It was just beginning to drizzle when the vibrant red Hogwarts Express pulled up in Platform Nine and three-quarters, in Kings Cross station. The sky had been a typical murky overcast for the duration of the journey. I sighed as the familiar pang of loss hit me, and left the compartment that I was sharing with my brother and his best friend, Scorpius Malfoy. His incredibly attractive bestfriend, I reminded myself. I wasn't quite sure where the dreadful crush on Scorpius had come from, but it, and the fact that it would never be returned did a good job of driving me slowly insane. My friends, who were aware of my attachment to him, had insisted that I sit with him for the journey, rather than in a compartment with them. I couldn't decide if I was grateful or not.

I jumped of the Hogwarts express, and leaned back through the doors to retrieve my trunk. It took a lot of solid heaving, but I couldn't get it to budge even an inch.

Maybe the expansion charm wasn't such a good idea after all. God knows how much stuff I packed in there.

Albus, who still waiting to dismount, stepped over my trunk and hopped down onto the platform beside me.

'Looking for some help, dear sister?' He said with a wink.

I raised a dubious eyebrow as he leaned forward and grabbed my trunk by the handle and pulled. It didn't move. He scowled and tried again with both hands, but with no avail. Sighing, he hunted in his pockets for his wand.

'God, Lily! What have you got in here?'

'Just some clothes and books and stuff…' I said innocently.

'Wingardium Leviosa!'

We turned on the spot in surprise to see my other elder brother, James, with his wand out. He smirked and shook his head as he directed my trunk onto a trolley. I stuck my tongue out at him. Just because I was only five foot two and unlikely to grow any more, my brothers treated me like I was hopeless. I knew they were only teasing, but it still got to me.

'I was getting to it!' Albus growled. 'I don't need you doing everything for me as if I'm still not allowed to!'

'I believe I was doing it for my little sister here, not you.'

I stifled a giggle as Albus glared down at James. He may have been a year and a half younger, but he was already three inches taller than our elder brother. Albus cherished his more than average height; it did a good job at scaring boys away from me, much to my annoyance. It was nice though to know that he cared about me so much. He only didn't want my heart to get broken. However, I was sixteen and perfectly capable of looking after myself.

Albus chose not to reply, which was probably the best option. He pulled his trunk off the train and shoved it onto a trolley. Then, with one last scowl at James, he pushed it through the light rain over to where Mum and Dad were waiting for us. Filled with a sudden longing to see my parents again, I joined him. It took a lot of effort to get my trolley moving, but I managed it eventually.

'Lily! Albus!' Mum grabbed us both by the arms and wrapped us into a tight hug. It was rather uncomfortable being squashed up next to my brother, but I'd missed my parents so much that I didn't care. When we were released, Dad stepped forward and kissed my forehead and then clapped Albus on the back.

'You're growing faster than Ron did at your age!'

I heard a familiar laugh from behind me. It belonged to my aunt, Hermione.

'Hugo doesn't seem to have inherited his genes though,' she said, ruffling the already messy hair of her son. Hugo scowled and turned away. Rose, who had just turned up pulling her trolley behind her, rolled her eyes at her younger brother. There was barely and inch between them in height.

'Where's Dad?' She asked.

'Parking the car, we had a few errands to run while we were here. London can be such a nightmare. He's going to wait for us on the other side of the barrier.'

With a smile, I remembered back seven years ago when uncle Ron declared that he was going to get a driving licence. It took him three times to manage it, even with help from Hermione and he still had to confound the examiner. I wondered if she actually knew.

'What sort of errands?' I asked suspiciously.

Hermione just shared a knowing glance with my parents and tapped her nose. I growled. There was nothing that bugged me more than people hiding things from me, except possibly the uncomfortable drizzle that was surrounding us all.

'Anyway.' Albus said impatiently. 'It feels like we're standing in a cloud. Could we possibly go now?'

oOo

It was quite a relief to step out of the torrential rain, and into the warm-ish hallway of Grimmauld Place. I usually liked the rain; in the solitary, romantic walks through the open field sort of way, but not trudging through London with your family. It was early evening, and my stomach was growling violently. I wondered vaguely how long dinner would take, seeing as my mother was with us, and hadn't begun cooking yet. I considered offering my services, in the hope that it might be quicker. But judging by my culinary skills, that wouldn't have been a good idea.

'All right, you know the routine. Dump your dirty things in the washing room, unless you want them to go mouldy,' Mum said, before performing a drying charm over herself, and heading down into the basement.

