A/N: Hi everyone thanks for reviewing!

Disclaimers Note: Alright guys, another ten chapters are up! Yes I've finally reached the big two zero, haha, but seriously, here is your warning:Anything that you may recognize out of the Harry Potter series does not belong to me. No matter how much I wish it did, it all belongs to J.K. Rowling. The only things that belong to me out of this story are the plot line, some of my made up characters, some spell names... etc. Alright on with the story.

Chapter 20

Secrets

Lily and James arrived back at the mansion a few hours later after going to a muggle movie and taking a walk through a nearby park. The couple found Mallory and Sirius sitting in the middle of the main sitting room, which was off the foyer, playing wizards chess. Apparently they had kicked Remus and Amanda out, and they now had the board, and it looked like they had been sitting there for quite a long time.

Several empty bottles of butter beer, crumpled napkins and two large plates covered in a red marinara sauce, surrounded the floor around them. Lily assumed that they had conjured some sort of pasta for dinner because laying in that red sauce were a few limp noodles and the remnants of some meatballs.

Mallory's long banana-peel colored hair had been pulled back into a messy bun and shockingly... Sirius' hair had been as well. Lily assumed Mallory had forced him to put it up like that because he kept fidgeting and cursing under his breath about 'Women and their damn hair contraptions'.

It was extremely obvious that they were taking the game way too seriously, especially since they hadn't noticed Lily or James standing directly behind them. They had been there for at least five minutes watching everything.

Shaking her head, but yet smiling, Lily placed her hands on her hips.

" Okay, you are not telling me, that during the entire three and a half hours that we were gone you two sat here and played wizards chess." Lily scolded, in a maternal voice.

James snickered quietly at the guilty looks on their faces.

Mallory turned around abruptly and smiled, " Heh, when did you two get back?"

" About five minutes ago," James said, smirking, " We've been standing, right here, behind you, all that time."

Sirius and Mallory looked down at the floor.

" Yep, so tell me, have you been playing this game all that time?" Lily asked, knowing the answer.

Mallory shook her head and bit her lip, " Um, no. No, I got up to use the bathroom... twice!"

Sirius nodded in defense, " And I had to conjure dinner."

" Which took a total, of what? Six and a half seconds?" Lily asked sarcastically.

James ran a hand through his hair. " So out of the three hours you sat here playing this game, you got up for a total of what... five.. ten minutes?"

Shaking his head extremely fast Sirius looked at them seriously, " No, no, about fifteen."

James snorted, " That makes such a big difference."

Mallory furrowed her brow and scowled, " What? That's a whole five minutes difference!"

" Exactly!" Retorted James. But Mallory didn't catch on, Sirius' stupidity must have started to rub off on her.

Lily slapped her forehead and broke out laughing, " Okay, it's official, you two are definitely insane."

Mallory shrugged and grinned hopelessly, she couldn't exactly deny it.

" So, ... are you going to leave, or sit down or something?" Asked Sirius as he fiddled with his pony tail for the millionth time.

James gave him a curious look and shook his head, " Um, I don't know. Why?"

" I... um... Well, I really want to finish this game."

Lily rolled her eyes and took James by the arm, " Yeah, okay, we're leaving. Oh, and Mal," she added turning to face Mallory, " where did Amanda and Remus go?"

She shrugged, " Maybe to one of the balconies, or out in the garden. They left here about an hour ago, said they were going to get something to eat. We haven't seen them since."

" Alright thanks," Lily looked over at Sirius, who was struggling with his hair, and smirked, " Um, having some difficulties, Sirius?"

He growled, " This damn pony tail thing is really annoying me... I don't know why you had to make me put it up like this... it's pointless."

Mallory rolled her eyes and threw one of her broken pieces at him, he squealed and scowled at her, " That could've put my eye out!"

" Whatever, just shut up and move, will you?" Mallory mumbled back.

Lily and James left the room laughing, they closed the door as they went and could still hear Sirius' complaining through the thick wood.

Lily smiled, " Sometimes things never change."

