Disclaimer: As always, I do not own any of the Harry Potter or Harry Potter related copyrights.

"You're being completely unreasonable!" shouted Lily. "How dare you say such things about the man whose baby I'm carrying!"

There had never been such a silence since the beginning of the world, and its highly unlikely that there will ever be such a silence again.

Jess, who was perched on the arm of the couch, promptly fell off of it in shock. Mary, who was standing, fell backwards and luckily landed on the couch. Benjy and James both bounced up immediately with identical looks of horror on their faces. Danny took it all in stride and said, "Mazel tov!"

That broke the silence.

It also woke Tony out of his shock-induced stupor. "WHAT!"

"What else would a bunch of hormonal teenagers locked up together in a co-ed boarding school do all the time? Teachers don't give nearly enough homework to occupy us," said Lily.

All eyes went on James as if to hold him accountable for what Lily was saying. James just backed up a couple of steps, mouth still wide open, with his hands up in the universal gesture of 'I come in peace'.

"Ummm… well then Lissy, I guess we'll support you…" said Danny unsurely.

"You're coming right home," said Tony. "And staying where we can all keep an eye on you."

Then Benjy, in his quiet manner, which was far scarier than Tony's ranting, said, "Now where is this guy? I'm gonna kill him."

"Now Benjy, are you really going to kill the father of your first niece and nephew?" asked Lily with a slight laugh.

"What was that last part?" asked Jess, speaking for the first time.

"Yeah, I'm having twins," said Lily, only the tiniest hint of sarcasm evident in her voice. "Can't you tell?"

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed James awkwardly as he looked from face to face. "This is a joke right? Right?"

"No, really Remus and I went and got married during the last Hogsmeade visit," said Lily sarcastically.

"Well at least you got married," Danny pointed out. "Does he have a job?"

"No, but that's fine with me. We can just live on love and ramen noodles," said Lily, who was finding it harder and harder to keep a straight face.

"Excuse me, but I have a best friend that… needs to be taken care of," said James as he headed towards the door, his face very grim and his knuckles white from clenching his fists so hard.

Before Lily could say anything, he had exited the room and a large pop was heard.

"Ut oh," said Lily as she realized that he had disapparated away. "I swear I was just kidding! I didn't think he would believe me!"

"Lillian Marissa!" shouted Mary as she jumped off the couch. "I've got a best friend that needs to be taken care of too! How dare you scare me like that you idiot!"

Jess immediately jumped off of the floor and began helping Mary to hit Lily with couch pillows.

"Um, guys, as much as I think you have every right to hit me with couch pillows, I think I need to go intercept a murder!" said Lily as she ducked and ran out of the room. Like James, as soon as she was out of sight of the muggles, she disapparated to Hogsmeade.

As Lily arrived at the edge of Hogsmeade, she glanced around for a mop of messy black hair. When she didn't see him anywhere in the almost empty streets, Lily started to run. How was she going to explain this one to Remus?

James ran towards Hogwarts, confused thoughts running around his brain like moths around a candle. Lily and…. And Remus?! Since when? How could he have not noticed his best friend and the girl he sort of kind of fancied… wanted to be friends with, sneaking off together?!

Then James remembered what had happened on the train on the way to school back in September…

After Lily's closing statement, everyone left except for Lily, who was waiting for Remus, who was waiting for James to see if James would explain his recent behavior.

"You coming Remus?" asked Lily as she gathered her stuff.

Remus looked at James directly with a cold stare and when he noticed that James was not going to be forthcoming with any apologies or explanations, said, "Yeah Lily, let's go."

James looked back at Remus in disbelief. Then he looked at Lily spitefully as she and Remus reached the door.

"And where are you two off to?" he asked nastily. "To find an empty compartment to go snog in?"

Lily turned around sharply, as did Remus. She opened her mouth to retort, but Remus got there first.

"Go take a long walk off of a short cliff Potter," spat Remus. "Come on Lily, let's get out of here."

