"Something to Talk About"
Hello! This story is the sequel to my James S. Potter fic "Semi-Charmed Kind of Life". You don't necessarily need to read it, but it's only 25 chapters and sets up the two main OC characters Ben and Emma nicely. This chapter will explain a lot but feel free to post questions in the review if you have any!
Also, I was very inspired by music with this story and I'll post which songs I listened to while writing the chapter so you can get a better idea of it. Sometimes the lyrics relate to the plot, but sometimes (as in this first chapter) the feel of the song is the mood. Happy reading and please review! Xoxo Kacey
"1000 Miles" by Vanessa Carlton
Chapter 1: And I'm Homebound
Lily Luna Potter ran her hands through her shoulder-length red hair and watched the landscape zoom by. After years of wearing it nearly touching her waist, she had finally decided to cut it and add some layers. She was rather pleased with the outcome but she wondered what her family would say when they saw her at the platform. She was on the Hogwarts Express, leaving her sixth year of schooling. It had been the first year without either of her brothers in the school and, though it took some getting used to, she had actually liked being on her own. She turned away from the window at the sound of the compartment door opening and grinned at the sight of her best friend and cousin Hugo walk in.
"Well I ran into Roxanne snogging Jeffery Coroner." He laughed, tossing Lily a chocolate frog.
"Honestly, she finished N.E.W.T.S, finished Hogwarts and yet she is so not finished snogging any wizard she can lay her hands on," Lily giggled, opening her chocolate frog. She loved her older cousin, but she had always been boy-crazy. "Oh look, I got your mum!" She said, showing the card with Hermione's beaming face on it. Lily knew her family was famous, but she still felt proud when she saw the proof of it.
"Lucky, I got Merlin again." Hugo groaned. "Why couldn't they have Quidditch players on these?" Lily shrugged. She loved Quidditch (in her family, you had to), but Hugo was completely obsessed. After Hogwarts he planned to work for the Daily Prophet reporting on games, just like Ginny. Lily had a thousand futures she wanted, the trouble was choosing just one. "So have you heard about Scorpius and how he's doing?"
"No I haven't, Rose hadn't mentioned him in her last letter…" Lily trailed off. After Hogwarts, Scorpius Malfoyhad shocked his family and much of the wizarding community by going into the Auror program. He was close with Rose and Albus, but the three had not gotten to see much of each other because of hectic work schedules. Albus began working for the Department of International Magical Cooperation at the Ministry and Rose started working in a wizarding publishing company. The compartment door slid open again and Monica Blooming walked in, an embarrassed look on her face. Monica was also a Gryffindor in Lily and Hugo's year and she had become closer to them over the past two years.
"You will never believe what I just did," she moaned, sitting down in the seat. "I was going to get food from the trolley when Emmett Burrow decided it would be the perfect time to get food too,"
"Ahhh," Lily said knowingly. Emmett was a Ravenclaw in their year and Monica had been smitten with him during their Transfiguration class.
"And he asked me if I was doing anything fun this summer and I told him about visiting France and he smiled and said 'well don't get swept off your feet' and then I started turning red and he looked at me weird and then I turned to leave and tripped over." She finished, burying her head in her hands.
"Aw, Mon, it's okay!" Lily assured her, putting her arm around her and giving her a squeeze.
"He probably though it was cute," Hugo offered and Lily laughed.
"Honestly Hugo, you need to start hanging around with blokes. You are way too good at girl-talk."
"It's not my fault I'm the last male Weasley!"
"You can befriend people outside the family tree," Monica said, bringing her head up with a slight grin. Hugo rolled his eyes and Lily laughed again. She glanced out the window.
"We're almost there!" She took her muggle clothes out of her bag and she and Monica banned Hugo from the compartment so they could change.
"That top is really pretty on you, Lil." Monica noted as Lily pulled on a deep blue v-neck sleeveless shirt.
"Thanks! My Aunt Fleur sent it to me as an early birthday present since she and Uncle Bill can't make the party."
"I can't believe you'll finally be of age in three days!" Monica laughed. Lily was a summer baby while Monica had long since turned seventeen in October. "Do they still make it a joint party for you and Ben?"
"Yes." Lily said, rolling her eyes. She and her older brother James' best friend Ben had the same birthday and for the past nine years, the Potters had insisted on throwing them a combined one.
"Wow, he'll be twenty-one, won't he?" Lily nodded and Monica shook her head. "I still remember our first day at Hogwarts. He and James set off fireworks after McGonagall's speech. And then you went over and hugged them! I thought you were mental until I found out you were related." Hugo began banging on the door as the train slowed down.
"I need my trunk!" The girls let him in and the three grabbed their stuff and departed the train onto the busy platform. Lily and Monica gave each other a big hug and promised to write before separating to find their families. Lily saw her father first and hurried her step to see him.
"Daddy!" She said, setting her trunk down and jumping into his arms. No matter how old she was, Lily was a daddy's-girl and she loved it.
"Hi darling," Harry said, hugging her tight. "I'm so happy you are home." When he let go, Lily was enveloped by Ginny and then Albus.
"James had a late training session," Ginny answered the look on Lily's face. James was starting Keeper for Puddlemere United. "He said to apologize sixty times for him and that he and Ben will be over for dinner so please don't hate him."
"Like you ever could," Harry said shaking his head. "So how did the rest of term go Lils?" And with that the family walked back to the station, Lily chattering on about her subjects and social life.