XxxxX

After about ten minutes of searching through the garden, James and Lily found Remus and Amanda flying out on the Quidditch court, they seemed to be playing some sort of mini-game, and apparently, Amanda was winning. This was obvious because of the large smirk on her face and the large scowl on Remus'. Who would've thought that would ever happen?

The two of them landed their brooms, with their faces smudged with dirt and sweat but that didn't seem to bother them one bit. They talked with Lily and James about their 'date' for a few minutes, until Lily decided she was going to go clean up. After all it had been a long day, and some relaxation was needed.

" Alright guys, well I'm going to head up to my room and take a bath. I'll probably stay up there and read or something." Lily said, unlatching her fingers from James'.

Amanda smiled and nodded, " Okay, if you're sure. I mean you're always welcome to try and beat me at a game of Quidditch!"

She laughed, but shook her head, " Nah, I'm too tired right now. And plus, even if I wasn't tired, I probably would lose."

Lily turned towards James and gave him a tight hug, " Thanks for dinner." She then kissed him lightly on the cheek and waved goodbye to her friends as she made her way back to the mansion, leaving James, Remus and Amanda behind.

The three of them immediately started up another mini-game of Quidditch.

XxxxX

After saying goodnight to Mallory and Sirius, who were still playing a very intense game of wizards' chess, she retired to the warm soothing bubbles of her bath tub.

Lily washed her hair at least three times with her new citrus shampoo, and soaked for over an hour until her fingers and toes began to prune. She hopped out and lifted the lid to the towel warmer, smiling, Lily watched as a cloud of steam swirled up to the blue tiled ceiling.

She wrapped the warm, soft towel around her chest and made her way to the mirror, and to her disgust she was met by a very distasteful reflection.

With the stress of the trial, the tragedy of her father's death, and having to take care of her mother, she really had no time to worry about her appearance, and now she was going to pay for it. The black bags around her eyes and her frazzled damp waves, definitely were not in any possible way, attractive.

The amazing thing was that, James, and everyone else seemed not to notice how

drastically her appearance had changed, especially James. He seemed to care for her, perhaps even more than before.

Lily sighed and walked out of the bathroom, pushing those nagging thoughts to the back of her mind, and traveled to her closet to change into a pair of silky pajama bottoms and a white wife beater. There would be many other times when she could worry about her appearance.

Her towel was carelessly tossed into the dirty-clothes bin as she plopped down on her soft bed with a book to read.

Lily read until her eyes couldn't stay open any longer. She fell asleep with the book on her chest and her head turned to the right.

XxxxX

About three hours later, around 9 o'clock James started up the steps to check up on Lily. Mallory and Sirius had finally retired from their game of wizards chess and everyone had then gathered in the main sitting room off of the foyer. They were all having a friendly conversation when the Ball had been brought up, and instantly Lily came to mind. Since she had been up there so long James decided to check on her and make sure she'd gotten to sleep.

James sighed and pushed Lily's bedroom door open, all of the lights were on but yet Lily was clearly asleep. He smiled and walked up to her bed, where he carefully sat down.

The bed creaked slightly under his weight and Lily turned in her sleep, knocking the book that she had been reading, onto the floor. James' eyes traveled to the floor and then to the book, he picked it up and turned it over to the cover.

It was a book on dealing with a loss in the family, frowning sadly James placed it carefully back on the nightstand and looked over at her again.

She seemed so peaceful, and somewhat happy. James thought to himself about dinner that night. Lily had actually laughed, it wasn't a fake laugh, and it wasn't forced, it was out of pure happiness. At that time, James couldn't explain to anyone how good it felt to see her smile like that.

James admired her more than ever now because she was holding up so well, dealing with a death is never easy, especially when its someone that close to you. James knew he wouldn't have taken the news as well as she did.

Leaning down he pressed his lips on her forehead gently, he didn't want to wake her. Then he pulled out his wand and conjured a blanket for her, after tucking it tightly around her and turning off the lights he left her room.

When James exited her room he found Remus, Sirius, Mallory and Amanda all standing next to the door, looking at him expectantly.

He smirked, " She's asleep."