James' jaw dropped as Remus put his arm gently around Lily's waist and directed her out of the compartment.

He should have known! But wait, Lily had said that they went and got married in Hogsmeade… first there wasn't anywhere to get married in Hogsmeade, second, she was dating Richard at the time, third she was with Richard that whole day if she wasn't in the hospital wing, fourth, she and Remus hadn't been talking at that point, as far as he knew, fifth, Lily had told him the night before that she didn't want to get married…

Finally things fell into place. James halted right in the middle of running and started laughing. He laughed so hard he fell down. Then he started rolling around, clutching his sides. Eventually, his laughter subsided; he stood up and, while leaning on a tree, he wiped his eyes. He had been laughing so hard he had cried!

"Well done Evans," said James to the sky. "Marvelously played."

"Thank you," said Lily with a grin from across the road where she was also leaning up against a tree casually, trying not to show how out of breath she was from having run so far so fast.

"I can't believe you," said James as he started walking towards Lily, shaking his head with a smile that seemed to be threatening to split his face in half.

"What? You didn't think I had it in me to play such a prank?" asked Lily, her chin jutting out defiantly.

"Honestly?" asked James, pausing a bit for drama. "Nope. Not at all. I must say I am pleasantly surprised."

"Come on, let's get back. I want to show you some of the sights of muggle London," said Lily, beckoning James to follow her.

"So you and Remus huh?" asked James with a sidelong glance at Lily as they began walking back towards Hogsmeade together.

"Shut up you great prat," said Lily good-naturedly as she shoved James.

"Hey!" he said as he only stumbled a bit. "Did you just push me?"

"I believe I did," said Lily with a coy smile as she began to walk faster. "What's it to ya?"

"No one pushes me and gets away with it!" exclaimed James as he began to run after Lily.

She began to run as well and soon the two of them were running down the dirt road, laughing and goading each other on.

Finally, James caught Lily and threw her over his shoulder.

"Put me down!" demanded Lily through her laughter.

"I don't think so!" taunted James as he began to twirl her around.

"Please put me down?" tried Lily.

"Nope!"

"Would you put me down for an ice cream cone?"

"No!"

"How about a chocolate frog?"

"Nope! You can't bribe me! I'm completely unbribeable!"

Lily thought for a moment and then said, "Can you be persuaded?"

"Depends," said James. "What 'cha got to persuade me with?"

"I suppose it's more of a threat really. Like, put me down so that we can back or else Tony will personally kill you, Danny will hide the evidence and Benjy will talk their way out of anything that comes up," said Lily from her perch on James' shoulder.

"I must say that that sounds pretty convincing; mostly because I'm pretty sure that all of your friends hate me," said James as he stopped spinning and put Lily down slowly. James fully realized that she was correct in saying that they needed to get back to Benjy's house before they got it in their minds to kill him; he wouldn't put it past them.

"They don't hate you," said Lily slowly as she stumbled, dizzy from being spun around.

James laughed as he watched Lily try to regain her poise; at the same time he was, more successfully, trying not to lose his footing himself.

"You would think after years of lessons in posture and balance and all of that ballroom dancing, I wouldn't stumble so much," said Lily as her head finally stopped spinning and she was able to remain standing upright.

"I didn't know you had taken lessons in balance," scoffed James.

"I know it sounds ridiculous," said Lily as she resumed walking towards Hogsmeade. "My mother insisted. Yet another thing I agreed to to be allowed to walk down this beautiful road."

"What was that last part?" asked James. Lily's deep and bitterly sarcastic comment had gone way over his head.

"Never mind," Lily said, letting out her prefect inaudible pitiful sigh. "Did you have any sights that you wanted to see in London?"

"I'm up for whatever," said James.

"Good," said Lily. "We all chose a place to take you. As soon as we get back we can leave and go out on a grand adventure through London."

"Sounds like fun," said James as he chuckled at Lily's dramatic voice.

