look much younger than she was. Dad patted her hand fondly and held onto it in response.

"Mum, not to alarm you, but it kind of seems like we're driving towards the middle of nowhere," I said, looking out the window where indeed, you really couldn't see much of anything except for bare trees and even more bare trees. I couldn't even remember how long it had been since we'd seen a petrol station.

"Well, it's actually in a very secluded spot, is what I heard, so I guess in a sense, it is in the middle of nowhere," mum replied excitedly. I raised an eyebrow at her skeptically. The lack of details that I was given about this trip was making it seem as if Dorcas had set us up for a homicide instead of a vacation.

"And if something happens, how exactly are we going to get to civilization to ask for help?" I asked her.

"Oh, Dorcas said to just owl her if anything went wrong," my mum replied offhandedly. I hated to inform my mum that in the event of an emergency, Dorcas was the very last person you wanted to owl. "She also mentioned that we would have one neighbour nearby, apparently the family goes to the house every year, she said they should be able to assist us if anything goes wrong."

What did that mean? Did that mean that they were wizards? Were they doctors? Maybe they were Healers? Park Rangers? Secret agents from the government? Veterinarians? WHAT DID THAT MEAN? Maybe they were just experts in dealing with disasters.

"She also said the couple had two of their own children, one biological son, and one recently adopted son," mum went on. My palms started sweating and my heart began to pound. That sounded an awful lot like someone I knew. Someone who I had spent the first semester working very closely.

It sounded an awful lot like James Potter.

Suddenly my idea that Dorcas had orchestrated this entire winter vacation was starting to seem a lot less far-fetched and a lot more real. After this many years and I was still surprised at the lengths that this woman went to to get her way.

It couldn't possibly be James Potter. Not that I had anything against the guy anymore, contrary to what I told Dorcas, I did in fact have a very difficult time of keeping my eyes off of James's arse (have I mentioned this already?). And I did laugh a little too hard at the jokes that he made. Oh God, Sirius would be giving me this look the entire time that I was around them.

I was barely surviving his charm and wit as it was, how was I supposed to just remain friends with him when I was exposed to it this whole time? All of that calm that I had maintained while Dorcas escorted me to the station had been an act. James Potter had a habit of making me incredibly nervous quite a bit of the time, like now.

And how I could possibly forget: Petunia would lose her damn mind that they were wizards. It would make being in the same house with her an absolute nightmare.

I was going to kill Dorcas.

It just couldn't be James. It just couldn't, and it wouldn't be him because I had made the executive decision that it wasn't possible.

But that didn't stop me from fidgeting the rest of the ride, I kept crossing and uncrossing my legs, my knees kept jiggling up and down, my hands wouldn't stop tapping out rhythms on my thighs, and I couldn't keep my mind focused on any thought for longer than a few seconds. It eventually caught Petunia's attention, who narrowed her eyes and finally deigned to say something to me.

"You know who it is, don't you?" she hissed at me quietly. She had gone as far as stretching across the back seat to get closer to me so our parents wouldn't hear. I focused on a spot on the road ahead of us and kept jiggling my leg.

"I have an idea of who it might be, but I'm very much hoping and praying that I'm really wrong," I whispered to her nervously.

"Who do you think it is?" she hissed, pinching me hard on my arm. I almost gave a yelp but she slapped her hand over my mouth to muffle the sound.

"All I'm saying is that, if you don't like me, then you're going to hate whoever I think it is," I told her.

As it turned out, the world, and Dorcas, did in fact, hate me.

By the time we finally arrived to the house, it was dark out, and everyone was tired. It was very evident that Dorcas had understated where her family went for winter holidays. It was just a little bit bigger than a cabin.

It was a mansion.

A very big, very dark, mansion with far too many windows and what looked like at the very least, three floors. There was a driveway leading up to the front door, and a large fountain in front of the steps leading to the front door that wasn't in use. The outside walls gleamed in the dark, made from some shiny brick-like material that I had never laid eyes on. Tall, Romanesque pillars stood on either side of the dark-panelled door. I was expecting a house-elf to open the door any second, which would no doubt send Petunia into hysterical shrieking and cursing.

We all spent a good five minutes ogling at the place we would be staying in.

"Hot damn," Petunia breathed. That's what broke the trance and got us to pop open the trunk of the car and start pulling all of our shit out. Mum dug out a key from her pocket to insert into a keyhole that I had no doubt was only recently added to the door.

She unlocked the door with a loud click and pushed it open. The house was dead silent when we crept inside. The lights immediately turned on once we had entered. The floor was white marble, the walls were painted a light beige, there were several paintings on the walls of what I assumed to be previous generations of the Meadowes family.