"I don't think Hugo fanicies Adrinna Bumbles, but I can't be too sure. I don't know if I like her and it's not because she's in Hufflepuff, but I remember when James used to date her older sister and she was a nightmare." Lily say on the kitchen table and filled her nails while filling in Ginny on all of the gossip from school. Ginny smiled as she supervised the cooking—Lily never ran out of words. The fireplace in the kitchen suddenly turned green and Lily squealed, knowing who was Flooing in. "James!"
"Lily!" James walked out of the fire and picked his sister up and spun her around.
"Oh James, you are covering her and my floor with ashes." Ginny sighed, but she was still smiling. She loved that her three children were all close, but Lily and James had a special relationship. The way he doted on her and the way she looked up to him in awe reminded her very much of Ginny's relationship with Fred and George.
"Your hair." James said when he pulled back and looked at her.
"Do you like it?" She said, flipping it over her shoulder.
"Yes. But you look far too grown up." He said, giving her hair a ruffle. "Oh yeah, Mum, Ben will be over soon, he got a quick call to a scene downtown." After leaving Hogwarts, James and Ben moved into Grimmuald Place. James had always loved it and it was convenient for Ben for his job as an Obliviator for the Ministry.
"That's fine, dinner won't be ready for another few minutes. How about you two wash those ashes off and tell your brother and father to come down." Ginny said and she waved her wand to set six places at the table. Lily and James walked towards the downstairs bathroom.
"How's Emma?" She asked hesitantly. James and Emma had been dating since their sixth year, but they had been having some "rough spots" since Christmas, as James put it. He groaned.
"We were good for about a fortnight. And then we had another row." Lily frowned. Emma has practically been a part of the Potter family from her and James' third year on and it was hard to imagine her and James not getting along. "It's her bloody healer training, she's always at work and when she's not I have Quidditch and then in the few minutes we get to spend together we end up arguing."
"It'll all be okay." Lily told him. He shrugged and she changed to subject to his team.
As the Potters sat down to dinner, the front door opened and a loud voice echoed into the kitchen.
"Where's my birthday buddy?!" Ben Amherst called, walking up the hall. Lily got out of her seat and went to give him a hug. She stepped into the hall and grinned at Ben. He seemed taller, but his blue eyes were sparkling as always and his dark curly hair looked flawless, much in contrast to Lily's brothers. They had inherited Harry's black refuse-to-lie-flat hair, which Albus tried to tame and James purposely made stick up even more.
"Three more days!" She said, bouncing into his arms. "Are you excited to turn twenty-one?"
"You mean am I excited by the possibility that, should I ever venture to America, I can have a pint?" He asked sarcastically as they walked into the kitchen. "I think you should be excited to finally be a grown up."
"She's not growing up." James half-joked when they entered the kitchen.
"She's coming of age." Albus pointed out.
"She's sitting right here." Lily rolled her eyes. Ben chuckled and gave Ginny a kiss on the cheek and shook Harry's hand.
"Oo pasta!" Ben eyed the food and took the seat opposite of Lily. "Kreacher never makes us pasta."
"Speaking of," James addressed Albus. "He wants to know if you will take him on a proper date next time."
"Piss off," Albus groaned. When Albus was younger he was terrified of Kreacher, a memory that James constantly brought up.
"Albus," Ginny said in a warning tone.
"Mum, I'm twenty years old." He said sighing.
"You can be forty-five and you still shouldn't say those things."
"What's wrong with forty-five?" Harry asked jokingly, he was turning that age at the end of July.
"Why are we even talking about age?" James asked, twirling his pasta around his fork. "The only age that matters is seventeen."
"Almost me!" Lily said happily and James and Harry simultaneously groaned and Lily's face fell a bit. Ben, who caught this from across the table winked at her and started telling them about the scene they were called to in which a wizard enchanted a Muggle television set to only play the inappropriate channels.
After he and James had returned back to Grimmuald Place, Ben decided to go to the sitting room and read, something he had not done in sometime. He was finally settled with a book on Animagi when the fire turned green and Emma Warrington stepped out of it, brushing ashes off of her Healer robes.
"I swear, if I have another young witch come in with her hair fried off because they tried to enchant one of those Muggle straighteners…" she huffed, coming out of the fire and sitting next to Ben.
"Aw Em, you know I still love your curls." Ben said, playing with her blonde ringlets that were falling out of the ponytail she tied them into. She gave him a smile.
"How's Lily?"
"Good." Ben answered, remembering the dinner. "She looks…older."
"Well she will be seventeen soon." Emma mused. "I was so upset I didn't get to see her, I suppose I'll have to wait until the birthday picnic at the Burrow. That is if I'm still invited." She mumbled, motioning upstairs to where James was taking a shower.
"You can be my guest," Ben offered. "But I'd much more like it if you fixed things with Jamesie."
"I think I would like that much more too," she nodded and she got up to go see her boyfriend. When Emma left Ben when to go back to his book but he found himself again thinking of dinner at the Potters. His thoughts were on one Potter in particular. There was only one girl in the world off limits to Ben, an unspoken threat by his best friend. But during dinner Ben couldn't help but noticed she had filled out in all the right places and her hair framed her face in the perfect way. Lily did not only look grown-up though, the way she talked had changed a bit as well. But she was still the dreamer, the girl that talked a mile a minute, laughed more than anyone else combined and was the most affectionate person.
Stop. Ben told himself. She's not even of-age. But in a few days she would be and Ben couldn't help but wonder if that would make a difference.
NEXT: Birthday party!