lilium_evansiae | 2 January 1977, King's Cross Station

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2 January 1977, King's Cross Station

Lily has always, in some ways, been happy to go back to Hogwarts when term begins again. She misses Hogwarts, misses her friends, misses magic, misses that whole ever-more-significant piece of her life.

And, this particular break, she has also missed James.

(Speaking of ever-more-significant pieces of her life.)

So, as much as she loves her parents, as much as she enjoys being home and spending time with them, it's with a certain amount of relief that Lily steps through the barrier, two steps ahead of her father, and onto Platform 9 3/4.

She might be standing up on her toes, just a bit, trying to get a better look at the crowd of students and parents waiting next to the Hogwarts Express.

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"James, what's the rush?"

"There's no rush," the boy in question replies, though he finds he has to put a deliberate slowness into each step just to remain with his father and a rather sullen-looking Sirius Black trailing some few paces behind.

Okay.

James may have spent most of the morning going on about how glad he is to see Lily again.

And that may have gotten a little on Sirius' nerves, if the murderous cutting of his pancakes is anything to go by.

But ... letters simply aren't good enough. And while break was brilliant, the new term will be even better.

Lily's mane of bright red hair is easy enough to spot amongst everything else. And it is the very sight of her that — corny as it sounds — stops him short, and catches his breath.

"Lily!" he calls loudly before he can stop himself.

Lily doesn't run.

Oh, she moves very, very quickly, but she doesn't actually run.

She also doesn't think about the presence of her father ... nor James' father ... nor James' sullen-looking best friend ... nor few score of their fellow students.

It's been two weeks since she's seen him, and felt at times like months and right now, Lily just wants to kiss her boyfriend.

James wraps her into a tight hug, breathing every part of her in as he kisses her.

It only very distantly registers, in the back of his mind, that there's someone chuckling softly in the distance.

And those chuckles sound a lot like his dad's.

Well, no matter.

(Nothing really does, right now.)

"Lily," he exhales against her mouth.

They can worry about other people later.

"Hello, James," she says, so quietly that anyone she's not currently embracing doesn't have a hope of hearing her over the crowd around them.

"Missed you."

"I missed you too," James returns, pressing a kiss to her shoulder before he hugs her again.

It is only with some great reluctance (and his father's throat-clearing) that James takes a step back.

But he takes Lily's hand instead and grins at her.

"Had a good break?"

Lily laces her fingers through James', and nods.

"Yeah, it was good. I'm kind of glad to be back, though."

Throat-clearing fathers and all.

Lily's dad hung back a little, when his daughter went all but running across the platform, but he's making his way over now, with the suitcase she left behind.

"Me too," James agrees, squeezing her hand a little.

"And — ah, Dad. This is Lily. My girlfriend."

Harold Potter nods, a lopsided smile reaching his lips. "Yes," he says. "I gathered that from the rather enthusiastic reunion.

"It's nice to meet you, Lily."

At least she's only blushing a little?

"It's very nice to meet you, too, Mr Potter."

And since it's not polite to neglect your parents, Lily turns to her own dad, as well.

(She doesn't let go of James' hand, though.)

"Dad, this my boyfriend, James, and his father, Harold Potter."

Adrian holds his hand out to the other man. "Adrian Evans."

Harold shakes Adrian's hand, as is only polite.

He smiles.

"Nice to meet you as well, Adrian," he says, before his smile widens with a touch of amusement. "It seems that my son is quite taken by your daughter."

Merlin's Beard.

James can do nothing else but smile at the moment, wishing his father would simply stop talking.

This is absolutely his father getting back for ignoring him earlier, isn't it.

Lily looks over at her father and then back to Mr Potter.

"I think this is probably the point at which Dad tells you he heard a lot about James over break."

"Probably," Adrian agrees, amused.

"Though in fairness to my daughter, my wife did ask her a lot of questions about him.

"It's very nice to meet you, James."

He does feel a bit as if he knows you already.

"Nice to meet you too, sir," James responds.

And it is.

Even if he's feeling like this could go just as embarrassingly as it had when their mothers met, and his mum tried to get a whole lot of information out of Lily.

"Ah, yes," Harold says, waving a hand. "Florence told me quite a bit about that afternoon at the platform.

"Much to James' embarrassment, I'm sure."

He exchanges a look with his son before grinning.

"Nevertheless, I hope you had a pleasant holiday. It's always nice to get the family together again."

They look more than capable of enduring a little embarassment. Lily is still holding James' hand, after all.

Adrian nods. "Yes, it is.

"I always have a moment when I consider not sending her back, when Lily comes home."

"But you always let me go," Lily says.

"And speaking of that, I probably need to go check in with the other prefects now."

She (a little reluctantly) lets go of James' hand.

"I'll send you an owl when I get there," she tells her Dad, reaching up to kiss his cheek. Adrian nods, and Lily turns back to Mr Potter. "It was nice to meet you."

"Likewise, young lady," Mr Potter says, politely.

James, seeing the opportunity, immediately swoops down to take Lily's bag. "Here. Let me help you," he says.

Because there is no way he wants to be left with the fathers. Particularly if there are any further embarrassing questions and topics to be discussed.

And, honestly, he isn't sure he's ready to let Lily go just yet. (At least, not until she does meet up with the other prefects.)

"I'll owl you too, Dad," James says, momentarily turning back.

"Of course," Mr Potter says. "Have a good term, James."

As she and James move toward the train, Lily distinctly hears her father say, "So, Harold, may I buy you a cup of tea before you go?"

Lily looks over at James.

"Oh, dear. D'you get that feeling that doesn't bode well?"

James glances over his shoulder just as the two fathers head off for tea.

(His father could never refuse a cup of tea.)

