I know I said that I didn't think I'd get a chapter up today, but it looks like I'm going to. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to review. I really appreciate it. I am STILL looking for someone to beta read these chapters. I really need one. Anyone even slightly interested should email me at sirena192005@yahoo.com. Oh yeah, and everyone wish me luck. I have a huge week coming up next week. I have a job interview to edit a book for a Political Science Professor at Ohio State, where I'm going to school on Monday, on Tuesday I leave to go back to Columbus for my orientation, I get back on Thursday night, and on Friday it's my Mom's 40th birthday, and then on Saturday I'm going to see a Journey concert. So don't be surprised if updates don't come very regularly next week. I've managed to crank one out everyday for over a week, but I'm thinking maybe three to five chapters next week. We'll see though. Don't forget to review.
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It took three days until Harry, Lily and James had gotten caught up. For those three days, the three of them rarely left the den Molly and Arthur had let them use except to sleep and to eat. They talked about everything, from Harry's favorite color and whether or not he liked eggplant, to Voldemort and his six years at Hogwarts to Hermione and Ron and all the Quidditch games he'd played in. His parents wanted to know everything about him, and everything that he liked and disliked. Lily spent a good amount of that time in tears. It was harder for them than it was for Harry. They'd missed all of their son's childhood.
Lily came downstairs on a Saturday morning, and wrapped her arms around her son from behind. Harry, who had been busy scarfing down a pile of pancakes, paused long enough to give his mother a quick hug. "Morning, Mum."
"Morning." Lily sat down at the table, habitual cup of tea in hand. "Harry, your father and I are going house hunting today. There's a few ready to move into tomorrow if we like them." She looked at Molly. "I was talking to James last night. I know we've been out of the loop, Molly, but we want to get back into the Order. This has to end."
Molly nodded. "We're meeting tomorrow to discuss a plan of action about these Horcruxes. Draco's said he thinks he knows where the other two are, and we're going to initiate a retrieval mission."
"Which Hermione, Ron and I will go on." Harry said around a mouthful of sausage. "This has been our fight since no one would believe that he was back. I want to finish it. I have to finish it."
Lily didn't like it. In fact, she absolutely abhorred the fact that her baby had been dragged into the whole mess. She was ready to kill anyone and everyone who had hurt him throughout the years when she hadn't been there to protect her. "You'll go. But you won't go alone."
Molly nodded her agreement. "No. They can't go alone." She offered Draco a smile as he stumbled into the kitchen. He'd begun staying there and no one had objected. No one really minded. But he wasn't a morning person, didn't even wake up until he'd had his coffee. "But we'll worry about that tomorrow. Today is for fun. We all need fun. A trip to Diagon Alley, shopping, dinner out, a Quidditch match this evening. It's a pre season match between the Canons and Ireland. Should be good."
Harry looked up when Hermione and Ginny walked in. He noticed with amusement that Draco looked up. The man simply didn't know how to handle Ginny. She was unlike the girls he'd dated before. Less, well, Harry supposed loose was the word, than the others. More reserved and nice. That was a good way to describe it. Ginny was nicer.
And Draco was being thrown for a loop with the whole thing. He liked her too. Harry wasn't blind, he saw the way the two stared at one another when they thought no one was looking. And he'd walked into the room Draco was sharing with him and Ron a couple times to see Draco kissing Ginny. Though there was nothing official. Harry had a feeling Molly and Arthur wouldn't hear of it.
Hermione slid into a chair at the table and filled her plate with a bagel and bacon. She decided on orange juice instead of coffee or tea. She didn't much care for caffeine. It made her jittery and way too hyper for her liking. She blushed when she saw Harry staring at her, and reached for his hand beneath the table. Like Draco and Ginny, there was still nothing official, and no one other than Ron, Ginny and Draco knew anything at all was going on.
Molly moved about the kitchen with the ease and grace of someone who had been doing it for years. "Will Harry be going with you, Lily, or with us today?"
Lily lifted her shoulders in a shrug. She was the only person Harry knew who could make a shrug look graceful. "That will be up to him." She turned to her son. "You're living with Hermione and Ron right?"
Harry nodded. "Have been for over a year."
"That's what I thought you'd said. You'll be welcome to stay with us once we get a house, of course, and so will Hermione and Ron, but I don't expect you to give up your life."
Harry didn't think it would be giving up his life, but neither could he leave his friends alone. They had work to do that his parents would not be happy with. Work like tracking and either killing or capturing Death Eaters. And finding the Horcruxes, and locating Voldemort.
"Just make sure there's enough space for us to visit."
"Of course there will be." Lily ruffled her son's hair and stood. "I'm going to go see what's keeping James. We're supposed to meet the Realtor in an hour." She ascended the stairs and immediately turned left into the room she and her husband were occupying. "James?"
The man in question poked his head out of the bathroom, a towel around his hips and his hair still wet. "Hey honey. I'll be ready to go in ten minutes."
"James, do you think something's going on with Harry and Hermione?"
James rolled his eyes. "What do you think?"
Lily sat down on the edge of the bed. "I think they remind me of us at that age. Quietly, desperately in love."
"That sounds about accurate. Why? Don't you like her?"
"How can I not like her when listening to her talk is like listening to me in school? But it's hard, James. It still feels like he's my baby. Like I should be rocking him to sleep and giving him a bottle."
James sat down beside his wife. "I know. It's the same for me. And I imagine it's strange for him. He's been on his own for so long, and now suddenly, just when he's finally grown up, he's got parents."
"It just bothers me. All that he's had to do. And I can't believe they gave him to Petunia and Vernon."