The pair continued on their way down the road under an arbor of colorful Autumn foliage. At one point, wind started to blow and it shook the leaves off of many trees. James couldn't help but laugh as he watched Lily break away from his side and twirl slowly, arms out-stretched, on the road as the leaves swirled around her. She seemed so at peace with the world as she took part in the beauty that surrounded her. James was once more awed at the beauty that surrounded him.

-----

Just as Lily had said, as soon as they returned to Benjy's house, the group got ready to go. Before they went however, James took a trip to the loo and strangely, when he returned, all of Lily's friends were very friendly towards him. The situation only got odder when Lily directed a wink and a smile at him when he shot her a curious glance. James was very grateful for what he perceived to be Lily's intervention in the matter.

Lily and co. took great delight in showing James the great muggle aspects of the city. They showed him both the hot tourist spots and attractions that only locals would know about.

"So how do you all know so much about London?" asked James as they walked down a crowded side street. "I can understand Benjy knowing all this local stuff because he lives here, but the rest of you don't live here do you?"

"We all grew up in a small town only about an hour from here," answered Jess cheerfully.

"So we all came out here to visit often," continued Mary.

"My parents lived here when they were first married, but moved to our quaint little town of Hopington shortly before my sister Petunia was born," said Lily.

"I still remember the day that your parents moved onto my street," said Benjy quietly.

"Me too, we were only five or six at the time. I was over at my dear cousin Benjy's house so our mothers could gossip and Tony was there too because his mum was good friends with our mums," said Danny, elaborating on the story for James' benefit. "The three of us were sitting in the window seat in the living room eating crackers and milk for our snack and wondering who was going to move in next door. We were all hoping that it would be a boy our age. Then we saw the moving van and a car pull up to the house. Benjy got so excited he jumped up and spilled his milk all over Tony."

The group laughed, especially James, who couldn't imagine Benjy as getting very excited about anything.

"Then this little girl with bright red hair, kind of like this color," continued Tony as he pulled Lily's hair to illustrate. "Jumped out of the car and ran up to the front door before anyone else. She tried to open the door but it was locked, so she started to look around the neighborhood. Of course, one of the first things she saw was Benjy, Danny and I sitting in the window staring at her. She waved and we bounced out of the house to introduce ourselves like the gentlemen we were."

"You forgot the part when she asked you if you had wet your trousers," said Benjy.

Everyone howled with laughter.

"It was your fault in the first place!" stammered Tony.

"After she asked him that he turned red like a tomato and ran away. She never let him forget it either. When we were teenagers, anytime Tony would mention anything about liking a girl near-by, she would drag him over to her and say 'Hello, this is Tony Romero, he fancies you and he wet his trousers when he was six,'" continued Benjy in a wistful voice.

"I remember that!" exclaimed Danny. "She did it every single time and he never caught on!"

"We always treated her like one of the guys!" protested Tony. "I forgot that she was a girl most of the time."

"Are you trying to say that my sister was only a girl most of the time, or that most of the time you forgot the fact that she was of the female persuasion?" asked Lily mockingly.

"You know what I meant!" said Tony, who was easily frustrated.

"I know someone who was aware that she was a girl," said Mary in a sing-song voice.

"Who?" asked James.

"Benjy," answered Jess. "It was so hilarious. I remember right about the time I was five or six, Benjy couldn't manage to say a single coherent thing while she was in the room. He also always blushed and smiled whenever her name was mentioned."

"It was so cute," said Mary. "Lissy, Jess and I used to talk about them when we were playing tea party and such. Lissy gets the credit for the explanation first."

"What was it?" asked James.

"Benjy had a huge crush on my sister," said Lily while glancing over at Benjy to make sure he was okay with talking about his dead wife.

"She also accurately predicted that they would get married," Jess pointed out. Then Jess turned to James and said, "It's funny; Lily has always seemed to know Benjy better than anyone else, even me, and I'm his sister!"

"At the time I think it was just wishful thinking," said Lily just as a familiar and hated sound reached her ears.

"Oh no," she then groaned.

