"We love you, Harry," Lily whispered into her son's ear as she leaned in to give him a hug. She pulled away after a while, her hands still resting on his shoulders as she looked into his eyes. "We will see you at Easter, ok?"

He nodded, smiling, pulling his mum into a hug once more before turning to his dad to pull him into an embrace as well. "I'll see you guys soon!"

Lily looked to Ron next, "I hope you'll come and visit us again soon. We promise it won't be as hectic as it was this time."

"Are you kidding it was fantastic!" Ron exclaimed, just as the whistle blew. "I'll be back for sure!"

James just chuckled at the young boys antics, ruffling his bright red hair as he dragged James' own son away. Both boys hopped on the scarlet red train, and waved frantically at Lily and James who remained standing on the barrier long after the train was gone.

"Well that was most certainly eventful," Lily said as she took James' hand into her own.

"Yes it was," he said, his eyes still glued to the spot where the train once was.

"Looks like it's just you and me, again," Lily said as she started pulling him back towards the barrier.

"And Remus and Sirius," James continued on for her.

"How could I forget," she said sarcastically. "The two kid adults, or should I say three," she added slyly, giving James a playful shove.

"Hey, I'm a grown-up," he retorted.

"If you say so," she responded, winking.

"Did you find anything on Flammel?" Hermione asked, sticking her head into yet another occupied compartment. "I asked my parents but of course, them being muggles, they had no clue as to who he could be. The library near my house had no reference to him either. So?"

"So?" Harry asked her back, following her lead as they finally settled into an empty compartment.

"Did you find anything, of course?" Hermione asked him again, rolling her eyes.

"No," Harry said, looking to Ron with a look that told him to be quiet. "We looked through the books that my mum had stored in the basement but found nothing."

"What about your mum or dad?" she urged as she pulled out a couple of books from her trunk.

Harry and Ron just looked at one another, worried expression on their faces.

"Well?" Hermione questioned again, taking in their vacant expressions.

"Well, we kind of got, uh, distracted," Harry began explaining.

"Yeah! We were going to ask, really, but then it was snowing and Fred and George got the idea that we should have a game outside, then Harry's parents got involved and," Ron took over, his voice ringing with excitement as he outlined the events of their winter break.

Hermione looked at them for a moment, disappointment spread across her face for the slightest moment before she turned back to her books. She looked up just moments later. "I didn't expect you two to find anything at Harry's house anyways, so it's not a setback really if you think about it," she started, before flipping the book she had open on her lap around to them. "From what I've gathered so far, I think it's safe to say that he is not a muggle."

"What's this supposed to show us?" Ron asked scratching his head.

"Oh, well I wanted to ask you if either of you had read this section for potions over break?" she asked pointing to the point on the page to which she was referring. "It confused me at first, but then I think I got the concept upon reading it over again. I thought maybe I could compare with one of yours."

The boys, yet again had vacant expressions on their faces that told Hermione all she needed to know.

"You didn't even touch your school work over break, did you?" she continued to nag.

The boys opened their mouths to start to explain but she cut them off.

"Oh don't bother. I'm not the one who is going to fail Hogwarts end of the year exams because I don't bother to do my work over the holiday's," she continued before getting up and slamming her books shut. "I'll see you at school then. I need to go find someone in our class that actually bother's to do their homework."

Ron just shrugged as the slammed the compartment door shut. "Dumbledore again!" he yelled, his attention diverted back towards his chocolate frog cards.

"It will be nice to have you back, Mr. Potter."

"I look forward to being back," James responded, shaking the Head Auror's hand before he departed the Auror Department at the ministry.

He walked towards the golden grates, to take him to the atrium. James held on tightly as the lift whizzed throughout the Ministry's various floors and wing's. His mind was in other places though, wandering to his thought's of the past few month's of his life, living with Remus and Sirius. He stood there thinking about how much everything had changed since that night that Hagrid had brought magic back into their life by presenting Harry with his Hogwarts letter.

"James Potter?"

He looked up to see a cheerful red-headed man entering the lift. He looked at the man for a moment, trying to place the man's face with a name.

"Hi, uh…" James started, outstretching his hand to the man, "how are you?"

"My apologies, James, how could I forget," Mr. Weasley started again, a smile spreading wide across his face. He shook James hand in response before stating, "I'm Arthur Weasley."

"Of course, I should have guessed," James responded just as the lift whizzed away yet again. "How was your trip to Romania?"

"Wonderful, absolutely wonderful, although Molly was just thrilled to see Charlie again—he's been gone only a few months now, but you know mothers, months are practically years in their books," Arthur continued jokingly.

