Dream Chasing

It was something she missed when she was growing up - a single child of well-to-do dentists who had, early on, earned a reputation for bossiness and a know-it-all manner when she was in kindergarten and primary school - a reputation and attitude that, she knew, she'd carried with her when she started at Hogwarts.

For the nth time, she pushed back on her memories of the early days at Hogwarts - and the unmistakable, well-remembered look of scorn on Harry's face when he thought of her as the most interfering busybody he had ever seen, back in first year when she'd tried to stop him from the midnight duel with Malfoy ...

She couldn't help herself then, she knew. Those were the days when her life was defined by books and cleverness -- the two things that always loomed large in her life to that point ...

Ron's voice echoed in her mind -- "It's no wonder no one can stand her -- she's a nightmare, honestly."

She could feel her blush warring with the tears that had suddenly sprung to her eyes as her memory brought back the picture of Harry's face as he nodded, apparently in total agreement with Ron - it was that look, and her realization that no one accepted her; that she had, once again, no real friends in school that caused the tears to break out and made her run for the girl's bathroom ...

"So, when did you fall in love with Harry, Hermione?"

Startled, she started to scramble to her feet - only to be held to her seat by a slim, yet warm hand on her shoulder. She looked up into startlingly green eyes that, for a second, held no mystery for her - she'd looked into those same green eyes for years, watching a procession of emotions ranging from pain and sadness, joy and hilarity, care and concern, reading each and every one and feeling her insides shift with every mood swing ... but this time, feeling her heart beating in her throat, threatening to choke her as she tried to swallow and find her voice ...

Lily Potter's eyes held her and she knew that there was only one response she could give. She could lie to her teachers, avoid her parents' questions, fib to her roommates, classmates and everyone else - but she could never be anything other than be honest to her best friend - or his mother.

"I really don't know."

* * *

It had been an idyllic time - Harry bustling around the kitchen getting breakfast together while James perched on the counter, pointing out that while he could make breakfast with magic, this was something beyond his talents.

They'd talked about Quidditch - with Harry recounting the day they'd beaten the Slytherins and won the Quidditch Cup (with profuse gestures of hands diagramming his every move) ... they'd talked about Hogsmeade, with Harry snickering as James described an unforgettable day when Sirius Black decided to put the mouse they'd both forgotten to bring money for the trip - and Remus and Peter combined did not have enough to cover their tab ... back to Quidditch and the World Cup and James laughing at Harry's description of Hassan Mostafa and his actuations when the veela started their dance ...

They'd talked about teachers, with James expressing surprise at Snape teaching Potions and showing keen interest in Remus Lupin's stint as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and recalling their own days in Hogwarts when Lily and he were competing for the honor of topping the class ...

And Harry found the opportunity he'd been wanting to ask: "When did you fall in love with Mum, Dad?"

Silence.

Harry was about to repeat his question, when James Potter answered in a soft, contemplative voice: "I really don't know, son."

Surprised, Harry looked up from the bacon he'd been stirring and marveled at the fact that his lower jaw hadn't shattered when it fell to the ground. James Potter wasn't looking at him but was staring out the window at the beach ... and for a moment, Harry wondered if he saw something like pain passing through his father's face - and felt a flash of fear course through his veins.

They'd been so happy in their wedding photos! But was there something he didn't know, something that had been kept from him ... something connected to the reason why Voldemort wanted them all dead? Was it possible that ...

"It wasn't one of those 'one look at you and I knew we were destined to be together' kind of things, Harry." A crooked smile broke out on the elder Potter's face and he slowly shook his head. "Fact is ... I thought that your mother was one of the most aggravating, bossy, never-break-the-rules, know-it-alls that ever walked the face of the earth."

Harry knew that his jaw had broken on the counter, and he swallowed the lumpn his throat as his father continued. "She was also one of the most stubborn, opinionated, mule-headed and contrary females I had ever had the pleasure of meeting."

"Sounds familiar, Dad," he finally croaked.

Father and son stared at each other for a long moment - and James Potter's eyes widened as he finally understood what Harry was saying. He opened his mouth to reply - and closed it, turning to look out the window of the kitchen, Seeker's eyes finding, and then focusing, on two heads - one, a brilliant shade of red in the sunshine, the other, a bushy-haired head of brown - that were, at the moment, all he could see of the women they loved.

