Dear All! Thank you soooo much piptook for reviewing and hello to everyone who has patiently read this fanfic!

I've just finished reading HBP. As always I thought it was flawlessly written although throughout the first portion of the book I was a bit like 'hmmmm' even though I couldn't find a single bone to pick. Mind you, from chapter 26 onwards it was heart-wrenchingly amazing and it truly was a climax! And one that left lots of questions too! The set up for book 7 is sooo itchingly unbearable and I can't wait for the very last HP! What did you guys think of the book?

I also learnt from HBP that Lestrange was at Hogwarts the same time as Voldemort, which means that technically this story is very AU since I've had him go to school with the Marauders! Oopsie!

Anyways, here comes another chapter!

Disclaimers: I don't own anything HP related.

ONE SMALL STEP

She kissed him.

The split second the sensitive skin touched she drew back ever so slightly, perhaps as shocked at the unexpected gesture. The touch elicited a surge of something inexplicable in James and he leaned in for a second touch. This time the touch lingered into a real kiss.

With a shock Lily found herself enveloped in something she had never felt before. Their pursuers could have reached them and brought them to a misery worse than hell, magic could cease to exist or the ground could have opened and swallowed the night whole, but still, she would never have released him.

She ached inwardly while his lips attentively brushed against hers and deepened the kiss; they were so persistently sweet in its courting that she would've gladly surrendered. With a gasp she pulled back almost afraid that the feeling would consume her very soul.

Released from a perfect imprisonment James touched her face wondering if she were there at all. He'd kissed many girls but none of them had ever had this kind of meaning.

He shifted his weight-

-Suddenly he wasn't standing anymore-

Lily yelped in surprise as he fell down and slid down the slanted tiles. She made a desperate grab for him but ended up losing her balance and tumbling with him.

James slid all the way to the edge and could not stop himself as he rolled over but his hands managed to hook onto the water gully and he hung there suspended. "Lily!" He made a panicked grab for her arm as she rolled past him and off the edge. He caught a hold on her but his shoulder screamed in pain at holding both their weights.

Lily tried very hard not to scream and she tried to reach the wall with her legs but it was too far away. Above them the roof door exploded and she could hear Tether. The kitchen knife had loosened from her waistband and dropped over the edge followed by a plink a few seconds later.

With a grunt James held on for dear life, it was a pretty long drop. A large Barn Owl flew down by his life holding hand.

"Let go." Tatty ordered.

"What!" James managed.

"Let go, trust me." With that she gave James's hand a hard peck.

"No!"

The owl gave his hand another hard peck and fingers slipped.

With a scream James and Lily fell-

---

Their screams cut were cut short; almost as instantly as gravity took hold of their fate they hit the floor. James opened his eyes. That had hurt but surely it should have hurt more since they had just fallen to their deaths?

"Whoa!" he sat up, his eyes wide as he took in their surrounding.

"Where are we?" Lily sat up bewildered and confused.

Creaky floorboards underneath. Uncomfortable. "Unless I'm hallucinating we're in the room I rented at the Leaky Cauldron." James said slowly. Yes, that was definitely his uniform on the bed.

"How on earth did we fall into here?"

"Beats me." He reached out and touched the end of the bed panel and it was solid. Without warning he hit his head on it. It made an audible thunk and a sore patch on his head. "Ow! This is definitely real." He concluded rubbing his head.

"It might have been easier to pinch yourself." Lily almost smiled.

James grinned. "Gave me an answer didn't it?" he reached out and pinched her arm.

"Ow!"

"Oh look, looks like you're not dreaming neither!" They both chuckled which eventually gave way to a strange laugh before they fell quiet again. This was weird. Everything had happened so quickly that there hadn't been any time for them to react and now it all seemed to catch up.

Lily looked up and caught James' eye. "What now?" Meaning what they're next step should be.

James gave a small shrug. "I don't know but right now I really need to pee." He got up and legged it to the small bathroom adjacent to the heavy door. Lily sighed. Well it seems that she was the only one catching up on recent events. Getting up slowly she hobbled to the bathroom door.

"Don't take too long because I really need a bath!"

"I know! You smell!" Came his reply and the sound of the toilet flushing and running water from the tap.

"As if you don't!" Lily threw back and sniffed her robes, if anything they only smelt musty but her cheeks warmed nonetheless. "Come on it's my turn!"