"I can only hope I'll never have to experience that with Lils," James joked.

"Ah, yes, well I suppose it would be much worse since you only have young Harry at home," Arthur observed. "With seven you tend to lose track, but they always keep you busy that's for certain."

"I can imagine they would," James chuckled, "Especially with those twins you have—they're quite the pranksters aren't they?"

"Drive Molly mad with all the explosions they have going on in their room during the school breaks—I hope they didn't cause you and Lily too much trouble," Arthur said apologetically.

"None at all," James said as both men exited the lift at the Atrium. "They helped us cause it," he added, chuckling. "My two good mates from my own Hogwarts days have been staying with Lily and I, so it was a good time for us to have your son's there. Definitely changed up our family of three dynamic for the better."

"Well, I would say you could have them over whenever, but I'm not sure Molly would agree," Arthur chuckled.

"Probably not, no," James agreed, thinking of future mayhem that would undoubtedly ensue. "Lily probably wouldn't either. She has it bad as it is with Sirius, Remus and myself."

"How is Sirius?"

"Better now that Pettigrew has been put away," James, said, the anger still apparent in his voice.

"You attended his trial then? I was sad to have missed it but the department's been bombarded with raids recently, barely leaves time to do anything but go home and sleep."

"Had to testify at it with Lils. It was sickening, really. In many ways I wish I could have missed it—makes you question everything and everyone, you know?"

"Oh yes. Molly was in denial when we heard from Percy about the on goings, kept repeating how untrustworthy people remain to be even in these times—it seems like there is always some war or another going on, even in these peace periods."

"Prejudices mainly," James responded simply.

"Well I am glad that everything has been set straight now. Only a month now and the kids will be home for summer, hard to believe another year at Hogwarts is almost done," Arthur noted as he slowed his pace down in front of one of the fireplaces in the entrance hall.

"It is truly crazy, but Lils and I are excited to have him back in one piece—thank goodness that it only got out of hand one time with the troll, I was expecting much worse," James joked.

"Molly just about had Ron's head with that one, but I calmed her down before she got to sending a howler up to him. I don't think I'd be able to do it a second time if those kids of ours got themselves stuck in another hard spot," Arthur chuckled back before saying his farewell's to James and heading on his way.

James was about to bid Arthur goodbye when he turned around to the man once again.

"Arthur, I know this is out of the blue, but would you and Molly like to have dinner with Lils and I tonight?"

"He finally did it, James," Lily huffed as her husband walked into the kitchen. "And here I was thinking that maybe, just maybe I was lucky and my son had enough common sense to not be corrupted by his prankster father."

"It was only a matter of time," James chuckled before he hugged his wife from behind. "So what did he actually do?"

"It's all in there," she said as she eyed the opened Hogwarts envelope on the kitchen island, before she went to go back to cutting carrots.

"Here?" he said, picking up the envelope.

"Mhhm," she said, as he knife cut yet another vegetable in half.

James turned the envelope over and slid out the letter, as he did so he imagined his own mother and father doing exactly what he was doing in this moment. He remembered the look that his mother always wore whenever she was momentarily upset with his actions. His eyes diverted to a moment towards his wife and saw that same expression drawn upon her face. He chuckled for a moment before going back to the letter.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Potter,

I regret to inform you that your son, Harry, was spotted out of bed after curfew this past evening. As previous leaders of the school yourselves I am sure you understand the actions we have taken. Your son, and his accomplices will be in detention this evening.

Please take the time to address the severity of your child's actions with them and help us to ensure that this does not happen again.

Hope you are well,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

P.S. James Potter, for the sake of myself and every other teacher at this school, please do not encourage this behavior—we cannot handle another group of students like the Marauders.

"I can't believe she actually wrote that," James exclaimed, laughing as he ran his hand through his hair.

"I can," Lily said smugly as she set the food on the table.

James looked over the letter a couple of more times, only looking away once he realized Lily was waiting for him to join her.

"Come on, it's our first night without Remus and Sirius," she said, patting his place next to her at the table.

He smacked his hand against his head, before turning to his wife who was yet again wearing a worried expression.

"What now?" Lily pleaded, placing her napkin down on the table.

"I had something to uh, tell you before I came in," he started, looking at her sheepishly as her gaze at him deepened.

"Which was…?"

"Knock, knock!" A voice boomed out from another room in the house, just as the sound of crackling flames went down.

"Arthur, you are going to scare them half to death shouting that loud," another voice said, lecturing the first.

Lily looked behind her to the hall, before she whipped her head back towards her husband who had begun making his way towards her, hands outstretched in apology.

