Dedication: I want to dedicate this chapter to the memory of September 11, 2001, a horribly sad day all around. ~Never forget.~ On a happier note though, I also want to send out my most warmest regards and best of wishes to my best friend's little boy who was born on the same day two years later. *Let not the tragedy overshadow the happier times.* :D I love you Lucas and hope you had a wonderful 8th birthday!

Anyway, on with the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the other awesome things you may recognize in this spiffylicious story.

The Rarest Type of Seer

Chapter 4

The air was crisp and fresh and cold. Just the way she liked it. It was perfect for thinking.

She knocked her arrow and took aim for the target, pushing all thoughts and emotions from her mind. She took in a breath, slowly exhaled, thought her fire spell to life, and let the arrow loose.

It shot clean and clear, fire blazing at the end of it, and hit the pile of faux bricks and powder dead on. The resounding *KA-BOOM!* was music to her ears.

"YES!" she screamed, doing a victory dance. "I still got it, I still got it! UH-HUH! I still got it!" She sang, twirling around and grabbing Cham around the neck, in a one armed hug.

Cham laughed at Lily's antics. "By the way that you're acting," the blonde stated through her giggles, a person might think that it's been years since you last shot an arrow, instead of only a few weeks."

Lily let go of her in mock affront and stuck her tongue out. "It's all in the details, Chammy - all in the details," she stated.

~SLSLSL~

Lily had woken up that morning with a jolt. She did not remember falling asleep, but a glance at the clock on her wall told her that she had probably only slept for about two hours. It was unlikely, however, that she would get back to sleep. So, she got up and got dressed and went down to her parlour; only to find Scorpius Malfoy asleep on the couch. She found herself to be slightly exasperated with his presence there. Just what in the heck was he doing here? Didn't he have his own place now? She thought her mother had mentioned something about Al and he getting a flat together. It was supposedly closer to their jobs.

She supposed she could understand Scorpius not wanting to go home and being confronted by Albus over the whole 'Rose issue'. But, good Greece, didn't Scorpius practically have one of the guest rooms in Potter Place as his own? "Stupid Malfoy. Stupid room deciding to like stupid Malfoy," she grumbled quietly. She felt the room's sentient nature rise up in a bout of indignation and anger, and Lily giggled a little when she felt the tumultuous emotions turn into confusion.

This room had always belonged to Lily; ever since the Potters had moved here. The first time she wandered in, the room's sentient nature took to the small girl, the same way a kitten will claim its true master. It was strangely protective of her as well. Any person that insulted her in there would likely be harmed in some strange way.

Lily remembered the first time Rose had ever insulted her in the small parlour. The air in the room swelled up into a hot and suffocating, stuffy mass, circling around the red head. It didn't even touch Lily, who had been standing in the middle of the room. The dark haired girl recalled that anywhere she moved in the room, it was as if she had a clear-air bubble wrapped around her head.

Rose had ended up stumbling out of the room gasping for air. Lily was absolutely certain that Rose would not have died, but it had definitely been fun to watch her cousin suffer for her meanness for once. And then there was the time Albus had called Lily 'stupid' while standing just inside the threshold. The room had not taken too well to that, and the floorboard that Al had been standing on just happened to 'roll'. It pushed Al out the door while causing him to trip over his own feet. Lily had laughed so hard, she felt like her lungs would burst from her chest.

Scorpius, however, seemed to be the exception to the rule. Although it might have been due to the fact that he really didn't know Lily, so he never said anything bad about her. Or maybe it was the fact that room picked up on Lily's thoughts and emotions towards said blonde haired boy. Whatever the case, the room never seemed to cause him any pain. As far as Lily knew, Scorpius didn't even know of the sentient nature of the room.

She grinned briefly at the room in general, and felt the air in it becoming very chilly indeed. "Are you trying to freeze me out?" She asked quietly while holding in a snicker. The irony of being scolded by this room was not lost on her and it amused her greatly.

She was about to leave completely, (she didn't feel the need to argue with the stinking room this early in the morning,) when she noticed that Scorpius was shivering. 'Once I leave, the room will warm up and he'll be fine', she thought to herself. Apparently the parlour had other ideas though. A large blue thermal blanket appeared out of nowhere onto the two person chair, across from where Scorpius lay asleep on the couch. (For the record, Lily had no idea that her favorite room could conjure things like the Room of Requirement in Hogwarts could.)

'Well, this is new,' she thought, and huffed in irritation. If the room had a face, surely its façade would be full of smug interest. 'Really! Really? That's it! I'm getting a cat, and then I'll let it use your walls as a scratching post!' She thought angrily at it. She knew the room could hear her thoughts too, because she felt the flinch from it when she yelled the threat in her mind.

