B/A/N- Sigh…ff.net people, I really hate to do this, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to take out the thank you section.  I enjoy doing them so much, but I have just posted this story on Portkey.org, and it is really quite a hassle to thank Portkey and ff.net people separately, and it’s starting to interfere with the amount I update.  It honestly takes me longer to do the Thank Yous than it does to do the chapter, and I’m hoping by taking out the Thank Yous section I will update more frequently and be able to finish the story soon.  Also, please don’t stop reviewing, because I plan to thank each reviewer individually through e-mail.  So, if signing anonymously, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE use your e-mail address!!

B/A/N- If you would like chapter updates, e-mail me at [email protected] …if you would like to harass me to get chapters out sooner, [email protected] …I think you get the picture.  And I really don’t get annoyed when people ask for updates, I swear.  I don’t even get annoyed when I’m harassed, I feel kinda complimented actually…

Anyways!

Chappie 49: Trevor, Emia, and Hope for Reconciliation

Peter Pettigrew grinned as a black owl flew towards the Astronomy Tower.  This was the meeting place for Peter to receive his orders from Voldemort, as the dorm would be far too suspicious.  Peter quickly sprinted up towards the Tower, and found the owl there waiting, with a black scroll.  Peter grabbed the scroll and opened it.  Silver calligraphy on the black paper spelled out,

Peter-

Meeting tonight. Midnight, forest.  Don’t be late.

Peter gulped.  He remembered when he had been late to the last meeting, Voldemort had performed the Cruciatus Curse upon him…it felt like everything in Peter’s body was burning.  It was so unbelievably painful. The meetings were always held a couple feet into the Forbidden Forest, for all of Voldemort’s followers that had yet to complete their education.  They usually only had meetings every two weeks, but there was one two days ago.  This must be urgent.

Later, at the Meeting-

The Hogwarts students piled in, Slytherins, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors…a little bit of everyone.  

Voldemort stood in a black shroud in the center of the students and spoke.  “One of my members has been trying to defy me.  I am afraid that this can not be tolerated.  I brought him here tonight to show you all what happens when I am defied.”

With that, he motioned with his hand, beckoning his two lackeys, who carried out a man.  A young man, he couldn’t have been a day over 26, and he looked very frightened.  Peter gasped quietly when he realized that there was something very familiar about this boy.  Emia and Avia were very visible in the young man’s face…he had the same blue eyes, the same sculpted cheekbones.  This was their brother.  This was the brother that was supposed to be being protected by Emia and Avia’s parents in France.  This boy…this was the reason the twins were separated in the first place.  And now he was going to die for his treachery.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Emia yawned as she looked up from her schoolbooks in late May.  School would be getting out in a month, and she could not wait for another summer with Aunt Brunhilda.  She also was ecstatic at the thought of seeing Avia again.  Emia had still not heard a response from her parents for the letter she sent a month ago.  Helena sent it, she knew that much, and Helena was back two weeks later. It must have been quite an exhausting distance for the weary bird.  Emia’s thoughts drifted to Hogwarts, as they so often did, and she began to think about Sirius and Avia…how much she missed them both.  And Lily…poor Lily, Emia could not believe she broke up with James. That was just unbelievable to Emia; those two were always so perfect.  But then, even perfection has a flaw of some sort.

While Emia drifted in her thoughts, a pecking sound came from her window.   An owl was out there, looking utterly feeble and exhausted.  She quickly opened the window, attended to the owl, and ripped open the scroll.

Emia, dear-

Of course you may go home.  You will spend this summer with your Aunt Brunhilda as you did last summer, and you can have a chance to hang around with your sister before school starts.  Well, that was the good news.  As you know, we asked you and Avia to come to France in the first place because your brother was here being protected from the Dark Lord’s forces.  Last week, He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named broke in, himself stealing your brother for your brother’s unfaithfulness. We were not hurt, as we were out studying in the Alps at the time.  But we fear the worst for you brother.  I’m so sorry, darling.  None of us wanted this to happen.

Love and Support-

Mum and Dad

Emia sighed as the she leaned back on her bed.  She was never terribly close with Trevor, her brother, but that doesn’t mean she wanted him dead.  She never approved when he first joined in with Voldemort, and she was not surprised in the least that he had received retribution from Voldemort for being traitorous.  After all, Voldemort killed millions, why should he mind killing one of his own?  But then her thoughts drifted to the good news…she was going back to Hogwarts! 

Emia quickly reached for some parchment and ink, and jotted out a letter to Avia and Lily.

Hey you two!

Guess who’s joining you fall semester of our seventh year?  I’m so excited; I’ve missed you both so much.  I’ll spend the summer with Aunt Brunhilda like last summer, but then I’ll go back to Hogwarts with Avie.  And Avie, Mum and Dad gave me permission, but they also had some bad news.  You-Know-Who got to Trevor…Mum and Dad think he’s probably dead. I’m sorry, Avie…I can’t help feeling like we knew it was coming though.  Write me back…

Love Emia

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Lily and Avia squealed excitedly as they read through Emia’s letter again.  Avia was sad about Trevor, but Trevor’s fate was expected, and the happiness she felt for the return of her twin overcame any sorrow she felt for her brother. 

A knock was heard on the girls’ door as they continued to squeal.  Lily composed herself enough to answer it and Sirius was waiting patiently.

“What’s all the fuss about?” he asked curiously.

“Emia’s coming!  She’s coming back to Hogwarts for seventh year!” Avia screamed excitedly.

Sirius’ face lit up with a smile.  “That’s great!”