He came up to her slowly; placing a hand on her upper arms before he began calmly rubbing them up and down.

"I ran into Arthur at the ministry," he began, a flicker of recognition flashing in Lily's eyes.

"How'd it-" she started, but he stopped her by continuing on with his sentence.

"I'll tell you later," he said smiling. "I invited him and Molly over for dinner. I thought it would be a nice way to actually introduce ourselves as more than just Harry's parents."

"That was nice of you," she smiled back, before she pecked him on the cheek, "but you should have warned me—I don't have nearly enough for four of us."

"It'll be fine, Lils. We've got to have other food lying around—we live with Sirius. I'll just whip something up."

"We don't want to poison them, James," she laughed.

"Har-de-har-har," he mock laughed back.

"And want to know something else we shouldn't do?" she continued, backing up towards the doorframe, James following her as she did.

"What's that?"

"Keep them waiting," she grinned, spinning to face the hall. She flashed him another smile before she sped off to the living room, James hot on her trail.

"Ah, James, how good it is to see you!" Molly Weasley exclaimed as he made his way into the living room. The smiling plump witch made her way towards him and gathered him into a hug, much like she had done only seconds before with his wife, who he could see over Mrs. Weasley's shoulder talking to Arthur about an object on the mantel. "Thank-you for your invitation, your home is lovely. I do hope my sons didn't cause too much damage here when they stayed—which I must thank you for again. It broke my heart to leave them here when we went, but we had to visit Charlie seeing as it was his first-"

"It was our pleasure, really Molly," Lily cut in, flashing a smile at the rambling women, who stopped talking and turned to her husband to grab the container out of his hands.

She presented the tin to Lily who looked at it in awe.

"Oh, Molly, you are our guest, you didn't have to bring us anything," Lily said, peaking under the wrapping to see what the food was.

"It was nothing, really. I had already prepared it when Arthur came home telling me about the change in plans," Molly smiled. "It was the least I could do. Besides, if your husband here is anything like mine, I know he wouldn't have run this past you and you would have been caught completely off guard."

Lily and James looked at her in shock, their mouth's open before they started laughing and completely agreeing with Mrs. Weasley's statement.

"Would you like anything to drink?" Lily offered after the adults all stopped laughing. "We have some butterbeer, firewhisky, pumpkin juice, or anything else really—a muggle drink perhaps, Arthur? Your son's mentioned your fascination with some of the thing's we like to keep in this world."

"OH, yes. Surprise me," Arthur smiled at Lily after he looked up from the television remote which he had been thoroughly inspecting. "Wonderful," he continued on muttering.

"James," Lily nudged him, sending him on his way over to demonstrate the television for the inquisitive wizard. She turned back to Molly, "And yourself?"

"Butterbeer will be fine, Lily, thank-you, but please let me help," Molly said and before Lily could even object to the help, Molly has bustled past her and towards the kitchen.

"Well we'll just be in the kitchen then," Lily announced, before turning to follow, but she stopped dead in her tracks when the front door whizzed open.

"I'll just wait in here for my dinner then, Lilikins!" the voice of Sirius Black boomed out.

Lily turned to look at him, a flabbergasted expression plastered across her face before she turned on her heel and threw her hands up in the air to go assist Molly in her own kitchen.

"Glad to see she's still happy to see me," Sirius exclaimed as he fell back onto the couch and propped his feet up onto the coffee table, failing to notice the guest.

Remus followed in the room a few minutes later, having gone on to the kitchen to apologize to Lily on behalf of Sirius.

"You're a pig," was all he said to Sirius after whacking him upside the head.

"James, how'd it go at the Ministry?" Remus inquired a couple of moments later after taking a swig of butterbeer.

"Got the job," James grinned, turning his attention away from the TV and back towards his friends. Another sound of pure fascination coming from Arthur Weasley's lips diverted James' attention yet again. "This is Arthur Weasley by the way, Remus, Sirius," he said, making the introductions.

"Wonderful, absolutely wonderful it is to finally be meeting you both," Arthur said ecstatically, shaking the two men's hands.

"You as well," Remus and Sirius both responded.

The four men stood chatting for a few moments, interrupted only when they heard Molly's voice ring out from down the hall.

"I've got them, don't worry, Lily," they could hear her saying.

"Ah, yes, well you can meet my wife, Molly," Arthur said grinning as he looked at the two newcomers'.

They turned and watched as Molly made her way in with a tray carrying various drinks.