As irritated as she was, she would not let Scorpius suffer because her room was acting like a child. She grumbled to herself about obnoxious sentient rooms, as she made her way over to the two person chair for the blanket and then the boy on the couch.

She decided, if only in her thoughts, that Scorpius Malfoy was adorable in his sleep. He was snuggled into one of the over large, fluffy couch pillows, one of his hands was thrown over his eyes, a pair of reading glasses, ('He wears reading glasses? How cu – ute is that?') sitting askew on his face under said hand; the other clutched a book loosely that he had obviously been reading.

She gently and carefully, as not to wake him, removed his glasses from his face and set them on the table next to the couch and then grabbed the book and also moved it to the table. She covered him quickly with the blanket and turned to leave the traitorous room. Had she stayed even a moment longer, she would have heard him whisper her name quietly.

As she made her way speedily from her (suddenly) not-so-favorite parlour, she quite literally ran into Cham, and fell non-to-gently on her behind. Lily laughed nervously while Cham helped her to her feet.

"What are you doing, Lils?" Her best friend asked with a little mirth in her voice. "I heard you get up and figured you would probably be drawing or something, and here you are running away from your parlour as if the hounds of Hades are after you."

"Nothing. It's nothing," Lily replied somewhat shakily. She didn't need her friend to know that Scorpius was in there asleep right now. She would never hear the end of the teasing, or the quips. And it didn't matter how often Lily might turn the tables on Cham with quips back at her about Albus. Cham would always return with something about how at least their feelings for each other were somewhat acknowledged. Lily would of course, snort at this, but it never seemed to phase Cham in the same way it did Lily.

"Why are you up so early anyway?" Cham asked, bringing Lily out of her thoughts. She was studying the dark haired girl intensely. It was normal for Lily to be up early, but never this early. Plus, Cham knew for a fact that Lily had not got that much sleep the night before. She had listened to her friend toss and turn most of the night. She had even been tempted to follow her when Lily had got up for those few minutes earlier that night. She had drifted off to sleep before the thought ever fully formed into a command to her body. When she heard Lily get up again, and then proceed to get dressed, Cham decided that it was time to follow her friend.

Lily looked self-conscious for a brief moment. It was not a look Cham was used to seeing on her friend, but it was gone so quick that she dismissed it as a fluke and was drawn back by Lily's next words. "I think I'm going to go check out Uncle George's new archery course. You in?"

Cham shuddered at the mere thought of going out there in the cold and snow. But she knew that Lily would go with or without her. "I just want you to know that I think you are totally crazy, Lils," she stated. "But yeah," she continued with a sigh, "I'll go with you."

Lily grinned brilliantly.

~SLSLSL~

The two girls had been at the archery course for an hour before Lily finally got her target conjured. She was having a really hard time making the transfiguration. Every time she started to get her mind cleared, some stray thought would wander into it. She would have gladly blamed Cham, except the other girl was (supposedly) dozing over by a tree in a cloud of conjured warmth. No, Lily knew it was her own mind that was being uncontrollable. Overcoming her frustration with the situation had taken her a good forty-five minutes, and then it took another fifteen minutes to finally get the target made.

But, it had been totally worth it. The 17 year old girl figured it was one of her best targets yet, and when she let her arrow loose, not only did it fly straight and true, it hit its mark dead center. 'You just can't have much better luck with that,' she thought.

Cham pulled herself out of her doze with just enough time to watch Lily's arrow fly. She had been watching her friend practice archery for a long time and she could honestly say that this was the first time she had ever seen Lily hit the target with such precision.

She shot the younger girl an amused look as she danced around the clearing, and went to take a look at the target.

'I gotta hand it to the girl,' the blonde thought somewhat ruefully, 'when she wants to make a point, she really packs a punch.' Lily's target was that of a rose, just like they always were, but this time, as Cham studied it, she was able to make out facial features concealed in the midst of the center petals, while the outer petals made out the riotous waves that could only be hair. As she continued to stare at it, her eyes focusing and un-focusing, she realized it was Rose Weasley's face that she was looking at. She had to wonder if Lily had done it on purpose. Cham brushed that idea aside though, since she knew the process was done completely sub-consciously.

It gave new meaning to why Lily had hit her mark so straight though. Cham giggled a little ironically at the whole situation.

Lily made her way over to her friend and also studied the target. "Oh, wow," she breathed. "I mean… I didn't realize…I didn't know I actually made her face," she continued in a subdued voice and unconsciously answering Cham's previous thoughts. Lily crossed her arms over her chest in a protective gesture that Cham recognized immediately. "I saw her," she continued, "in my head, I saw her. But, I tried to push her out and just focus on the target. Nothing else. I swear it, Cham. I didn't mean for it to come out this way."