* * *

"You were very lucky."

"I know, ma'am." There was nothing more she could say. She was indeed lucky that Harry and Ron decided to go looking for her that night, and that they had escaped that first adventure with nothing more than jangled nerves and a few cuts - and Harry's wand covered with troll boogies.

Lily Potter reached out to hug the shaking Hermione, who'd had to relieve one of the most terrifying moments of her life - frightening enough that even the two young Gryffindors were staring at her, slack-jawed - feeling a mingled sense of pride and fear running through her.

She was proud of her son, there was no denying that ... but at the same time, she felt a fugitive fear course through her. Harry was so much like James, she thought, always ready for an adventure, always too eager for the next escapade or the next prank -- but beneath it all throbbed the heart of a person who could never turn away from danger, especially if it meant that someone close to him was in peril.

It was one thing they both shared - that overriding concern for their friends, for the people they loved ...

"But why did Sir Harry go after you, Miss Hermione?" She looked up to see Cindy's frowning face as she pointed out, "You said that you and Sir Harry weren't even friends then ..."

Lily Evans Potter blinked.

* * *

"That was stupid, Harry."

"I know, Dad," he replied, the remorse and recrimination evident on his face. "I should have talked to a Prefect, Percy was right there and he could have told someone-"

&ldquo the troll, son." Harry blinked at his father's shaking head as the latter continued, "Good thing that your friend Ron was there and could do the Levitation Charm ... else you would both have been mincemeat right there and then."

"Hermione would have thought of something, Dad ... she was just caught by surprise." He caught himself and turned away from his father to concentrate on the bacon he was cooking, trying to hide a suddenly blushing face from James Potter's sardonic smile at his quick-to-defend-Hermione reaction.

"But why did you do it, Harry? I mean ... you're right, you could have gone to a Prefect or someone ..."

"I don't know, Dad." A mirthless smile broke out on Harry's face as he repeated, "I don't know."

His father kept quiet, watching the play of confused emotions on Harry's face ... and found himself wondering whether he would have done the same thing if it were Lily in the other girl's place.

Probably not.

Especially if he thought, like Harry did, that the girl was an interfering busybody whom he hadn't even been talking with at the time.

He would just as likely have made some cutting remark about crybabies best being left to the troll - a sentiment that Sirius would no doubt have echoed (with a far more cutting remark of his own), while Remus would be torn between going to a teacher or Prefect, and Peter would have waited to see which way the wind blew before making up his mind - and all four would have gone up to Gryffindor Tower, anxiously waiting for the food to be sent up so they could finish the feast ...

And if that had happened ...

"Divination is an imprecise branch of magic, Mr. Potter." The voice of Minerva McGonagall suddenly rang in his ears, and he almost jumped out the window, fully expecting to see the old bat in the room, telling him off for even thinking about Divination, knowing (as he did) that he was thinking of the course as something - or some place - where he could sit and plan the next outrage with his band of merry men.

"There are some things that are best left alone; thinking about the 'what ifs' in our lives is one of them." Truer words had never been said, coming from his old Transfiguration teacher ... but he couldn't stop his mind from poking around that question: "What if Harry hadn't gone after Hermione?"

He shook himself of the suddenly morbid mood that had grabbed him by the throat, unwilling to think of consequences, unintended or otherwise, and strove for the jovial, happy-go-lucky tone of the head Marauder: "Merlin's ghost, Harry! That was only first year Halloween and you'd already rescued the girl ..."

Harry bit his lip as he interrupted him: "She also saved my life, Dad ..."

And James Potter wondered why the oil hadn't splattered when his jaw fell into the pan of sizzling bacon.

* * *

"You didn't!"

There was a startling combination of whispered shock and suppressed laughter in Lily Potter's response - in extremely sharp contrast to the total awe on Cindy and Carolyn's faces, both unable to believe that Hermione Granger, Gryffindor Prefect, teacher's pet and Miss Goody-Two-Shoes had set fire to a teacher's robes - and Mean Old Snape's robes at that!

"Wouldn't you have done the same thing, Mrs. Potter?" Hermione appealed to the older woman, a plea for understanding and affirmation flaming in her brown eyes - and she sighed aed and hugged her.

"Of course," Lily responded as she placed a comforting arm around the younger girl's shoulders. "I would have done the same thing."