"What is it?" asked Mary.

Then the rest of them heard the sound too. Quickly and quietly, the group began to break up and blend into the crowd. James just looked at Lily curiously and said, "What-"

"Walk faster," she commanded as she grabbed James' arm and began to weave through the crowd.

"What?" asked James again.

"No time," huffed Lily as she heard the sound again.

Lily was sure that they would make a clean getaway until they came to a crowd that had gathered around a huge automobile accident and they were unable to walk through it as quickly as Lily would have liked. Lily then concluded that she couldn't ignore that annoying sound and its origin any longer so when the call of, "Lillian Evans!" came once more, she plastered an excited look on her face, let go of James' arm and turned to face the music.

"Oh darling, how are you?" she said as she approached one of the many girls that she was forced to associate with at her step-mother's social events. Unfortunately Lily couldn't quite recall this particular model of bleach blonde's name, but, as usual, a simple 'darling' or 'dear' worked perfectly as a substitute.

The two young women hugged loosely and then they separated and the blonde girl replied, "I am simply wonderful! Harold proposed to me two weeks ago on our anniversary! I'm here looking up some invitations that Barb says she saw yesterday that are just divine! But what are you doing here? I thought you were at that boarding school of yours until the holidays! What was the name of it again dearie?" said the blonde girl extremely fast.

"St. Augustine's," replied Lily smoothly before James could say anything from his position just over her shoulder.

The blonde wrinkled her forehead for a moment, as if in deep thought and then said, "Of course, how silly of me to forget!" she gushed.

"And how is it? I am so glad that I am out of university! Such a tiresome bore, hearing professors drone on and on; after a semester I just couldn't take the pressure! It was killing my social life and just giving me the most awful wrinkles on my forehead and bags under my eyes. Speaking of bags, oh my dear, it appears that you have some dreadful ones!"

Lily's hand instantly drifted up to the region of skin directly under her eyes.

The blonde kept talking incessantly, "Don't worry dearie, there are ways to hide such flaws, not all of us can be perfect. Unless of course there is a reason you're losing sleep," she giggled in a most annoying way as she stared directly at James, realizing that he was in London with Lily, far away from school, and that he was quite handsome.

Lily looked over her shoulder at James and rolled her eyes; he just grinned, apparently amused by the whole ordeal.

When Lily didn't immediately make any introductions, the engaged, giggly girl got a bit antsy and said, as she twirled a strand of her bleached hair around one finger and smiled flirtatiously, "So who's this week's flavor Lillian?"

Lily feigned confusion and then pointed to James, "Oh you mean him? This is James Potter a friend of mine from school."

James shook her hand in greeting, but didn't comment. He figured that he was better off as a spectator and not a combatant at this point.

Blondie looked doubtful, but didn't press the matter, "So what are you two doing all the way here in London?"

"School trip," stated Lily emotionlessly.

"Really?" asked the Blonde.

"Yup," verified James.

Lily then looked at her wristwatch and exclaimed in a tone not dissimilar to Blonde's, "Look at the time! James, we have to get back to the hotel to catch the train back to school! We have to hurry or we won't make it!"

"Oh must you go?" asked the Blonde in a voice that couldn't be mistaken for remorse no matter how low a person's I.Q. was; she had her gossip to share among her friends, there was nothing further that she needed from naïve little Lillian Evans.

"Yes, I'm afraid we really must, but once I get back on Christmas break we really must get together," said Lily which was a nice way of saying, 'I don't like you and I will never actually call or contact you if I can help it.'

"Oh yes, I look forward to it!" squealed the Blonde who's name Lily still could not recall. She had narrowed it down to two or three, but she wasn't quite sure, so even at their parting it was just a 'darling.'

Once they had separated and James and Lily were a ways away, Lily let out an exasperated, "I hate her!"

"And her name is…?" asked James teasingly.

"No idea," said Lily. "But she doesn't know that now does she?"

"No, but how could you hate her if you don't even know her name?"