"That, my love, is what bothers me the most. We'll figure it out, Lily. This is our second chance at having a family. We'll get it right."
"We have to, James." She grinned all of a sudden. "Think there'll be a debacle with them like there was with us?"
"Probably something much worse. They're in this up to their eyeballs and I imagine it's going to take something impressively dangerous to bring them together."
"How do we do this, James? Seventeen years are gone, and I still feel twenty. I still think like I'm twenty. I look in the mirror and I see a much older face, but everything else is still the same."
"I think all we can do, is move on with our lives and our family. And we're hardly old, Lily. Not even forty yet."
"That's easy for you to say. You still look twenty five." She glared at him for a second. "It's nice to know at least one of us aged gracefully."
James studied his wife for a moment. Her face was still unlined, but carried a maturity and knowledge of someone much older than she. She may have looked older, but she certainly didn't look older because of aging. It was from the life she had lived the first twenty years of her life. Her eyes no longer had a carefree glow in them, and neither was her smile as bright and open as it had once been. No, she hadn't aged, she'd been worn down, she'd matured.
"You're still the most beautiful woman in the world to me." He laid a hand on Lily's face, ran his knuckled down the line of her jaw. "And I will always love you, no matter what you look like."
Lily sighed. Her husband always had had a way of making her feel like she was the only woman on the planet. She hated to admit it, but she loved it. "James?"
"Hmm?"
"What about all our plans? More kids, careers, all of that."
James kissed Lily and successfully shut her up. He always had been able to do amazing things with his mouth. Seventeen years hadn't dulled that ability. As far as she could tell, seventeen years hadn't dulled anything about her husband. "We aren't old Lily Catherine Potter. Besides, Harry said McGonagall was just named Headmistress of Hogwarts. I'm sure she'd love for you to teach Potions there. And as for kids," he nudged her back on the bed. "Well, we can still have more. You made a beautiful mother. And you will again."
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Harry tucked his wand in his pocket as he prepared to Apparate. He and Hermione and Ron and Draco and Ginny were going into Diagon Alley separately. They were meeting the rest of the Weasleys and Sirius for dinner several hours from then. A crash on the stairs stopped him from Apparating, and the five of them went to the bottom of the steps. What they saw made Harry turn red and the other four laugh.
Lily was running down the stair, her strawberry blonde hair a mess, and fastening her robes as she ran. She had on only one shoe, and held the other. James walked out behind her, his hair standing on end, but fully dressed and looking quite pleased with himself.
"Harry. Sorry I missed you this morning. We'll see you at dinner." James patted his son on the shoulder, took his wife's hand, and Apparated. Harry still hadn't recovered enough to utter a sentence.
Draco was nearly doubled over from laughing. "Well," he said between gales. "It's nice to know that if I ever become cryogenically frozen, my sex drive won't crash."
"Shut up, Malfoy."
"Why? Is Potter embarrassed? Just how do you think you got here? Or are you so much like Christ you were made through immaculate conception?"
"I said, shut up Malfoy. I'm not in the mood."
But Ron was in on it too. "Aww, come on Harry, I think it's sweet that your parents are still horny after all this time asleep. Must be really rested. Have lots of energy." He looked at Draco. "You think they still have the stamina of twenty year olds?"
Draco pondered that for a minute. "Don't know. Maybe." He looked at Harry. "Come on now, you know we're only teasing."
"I don't tease you about your parents having sex."
"That would be because you never saw my parents in the position I just saw yours. And," he added, almost as an afterthought. "My parents don't have sex. Haven't since I was born."
"That is so nice to know. Can we please leave?" He looked at Hermione. "If we don't get into a public place, I'm going to kill them both."
"What? Just because you're a virgin doesn't mean you should be uncomfortable with talking about sex."
"When it comes to my parents?" Harry demanded. "And who said I was still a virgin?"
Hermione snorted into her hands. She was trying not to laugh. She really was. "I think Draco just did."
Ron gaped at his best friend. "Are you?"
"I am not discussing this with you." Harry headed for the fireplace. "I'm going to Floo there instead of Apparating.
"Come on Potter, you aren't really a virgin are you?"
Harry turned around to glare at Draco. "How is it any of your business?"
"I think you're trying to get out of answering just a bit hard here." Ron said, clapping Harry on the back. "Come on, just tell us."
"No. Okay? I'm not. But that still doesn't make me okay with talking about my parents."
Hermione rescinded. "Okay, that's enough boys. Let's just go. We'll forget about it."
Draco chortled. "Like hell I will. The boy the lived just had the shit embarrassed out of him. This is a fond fond memory."
Harry couldn't help but grin. The truth was, he had been embarrassed. By his parents, and by his friends. He looked at Draco. "Mention this again, and I'll curse the shit out of you."
Draco nodded. "Fair enough."
"Just so we understand one another."
Hermione leaned close to Ron. "Do you think they're getting along better?"
"I think so. Can't decide if I like it or not."
"I do. They'll be good for one another."
Suddenly, a house elf popped in. Draco looked surprised to see it. "Mopsy, what's going on? Why aren't you at the house?"
"Master Malfoy, house is on fire. Death Eaters came, sir, they burned it down. Mopsy is the only one to escape."
Draco Apparated without thinking that the Death Eaters might already be there. Harry looked at Hermione. "Can you get us past those Apparation wards?"
"I can." She flicked her wand, casting a spell. "Let's go. If they're still there, we're going to have a fight on our hands."
Harry's grin was vicious and feral. "That's what I'm hoping for."
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