An hour and a half-later James emerged from the bathroom clean with damp hair. After his quick loo stop he'd had to wait for an hour and fifteen minutes before Lily was done with the bathroom. He was about to comment on how long it took before he could have his turn, but the words died in his throat when he saw Lily.

She was huddled up against the headboard clutching a pillow. She sobbed silently, tears that had refused to come before had finally arrived. James knew instantly why she was crying but he didn't know what he could do. There were no words anyone could ever say to lessen the grief of losing loved ones. If time really healed then he wished he had a time turner but he had nothing of the sort on him. Even the clothes he was wearing now were borrowed from Tom, the pub owner.

Sitting down in front of her he removed the wet pillow and opened his arms as a substitute. Without a word Lily scooted into his arms and gave a muffled cry into his shoulder. James wrapped his arms around her while she cried stroking her hair as her sobs grew a little louder and coursed through her body like it had infected her blood.

They sat like that for a very long while until at last she'd exhausted herself and her tears subsided before she fell into a dreamless sleep.

James kissed the top of her head. If offering her shoulder to cry on was all that he could do then that's what he'll do for the rest of his life.

---

Sunlight poured through the open window of the room and fell on the couple collapsed on the single bed. It warmed Lily's face and she stretched a little as the brightness gently nudged her back to the waking world.

Her movement awoke James and he yawned before his eyes snapped open. At first he was surprised that he wasn't in his usual bed in the dormitory but surprise gave way to discomfort because both his arms were extremely dead and he panicked when he chest felt heavy when he breathed in.

Lily moved again and gave a sleepy sigh as well as the answer to why his body was weighted down. James relaxed marginally but then panicked again as he tried to remember what had happened the night before. He relaxed again as it all came back and cleared his morning daze.

Lily's eyes fluttered open and she blinked. The light was no longer so pleasant and they stung her sensitive eyes. They felt swollen even as she blinked and judging by how crap she felt they were probably the least of her problems. With a groan she buried her head into the bed except it wasn't the bed that her face went on to.

"Oh no." She said with her face down on James' warm T-shirt.

"What?" James croaked.

"Don't look at me." She ordered. "I look rough."

"I'm giving you a run for your money mate."

"Can you not argue with me for once?"

"Okay, fine. I won't argue with you. You look rougher than I do."

Lily searched for a comeback for that but she couldn't seem to find one. "You-urh!" she thumped him lightly on his chest and settled back on it. James laughed and she knew he was laughing at her, but at the same time she was strangely comforted by the way she could hear his laughter rumble through his body.

"We need to get back to Hogwarts." She said looking out the window blankly. "We need to tell Dumbledore everything."

James agreed, besides the fact that he'd sneaked out of school Dumbledore really needed to be clued in. "Damn Tether! He's a bloody Death Eater!" he cursed but then continued thoughtfully. "He didn't look the most stable but there was something about him that's very dodgy. Didn't he say something like 'Dark Lord owns me'? That sounds a bit fishy to me. What if he's under the Imperius curse?"

Lily didn't answer and James realised his mistake in mentioning Voldemort's name so soon and brainstormed quickly for a way to back pedal out of the hole he'd stupidly dug.

As if understanding his desperate attempt to undo what he'd said Lily said, "It's okay James, you can say his name. It does make me sad when I hear it but it also makes me a good deal angry, maybe even more so than sad. If it makes me angry then I could do with hearing more of his name because I will do something about him, even if it kills me. Him and his damn Death Eaters! I'll make sure they pay!"

James was taken aback but not surprised at her venomous tone. If it were he, he would have been tearing down walls and setting fire to anything that even suggested that it was involved with Death Eaters. But all this was a bit heavy duty for James' morning brain so he took a turn and steered the conversation away.

"I think calling him a 'Lord' gives him too much status, I suggest we call him something like…like Voldie. I mean who wouldn't be insulted with the name the 'Great Voldie'?"

Lily laughed and the tension eased off marginally. "I wouldn't call him 'Great' neither, it implies that he's…well…great."

James nodded. "You're right. Voldie he is then." Lily giggled grateful that he was there.

"Oh look, Tatty is back." She said as she spotted Tatty glide smoothly in through the window and gracefully down onto the bed.

"Yea, about that…" James started.

"Hey girl." Lily said and stroked her head. "How are you?"

The owl blinked. "Fine, thank you."

Lily withdrew her hand as if she'd been burnt. She stared at Tattlaevore's luminous amber eyes in disbelief.