"I just hate her!"

"Now Lily, tell me how do you really feel?" asked James rhetorically as the rest of the group filtered back to them.

"Sorry about that guys," said Lily remorsefully.

"No problem Lissy," said Danny.

"We have to hurry if we're going to make it to the film," said Benjy as he glanced at his watch.

Luckily, Jess remembered a short-cut from one of her numerous visits and they made it to the theater in time. After the show, it was time for Lily and James to part with the rest of them. While Lily was hugging the girls and promising to write more often etc., James was shaking hands with Benjy, Tony and Danny, who had seemed to genuinely warm up to him.

"Well James," said Tony as he shook his hand. "You're actually not half bad."

"Thanks I think," said James.

"I agree," said Danny. "You seem to be a really good friend to Lissy, and that is most important in our books."

"Look after her for me," said Benjy solemnly as he met James eyes. "I think she's in more trouble than she realizes and trouble has a tendency to find her. She'll need you before long I think."

"Don't scare the boy Benjy," said Tony genially. "We all know Lissy can take care of herself. After all, I taught her all sorts of moves!"

Having heard the last comment, Lily tapped Tony on the shoulder. He turned around and in three moves she had him pinned to the ground.

"Yup," he croaked breathlessly. "She can definitely look after herself."

Lily helped him up and gave him a big hug, whispering something in his ear that made him laugh.

"Take care Liss," said Danny warmly as he hugged her good-bye. "Don't do anything you wouldn't do in front of Benjy, so basically don't have any fun or do anything exciting."

Benjy just rolled his eyes good-naturedly as Lily stepped forward to hug him next. As they hugged, he whispered to her, "Please be careful Lissy, I couldn't bear to lose you. Keep your head down and stay close to James; he'll take care of you."

As Lily pulled back she looked Benjy straight in the eye and shook her head slowly. "You know I can't do that."

"Please," he begged. "Please don't give anyone a reason to harm you."

"They don't need a reason. I've gotten in more trouble being born in this world and then invited into that one than I could ever possibly bring upon myself. But I promise I will watch out for myself."

"No more traveling down dark corridors at night by yourself for a midnight snack, okay?" jested Tony, though they all knew that there was more to it than that.

"Not that I've ever broken the rules by doing that," said Lily sarcastically.

"You know where the kitchens are?" asked James in surprise.

"Of course I do," said Lily.

"Well anyways," Danny interrupted. "Enjoy the rest of the term and hopefully we'll see you when you come home for the holidays. Do you think you can get away sometime to visit us? We're all meeting at my house this year."

"Now that I can apparate it shouldn't be a problem," Lily assured them. "I'll owl you with the details when it gets closer."

Finally, James and Lily left Benjy, Tony, Danny, Mary and Jess, and headed back towards their hotel for supper.

James' first question when they headed back was, "How are you able to owl them? They are all muggles right?"

"Yup, they are all muggles, but owls aren't magically activated or anything. You just have to buy a magical owl. For Christmas our first year I bought an owl for Benjy and Vi and an owl for the rest of them to share, so that it would be easiest to stay in touch with them all. After Danny and Tony moved farther away I got them their own owls. Daisy has one too," explained Lily.

"Aren't their neighbors suspicious?" wondered James.

"Well Daisy goes to a school for creative artsy people, so everyone there just accepts the oddity of having a pet owl. The part of town Jess and Mary still live in has some woods near-by that their owl lives in. And the guys are all pretty much considered to be oddballs anyways; the owls just contribute to their image."

"And earlier someone mentioned something about Daisy; she's which sister again?"

"She's my younger sister. She's thirteen."

"Yeah, well they mentioned something about her and London…?"

"When Daisy was only four, she was diagnosed with a childhood cancer, so she spent a lot of time in hospitals and seeing specialists here in London. Naturally, the rest of us spent a lot of time here too, visiting her and coming with her and stuff. And Jess, Mary, Petunia and I were still pretty young, so Vi and the guys took us out in the city to distract us from what was really going on."