I clambered up the two flights of stairs to my room and threw open the door. Everything was exactly as I had left it. An issue of 'Witch Weekly' was still lying open on my desk, now almost a year out of date. I sighed in contentment and threw myself down onto my bed, grabbing my blue covers and scrunching up in my arms as I did so. As much as I loved the four-posters in my dormitory, there's nothing like your own pillow, and your own room. Despite the horrid English weather, it was the summer. I closed my eyes and suppressed a groan. Summer. I was going to have to find birthday presents for both my parents. That was Albus' department, not mine. He always seemed to know what people wanted, somehow. I made a mental note to bug him for ideas at some point over the next few days. Just as I was doing that, I heard a knock on my door.

'Come in.'

The door opened, and through it came my trunk, floating along in the air.

'Is that you, Al?' I asked

'No, it's James'.

'Thanks.'

I waited for the footsteps to retreat down the corridor before plonking myself down onto the faded rug on the hard, wooden floor. Very few rooms in our house had carpets. I grimaced knowing that if I didn't sort all my dirty clothes out now, then I wouldn't ever get round to it. For most of the year they were washed by the house elves, but a few weeks before the end of term on realising I had enough to last me, I had stopped bothering. I pushed open the lid and pulled out every item of clothing that I had stuffed into its expanded depths. I saw what my brother had meant; there was a lot of stuff on it. More than I thought.

It took three trips to get all my laundry downstairs, dropping many things along the way. The piles were so large that I had trouble with seeing where I was going and I almost tripped over the steps countless times. I wouldn't have been surprised if it took my mother all summer to get the washing done even with the help of magic. By the time I was finished I was exhausted and I decided firmly that everything else in my trunk could wait until tomorrow to be sorted out. I changed out of my wet clothes and dragged myself down the stairs one last time, and entered our capacious sitting room.

Dad was sitting on the most comfortable sofa and had started a game of wizard chess with James, who was sitting cross-legged on a large, squashy cushion on the floor. Albus was slumped in an armchair nearby, reading the day's edition of the Daily Prophet. I watched his eyes skim over the paper and his face unconsciously change into amusing expressions, before wandering over to sit next to my father and observe while his queen was obliterated by one of my brother's knights. I flinched as her sword went flying in my direction and almost hit me in the eye.

'Sorry, Lils.'

'S'okay.'

The game went on in James' favour, as more and more white pieces were destroyed and all three of us looked like we'd just returned from a chalk quarry. I swore that this particular set was a lot messier and more violent than most. No doubt it came from the same direction as my uncle's joke shop. My suspicions looked to be confirmed when the pieces started to glare at each other across the board and crack their knuckles.

'You're getting way to good at this.' Dad grumbled. 'I'll have to start refusing to play with you soon.'

'But you're the only person who will play with me.'

'I wonder why…' I muttered sarcastically.

Two minutes later the game was over, and my brother had won with almost three-quarters of his pieces remaining. He asked me if I wanted to play, but I politely declined. He didn't seem at all surprised. I looked at the clock and yet again, wondered how long dinner would be. It was already seven o'clock. I brushed the worst of the dust from my clothes and wandered down into the kitchen and was hit by the smell of lasagne. It seemed to be almost done, so rather than returning upstairs I just sat down at the table, while my mum cleared up.

'Lily love, could you do something useful please?'

I sighed and stood up. I should have known that I would be asked to do something productive, rather than sitting there and doing nothing. I dragged myself over to the dresser in the corner, and pulled out a pile of plates and a handful of cutlery. I laid them all on one end of the table, which was so long that unless we had the entire family around to visit for some reason or another, most of it was scarcely used. There were many rooms in our house too, that nobody ever had a need to go in.

'So honey. Did anything interesting happen this year that you'd like to tell me about?'

No, not really. Unless you count falling into complete craziness for your brother's best friend. How cliché…

I shrugged. 'Not particularly. The OWLs went all right but no doubt I failed History of Magic. Everyone seems to.'

'I'm sure you did great, sweetie. So what about boys then, how's it going in that department?'

I froze momentarily, hoping my cheeks wouldn't turn red and give me away. I tried not to think about a particular blonde Malfoy. It was hard. Very hard. I was very much decided that I was not sharing that little secret with anyone yet, especially my family.

'Mum…'

'Sorry. I just want to let you know that I have no problems with you dating, that's all. I don't want to hear your brother has been trying to stop it.'

'Thanks, but it's okay. Honestly.' I looked away and laid down the last knife. 'I'd never allow Albus to stop me doing something I don't want to do. You know that.'

She looked at me for a moment as if she wasn't sure she entirely believed me, but then nodded and turned towards the cooker to retrieve the lasagne. Mum wasn't quite as good at cooking as Grandma Molly, but she was still a lot better than me. Even James wasn't that bad when he could be bothered. I slipped out of the kitchen and returned upstairs with the excuse that I was going to inform everyone that dinner was ready.

So - Chapter numerol one. I have up to four already pre-written :)