Which, she thought to herself, was an outright lie. In truth, if she had seen James in such a predicament during his first Quidditch match, she would have thought that the prat was doing so on purpose - showing off his acrobatic and aerodynamic skills to the yokels and his fan club in the stands.

Even if someone said that the broomstick was being hexed, she wouldn't have believed it ... it was more likely that James would be doing the hexing than the other way around!

"Miss Hermione." Lily Potter looked at Carolyn, who was staring into the distance, apparently trying to visualize the game in Harry's first year, "Wouldn't it have been easier to go to Professor McGonagall? I mean, the Professor is usually in our stands ... while the Slytins are across from us ..."

Lily blinked at that, and mentally awarded the girl twenty points for being so observant. It was true, she knew - Snape would have been in the Slytherins' part of the stadium which meant that Hermione would have had to climb down from their stands, run across the pitch, climb up again to where Snape was ...

She glanced at Hermione, who was staring at the horizon, eyes glazed and de-focused as she replied, "I ... I wasn't thinking, Carolyn ..."

Neither was Harry when he went after you and the troll, Lily Potter thought to herself.

* * *

James Potter's laughter should have been infectious, ashe kitchen, trying to emulate his image of Severus Snape, robes aflame, dancing in the stands, knocking people left and right while far above him, Harry climbed onto his broom and went into a steep dive after the Snitch ...

But Harry wasn't laughing.

A series of images had started flitting through Harry's mind: of Hermione sneaking into Snape's storeroom to steal some boomslang skin for the Polyjuice potion ... Hermione hexing Snape in the Shrieking Shack ... Hermione's voice as she called out, "Trust me!" as they struggled against the Devil's Snare ...

He barely grabbed his glasses as his father's strong hand slapped his back, and turned to see James' laughing face as he said, "Merlin's beard, Harry! You've been through a lot with the girl ... what were you going to do for an encore?"

He could only stare blankly at his father as Dumbledore's voice suddenly echoed in his tumbling mind: "... for theuse of cool logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor house fifty points."

* * *

"Books! And cleverness! There are more important things - friendship and bravery and -"

"Love."

Brown eyes met green and locked. That wasn't what she said, Hermione thought - and felt herself flushing as green eyes interrogated her ... and she nodded. It wasn't what she said, but it was what she meant, and felt herself curiously warmed as the hands holding her gave a soft squeeze of understanding. She felt the tears prickling in her eyes as she felt Lily Potter's acceptance and understanding of her feelings for Harry ... and finally admitted to herself that, while their friendship may have grown deeper through the years, everything began because of the adventures of a single year at Hogwarts.

She'd started off feeling a debt to Harry Potter but as the months and years had passed ... when everyone thought Harry was the Heir of Slytherin ... when everyone thought Sirius Black was out to kill him ... when he was named as a Tri-Wizard Champion ...

Where did debts end -- and something else took its place? When were dues paid for, obligations settled ... and care, concern and something indefinable takes its place?

They broke their gaze at the sound of a long, loud sigh, and glared at the two young girls beside them, theatrically swooning on the sand of this picture-perfect beach.

"How totally romantic!"

"How absolutely wonderful!"

"Oh, how lovely it must be!"

"Yes, absolutely bee-you-tee-full!"

"Hey! That's my line!"

"It is? I thought that was for next week?"

"Girls ..." Hermione's admonition stopped as she heard Lily snickering beside her. She shook her head at the two and thanked them in her mind for breaking the suddenly somber mood that she and Harry's mother had found themselves in.

"Time for a swim, girls?" The two smiled at Lily Potter's tone and, with a short bow to th two older ladies, they were running for the water, splashing each other at the same time - leaving Hermione smiling while Lily softly laughed at the antics of the two.

"It must be difficult being Harry's friend, Hermione."

For a long moment, there was silence. And Hermione replied in a soft voice, gazing out at the sea where two young girls were frolicking, "No, ma'am ... it is an honor to be his friend."

Green eyes met brown, and Lily Potter whispered, "That, my dear, is more than can be said of his father when he was your age."

* * *

"Harry?"

The worried voice was coming from a distance and he couldn't respond - his mind was roiling in fear, not sure whether they could pull this off and rescue Sirius, wondering whether they had the time to pull it off and get back to the Hospital Wing, doubtful that Buckbeak would be able to carry three of them ... and suddenly feeling arms around him, a warm body tight against his back, and a head with bushy hair resting on his shoulder.