"She got better though, right?" asked James, who was slightly confused. He only vaguely knew what cancer was, and he thought that most often people died from it.

"Yeah, it took her two years, but eventually she beat it. That's when she learned to draw. She spent so much time in hospitals and not being strong enough to do much that my mom taught her how to draw and how to draw well. Even after she was strong enough to run around, she liked sitting and drawing and coloring better. She was accepted into a very prestigious school for artistic prodigies when she was eleven," bragged Lily.

"That's very impressive," said James. "I would love to see some of her work."

"I have a whole sketchbook that she completed over the summer. She sent it to me a few weeks ago. When we get back to school I'll show it to you."

James smiled, happy to see such a big smile on Lily's face, "That would be awesome. Now I have another question, why do they all call you 'Lissy'?"

"Violet gave us all pet names when we were little. And naturally, they caught on among the guys and Mary and Jess."

"Where did she get 'Lissy' from though?"

Lily thought for a moment and then answered, "I never thought about it before but I suppose it's from my whole name- Lillian Marissa."

"That's cool," said James nodding. "So have you known all of them your whole life?"

Lily smiled and said, "You ask a lot of questions. Don't I get to ask you any questions?"

"Sure, but answer mine first and then you can ask me one, though my life is far less exciting than yours."

"What is your favorite childhood memory?" asked Lily with a sidelong glance at James.

"Define 'childhood'," joked James with a grin at Lily.

Lily laughed and said, "You're right; based on your maturity, a childhood memory could have been something that happened yesterday. Regardless, I'll set the time period as ten and younger."

James searched his memory banks for a while and finally came up with, "I think it was the time I was five and my dad took me to my first Quidditch game. It was the World Cup in Germany."

"Is that where your love of Quidditch came from?" asked Lily, who was thrilled that she was the one asking questions.

"Maybe," said James slowly. "But I think that it's my favorite more because it was one of those few times when my dad totally stopped working and just focused on me."

"I bet as a big time auror he has to work a lot," said Lily sympathetically.

"It always surprised me how much aurors have to work even when they aren't on active duty and just work in the office. It's a lot more than just going out and catching the bad guys or writing reports, there are a lot more hours involved than most other jobs, even when there isn't a big maniac on the loose. I hardly saw him at all last summer."

"My dad works a lot too. The only times I get to see him is when I somehow negotiate him into taking me with him when he goes into London to give lectures about that stupid case of his," said Lily bitterly.

"What case?" asked James. "What does your dad do?"

"He's an attorney, and a few years ago, right after the doctors announced that Daisy was completely healed, he hit this really big case. The people involved had already gone through several lawyers and everything looked bleak, but then some friend my dad had from law school recommended him- just a small town lawyer that made just enough for his family to get by with his wife's combined salary- and so he took on the case. Sometimes there were whole weekends that I didn't actually see him. He spent most of his time in London working, or at his office, working, or with the people he was working for.

"About half-way through the case, the accident happened. Those few days I was in the hospital and for the funerals were the most I had seen him in months. Then he went back to work and left Petunia to balance her life and taking care of me and Daisy. She became really, really bitter that summer. Not that she wasn't always bitter towards me… because I got into Hogwarts and she didn't."

"It's something to be jealous of," said James slowly, once again overwhelmed by the little insight he had gotten into Lily's life.

Startled, Lily steered the conversation back towards James and before the pair knew it, they were back at the hotel.

"I'll see you at dinner?" asked Lily as she stood at the door to her, now-empty, hotel suite.

"Definitely," said James with a grin. "Want me to walk down with you?"

"I think I can handle it by myself," Lily grinned. "But I'll save you a seat."

"See you there," said James with a wave, feeling a bit disheartened that Lily had refused his platonic offer.

After Lily closed the door behind her, she leaned her back up against it and slid down to the floor. She couldn't believe the butterflies that had sprung up in her stomach when James had offered something as simple as walking her down to dinner. It scared her, a lot.