There it was again, that vulnerability that Lily hid so well. It hardly ever surfaced, but Cham knew it was always just under the surface of Lily's cool façade.

"It's fine Lily. It's not a big deal. It's just the two of us out here right now anyway, and we can just change it up. We won't even have to do it subconsciously. Heck, I'll even do it for you!" The blonde said, trying to calm her friend.

Before Cham even got her wand out, they heard a voice call out to them in greeting. The two girls turned to see Albus and Scorpius walking towards them from the direction of George's house.

"So much for it just being the two of us out here," Lily muttered under her breath. Cham glowered at her briefly and turned to the fast approaching boys.

"What are you guys doing out here?" She asked them sweetly.

Albus grinned at them nervously, while Scorpius looked around the clearing, taking in the different targets and generally avoiding eye contact with the two girls. When his eyes caught sight of Lily's rose target, he studied it intently causing Lily to blush lightly.

"We were helping Uncle George with some stuff for the shop over in Diagon Alley," Albus answered. "He mentioned that you guys were here and sent us out to get you for breakfast. Aunt Angie says that you have to eat because 'if your mother found out I didn't feed you, she'd have my head!' Her words, not mine," he finished putting his hands up in a placating manner.

Cham's stomach grumbled loudly just then, and she looked away slightly embarrassed, while Lily giggled.

"Breakfast it is," the dark haired girl stated with amusement dancing in her eyes. She grabbed her bow and the quiver full of arrows and led the way to the house.

~SLSLSL~

Lily loved all of her aunts and uncles the same. Truly, she did. Put simply though, she liked her Uncle Charlie the most. But when he wasn't around, which was hardly ever, Uncle George and Aunt Angelina came in close seconds. It also helped that Uncle George always had some sort of new exploding invention lying around the house. Plus Aunt Angie's breakfasts were phenomenal. There were few things that Lily loved more than a good breakfast and an explosion first thing in the morning.

It seemed to Lily, as they walked through the door of the cozy three bedroom cottage, which her aunt really had only asked them to breakfast due to not wanting Ginny's wrath to fall upon her shoulders.

The house was a disaster. There were boxes everywhere, filled with all sorts of different trinkets and gadgets and odd sorts of paraphernalia piling over the sides.

Angelina was like a mad woman running around trying to get everything packed up and stored against the wall. She dropped everything she was doing when she saw her niece and nephew and their friends walk through the door.

"We're here!" Albus announced to the room in general.

The two boys, she had seen earlier that day, but the girls she had not seen since the year before. Lily's face was flushed from cold and laughter, and little wisps of hair that had fallen out of her hat were flying wildly around her face. Angelina also took note that Malfoy could not seem to keep his eyes off the littlest Potter, and she grinned inwardly to herself at this slight turn of events.

The other girl, Angelina knew, was Lily's best friend. She was tall and blonde, and carried an edge of attitude in the way that she walked. Angelina adored her in an instant.

"Honey," George said, coming out of the back room. He was rather frazzled and didn't seem to notice the extra people standing just inside the door. "Do you know when the boys are getting back? We don't have a lot of time. We need to get this inventory to the shop!"

"They're right –"

"Does that mean no breakfast?" Cham asked, cutting across Angie.

"Well, I…"

"CHAM! You're so rude!" Albus yelled with a little indignation, and Scorpius and Lily looked on with some amusement.

"I guess I could m…"

"Lily! Is that you? I hardly recognized!" George said, once again cutting across Angelina and bounding over to hug his niece.

"TOAST!" Angelina exclaimed. "And coffee," she added almost as an afterthought. "That is what we are going to have for breakfast."

At everyone's questioning looks, she sighed in exasperation and left the room.

"I think I'll go help her," Lily said after extricating herself from her uncle's bone-crushing hug.

George laughed lightly and patted her back. "Yes, you go do that. She's probably in there fuming over being interrupted so many times. You would think, after being part of this family for so long, she would be used to it by now."

As Lily made her way to help her aunt in the kitchen with Cham following behind, George turned to the two boys and said, "Well, back to work boys. You had your break." He smiled merrily as he himself went back to packing up the boxes and laughed again when he heard the grumbling of the two men behind him.

AN: Yes, I know this chapter was shorter than what most of my chapters normally are, but this was a good place to leave off. Plus I felt like you guys deserved something for waiting so patiently on me. So yeah, here it is. I know not a lot happens, but I feel like there needs to be some character development and stuff, so I apologize if it just seems as if it's *filler*. I'd like to think *filler* is the stuff that makes the story good... ;)

CHEERS!
~Jeni

P.S. Don't forget to push that little blue button down there, and leave a review. They make the muse that is Lily Potter happy! :D

~Edit: Lily's age is 17. Thanks Bucky5 for pointing that out! :D