Welcome to my World

By Shannon xxx

Chapter 18

James and I got off the train a few stops later, to where we were supposed to be going with Sirius and Remus.

Why do my plans with these boys never seem to work?

"I can't believe we're going back tomorrow …" I said, as we walked down a busy street, in search for a place to eat lunch.

"I know, it'll be strange, considering we've had so much freedom here." James said, pulling my wrist as he guided me down another random street. He somehow seemed to know where he was going, so I didn't question him.

"Yeah …" I said. "It'll be strange being surrounded by mature girls too," I smiled.

James laughed.

"Yeah, I hope Peter doesn't feel left out when we get back …" James said. I bit my lip. I hadn't thought about Peter all week, mostly because I was having too much fun …

"James," I said, as I was yanked down yet another random street, "where in God's name are we going?"

James just smiled.

"You'll see."

Honestly, that boy...

After another ten minutes of being pulled around corners, yanked down alleyways and almost being killed by a double decker bus ("I didn't know it was going to move Lily, honest!"), James stopped in front of a …

Wall.

"Here we are!" James exclaimed.

I surveyed the area.

"Um … what's "here" exactly?" I asked, bewildered.

"Here!" James said, gesturing to the wall.

Silence.

"James?" I asked.

"Yes?" he replied.

"What exactly … why are we staring at a wall?"

James laughed.

"'A wall', she says, 'a wall'!"

I stared at him.

"James, have you completely lost the plot?" I asked. He laughed once more.

"Lily darling, just wait." he smiled. "Before we start however, we need to make sure there's nobody around..."

I watched as James looked left, right, and down the alley we had travelled down to get here, before walking back over to the wall, and pulling his wand out of his pocket

I gasped.

"You're not supposed to have that!" I exclaimed. James looked sheepish.

"Yeah well, desperate times call for desperate needs..."

That wasn't a good enough response for me.

"James Potter, you tell me-"

"Lily shut up!"

I stopped, shocked. James looked rather shocked at himself too, because straight after he shouted, he quickly said, "Please. I mean, if that's okay."

I looked at his horrified face, and burst out laughing. He looked puzzled for a moment, before realizing that I wasn't angry at him, and he shook his head.

"I hate you Lily," he muttered.

"Love you too," I replied sarcastically, still laughing. I didn't realise what I had said until I heard the sharp intake of breath from James, and I stopped laughing.

"No – I mean – I-"

"I know, Lily." James interrupted. "Just a joke."

Stupid stupid stupid.

"Anyway, are you ready for your surprise?" James continued. Regaining composure, I nodded. James smiled and turned to the wall, muttering some words and tapping a few of the bricks occasionally. Before tapping the last one, he checked our surroundings to make sure we were still alone. Seeing that we were, he tapped a brick in the centre of the wall, and the wall started to break apart. It started to crumble from the top, and I watched as the bricks all turned to dust in front of me. It wasn't until about a quarter of the wall had crumbled away that I saw what was behind it.

It looked like a large meadow, with a path running through the middle of it. There was a river running through it too, and I could hear birds chirping in the distance.

I gasped, and felt James looking down at me smiling.

"Come on," he said, as the last row of bricks crumbled to the ground. "We need to get in here before the wall starts to build itself up again.

Taking my hand, he walked me into the meadow. We then turned and watched the wall re-arrange itself, and it honestly was the strangest thing.

Instead of there being a random grey brick wall in the middle of this field, each time a row of bricks built themselves up, more of the meadow appeared. It was surreal; blue skies, green grass, trees, and then the view of the alley James and I had just walked down slap bang in the middle of this lovely scenery. We watched the last row of bricks fit themselves into place, and then the alley disappeared completely, leaving us alone in this vast patch of greenery.

I turned to James.

"Now what?"

He smiled.

"I have some plans."

Although I felt sick with worry about the fact James had just performed magic and I was pretty sure we were stranded in this meadow with no way out, I was quite excited to see what James had in mind.