Remus smiled and then looked around at everyone seriously, " Good, now let's get started."

XxxxX

The next morning, very early, around six o'clock, Lily woke feeling very refreshed, she threw her legs over the side of the bed, closed her eyes, and stretched. When she opened her eyes again she shrieked, there was a huge red phoenix sitting on her nightstand looking straight at her.

" Merlin, Fawkes, you just about scared me out of my skin." Lily said as she reached over to stroke the bird.

Looking at him more closely, she noticed that there was a small aged piece of parchment rolled up tightly attached to his left leg.

She gasped and grabbed at the parchment, " The funeral."

Unrolling it quickly, Lily began to read the letter to herself.

Miss Evans,

I apologize sincerely if I have interrupted your plans but I needed to inform you of the plans for your father's funeral. I have scheduled it to be held at five o'clock in the evening at your church, I believe it's called The Church of God. If you would like to move the ceremony time or location please let me know before tomorrow. I also need to know what type of casket you would prefer him to have. You will be able to contact me at the school until six o'clock this evening, I will be leaving for a meeting at that time. If you decided to owl back please use Fawkes, I have also enclosed extra parchment for your convenience. Thank your for your time.

Professor Dumbledore

She let out a relieved sigh and smiled faintly, it was nice to know that her father would be having a beautiful funeral. Without giving herself the chance to tear up again, Lily gave Fawkes a block of sugar from a little dish on her desk, he sucked on it eagerly and cooed at her once he had swallowed it.

Lily wrote back the details to Dumbledore, imagining all the while who would show up and what the ceremony would be like. She sent Fawkes off quickly and headed to her closet to slip into a pair of comfy shorts and a halter. After dressing and brushing out all the knots from her long auburn hair she headed down to the kitchen. Since it was still very early she didn't think anyone would be up, so she made her way downstairs very quietly.

But to her surprise she heard the muffled voices off all five of her friends, Lily stopped dead in her tracks.

Why would they be up at six o'clock in the morning? At the same time? Together? Whispering about... wait, did I just hear my name?

Lily let go of the guardrail on the stairs and took off her sandals, holding them in one hand she tip-toed over to the entrance of the kitchen and listened in on their conversation.

" Guys we really need to watch what we say about her," Lily heard Mallory say quietly.

" Yeah, you know, she's not stupid. She's going to figure it out sooner or later." Amanda said.

When Lily heard James' voice enter the conversation she was floored, why would her boyfriend talk about her behind her back?

" She won't find out. We can't let her, you know she will get upset. Now are we going to finish up here or are we just going to wait for her to bust us?"

Bust us? What's that supposed to mean? Lily wondered, furrowing her brow. She was just about to turn around and head back up to her room when Remus started up.

" You know guys, I'm really getting tired of these secret meetings, I've been waking up at four o'clock in the morning now for what... three weeks? This is starting to get on my nerves."

Lily's mouth just about dropped to the floor at that, Three weeks? My, "best" friends have been gathering together, behind my back to talk about me for three weeks now! What is going on!

" Yeah, James. Why four? Why can't we have more 'meetings' after she goes to bed like last night?" Amanda asked, sounding highly aggravated.

" Because, I don't like going in there and checking up on her! She's going to figure it out! Do you want that?" James asked viciously, which took Lily off guard, she'd never heard him use that tone... not since her first year. Were things going back to old times?

Sirius sighed, " Whatever man, I'm sick of this though, I'm going to be so glad when its all over."

Lily heard James growl, " Well, I'm sick of all the complaints, imagine how hard it is for me! Now let's get back to bed before we wake her up, and remember..." James continued but got interrupted by Mallory.

" Act normal, we know already, after three weeks you get good at lying."

As they started to get up from their seats, Lily flew up the steps with tears in her eyes. What was going on? Why were they plotting things behind her back? What were they plotting? She didn't even know if James really wanted to be her boyfriend anymore, the only thing she did know, was that she wasn't going to let them find out she knew. But she was going to give them all hell for lying to her for the past three weeks.

A/N: Hmm, weird huh? Well I hope you liked it! Please review, and sorry about the shortness.