"Arthur, Lily gave me quite a few concoctions for you to try, but don't waste them dear, I'm sure they cost quite a bit," Molly said, placing a few drinks in front of her husband on the coffee table. "And this is for you, dear," she said, passing a particular one to James. She turned, then to Sirius, but his drink never made it into his hands as Molly had screamed and fainted to the floor, causing his drink to go flying all over her.

"I guess she wanted that one all to herself."

"And then," Sirius exclaimed as he stumbled around the living room, "I went up to her and kissed her full out on the mouth—she didn't even see it coming. I told her it was my good-bye gift to her."

"Don't forget to tell them about the fact that she smacked you over the head with your diploma!" James exclaimed back to his friend, who was strutting around the living room re-enacting the whole scene from their graduation day from Hogwarts.

The room around them was glowing, with the lamps and the crackling fire bouncing off the walls and empty firewhisky bottle, creating shadows on all of their faces. The breeze coming in from the street was warm, signaling the coming of summer, and the new friends sat there close together laughing at one another and their timeless memories from their Hogwarts days.

James had his arm draped lazily around his wife, whose head leaned on his shoulder turning into his chest when she tried to stifle her laughter. Molly and Arthur sat adjacent to them on the other sofa, both were trying to contain themselves as Sirius continued to reenact further scenes from their Marauder day's. They all failed to notice the owl that had swooped in and perched itself on the TV until the moment that Arthur and Molly began making their way to the fireplace to head home.

"It really was lovely to have you both," Lily cheered from the sofa, too tipsy to be able to get up. James laughed with her for a moment before making his way out from behind her body and placing her back down comfortably on the sofa cushions.

Molly and Arthur, who both had their fair number of drinks stood near the fireplace holding one another up for support, laughed along with Lily as well and hugged Remus and Sirius goodbye multiple times.

James bid his goodbye to them both, telling them that they would definitely have to get back together again soon considering how much fun the night had been, and with those last few words the Weasley's were off.

"Well that was most certainly entertaining," James said, clapping his hands before he began to gather the empty bottles from their various places around the room.

"Ooo, let me help," Lily said, starting to get up only to be pushed down moments later by Sirius who thought in his drunken state that the best way to detain her would be to sit on her lap and weigh her down.

"Get off me," she huffed, pushing him with all her might to no avail.

"Lightweight Lily, lightweight Lily," Sirius continued to tease.

Remus merely shrugged at James and began helping clear while the two 'children' bickered in the corner.

James and Remus finished up quickly, throwing the bottles in the trash outside.

"Alright, alright, enough!" James yelled, silencing both Lily and Sirius. "Sirius, get off my wife," he continued, pushing his best mate onto the ground before sliding one hand underneath his wife's knees and the other behind her back, picking her up off the couch and pulling her close. "Come on, Lils, bedtime," he whispered before saying goodnight to both his friends.

Remus and Sirius both muttered their goodnight's back, before they continued a pointless argument that Sirius had began not moments before about whose bed was whose, despite their sleeping arrangement's having been the same for the past few months.

"Hedwig's so pretty," Lily muttered softly, her head resting against her husband's chest.

James just smiled at her as they rounded the newel post, headed up the stairs.

"We should give her to Harry next year—I think he'd like that," she continued muttering.

"We did, Lils. Hedwig's at Hogwarts with Harry right now," he said back to her, his gaze focused on the steps ahead as to avoid tumbling.

"No she's not," Lily chorused back, a little more alert this time. "She's right there," she said, pointing to the television set that was almost out of view from their position.

James stopped and followed her outstretched finger to see their son's snowy owl perched on top of the television set, just like Lily had said.

"What on… Remus! Sirius!"

"Whaaaat Prongs? I'm tired," Sirius complained, the firewhisky clearly getting to him.

"What's Hedwig holding?"

"Hedwig?"

"The owl on the TV."

Sirius, clearly exhausted just shrugged and collapsed on the couch.

"Remus?"

"Just a moment," Remus said, relieving the bird of it's burden. "It's a letter from the school."

"Two in one day? I think he's trying to catch up with us Sirius," James said proudly before he turned to set Lily down on the stairs before heading back towards where Remus was standing.

"I'd like to see him try!" Sirius yelled from his position on the couch.

"What's it say, Moony?" James said after high-fiving Sirius on his way over.

Remus didn't respond though, rather he stood there in shock, the letter remaining open in his hand.

"Who's it from, Remus?" Lily said quietly from across the room.

"Hagrid," Remus said slowly, a breath of relief coming from both James and Lily.

"Oh, what's he writing for?" James questioned, taking the letter from his reluctant friend.

James skimmed the letter quickly, muttering quite a few 'no's' before settling down on the edge of the table.