"Yea, about that…" James started again.

"Jamie…your owl is talking to me." She said out the corner of her mouth before tearing her gaze from the owl and looked up to his. "I must be going crazy."

James opened his mouth but the expression on Lily's face…it was just so…she looked shocked more than anything but her eyes were so wide and she seemed so sincerely worried that she may have lost it…it just seemed so…comical. Before he knew it a deep throaty laugh had escaped him and once it started he found it very hard to stop. He curled over on the bed and Lily drew back looking horrified.

"Potter!" she exclaimed and then she began to look angry.

"I'll-explain when -I'm-done-laughing!" James gasped between laughter. Lily punched him but still he laughed.

"I must say, you kids are really amusing these days." Tatty observed. James continued to laugh. "Say, care to share the joke?"

---

James and Lily dared to take the Knight bus back and arrived at Hogsmeade without any difficulty. From there they made they way back to Hogwarts on foot since arriving on a three decker purple bus might have been a little too conspicuous.

"Where'd she go? I wanted to ask her more questions!" Lily asked, head tilted to search the clear skies for the owl.

"Dunno, but I'm pretty sure she's hiding from you!"

Lily huffed but let it drop. "So I'm curious of how she got us out of danger and into the room. That was an impressive piece of magic. Nothing wrong with that."

"Not really…that is, if you ask once or twice, but when asked repeatedly…I dunno…" James ducked as Lily took a swipe at him and missed. "Why am I suddenly concerned that this is going to be a very painful relationship?"

"What was that?" She growled.

James held up his hands in surrender. "Nothing! Just commenting on the weather!"

Her eyes narrowed to give a shrewd Lily look.

"Why do you always walk around with bed hair?"

"I don't!" James said indignantly. If all conversations with Lily went like this he would end up with a very nimble mind indeed. She practically flew from topic to topic as if she were apparating from one side of the world to the other and apparently without any warning.

"Yeah you do!" Lily insisted. "You woke up with your hair like that!"

"I did brush it! It's just the way it is. I haven't been able to do anything about it all my life." He gave a mock gasp. "Maybe now that you've seen it in the morning it will start to behave!"

Lily again narrowed her eyes, this time in mock anger. "If I had a bigger hand I would really knock your jaw off!"

"Why only if you have a bigger hand?" James wondered aloud although he knew he was asking for it.

"Because it would hurt more!"

"Oh, that makes perfect sense now." He said shaking his head with a smile. Hogwarts came into view and he pulled Lily back and fished out his wand. "Hang on a minute. We can't let people see us. I'm supposed to be in school still and you…urm we'll think of an excuse of how you got back when we get back in. Maybe Moony will come up with a good one. As for Tatty, she insists that we ask the guys when we get back why her Guardian spirit has entered my owl." He shot a look around. "I guess she's still in hiding."

"Um…" Lily hadn't really been listening because she'd felt the oddest sensation on the top of her head as she turned around to face him. "Did you just throw an egg at me?"

James smirked. "That's not a bad idea but no, it was just a Disillusion charm."

"Oh." Lily looked at her arms and admired how they now camouflaged her. "I bet you have used this charm a million times."

James shook his head. "Nope. We usually use the cloak; it's a lot easier. I'm quite surprised the charm worked actually, first time I've used it."

Lily raised a disillusioned eyebrow that of course he couldn't see, but it wasn't at the idea that she had been at the receiving end of a spell that could have gone wrong. "Jamie?"

"Hmm?"

"So how did you fly about after you arrived in London?"

James paused; it sounded like one of those trick questions that were commonly used to test IQ. "On a broom?" he answered uncertainly.

Lily smiled and rolled her eyes at him. "Yes, of course but how did you fly about without people seeing you?"

"Ohhhhh! That's easy, with my cloak." Lily bit her lip while James looked at where he thought Lily was standing before prompting for an answer. "What?"

"Oh sweets," she said in a manner that made him felt like he'd done something really dumb. "The cloak doesn't work when flying because the wind whips it away from your body."

"Oh." He said feeling extremely stupid indeed, but then he shrugged. "Oh well, at least Muggles would get a kick out of it by pretending I'm a UF thing."

"UFO" Lily corrected and pulled him into a hug. Sometimes, just sometimes she found his stupidity quite endearing.

"Hehe, it looks like I'm hugging air!" he chuckled merrily and Lily yanked his hood over his head so neither of them could be seen.

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