There was one staircase to our right that went up into the second floor of the house which branched off on either side to what were no doubt bedrooms and guest bedrooms. Right next to the staircase was an entrance to another room and to our left, two doors next to each other that led to who knew where.

There was a coat tree a metre from the doorway, and only two tables, one on the other side of the room, and one to our right near the doorway, each only had a pot of flower with lilies in them. The one nearest to us had several pieces of papers left there.

"Holy shit," I breathed.

"Lily!"

"Sorry, mum."

I walked over to the paper that was left lying around and picked it up. Dorcas had left us all maps. There were floor designs for each floor of the house, which did indeed have three floors.

"Oh, how lovely of them to make little maps for us," mum said, pointing to the 'You are here,' dot, "isn't this cute?"

"Adorable," I grumbled.

"Alright well, let's take our things upstairs and then we can go and greet our neighbours," mum said, clapping her hands together and heading for the door.

"Mum, shouldn't we wait until tomorrow, I mean, it's awfully dark out, maybe they don't even want guests, we shouldn't disturb them," I called as I chased after her. I let out a shriek as I slipped and slid towards the front door, my sneakers leaving wet marks on the floor as I went skidding across the room.

"Nonsense, it's not evening yet, we'll go introduce ourselves, maybe stay for a cup of tea if they invite us, and then be on our way," she said. She checked to make sure the car was locked and then went back inside the house with me trailing behind her like a kicked puppy the entire time.

Petunia and I grunted as we dragged our trunks up the stairs to the second floor. I hadn't even bothered unpacking mine when I had arrived from the train station so it was full of lots of things that I probably didn't need.

Petunia went left and I decided to head right, maybe if we stayed in completely different areas inside the house it would minimize our chances of fighting. But if I knew my sister, and trust me, I did, she would come looking for a fight even if I did nothing to piss her off.

I chose the first door that I came across. I turned the handle on the dark brown door and pushed it open with enough force that it banged off the wall.

It was a lovely room, the walls were a pale yellow, the large bed in the middle of the room had a mattress that looked like it would swallow me whole in comfort the minute I laid down on it. The comforter was striped with yellow and white. There was a dresser with four drawers that was painted white, and a nightstand next to the bed with a small lamp that turned on the minute I stepped into the room.

There was a large window directly across from me that looked out onto the front of house where the fountain was, white flowy drapes hung in front of the window. There was a door that no doubt led to a bathroom to my left, and a dark brown wardrobe right next to it with a body length mirror nearby.

I dragged my trunk right in front of the wardrobe and left it there for me to unpack later. I took a running start and threw myself onto the bed. The dozen pillows that were on it flew into the air and landed on the floor in soft thumps.

The mattress was absolute heaven. I could have fallen asleep right there and then I was so comfy. I was starting to drift off when Petunia's voice hit me like the lash of a hunting crop.

"LILY, MUM SAID TO HURRY UP WE HAVE TO GO!"

With a sigh and a mournful, "I'll miss you," to my new bed, I left my room. Instead of taking the stairs down, I had the genius idea of hopping on the banister and riding it all the way down. Petunia was waiting at the bottom for me with a disapproving look.

My parents had linked arms and were grinning as if Christmas had come early. As soon as Petunia and I had locked the door, the two of them were off speed walking through the snow. I trudged after them as if I was being led to my own funeral back down the driveway and out the large front gates.

After only a few minutes of walking, my feet were freezing and I couldn't feel my toes. The snow was slowly seeping in through the fabric of my shoes and the heat making its way through my soles until I was ready to just cut my ankles off and be done with the whole ordeal.

I kept pulling my hat down because the wind kept blowing it higher and higher on my head, my scarf kept slapping me in the face, and I was altogether miserable. What pissed me off was that James was such a genuinely nice person it was impossible to hate him now.

Honestly fuck him for doing this to me.

If I hadn't been in such a woe is me mood, I might have noticed how quiet it was in the woods as we walked through them. Or how pretty the scenery was with the trees all lined up the way that they were, reaching towards the sky in the night. I might have even been scared that a bear was going to come along and eat us.

After walking for ten minutes, the mansion next door finally came into view. Whichever family that lived here (that was not the Potters') didn't seem to prescribe to the same grandiosity that Dorcas's parents did. They still had a mansion, but it was decidedly smaller than Dorcas's house, and was missing the large iron gates and the long driveway with a fountain at the end of it.

Ugh, even his house was modest, this was disgusting.

The closer we got to the house, the more the sense of dread grew in my stomach, I started to sweat, which of course only made me colder which was exactly what I was going for. It seemed like forever until we had reached the front door. I felt as if I was going to throw up and Petunia's heavy perfume wasn't helping.