.*.*.*.*.

After having a nice lunch by the river from the picnic basket that was so conveniently placed where I wanted to sit ("Seems as if it was done by magic, eh Lily?"), James and I took a stroll through the trees, not too far away from where the wall had once been.

We walked in a comfortable silence, as I took in my surroundings. It really was a lovely place, and although I felt that we should be spending our last day in Muggle London actually in Muggle London, this wasn't too bad.

"James..." I said, breaking the silence a few minutes later.

"Yeah?" he asked, looking up at a little yellow bird that was perched on a tree.

"How exactly did you find this place?"

James smiled, a little sadly, and took my hand, leading me over to a bench that I'm pretty sure wasn't there two seconds ago, and sat down.

"My Dad used to take me here when I was younger." he explained. "We have relatives that live in London – they're a bit Muggle mad – and any time we came to visit them, my Dad would take me here so that I could fly my broomstick. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's not a lot of room in London to fly about without being spotted."

I rolled my eyes. Of course I knew this, but I didn't want to squash James' ego by saying. Instead I just nodded, and let him continue his story.

"The last time I was here was when I was eleven, just before I started Hogwarts." James looked off into the meadow. "Dad wasn't as much fun that time. Dad wasn't much fun that whole summer actually. He was always at work. When I went to Hogwarts, Dad left home for months, away on a mission with his office."

The conversation had suddenly become tense. I didn't know why, but my heart was beating a lot faster. James still didn't look at me as he told me.

"Dad was an Auror." James said to me. "He often went on missions, but that one was different." James' voice was suddenly a lot quiter. "Because he didn't come home from that one."

I stopped breathing.

I had no idea. James' Dad had died? Why did I never know this? Why was I never informed?

I could feel my eyes watering. The first thing I could think of doing was taking James' hand.

"I am so sorry," I whispered. James had a sad little smile on his face as he looked down at our clasped hands.

"It's fine," he whispered back, and he pulled me into a hug. I, naturally, was a bit shocked, but I returned the hug, realising it was all he needed right now. All I could think of was back to all of our years at Hogwarts, when I had been mean to him. When all he did was try and be my friend, and I shot him down, because I thought he was arrogant, annoying.

"When did you find out?" I asked, still hugging James. He pulled away, and coughed.

"Christmas of first year." he said. "I returned home for Christmas break, to find only my Mum in the house. She looked terrible. I knew right away."

A tear slid down my cheek. I couldn't imagine anything worse. Especially not at eleven years old.

"Hey," James' voice suddenly broke me from my thoughts. "Are you crying?"

I tried to duck my head, but I felt James' hand under my chin, bringing my face up to look into his.

"You are," he said, chuckling. Nothing was funny, but I found myself softly laughing too.

"Did you expect me not to?" I asked, trying to wipe away tears. James stopped me, and wiped them away himself.

"I wasn't planning on telling you," he murmered, his hands cupping my cheeks.

This was wrong. He had just told me his Dad had died, but we were so close to each other, I could count the freckles on his nose.

This wasn't right.

But I didn't want to pull away...

"James-" I whispered

"Shh."

I knew I was leaning in. I knew I shouldn't, he was vulnerable, he didn't need me leading him on...

But I wasn't leading him on.

I wanted this just as much as he did.

And then I felt his lips on mine.

Um, hello again...

It's been what, a year and a half?

Yeah. I am sorry, and if you are still reading this story, then you are officially the best person in the world. I suppose I can't really say anything other than sorry, but I had a lot of exams (8 in total) and I really needed to concentrate on them. But now they're over and it's summer, and I'm waiting on my results and I thought, "What better way to spend my time than to finish Welcome to my World?"

So now I'm here writing, and I recommend re-reading this story because I can hardly remember what happened and I wrote it.

Thank you for sticking by me, and if you left a review, even telling me how much you hate me for thinking I can come crawling back like this, I would be very grateful.

Review? Alert? Favourite?

I love you all.

Shannon xxx