"Come on then, I'm starved" Sirius said, urging them on, prodding Peter between the shoulder blades to speed him up the street. Lily gazed about the sleepy town with great interest, picturing a younger version of the marauders playing there, maybe making nuisances of themselves with the neighbors. With his free hand James waved to an old woman who perched in a rocking chair on the porch of a charming little house, who scowled back at them suspiciously as they passed, following them with narrowed eyes, which confirmed for Lily her suspicions that James had been less than the towns golden boy.

She felt butterflies in her stomach at the thought of meeting his parents. Certainly she had seen them at the train station but had never gotten around to saying so much as a hello which was hardly surprising considering the history of her relationship with James. He grabbed her from behind then, spinning her in a circle before allowing her to regain her footing, then threw his arm over her shoulders as they came to a halt next to a high gate at the end of the lane where the others had stopped to wait for them.

Lily ran her hand down one of the ornate bars, gazing through them into a host of large trees that threw shade over paths and gardens and stone statues. She spotted a pond farther in.

"What a beautiful park" she said, turning back to the others, "why is it closed?"

Sirius and Remus exchanged half a glance, and Peter snickered before a smack to the back of the head from James silenced him.

"What?" she asked, confused and annoyed to be missing whatever it was that they shared.

She looked at James. "Where's your house then? What are we doing here?"

"Lily, this is where my parents live" he said quickly, gesturing to the wrought iron gate and the gardens beyond. He seemed to flinch slightly as he met her gaze.

"You're joking?"

Sirius grinned and extracted his wand from his jeans pocket.

"Can we get on with this then?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer he turned, tapped the plate where a key might go twice with his wand and the gate made a faint clicking sound before swinging open to admit them.

Lily's butterflies had very suddenly turned to panic, a feeling that continued to grow , her jaw dropping as James and the others led her under the canopy of trees, chatting just as they always did, down a path that wound around the pond, past several fabulous gardens and what could only be...

"Is that you?" She asked incredulously, coming to a halt next to what could only be...

But James just laughed. "No, of course not Lily, that's my grandfather, or great-grandfather or something...now I think of it maybe an uncle." He shrugged, utterly uninterested in the bust of a man's head and shoulders that stood on a stone pedestal.

"Oi, you two coming? What's the hold up?" Peter called from up ahead and Lily looked up just in time to get another shock.

"You didn't think to mention that you were incredibly rich? You said your parents had boring ministry jobs" she said, spotting what could only be described as a large stone manor house up ahead.

James shrugged again. "They do."

"Lily, You do know that the Potter's are one of the oldest wizarding families, don't you?" Sirius asked her, clearly amused by her surprise.

"Yes, I knew that, I just didn't know that that came with a mansion."

"It's not a mansion" James protested defensively, but Lily ignored him, staring up at the grand building ahead of her, open mouthed.

"How long do you think this is going to take?" Sirius asked, glancing at his watch.

"And to think, this is only the summer house" Remus said casually, leaning back against a tree, hands in his pockets.

"He's only joking Lily" James assured her quickly, trying to ease her, but her mind was elsewhere.

"Look at me" she said suddenly, staring down at her clothes, which she had chosen for their convenient cleanliness, an old pair of jeans and a tank top, an outfit which seemed much more out of place for meeting her boyfriends important parents than they had on the train from school or even when she had pictured Mr. and Mrs. Potter as more of a magical version of her own parents. " What are your parents going to think?" She glared at James accusingly

"Lily, my parents aren't like that, I promise, alright. Everything's going to be fine, trust me."

This seemed easy for him to say. He kissed her, then turned back towards the house. Remus pushed away from the tree and matched her pace.

"They really aren't like that" he assured her. "Look at me. How do you think I felt the first time I came here. Sure, I'm not dating him, but it's really something for me when two people like the Potter's are perfectly fine with their son spending the majority of his time with a werewolf from a poor family. Just take it easy." He smiled. "Besides, their not home."

"They're...they're not... home?" she asked.

"They'll be at work until later, probably much later" James explained.

Sirius glanced over his shoulder. "We thought it would be easier for you to have a trial run, see? Get over the initial shock of all this?"

"Because just telling me beforehand would have been far too difficult?" she asked sarcastically but they all just grinned at each other as she followed them up the steps to the large double doors that opened on their own onto a wide hallway lined with photographs and paintings and heavy wooden doors save for the one on her left, double glass doors that led into a cozy sitting room. A staircase led to the floors above.