Calmness, confidence and exhilaration coursed through him as Buckbeak leaped into the air; he could feel himself smiling at Hermione's constant muttering behind him, telling him, "The bacon's burning."

He nearly jumped out of his skin as the words penetrated his muddled brain, and he glared at his laughing father as he shut off the flame under the pan. "You never can resist a joke, can you, Dad?"

"Once a Marauder, always a Marauder, Harry," James replied with a grin. Harry snorted and turned back to the stove, and felt James slapping his shoulder lighly. "C'mon Harry ... lighten up! You're entirely too serious - you're getting to be like your Mum at that age!"

He didn't respond as he focused on the pan he was holding, his mind locking on that statement - and remembering his Dad's revelation about Lily Evans and how she sounded very much like Hermione as he knew her.

Was it true, he wondered, as he carefully broke eggs into the pan. Was he being entirely too serious ... unable to recognize a joke or even to acknowledge laughter when it came - and his mind skittered once again to that thought he'd had in fourth year: 'there was much less laughter and more hanging around in the library when Hermione was your best friend.'

"But there's also friendship and bravery, Harry." He blinked and stared at his father, who was leaning back on the counter watching him - and Harry realized that he'd spoken his thoughts out loud. He braced himself for his father's inevitable teasing but, for the first time that day, there was no hint of laughter or humor in James Potter as he continued: "And you've seen all that and more with Hermione."

"Dad," Harry started to say, but closed his mouth as his father held his hand up.

"That was my biggest mistake with your mother, Harry." James turned away and looked out the window, eyes locking on his wife's hair as the sunlight caught it, turning it into a shade of dancing flame as the wind caressed it. "At the start, I never did look beyond the serious, red-haired bookworm known as Lily Evans. I thought her too bossy, too solemn and too formal to even bother with ..."

He sighed, and turned back to his son. "I guess I was having too much fun with Sirius, and Remus and ... (with a sudden grimace) Peter. We were young, we were wizards and ... we had fun! Why should we let someone who spent most of her time in the library, who probably wouldn't know a joke if it bit her, hold us back?"

In a pained whisper, he added, "And we thought we were so cool."

* * *

"James always had this habit of messing up his hair, trying to make it look as if he'd just stepped off his broomstick, trying to make himself look ... with it. But oh, the girls would lap it up! They'd all be ogling him, hoping that he would ask them out for the Hogsmeade visit ..."

An image of a traumatized Harry Potter in fourth year intruded into Hermione's vision - especially when he told her about the fifth year who'd asked him to take her to the Yule Ball - and Harry's look of fear that the girl was going to knock him out when he refused! She bit hard on her tongue to stop the laughter from erupting, as she focused on Lily Potter's voice ...

"-- And he'd always be pulling out this Snitch that he got from practice ... Everyone thought it was so cool, but I told him that he looked like Captain Queeg playing with his balls -"

And Hermione suddenly sobered when Lily asked, "Was Harry ever like that?"

"Harry was never like that," Hermione said softly, shaking her head at the memories of her best friend - especially the first time she laid eyes on him: swimming in the huge, cast-off clothes of an enormous Dudley, taped together glasses that she had repaired to show them how much she had learned, even before they got to Hogwarts ... and she told Lily about the time she'd seen Harry and Ron in their Common Room, looking like a pair of shell-shocked penguins after they had been turned down by their prospective dates ...

"Good for him," responded Lily, "at least he doesn't have James' ego or arrogance."

For a long while, they sat in companionable silence, thinking about the men in their lives, and then Lily turned to Hermione. "So, did Harry ask you to go to the Ball with him?"

Hermione didn't answer and Lily bit her lip as she watched different expressions chase each other across the younger girl's face. "Hermione?" she asked, softly - and continued as the other girl turned to her. "Harry didn't ask you to the Ball, did he?"

Hermione blushed and looked away. "Umm ... no, ma'am. Actually, even if he did ... I had already said that I would be going with someone else."

"I see." Lily Potter looked at the girl for a long moment and said, in a softer voice, "He didn't think you were pretty enough to ask to the Ball? Or was there someone else?"

Hermione opened and then closed her mouth, wide eyes looking at Lily as if she were a deer transfixed by headlights.

