Hey! New story! (dances) Plz r+r! this is the first of many chappies so stay posted if u like it! i no the title is bit weird right now but it'll all straighten itself out!I really heart l+j fics n this is my first, so if u have any suggestions or comments, review! i dare you! hahaha enjoy children! xoxoxox

(disclaimer: these characters are all from the the wonderful mind of jk! i do not own anything related to harry potter in any lil way except perhaps a stuffed Hedwid doll)

A trip down to memory house

Love can vanquish death - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Lily gripped the letter tightly in her hand. It was already stained with sweat and a fair amount of her evening pumpkin juice from last night...but no tears. Strange. She stared unseeingly at the neat cursive slant of her mother's writing. How she had managed to write this letter with such a steady hand Lilly could not understand.

The roses Jeremy had left her marking their 2 week anniversary had been tossed unceremoniously a few feet from the window sill she was perched on. He's her boyfriend and he has not even bothered to investigate her glaring absence from breakfast this morning. She had not even been able to mustered enough reason to get out of her pyjamas.

Lowering the damp letter, she pressed her forehead against the high mullioned window in front of which she was sitting . A crisp white late-morning light filtered in through it. It was the most glorious winter's day. Her eyes swept the snow covered Hogwarts grounds. The lake was nothing more than a large sweeping expanse of white icy snow, sporting a few laughing ice-skating students, brimful of holiday cheers. The sprawling beech and pine trees that dotted the landscape were painted lightly with the dazzling fresh morning frost, their far-reaching branches stripped of leaves, glistening snow in its place. Outside was a winter wonderland.

Lily directly her wand at the empty fire grate and a second later rosy glowing flames were crackling cheerfully, spreading a comforting warm light snugly about the room. She rubbed her hands together and blew into them. For a moment Lily thought of simply casting the letter into the fire and joining in her friends down in Hogsmead, but for some reason her heart cramped painfully at the thought, so she remained huddled against the window, her feet curled morosely beneath herself to sheild her bare feet from the cold, her breath casting a misty fog onto the window's icy glass beneath her cheek.

"Well well well. My, aren't we forlorn today! Is this your new fashion statement Evans? Pjs all year round?" exclaimed a loud voice from the Gryffindore common room portrait hole.

Lily groaned and stared hard out of the window at nothing in particular. She heard footsteps and stared harder. To her utter annoyance, he went and plonked himself down on the window ledge as well, a broad grin bounding about on his face.

"Not talking? Or has sullenness become the new snootiness?"

Lily stiffly ignored him...intruding so violently upon her depressed musings. Gosh, the nerve of him!...she sighed and pressed her face harder against the freezing glass.

James said nothing. He twiddled his thumbs in an annoyingly jubilant manner whilst glancing side-ways at Lily. Sirius and Remus had decided, in a fit of rebellious and Christmas spirit, to stock up on Zonko's products to see them all through until the New Year, and James had been shirty with Peter ever since he had snitched to Professor McGonnagall about who had glued upright Knarl spines to the seat of Professor Zinibak's staff table chair. So, he had told Peter to meet him in the Quidditch Captain's Personal Luxurious Office on the 7th floor. As no such room existed, and Peter had rather short legs and the 7th floor was immensely huge, he was ensured quite a few hours to himself.

"So. What's troubling you?You don't seem at all like your perky ol'self or you'dve ferociously cornered me with a sharp object by now."

Lily breathed in to calm herself, her eyes scrunched in the direction of her feet in what she hoped was an expression that conveyed annoyance beyond usual realms.

"Potter, just because I might have a problem doesn't mean I must share it with the rest of the world!"

"Yeah, but you might just wanna. My ears are present for your use." He cupped one of his ears and leant helpfully towards her.

"Thanks but no thanks."

"What? Don't you trust me?"

She knotted her hands in her lap and finally looked at him. His crooked smirk was in place again.

"It's just...I don't...know you." Her voice petered out as she returned her gaze to her benumbed bare feet again.

"Well, let me help get you up to speed." there was a bite of laughter in his voice which cut open Lily's anger. Did he ever take anything seriously? "My name is James Potter, and I'm an Aquarius vegetarian, and I enjo-"

" Haha Potter!" she snapped, her fierce green eyes locking onto his. "Oh so typical. Something dreadful has happened and you make another bad joke. Gosh!"

He looked momentarily stunned, but rallied in a remarkably short amount of time. Perhaps this was a display of the hard skin he had developed from insults thrown by irate teachers.

"Well, I've at least got it out of you that something's wrong! As for not knowing me...We've been in the same house for 6 years! Ok, we haven't talked that often as it's mostly been insults, snappy retorts, and pledges of undying love." He flicked his dark hair out of his eyes in a mockingly suggestive fashion.

Lily smiled. "Yeah, unrequited undying love."

James hitched on a scandalised face and inched away from her as though burnt. " Ooh, snap!" he laughed. "You've got some life left in you yet! So, do you want to tell me the real reason you're blue? Er...metaphorically, that is. Not physically. Haha."

She took her time in replying, folding her legs more comfortably beneath herself as she pulled apart her reasons for not telling him the grim news...