"What?" Lily exclaimed, coming to her senses and pulling the letter from her husband to read for herself.

Dear Lily and James,

I just wanted to write to yeh, incase your son didn't to let yeh know that we had a bit of o'scare in the forest tonight during detention but that everything is good and well. As yeh probably know, Harry, Hermione, Neville and Draco Malfoy had detention with me tonight cause of their run in with McGonagall out of bed after curfew a couple o night's ago. It was me job to take them out into the forest to search for a badly hurt unicorn that I've been trying to find for a little while now. The good news is we managed to find it but the bad news is it was two damaged to save.

"Is there a point to this?" Lily asked, but given the look on James' face she assumed that the worst part had little to do with the dead unicorn at all.

Yer son and Draco were the one's to find the unicorn, but from what I've been told, the unicorn was not the only thing they found. Now, Harry's ok, he didn't get to him in time thanks to the centaur, Firenze, but he's a little shaken up from having come so close to him. I just thought I'd let yer know what had happened so that if yer son doesn't tell you, you have at least been warned of this recent sighting.

Hagrid

P.S. OH sorry bout that. The he I mentioned in the forest near Harry was him, in some form or another. (He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named)

"No!" Lily exclaimed, thought's running wild in her head. "He was supposed to be gone, we were supposed to be safe! James, I want him home, and I want him home now," she cried, tears rolling down her cheeks as she sank to the floor.

James went to her immediately, wrapping his arms around her. Sirius sat upright on the couch, a blank expression spread across his face meanwhile Remus still stood frozen in place, his eyes still looking down to where the letter had once been when it was in his grasp.

"He-he was so close," Lily whimpered. "He could have k-killed H-Harry, J-James."

"I know," he said, smoothing her hair down.

"He's not sa-safe t-there a-any m-more," she cried on. "B-bring h-him h-home."

"Lils, I'm scared too, but Dumbledore is there, he's safe."

"No! He's not safe if when he goes out to serve detention he comes face to face with our attempted murderer, James!" she yelled into his chest.

"Lily, he's not going back into that forest—you and I both know that after tonight Dumbledore or any of the other professors wouldn't dream of risking a student's life by letting them go in there, even with one of them," James reasoned. "He only has his exams left and then he is home, Lils. Then he will be back and safe with us."

She looked up at him and he saw that he had managed to break through her fear.

"Ok," she whispered, softer than usual.

"Ok."

Seeing the door open somehow seemed to impress upon all three of them what was facing them.

Harry climbed over until he was hanging on by his fingertips. Then he looked up at Ron and said, "If anything happens to me, don't follow. Go straight to the owlery and send Hedwig to Dumbledore, right?"

"Right," said Ron.

"See you in a minute, I hope…"

"James? Lily?" a voice echoed through the dark house.

The two figures that the voice addressed were deep in slumber in the topmost room of the house, his arm draped softly over her slumbering figure, holding her close to him, always.

On the second floor landing a door stood slightly ajar, just enough to allow the urgent echoing voice make its way in and wake the lighter of the two sleepers.

Remus blinked, slowly waning himself out of his sleep as he heard the distant voice grow louder.

"Sirius, did you hear that?" he asked sleepily as he stretched getting out of bed.

"A-naw-bl," was all Remus could make out from Sirius' drowsy form.

The light-haired man listened for the voice again to ensure what he was actually hearing before he followed it down the stairs and into the sitting room. His eyes automatically locked on the head of his once head of house sticking out from the dying flames.

"Professor?" he asked in an audible whisper.

"Remus!" McGonagall said loudly. "Where are James and Lily?" she asked, fear evident in her voice.

"They're asleep upstairs, why?"

"Get them, get them now," she said, eagerness in her voice. "It's Harry," she continued gravely, "he's gone."

*All recognizable J.K Rowling content is fully hers and I take no credit for it. The rest is my own imagination and I hope that you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it. I apologize for being so late with updates all the time, life's just been getting in the way, but I have lots of plans for this and I don't intend for this to be finished anytime soon. I really appreciate all the reviews I've been getting, and I'd like to thank anyone and everyone who has left one so far. Whether it is just to say you like it and are excited for the next update, or to tell me what you don't like about it, I appreciate them all because they can only (hopefully) help to make it better. I just want it to be known that this is my take on the story, and it is going to go where it does, when it does. I'm writing it because I want to and I hope you read it for the same reasons. Hope you have a fantastic day, and I mean it when I say, I hope to update really soon as the next chapter allows me to write one of the many reactions I imagine Lily and James having to Harry's er, adventures. :)