A/N: I don't own anything, it all belongs to the simply magical J K Rowling. Here is Chapter 8!

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL BEFORE THE SUMMER HOLIDAY - BEFORE SIXTH YEAR

Lily's P.O.V

Marlene, Alice and I push forward to find our usual compartment on the train. The journey back from Hogwarts is always depressingly nostalgic. Although having said that, it is odd to think that I only have two years left at Hogwarts, I honestly don't know where the time goes.

Marlene is eager to get on the train, like most students, she is anticipating the holidays with great zest. Alice, on the other hand, is like me – dreading the next miserable six weeks spent with insufferable family members and instead of looking forward to our time spent at home, we count down the miserable days until we see our friends.

Marlene has never understood why Alice and I look forward to school so much but, if she'd met my sister and her pitiful excuse for a boyfriend Vernon, then I'm sure she would agree with me.

"Come on, Alice. You look so depressed! You can't be sad now; it's the bloody holidays for Merlin's sake! No more essays, no more joint classes with the Slytherins, no more tedious Potions classes, we're free!"

Marlene dances up the corridor and into our compartment.

"I know what I'm doing this holiday, Dad decided we'd all stay at the Potters," she pulls a face, "but Mum says she wants us to go to the Longbottoms. My ex will be there and so will his new girlfriend, my brother said we'd go to both. Not only will I have to put up with Sirius and James' immature behaviour but also watch my heart be shattered right in front of me as my ex and his girlfriend display their attraction before my very eyes."

Despite Mar's complaints, I know she'll have a great time. She always does, she comes back with pictures of her family and the friends she's been staying with and she's always wearing her smile. It's not a fake smile, it's Mar's genuine I-love-it-here-and-wouldn't-want-to-be-anywhere-else-right-now smile.

"What about you, Lil?"

"Petunia's bringing her delightfully charismatic boyfriend to stay, Mum's trying to teach me knitting again so watch out for your Christmas presents next year, Dad's taking me to this old car convention and my Aunt May has the nerve to get engaged, so we're going to the bridal shower. Luckily, I'm at school when the wedding takes place so they can't put me in a dress. I honestly can't wait for it all to be over."

"It can't be that bad," Mar frowns. Alice snorts.

"Have you met Petunia?"

"No."

"Count yourself lucky, I had the pleasure of meeting her at the train station once. Never have I seen such a prejudiced Muggle, I swear half the things she said were insults. It's like she thinks she's better than Magical people, which is utterly ridiculous."

"Other than your invidious sister, what else could be bad? You've managed the last years pretty well."

"I had Sev as my friend then," I reply wearily.

The whole thought process of a life without Sev is not only befuddling but emotionally exhausting.

"You don't need Sev; you've got me and Alice."

"You're not going to be around much, Mar."

"No," Mar sighs, defeated, "but next year, next year we'll all do something together."

Alice sits in uninterrupted silence, spacey and unaware of our conversation.

"Alice?" Mar snaps her fingers impatiently. "ALICE!"

Alice stirs abruptly and scowls at Mar.

"I heard you," she snaps.

"Good, what are you doing this summer? In fact, forget that. Why are you being such a fucking misanthropist?"

"I'm not being a misanthropist, you're highly over-exaggerating. I just hate people at the moment."

"See? There it is again! You've been nothing but a miserable bitch in the last week; care to tell us what the fuck is wrong? We are you your bloody friends and don't tell me you're PMS-ing because we all know that was last week."

"If you're my friends, I wish you'd do a better job at it. My friends would have noticed by now."

"That was out of order, we're your friends not effing mind readers. We don't know what the hell is wrong unless you use what evolution gave you – your bloody mouth."

"It's Amos, okay? We had a bit of a fight and I said some stuff and he said some stuff and he was shouting…" Alice's eyes tear up and her body shakes violently.

"Hang on, go back a bit. Explain the fight," Mar says soothingly, sitting next to Alice and putting her arm around her, I sit on Alice's other side and give her a tissue.

"Well, I caught him snogging Dorcas Meadowes on the second floor. He saw me and of course pushed Dorcas away, Dorcas was really confused and he told her he'd sort it out with her later and came to find me. He said that it wasn't what it looked like and I got really upset. He didn't understand why I was upset; he said that he was sorry and that everybody makes mistakes. I told him that while I didn't disagree with his logic, I wasn't going to be one of his mistakes. I asked him how long it had been going on, he told me three weeks. We'd only been going out five weeks and I asked why he'd carried on and he said it was because I didn't concentrate on the physical side of the relationship and Dorcas was prepared to go further than I was. Not all the way, I don't think, but you know.

I said that he was ridiculous and that loads of girls aren't ready for that sort of relationship at 16 and I'm still 15 so it's not even legal. He said that if I wasn't ready, I should have told him and I said what good would that do? 'Cause he still snogged Dorcas. He got angry and said that that wasn't the sort of guy he was, that he was a good person. I asked why he did that, because he knows it would upset me. He knew and he still did it and he said that he wants not just an emotional relationship but wants to progress further. I said that I wasn't ready, but I guess he was so he said that I either started getting into that kind of thing or left.

Then I started crying harder and he shouted that he couldn't do this any longer and he said if I told anyone he'd cheated, he would hurt me or whatever. I guess he doesn't want people to think he's anything but sweet and sometimes he'll smile at me in the corridors but then frown at me and he'll watch me all the time and technically we're still together because he doesn't want the break up to look abrupt, but sort of like we casually drifted apart."

"What a twat."

"What a completely narcissistic, ignorant, devious, malicious, meticulous, disgusting, slippery, wormy bastard," Marlene scowls, her fists bunching up.