"I'd like to think my dad won't be as horrible as my mum when it comes to embarrassing me, but he's shown a hidden talent for it."

He raises an eyebrow at Lily.

"And that worries me."

"Yeah?" Lily asks, reaching out to take James' hand again. (The one that isn't, of course, occupied with her suitcase.)

"What are you going to worry my dad's going to tell him?

"Anything I should know?"

"I dunno," James admits, his thumb making small circle patterns on her hand. "It might just be the thought of the two of them ... conspiring.

"Parents talking about me make me nervous. It's automatic."

James is entirely too good at giving Lily goosebumps, doing things like that.

(He is also ridiculously cute when he's nervous.)

"I guess we'll just have to conspire back, then," Lily says. "But maybe not right at this moment."

They have better things to talk about than their dads right now, don't they?

"No, not at this moment," James agrees.

But conspiring back? He can definitely get on board with that. He's a Marauder, after all.

He starts to smile.

"This break felt oddly far too long."

"Like it was months or something," Lily agrees. "Even with Christmas in the middle of it, and everything that goes along with it.

"Speaking of which ... " Lily pauses to grin at her boyfriend " ... I saw in the Prophet that you didn't manage to escape the Minister for Magic's Christmas party, with the dancing ice sculptures and the special performance by Celestina Warbeck ... "

If James had a free hand to facepalm, he would.

He does groan.

"Don't remind me, Lily. It was ... a nightmare. An inescapable nightmare."

"It can't have been inescapable; clearly you escaped at some point," Lily says, practically.

"Though I am now picturing that involving your having to be very James Bond about it all -- sneaking down corridors and disabling alarms and jumping out windows to abseil down the walls of the house and all.

"Did Black go with you, or did he talk his way out of that one?"

"Oh, no, he was there," James says, "... and then I think he disappeared quite early in. I saw him talking to a girl, so."

He shrugs in a very, 'That's Sirius' sort of way.

"That didn't please his family, of course. After all, he's supposed to set a proper example."

He's sure he doesn't have to explain what 'proper example' means in High Society during the midst of a blood war.

"That seems very optimistic of them," Lily says. "Proper's not really the first word that comes to mind for Black, is it?

"Or the third.

"Or the thirtieth.

"Not in that way, anyway."

If Lily had to guess, she's guess that the eldest son of the House of Black goes a bit out of his way to be 'improper', honestly.

She'd be right in her guess.

James nods.

"Definitely not in that way," he agrees, stepping up to the train cabin doors and allowing Lily to climb up first. "I reckon they think he'll catch on eventually, have a 'change of heart' as it were."

He rolls his eyes.

"Right. As if that'll ever happen. The bloke is about as stubborn as anyone can be."

"Well, maybe it's good to be as stubborn as anyone can be about some things."

Lily steps onto the train and just far enough down the corridor to give James room to follow her.

"We got lucky, didn't we, you and I? With our parents? Habit of embarassing us on train platforms, aside.

"But I mean, I could have a dad who didn't let me go off to Hogwarts, and you could have a dad who didn't accept when my dad offered to buy him a cup of tea."

There are a lot of pureblood out there who wouldn't have, after all.

Halfbloods, too.

James nods again, his expression remaining serious.

"My dad doesn't care about the whole blood purity thing," he says, shrugging. "He never really did.

"Your dad is obviously a decent bloke, and that's all there is to it."

He pauses.

"Actually, your dad's more than decent. He's brilliant. Because he did let you go off to Hogwarts."

Lily smiles.

"He really is. He and Mum both. They not only accept that their younger daughter is a Witch, they think it's wonderful.

"And your parents seem brilliant, too.

"We got lucky."

"We did," he says, grinning.

He brings her hand up to his lips and presses a kiss against her knuckles.

"With more than just our parents, really."

There is a very not-so-subtle sound of gagging in the background as Sirius makes his way up the corridor of their current train cabin.

"I see the happy couple's been reunited."

Lily occasionally wonders exactly how Sirius Black got a reputation for being as charming as he is reputed to be. Because she can't see it, most of the time.

But he's her boyfriend's best mate, so she's going to make an effort.

Dammit.

"Hello, Black," Lily says, cheerfully. "Did you have a good holiday?"

Sirius turns his grey eyes, the ones a number of girls have called 'smouldering' and even 'rather sexy', towards Lily.

He smiles a little.

"It was brilliant. 'Spent most of it at James', after all."

James smiles too.

"That's right," he says, nodding.

"Although you were a little moody for most of it."

Just saying.

"Yeah, James mentioned you were there in his letters," Lily says, easily.

Sorry, Black. She's not all that impressed with the grey eyes, no matter what 'a number of girls' have thought of them. She's rather more partial to hazel.

"'Course he did."

That's what James would do, right? He's his best friend, after all.

"So." A little awkwardly: "How was your holiday, then?"

"It was lovely," Lily says. "Pretty quiet, but really lovely.

"Though I can't really say I'm all that sorry it's over.

"Though I also can't really say I'm looking forward to whatever Grindstaff is going to have waiting for us when we get back."

"Blimey. Grindstaff."

James shakes his head.

"It'll be all right, Lily."

"He certainly won't have spent all holiday thinking up new ways to torture us, that's for sure," Sirius says.

"But if he did, I know there are probably some leftover dungbombs under my bed that we could use."

Lily looks at him like he's gone mental.

Because ... well, it's Grindstaff. You don't do things like that in his class.

Not if you want to live to graduate.

"Right," she says. "Well, I guess I'll leave you two to that, then, and go check in with Fenton and Iphigenia."

Lily leans over to kiss James for maybe half a second longer than is exactly appropriate with Black standing there.

"See you soon, James," she says, taking her suitcase back.

She nods to his best friend. "Black."

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2 January 1977, King's Cross Station

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