"It's not that I don't want to talk about it. I do. This silence is gnawing at me. I just..." She pulled at her dark red hair in frustration. James watched her graceful fingers work through the burgundy locks wordlessly. No other girl he had ever met had hair quite like Lily Evans. "You just...have such a great life! You're rich, you have a loving family...You have absolutely nothing to complain about! You were born under a lucky star!"

James let out a great whoop of laughter and slid off the window sill to pace before Lily. He knew her next statement would be worth a comical greeting and wanted to have full unimpeded use of his limbs for effect.

"You do!" said an abashed Lily. "I've seen you! Every Christmas your older brother comes up to the school. He plucks you from the common room and you spend a leisurely afternoon strolling lazily by the lake and laughing."

James had stopped pacing. Then all of a sudden he seemed to deflate: his shoulders slumped, his head bowed towards his chest and even his hair drooped dejectedly. Then he swivelled his head around the common room as to make quite certain they were alone. When he had found the empty room to his standard, he shot Lily a piercingly powerful look. "And how old to you think he is?" he asked in a strangely strangled voice.

Lily blinked. Why were they playing guessing games about James' brother's age? James was still staring at her directly in the eyes: a harsh yet sad look that made some part in the black depths of her stomach ache. "I'm not sure" she stammered, embarrassed by the intensity of his gaze. "25?"

"No." He smiled an oddly humourless smile, and turned his back on her to face the blazing fire, hands on the back of an armchair. "He's 34. And he's not my brother." His hands tightened their grip convulsively on the back of the armchair. "He's my father."

There was an awful silence, broken only by the merry crackling of the fire . "My parents had me at 17. I was an accident, never meant to be."

Lily's mouth had become stuck. She gulped helplessly at James' back for a few seconds then lapsed into the horribly loud silence again.

When James spoke again, his voice broke with some hidden emotion, his back still to Lily. "I never return to my house at Christmas as all my parents do is bicker and scream at each other, and I feel responsible for it. C'os I'm the reasons they were married in the first place. Not exactly a lucky star."

Suddenly, he swung round to face her again with a white face and rigidly erect posture. His hazel eyes were steely. "Don't tell anyone." he muttered. "Only the Marauders know."

But an old rusty gate in Lily's heart had creaked gratefully open, as if this confession had been the missing key. "I won't. I swear." she whispered. James grinned and sat beside her, his deportment still awkwardly stiff. Lily suddenly found her hand had snaked itself into his. And James smiled. Not his habitual grin, not his side-ways knowing smirk; a full blown smile lit his face and something warm and encompassing flooded through the rusty gate and spread deliciously to the tips of her toes. It coated her mind in something sweet and pushed her heart onto her sleeve. So, in a warbling voice, egged on by sheer bravado and a want to spit out this poison she said: "My father died."

James' eyes rounded and he squeezed her hand tightly. She turned her head from his face to the flames. She felt him stiffen slightly, then relax. She was sure of what was coming next. But James surprised her.

"I'm so sad for you." he whispered. Her staring eyes glazed with tears that glistened wetly in the fire's light. Suddenly she could not stop and buried her head and voice in James' robe sleeve.

"I had a huge fight with him at Kings Cross this year. I just stood there screaming at him until the train boarded. He didn't yell back at all! He just took it. Oh my gosh, I don't even remember what it was about." James' arm found her shoulders and he encircled her as she wept. "And now he's dead! Dead! Of a heart attack and the last thing I said to him was that I hated him!"

The portrait hole suddenly opened and slammed shut and she ripped herself out of his arms. This was James Potter consoling her! James Potter! The same boy who had hung a banner in the Great Hall proclaiming " Old people smell weird" as the OWL examiners entered it to evaluate their grade. The same boy who thickly poured the super-slippery Mrs Skower's All Purpose Magical Mess Remover over every hall way floor just in time for lunch. The same boy who had dumped chocolate pudding upon her head as she had tentatively made her way to the sorting hat on her first night at Hogwarts!

She shifted away from him as some scared-looking first year hurried past them, casting terrified looks at the expression upon Lily's face.

Then James broke the silence. "I can help."

Lily snorted. "I'm sure. What are you going to do?" she snarled viciously, not facing James. "Build me a time machine?" she scoffed.

"A what, I beg your pardon?" James laughed.

"A something that takes you back in time!" huffed Lily.

James' voice was thick with amusement. "I can do better! I can get you a sure-fire way to reverse what's been done!"

Now she was interested. "What?" She said casually over her shoulder. "Gosh! A time-turner?"

James grinned mischievously. "Better!" he whispered.

Lily's eyes grew wide as she turned bodily back around to face him again. Surely he couldn't! "You're not serious!" she said sceptically. "You can never take anything seriously and this is no different!"

"Oh, really!" he said mysteriously. "Well, meet Sirius and me at the statue of that ugly old bird on the 7th floor." He got to his feet and walked towards the entrance to the boys' staircase, stepping unconcernedly upon Jeremy's roses. "We'll go on a little adventure." At the door to the stairway he paused, looked back at her and grinned. "Seriously."

Excellent! Plz review as then i will love you! xoxox