She stopped for a moment to admire the entranceway, her mouth still hanging open, then trailed after the others down the hall and around the corner, already feeling as though she would quickly get lost if she were left on her own, and made to follow Peter into the sunny open kitchen, but James caught her by the waist.

"You guys make yourselves comfortable" he told the others unnecessarily. Remus had pushed open the doors to the adjoining patio and thrown himself down in a deck chair, Peter had his hand stuck in a cookie jar and Sirius had already disappeared into the pantry.

"Alright then" James said, turning back to her, "Shall I give you a tour?"

"I think I might need more than one." She said. James smiled.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you" he said, guiding her up the stairs. "Being...rich, being a Potter, it changes things, it changes everything, so I never know who my real friends are."

"James..."

"Oh, I don't mean them" he said, reading her surprised tone and gesturing back down the stairs. "Their my family Lily." He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know... Then you came along and who I was meant nothing to you and I had a chance to be more than just a Potter, more than just my parents son, you know. Granted I blew it for the most part, apparently I wasn't as good at being decent as I thought I was cause for the most part I didn't have to be."

"But you are James."

He raised an eyebrow.

"You are now. Maybe you always were and just failed at showing it."

He gave a half smile but didn't respond. They had come into a large drawing room with great windows that overlooked the gardens below and Lily felt as though she was in a palace. She leaned against the window ledge and James wrapped his arms around her.

"I hate to admit it, but you really do have a beautiful home" she said. James chuckled into her hair. She let him kiss her neck for a moment before drawing back.

"James, do you think we'll be back?"

"I'm sorry?" he asked, preoccupied.

"I know that after we leave my house next week I may never go back. I might never see my parents again after Petunia's wedding, and I know it's for the better, that they're safer that way, but that hasn't really been helping much."

His arms tightened around her and he looked up, meeting her gaze with dark eyes, and she wanted him to say something that would relieve the knot in the base of her stomach but she knew there was nothing anyone could really say to make her feel better about abandoning her family, whatever the reasons, even for their own good.

"This isn't going to last forever Lily" he said finally, "It can't. Nothing does."

A sudden chill traveled up her spine and she drew away from the window.

"I want to see your room" she said, sounding overly cheerful even to herself. They headed back into the hall and it turned out that there were another three staircases to climb before they reached a door down a hallway covered in wall hangings and thick curtains, a door that matched all the others around it but had a J burned into the wood above the latch.

"So you can find which one is yours?" Lily asked, hands resting on James' back, watching as he used his wand to unlock the door.

"Yes actually" he said.

"Funny, I've never had that problem in my house. And when I say my house, I mean I live in what would actually be defined as a house."

James grinned."Are you ready?" he asked in a mysterious voice. "I do believe you will be the first girl ever to be allowed to enter...except my mother...and the house elf."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Ya, well we have a ton of guest bedrooms on the ground floor that I found were better suited to-"

Lily put up a hand. "I'm changing the subject" she said quickly. "You have a house elf?"

"But of course. Now, shall we?"

"But of course."

James opened the door with a flourish and beckoned her through. She expected to find a bedroom on the other side but found herself instead in another corridor, though this one was quite narrow, dark and empty. She glanced uncertainly over her shoulder wondering if James hadn't opened the wrong door by mistake but he just smiled and closed the door behind them, throwing the area into complete darkness. Then quite suddenly a number of torches lit up all along the walls, guiding her several meters to a winding stone staircase at the top of which was a trapdoor that she might have knocked her head against had James not moved passed her and thrown it open. Already in awe, Lily stepped out and stared around at what James so easily called a bedroom in wonder. Sure there was a bed, shoved up under a slanting ceiling that was made up almost entirely of a glass skylight showing off the darkening sky outside and a few brave stars. It sat on a raised platform that ran along one side of the room to a set of steps up to another section that was crowded with sofas and a number of bookshelves, complete with ladder to reach the highest volumes. There was a desk covered in old schoolbooks and every wall seemed to be plastered with quidditch or Gryffindor paraphenalia as well as dozens of photographs of the Marauders and even some with Lily herself in them, mostly taken since the sixth year when she had begun to spend time with them.

There were books everywhere, though everything was tidy, suggesting the house elf had been there, and there were charts and plans pinned to the walls or lying on available surfaces that she was sure might be for inventions of sorts, as she spotted one that appeared to be an early failed attempt at the marauders map that clearly didn't function.

"Well, what do you think?"

She turned to James who was watching her apprehensively, as though he had anything to worry about. She thought of her own bedroom and how boring her home seemed in comparison to this one. She wondered what James would think when he saw it.