"No, ma'am," she whispered. "Harry never thought of me as pretty ... and there was also someone else."

* * *

... Cedric and Cho were close to Harry too; he looked away from them so he wouldn't have to talk to them. His eyes fell instead on the girl next to Krum.

His jaw dropped.

It was Hermione.

But she didn't look like Hermione at all. She had done something with her hair; it was no longer bushy but sleek and shiny, and twisted up into an elegant knot at the back of her head. She was wearing robes made of a floaty, periwinkle-blue material, and she was holding herself differently, somehow - or maybe it was merely the absence of the twenty or so books she usually had slung over her back. She was also smiling - rather nervously, it was true - but the reduction in the size of her front teeth was more noticeable than ever; Harry couldn't understand how he hadn't spotted it before.

"Hi, Harry," she'd said, and he blinked at the laughing, yet strained face of his father as they laid out cutlery and plates in the dining of the bungalow he was sharing with Hermione in this Fantasy Island of his dreams.

James Potter shook his head and smiled: "Rest assured, Harry ... you are a guy."

"Dad?"

"We never really see what's right in front of us, most of the time. We always seem to be looking for something, some one, somewhere ... never really knowing that what we are looking for is right under our noses."

His eyes were on the beach where Lily's flaming hair could be seen, watching as she talked with Hermione - and smiled as he saw two other girls join them, dark hair wet from their swim, both of them trying to dry their hair as they approached.

"So how do we know that we're in love, Dad?"

He turned back to Harry, a small smile on his face, and met the troubled eyes of his son head-on: "We know, son. We just know."

* * *

"I see." Lily Potter sat silently for a while, mulling over everything that Hermione had said - or hadn't said -- and asked, "Do you still keep in touch with Viktor?"

Hermione's answer was interrupted as Cindy and Carolyn sat beside them, the two girls streaming water from their swim, and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief - only to gape at Carolyn's remark as she dried her hair: "Ron said that you keep writing long, long letters to Viktor Krum, Miss Hermione."

She glared at the younger girl's disingenuous tone and said, in a voice laden with steel: "I lied."

She felt Lily Potter's hand on her shoulder and blinked, turning away from the two young girls who were seemingly intent on drying their hair with their fingers, and faced Lily's green eyes. "Hermione?"

She blushed and turned away. "No, ma'am ... I was actually writing in my journal ... Ron and I were waiting for Harry one night and he asked me what I was doing, and tried to grab the parchment ...I told him that I was writing a letter to Viktor to shut him up."

"Oh."

She turned back and looked into Lily's eyes: "I told Viktor that I wouldn't be joining him in Bulgaria when he said good bye, at the end of fourth year. I told him that I felt it would be unfair to him if I wrote or kept in touch ... when I knew that there was nothing that could happen between us ..."

"Yes!"

Startled, Lily and Hermione turned to stare at two dancing young girls, who were hugging each other and chanting, "We have a Galleon ... We have a Galleon ..."

"Girls," Hermione said - and the two stood still, though grins were still on their faces. "What was that all about?"

"Oh, nothing, Miss Hermione ... nothing." Lily snickered to herself as she saw Hermione's eyes and lips narrow in an expression so much like Minerva McGonagall that she didn't give the two girls a chance of escaping this inquisition.

"Uh ... well, we have a bet going with Ron, Miss Hermione," Cindy started, looking down at her toes.

"We told him that we didn't believe you were writing to anyone except your parents ... he wouldn't believe us, kept telling us that you were writing to Viktor Krum," Ca continued as she looked towards the horizon.

"We told him that you were probably keeping a journal, the same as we do," Cindy said, as Carolyn nodded. "He said that he didn't believe us &hellp; that if we were correct, he'd buy us a Galleon's worth of candy from Honeydukes ..."

"And if you were writing to Mr. Krum, we'd buy him a Galleon's worth of stink bombs from Zonko's." Carolyn beamed at Hermione's flabbergasted expression, adding, "Since you said that you were writing your journal and not writing to Viktor Krum, that means we've got a Galleon's worth of candies!"

"Are you two spying on me?"

The suddenly crestfallen look on the youngest Gryffindors on the island tugged at her heart, but this has got to stop, she thought. She couldn't have these two sulking around her, stalking her and her every move ... just because they were her friends, and she often thought of them as her younger sisters!

