My Girl

Dear Mum and Dad,

I know it's been awhile. I'm writing to let you know that I'm now back in London, and to find out if there's any chance you might want to catch up and meet your grand daughter. Her name is Gwendolyn Amerie Evans. Persephone will wait whilst you read this letter but if you don't want to reply just tell her and she'll leave.

Lily

Lily put the parchment in an envelope and stalled, wondering if she should send the letter after all. She hadn't seen her parents since she told them that she was pregnant. They were furious at her for being so irresponsible. A few nasty words were said, and then they had disowned her. Lily had gotten the better of them by withdrawing all the money from her university fund the next day before they had a chance of closing it.

As she was Muggle born, her parents had set up funds to put their daughters through university, and when Lily turned out to be a witch, they had kept her fund for her to buy her first home or car with it. Unfortunately the money had only lasted for so long.

Deciding to bite the bullet, she gave the letter to her owl, Persephone, and watched her fly out of the window. Lily turned towards the door as she heard someone thumping on it. Puzzled as to who it could be, she opened it and looked at a woman with brown eyes and long thick wispy brown hair.

"You know there I was," she said, "in my apartment, minding my own business, when I received an owl from Alice saying that you had moved back to England. I sat there and thought 'no, she must be wrong, Lily would've surely told her best friend that she was back. Even if they hadn't spoken in 6 months.' So I came here, to see if Alice was telling the truth. It turns out she was."

Lily grinned at Marlene McKinnon and hugged her. "I missed you too. It's good to see you."

Marlene poked her tongue out and walked inside, not bothering for an invitation. "Now where is my niece?"

"In the kitchen eating fairy bread."

"Well lead the way."

Lily walked into the kitchen whilst Marlene followed. Gwen was sitting at the table eating bread with hundreds and thousands of sprinkles on top. The colour from the sprinkles was now all around her mouth. She looked up as Lily and Marlene approached and grinned cheekily.

Marlene sucked in a breath. "Oh my god," she squealed and hugged Gwen tightly. "She's adorable. She looks just like you, but she has James' hair and grin. Ooooh, I just want to eat her."

Gwen stopped grinning and her eyes widened in horror at the thought of being eaten by this crazy looking lady who was squeezing the air out of her.

Lily snorted. "Stop it Marl. Can't you see you're scaring her?"

Marlene reluctantly let go of Gwendolyn, who scurried over to Lily and hid behind her legs.

Marlene looked at her in surprise. "I'm not that scary am I?"

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"Argh, Lily, do you know how hard it's going to be to get all this flour out of my clothes?"

It was now late afternoon, and after watching her mother chatting for a while with Marlene, Gwen had gotten restless. So to try and 'bond' as Marlene had called it, the three of them were attempting to bake a cake the Muggle way. Now this may sound easy enough, but Marlene had no cooking skills whatsoever, with or without magic. Now all three of them were in the kitchen covered head to foot in flour.

Lily looked at Marlene accusingly. "Why are you whining about it to me? You were the smart one who put the electric eggbeaters into a bowl filled up with flour. What is the point of mixing plain flour? It's not like you can mush it up or anything!"

"Gwen said it was a good idea," Marlene said defensively and knelt down to the little girl. "Didn't you Gwen?" Gwen grinned at her and blew a handful of flour into Marlene's face.

Lily looked at Marlene who was blinking rapidly, attempting to get rid of the flour in her eyes. "She's four years old Marl. Four! She doesn't know any better. You at lea...." Lily was cut off by the sound of knocking at the door. Ruffling her hair to remove some of the flour, she walked to the front door, opened it up and looked at the last person she was expecting to see.

At 6'1 James Potter looked down at Lily, who was only 5'9. He looked at the flour covering her body. "Uh, is this a bad time?" he asked. Apart from the fact that she had been up to god knows what, she looked like she wanted to run away in terror.

"For...for you?" She said shakily, and then cleared her throat. "It's always a bad time for you. What do you want?" As calm as she was trying to act, her eyes were wide in horror.

James frowned. "Lily what's wrong?" He was getting a bit worried about her.

"Lily," a voice called from inside. "Who is it?"

"It's Potter," she yelled to Marl, her voice high pitched. Lily heard something break, probably the bowl with cake mix in it. "Do you want me to go Lil? We could both meet you back at my place."

"Yes, go!" Lily yelled, getting the hint. She turned back to James, a lot calmer, when she heard the whoosh of floo powder.

He was still eyeing her worriedly. "Are you OK? You looked like you were going to freak out."

"What do you want Potter?" she snapped, ignoring his question.

"Here," he happily shoved some paperwork in her hands and grinned. "You're looking at you're new partner. I got an owl this morning to see Moody and he told me the good news. That there is your half of the paperwork."

Lily felt like screaming to all of England. She nodded dumbly and closed the door in his face. There had to be a big conspiracy or something making Lily always be with James. Why else was she forced to be around him so much? She screamed in fury and chucked the paperwork across the room.

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"No!" Marlene was looking at Lily in shock after hearing what had just happened.

Lily nodded miserably. "Yes."

"Shit. Things are not looking good for you Lils."

"I know," she wailed. "But there's nothing I can do about it. I don't know what I would do if he ever found out about Gwen." She glanced over at the girl sleeping on the couch.

After the encounter with James, Lily hadn't immediately gone over to Marlene's. It had taken her a few hours to calm down (she didn't want her daughter to see her almost hysterical).

"Can we stay here for the night please Marl? I don't want to wake her up, and I would be so grateful if we sleep here and you drop her off at day care. I've only been working in London for a week, but Mad-Eye is getting pretty peeved off at me for being late every day."

Marlene nodded. "Yeah, it's fine. You can share the spare bed with Gwen."

Lily nodded and picked up her sleeping daughter and carried her to bed.

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"I'm surprised Evans. I didn't think it was possible for you to be on time."

Lily was in the Ministry of magic and had surprised everyone by arriving on time. Mad-Eye gave Lily a nod and hobbled back to his office. That was probably the closest thing to a compliment she would ever get from him.

Lily opened the paperwork James had given her the previous day and walked back to her office glancing down at it every now and then. Not looking where she was going she smacked into someone, knocking both of them onto the ground, her papers flying everywhere.

"Damn it!" Lily looked at the person she knocked over, and groaned when she saw James.

"Potter, must you be everywhere?"

He looked at her in surprise. "I'm not everywhere, we just happen to work in the same place and be partners."

She rolled her eyes. "Uh huh, whatever."

He shrugged and put a hand to his head. "I think I hit my head on one of the cubicles." That was when Lily noticed the patch of blood at his hairline.

She sighed. "Here, let me help." She pulled a hanky out of her pocket and started dabbing at the blood.

James looked at her in surprise. "Why are you doing that?"

"Well it is my fault; I wasn't looking where I was going."

He nodded slowly, wondering if there was a catch, and then grinned. "You know, you're fussing just like a mother would. You don't have any kids hidden from me do you Lily?"

Lily stiffened and stood up. "I have to start on the paperwork you gave me," she muttered and then rushed off.

James was confused to say the least. She was a strange one, that's for sure. Who acts that way towards a joke?