James noticed Sirius up at the girls’ dorms, and decided to go up himself to see what everyone was so happy about. 

“What’s going on?” James asked Sirius in the girls’ doorway.

Avia repeated what she had said to Sirius, but Lily’s happiness was dampened somewhat when she noticed James in the doorway. 

“Oh, it’s you,” Lily said curtly. 

“Yeah, who were you expecting?” James asked in a similar snide tone.

“Honestly, you two,” Avia said with a sigh, throwing Emia’s letter onto her bed.  “You guys can’t even be in a room together without arguing!  It’s so irritating and immature!”

Lily’s famous redheaded temper flared up at her best friend, and she said, “Avie, if we’re so annoying, why do you bother to listen?! You COULD leave!”

Avia looked shocked at the audacity of Lily, and walked towards the doorway.  Standing in the doorway, she turned slowly and said, “I guess I will.”

Sirius turned towards Lily.  “You didn’t have to be rude, you know.  This is between you and James, and Avia and I shouldn’t have to listen to both of your crap all the time!”

Sirius also left, leaving a murderous James facing a tempestuous Lily in the girls’ dorm. 

“Well, what did you go and do THAT for?!” James yelled, pointing at the doorway.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, and furthermore, they shouldn’t have to listen if they don’t want to.  If yelling it was the only way to get the message across, so be it.”

“But it wasn’t the only way, you could have politely asked,” James protested.

“Yes, if you wanted to be politely SHOT DOWN,” Lily said with irritation, sitting down on her bed.  Lily pretended to be absorbed in a Witch Weekly, silently hoping that James would just leave.  But he did not.  James, instead, made himself comfortable on Emia’s old bed, stretching out and laying down.

When Lily could simply take the silence no longer, her head shot up and she asked brusquely, “Why are you still here?”

“Well, why shouldn’t I still be?”

“It’s a GIRLS dorm.”

“That’s never stopped me before,” James said with a grin, stretching out on the comforter.

Lily sighed, and laid back on her comforter as well, staring at the ceiling.  After a few minutes of terse silence, she decided to venture a comment. “James…”

“What?” he asked in a bored drawl.

“Why are we always so rude to each other?”

“Can you see two people that were in a relationship like ours was, and having it end the way it did, ever being civil again?  Honestly?”

Lily closed her eyes in thought, and then replied, “Well it’s been hard for both of us, but I think with some work on our relationship we could be friends again.”

James thought about what Frank had told him a month ago, and finally realized what Frank had meant that day when he had said, “Sure, you say that now, since the scars are still fresh, but I can guarantee you that in a couple of months you’ll change your tune.  She’s already taken quite a toll on you, I can tell.  You haven’t shaved in heaven only knows how long, and you’re just not the James you used to be.” He wasn’t the James he used to be, and that was all because of Lily.  He missed her, she was his everything.  Life without her wasn’t complete, and if she even dangled the possibility of another relationship in his face for a split second, you could bet that he would jump at the chance. James was desperate, desperate to have her back with him again.

James replied slowly.  “Lily, I don’t want to be your friend.”

Lily’s eyes clouded over with anger and she snapped, “Why not?”

“I can’t accept anything less than a real relationship from you, I’m sorry,” James said softly, before walking quietly out of Lily’s dorm and shutting the door.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

James Potter sighed as the Hogwarts Express continued its long ride back to Platform 9 ¾.  James was sitting alone in a compartment, while Sirius, Remus, Avia and Lily were in another.  James wanted time to think and he really couldn’t stand to be in a room with Lily anymore.  Honestly, he preferred open hostility from Lily to the sad, wistful looks that he received whenever he walked into a room with her in it.  It was bloody irritating.  He didn’t want her feeling sorry for him; all he had wanted was to establish that he wanted a real relationship from her.   James would be going to spend the summer with the Blacks, they had always been kind to James when he needed support, especially after what happened two summers ago. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

James sat in the guest room in the Blacks’ house sometime in early July, just enjoying the summer vacation and sleeping in.  He burrowed deeper under the sheets, enjoying the feeling of the warm sun poring through the window, mixed with the cool air conditioning.  A pecking sound began at his window, and he groaned as he got up to figure out what was happening.  An insistent, beautiful snowy owl was impatiently pecking on the glass, a very familiar owl to James. 

“Hermia?” he asked incredulously as he opened the window and took the letter from the owl.

He opened the letter which had James Blake Potter in Lily’s impeccable cursive on the front.  Hardly daring to believe his luck, heart racing, James opened the letter.

James-

Hi.

I don’t really know what to say…I’m writing this at around midnight or so, so I’m rather tired, but I just had to write this out to you before I lost the nerve.  I feel so horrible for what I have done.  I never should have broken up with you.  I am so sorry.  I wanted to make sure that there wasn’t something out there I was missing, some true love that I would never know about because I was in a stable relationship.  But now I know. I’ve grown and changed, and my outlook is different.  I now realize something, because hindsight is always 20/20.  I could never get better than you, I would never find someone that cares about me as much as you do.  You love me just as I am, and I never fully appreciated that until I couldn’t have that love anymore.  That love from you fueled my self-confidence and trust.  You make me a better person.  I miss you so much, and I hope you will accept this as an apology.  I would like very much to apologize in person, but I don’t know how to reach you…my Muggle house isn’t accessible to the Floo network, and it’s quite a drive to Diagon and the Blacks’ house.  I hope to talk to you soon, but if nothing else, please reply.

With Love that I’m hoping you’ll Return-

Lily

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

 

 

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