Alice laughs and I smirk, Mar has a habit of over-emphasising her point. Black pokes his head around the door.

"Hey," he says weakly, clearly having heard everything we've said.

"Get out," Mar's eyebrows knot together.

"What?" Black splutters.

"Don't you know anything about girls? Out."

"Why?"

"And you wonder why girls don't want to kiss you," Mar sighs. "Alice has just been hurt, she wants privacy, she doesn't need the added embarrassment of you knowing about her private life and telling your friends. It's none of your business. She's grieving and needs alone time with people she trusts."

Mar stands up, her face red and angry. Black hesitates. Mar sends a stinging hex at his foot. Black yelps.

"Message understood," he exits sharply.

LAST WEEK OF THE HOLIDAYS

I pour myself a mug of tea and sit at the table with the Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly. Tuney's not up yet, thank God. I sigh as the hot steam rises from my mug and into my face.

Dad enters the room, with his black coffee and morning paper. He grunts a hello to me before starting on the Muggle task of making porridge. Tuney bounds down the stairs, clearly having had a good night. She comes in positively beaming and sees me – her face falls. She looks at the moving pictures in my paper and frowns disapprovingly. She whispers "freak" to me as she passes.

I roll my eyes; the insult is getting just about as old as "Mudblood". Tuney's been nothing but a bitch all holiday, calling me names, throwing me dirty looks, telling the neighbours about my so-called 'disability' and my school for mad people. My mood instantly lifts when I see Marlene's snowy owl. I run to the back yard to untie the letter.

Dear Lil,

Hey darling! Hope Petunia's not be an intolerable pain in the ass and that this Vernon is not as pompous as he sounds. Anyways, here's just to give you a head's up, can you floo to my house in about five hours? Bring your suitcase and stuff, you and Alice are staying at mine for the last week of the holidays! We don't have to go to the Longbottoms' humble abode after all! Happy times, right? I would say RSVP ASAP, but I know you're not doing anything and my mother already telephone communicated your mother so I know that it's okay. I can't believe we have a telephone, I was always under the impression it worked like a television so I tried looking into it and my mother just laughed. See ya later, Lil,

Marlene

X

I smile at her letter and shout at my Dad to say I'm leaving in five hours. This next week is going to be fantastic.

AT LIGHTWOOD MANSION

I'm having a great time with Alice and Mar but no so much with the guests she failed to mention. Her parents, as kind and as polite as they are, have no idea what they've got themselves in for inviting Potter and Black to stay.

A fun fact about Potter and Black, they live together. Apparently, Black's having home issues and I don't blame him. Imagine having Bellatrix and Narcissa as your cousins. Which was nice of the Potters, I suppose.

Right now, I'm in Mar's room, lying on my mattress.

"Wake up, Evans! Wake up! Everybody else is up! Come on Evans!" Potter shouts through the door.

I groan, he's been doing this for the past three days – every morning at 6 am.

"If you don't come out in three minutes, I'm coming in."

I pull the covers over my head; I've never been a mornings person. Potter barges in.

"So lazy, Evans."

"It's the bloody holidays; I'm allowed to be lazy."

"Not today, our letters arrive today, in case you'd forgotten."

I bury my head in my pillow as he draws the curtains with a flick of his wand. He then makes my duvet disappear, luckily I wear pyjamas. I curl into a ball.

"Evans, get up. Don't make me hex you," he taunts; I remember the last time he told me that, when Sev called me a Mudblood.

"Piss off, Potter."

I then feel a wave of icy cold water. Potter had cast a bucket of water and chucked it over me. I jump up, grab my dressing gown and grab my wand.

"You're going to pay for that, Potter."

Potter smirks and I chase him down the stairs, shooting hexes at him every chance I get. He races all around the second floor before heading to the first floor. I chase him through the dining room where everybody is eating and into the Lightwood garden which is more like a meadow judging by its size.

I get Potter with a Jelly-legs jinx and he falls to the floor. He can't stop laughing and I magic away the dampness from my clothes but can't quite seem to get it out of my hair. I take the jinx off and scowl at him.

"Is that all you got, Evans?" he smirks.

We duel for a while until I get him with a cold bucket of ice water and he chases me around the field. We have to stop eventually because we can't run anymore and we collapse on the grass.

I'm the first to get up, Potter casts an Expelliarmus but it's half-hearted because he's laughing so hard and I only stumble back a little, I shoot him a half-hearted body-binding hex and he falls over again. I enter the dining room.

"Care to tell us what that's about?" Mar asks, giving Alice a look.

"Potter woke me up with a bucket of cold water," I say bitterly.

Black laughs but Mr and Mrs Lightwood frown. I collapse into a chair, Potter falls into the one next to Black. Mr and Mrs Lightwood give Potter a disapproving look.

"What?" he says.

"You know full well what, is that any way to treat a lady? Is it James? You can't throw a bucket of cold water on people in the mornings. We promised your parents that we wouldn't let anything get out of hand."

"To be fair, she got me back pretty good."

"That is not the point," Mrs Lightwood sighs, taking her plate into the kitchen.

Just at that moment, several owls arrive with letters and drop the in front of the corresponding person. I open mine up, OWL results. I got all Outstandings and then a letter about school supplies. I smile and look at Mar and Alice's letters.

"What d'you get?" Mar asks.

"All Outstandings," I say.

"Funny, Prongs got the same…" Black smirks and Potter smirks with him.

Christ, how could I forget? We had a bet on this, didn't we? Potter and I, I said that if he got all Outstandings and Exceeds Expectation that I'd kiss him….

This would be a long day.