"We're not spying on you, Miss Hermione," Carolyn whispered, as she looked down at her feet.

"We were just betting on a sure thing," Cindy added, looking all over the beach but not at Hermione.

"And what, may I ask, is that sure thing?" Hermione glared. The two looked at her, a suddenly defiant gleam in their eyes.

"That Sir Harry owns your heart." Hermione stepped back in surprise at Cindy's confident statement; whatever response she could have made to that was interrupted by Lily Potter's quiet, yet teasing, voice, "Wisdom from the mouth of babes, Hermione."

"What would they know of love, Lily?" she replied as she glared at the two.

Cindy and Carolyn's look of defiance suddenly softened, and wistful smiles appeared on their faces. Carolyn responded, in a tone of utter conviction acomplete seriousness, "We know, Miss Hermione ... we know."

* * *

"That's not an answer, Dad."

James Potter smiled at his son - a faint, sad and wistful smile with deeply hidden shades of meaning behind it, and Harry frowned. "That's all the answer I can give you, Harry ... because that's all the answer that I can really give."

"Dad ..."

"What is love, Harry?"

The silence stretched as Harry stared blankly at his father, unable to answer the simple but complicated question that had been posed to him - the question which, he realized, was where it all began - from the moment that unthinking Beater had slammed the Bludger towards Hermione, and he went into a dive to get to her before the Bludger could hit her ... and he woke up on this island.

Was that what it was all about, he wondered?

Was the answer to that question the reason why they were here together like this - Hermione in her purple bikini and he in swimming trunks that he had never even owned in his life ... not to live the life of whatever hormonal or hormone-induced fantasy they may be having, but so that they can answer that question without distraction or interruption?

Could that be the reason for everything that had happened on this island - from McGonagall's catching them tickling each other on the floor, to Ron's visit and the songs they had sung at the Red Moon with Nicole ... to Cindy and Carolyn interrupting them at a most inappropriate time ... and his Mum and Dad suddenly showing up in this place?

He'd wanted, more than anything in the world, to have had his parents with him, even for a brief moment of time ... but more importantly, he'd wanted to properly introduce Hermione to them - but as what? His best friend? His girl friend? Or, as he had declared in that singular moment of seeming weakness, when nothing but truth was demanded of him: "I love her, Mum."

That was the truth ... but why did he say it?

And his mind poked again at the question his father had asked, "What is love, Harry?"

His eyes focused on his father's eyes and he whispered, "I don't know, Dad."

* * *

"Why do you say that, girls?" Lily Potter asked, interrupting Hermione before she could go into a rant about the sheer impudence and gall of the two young girls. Cindy and Carolyn looked at her, at each other, and then at Hermione before Cindy replied: "It's because of everything that we've seen, ma'am ..."

"Everything that we've seen Miss Hermione and Sir Harry do," Carolyn affirmed.

Hermione opened her mouth, but quickly closed it as the two girls continued in a soft, reflective and somehow, longing, tone of voice:

"It's the way Sir Harry waits for you in the morning before going down to breakfast or classes ... and the way you wait for him to come back at night, from Quidditch practice or a detention ..."

"It's how you brig him a stack of toast when he doesn't go down for breakfast - and how he brings you your lessons and books when you're in the Hospital Wing ..."

"You ladle out beef stew on his plate even before you do the same for Ron or yourself ..."

"I watched you prepare murtlap potion for him when he was in detention -- and how he watches you as you knit socks and caps ..."

"It's how you grab his hand when you're going somewhere - and how he seems to know what you're thinking even before you can say it ..."

"He always listens to you, even when he is angry at you."

Hermione looked from Cindy to Carolyn, unsure of how to respond to the barrage of observations from the two young girls. Yes, she admitted to herself, she had done all those things and more for her friend ... but was that love? Did Harry feel the same way about all those things, in the same way that these two saw them?

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked up into Lily Potter's green eyes.

"Love is not something you talk about, Hermione," Lily told her. "Neither is it something you think about, or even feel about."

Hermione stared at Lily through eyes heavy with tears, and Lily smiled at her. "Love is something that you do, in small and large ways, in every day of your lives ..."

"Mrs. Potter ..." she croaked, but Lily continued, her green eyes boring into the younger girl's own. "Love is a little boy going after a little girl to save her from a mountain troll, even if she isn't even her friend at the time."