"Lils, are you alright darling?' dad asked, eyebrows furrowed in concern, one hand on my shoulder. "You're positively green sweetheart."

"I'm fine, just a little nervous," I replied stiffly and took in a big gulp of fresh air. I was too busy trying to not pass out to notice much about the mansion I was standing in front of. But judging by the O Petunia's mouth was forming, it was as impressive as Dorcas's mansion.

My parents rang the doorbell, which was loud enough to be heard throughout the house. There was a few seconds pause and then the door swung open as if on its own. My parents and Petunia were staring straight ahead, but I knew to look down, and there stood a house-elf.

"Hello there," I said with a smile. I reached out to shake the house-elf's hand when Petunia let out an unholy shriek and scared the poor thing half to death. The house-elf looked between me and Petunia, eyes wide in fear.

"Are you okay, miss?" the house-elf asked.

"She'll be fine, she's just never seen a house-elf before," I replied, my parents moved aside to allow me to step closer.

The house-elf held the door open wider and gestured with her hand that we should come in. My parents and Petunia shuffled in behind me, still staring at the house-elf with wonder etched on their faces. I barely had time to take in the staircase, the large chandelier in the middle of the room, and the moving photographs of the Potter family on various trips that surrounded the walls of the room we had just entered before Willa started speaking again.

"I am Willa, Mistress will be here to greet you any moment," Willa squeaked and bowed to us. As if on cue, a tall woman, quite a few years older than my parents judging from the lines on her face, but with no gray in sight in her jet black hair. She smiled warmly towards my parents and shook their hands.

"Welcome, you must be the ones staying in the Meadowes' house this year. They told us you were already very familiar with the wizarding world so we felt it would be okay to leave all of our eccentricities as is," she said. She reached for Petunia, who tried her best to hide her grimace and held the woman's hand as if it was scalding and quickly let go. If the woman was offended, she didn't show it. She turned towards me and I rushed forward to shake her hand.

"My name is Euphemia, it's lovely to meet you all, my husband Fleamont will be along in just a minute," she said and I couldn't help but grin up at her. There was a twinkle in her eye that I liked, her hair was long and a nest around her with curls that were all tangled together and messy. I couldn't put my finger on what it was about her that made me instantly like her, but like her I did.

As soon as my parents had introduced themselves, a man, equally as tall as Euphemia and just as old entered the room and I could've sworn the room got warmer. He had dark green eyes in contrast to his wifes warm brown ones.

And he had James's head of hair. Fuck.

He shook everyone's hands enthusiastically and seemed especially excited to meet me. He took one look at my hair and my eyes and a knowing grin lit his face. Oh wow was I going to murder James Potter for whatever stories he had fed his parents about me. My hit list just kept getting longer and longer.

"Pleasure to meet you all, I'm Fleamont," Fleamont said to us all, wrapping an arm around his wife. "Dear, where are the boys?"

I was ready to combust into flames.

"Oh I forgot, they're somewhere in the house working on something. I just hope nothing catches fire," she added with a wink. She walked over to the staircase and yelled, "BOYS! COME DOWNSTAIRS! GUESTS!"

There was a sudden increase of commotion coming from the second floor. There was the thumping of feet as they got closer and closer to the stairs and a sudden burst of yelling and laughter.

First came Sirius, black hair whipping around him, grin spread across his model face (I hated that this man was so beautiful), grey eyes twinkling with mirth. And then a voice that I would know was James hollering at him.

"SIRIUS GIVE ME THE BLOODY SHIRT BACK I CAN'T GREET GUESTS LIKE THIS!" James came into view, shirtless but pants still on thankfully.

The two of them made it to the last step bickering and dodging around each other. As a side note, James Potter looks really fucking good wearing jeans. I really had to stop staring at his ass (you know, I really think I have mentioned his ass before).

"BOYS!" Euphemia yelled louder than both of them, effectively silencing the two. They stopped and stared at her wide-eyed, and at the tilt of her head, turned towards me and my family.

Sirius and James looked over my parents and my sister before zeroing in on me. I could literally see when it clicked for both of them that I was there. Their eyes widened, and their faces split apart into equal, matching grins. I'd never seen two people so excited to see me before in my life. There was a beat of silence and then,

"LILY!" they both thundered and bolted towards me. The last thing I saw before their arms engulfed me and blocked out the world was James's parents trying not to burst into laughter.

a/n: hello i'm here with chapter 2 and i was really pleasantly surprised with the amount of responses that i got in chapter 1. thank you to everyone who read and reviewed and stuff. let me know your thoughts on this chapter and i'll see y'all next time.

thank you to fugacity7 for pointing out my queue/cue boo boo i fixed it now let me know if y'all spot any other mistakes.