Where There is Love, There is Life

Chapter One: When Are You Going to Start to Grow Up?

"James, let him go," a female voice said to him through the laughter of the crowd. James had Severus Snape suspended in the air upside down and was about to take off his pants.

"Why?" he asked the voice, calmer than during his tense conversation with Lily Evans.

"Because no one here really wants to see that," the voice answered. He sighed and let Snape down, but certainly not gently. He turned toward the voice as Snape ran off and saw a girl of short stature. The crowd was long gone but James no longer cared. Neither did Sirius Black, who came to join James and the girl.

"You can't keep ruining our fun, Annie," James said to the girl. She just laughed at him and pushed some brown hair out of her face. Her blue eyes were bright with laughter. This look in her eyes and her soft laughter made James scowl.

"What's so funny?" he asked haughtily, glancing at Sirius who just shrugged.

"You think I ruined your fun? Well, you just ruined any chance you might have had with Lily," she told him. James looked at her disbelievingly.

"I had a chance with Lily?" he asked breathlessly.

"Up until five minutes ago," Annie responded smoothly. Annie watched Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew walk over to the group. As James looked at Annie with incredible disbelief, Peter looked between Annie and Remus. Sirius, Remus and Annie looked at Peter as he glanced between the two as if they were in a heated tennis match.

"What, Peter?" Sirius finally snapped. Peter kept looking between the two. Remus and Annie shared a look.

"Are you two sure that you are twins?" he asked Annie and Remus. Remus sighed, Sirius groaned and Annie muttered something that distinctly sounded like 'Oh God'. Annie added to her statement by rolling her eyes and slowly shaking her head at the boy.

"Yes, we are," explained Remus. "Annie and I are twins. We were born on the same day, from the same parents, therefore we are, in fact, twins." Peter looked at him with a furrowed brow.

"Then why don't you guys look a lot alike?" he asked. Annie looked to her brother and appraised him a little before answering.

"We used to," she began. "But then... well... you know. That changed his eye color. We used to have the same color eyes; then his changed to amber. I look more like our mother. She's a lot shorter than our dad. He has blond hair and Mum's got brown hair. I got Mum's genes. Remus got Dad's. That's how life is, for the millionth time Peter. If we have to have this discussion again then I'll have to kill you, alright?"

"Okay," Peter said tentatively. Annie turned back to James, who had long ago stopped staring at her.

"What did he do this time?" she asked him.

"He bored Sirius," James explained, finding that was a perfectly good reason to go hex an innocent... okay, maybe not innocent... soul. This time Annie turned to Sirius.

"You were bored?" she asked him, hoping his explanation was so much better than James'. But unfortunately James and Sirius seemed to be sharing the same brain that day.

"Yep," he answered.

"Then why didn't you read a book? Or study for OWLs? Or throw yourself into the lake? James, don't you have that snitch? How the hell were you bored?" Annie asked. The boys cowered in her questioning. "Being 'bored' isn't an excuse to go hexing people. And you, Mister Prefect, why didn't you stop them?"

"I was reading!" Remus defended himself. Annie looked at the book he held up.

"Ah yes, The Guide to Intermediate Transfiguration is so interesting," Annie said very sarcastically at her brother. "Look, it's not okay to just be hexing people for the fun of it. You saw that by Lily's reaction and you were just going to keep doing it. If you want to beat out the giant squid at winning her love, you've got to stop messing around. Take it from me, it's not cool." James sighed after Annie told him what he really needed to hear. He may have needed to hear it but he certainly didn't want to.

"But, Annie, torturing Snape is so much fun," James whined. Annie scoffed and threw up her hands in defeat.

"You are all arrogant berks!" she told them. Each and every one of them had the audacity to look offended, her brother most of all.

"I was reading!" was Remus' eloquent comeback. Annie, however, just shook her head.

"I stand by my statement, guys. We're not seven anymore, we're fifteen, almost sixteen. When are you going to start to grow up?" Annie asked. The boys couldn't look at her and Remus had nothing to protest with. Although Annie wouldn't have been surprised to hear a half-hearted 'I was reading' from him, but it didn't come. Which could only mean one thing, she finally got through to them. She looked at them sympathetically and sighed.

"Let's go up to the Common Room," she suggested. No one was around on the grounds anymore except for Lily and her friends by the lake. Annie knew that James wouldn't want to be around that now. The boys showed their approval by grunting or actually saying something. Annie smiled softly and put her arm around her brother's waist as he said 'I was reading' quite pathetically. Annie laughed a little and continued up toward the castle with the Marauders: her good, but immature, friends.

Over by the lake, Lily Evans watched Annie Lupin and the rag-tag group trek up to the castle. How can she stand them? Lily thought.

"Mr. Lupin is her twin brother. The rest of them are like family to her," someone answered. Lily didn't realize she had spoken her thought out loud. She turned and saw Professor McGonagall standing beside her, also watching the five make their way into the school.

"Professor?" Lily asked for an explanation. The professor looked down at her pupil as she spoke.

"She has grown up with them. She learned to understand them and what makes them do the things they do, no matter how stupid or immature. She knows them inside and out. And they know her the same."

"She and Remus are twins? But they look nothing alike!" Lily stated.

"They are indeed. They do have similarities about them. They have the same nose and mouth. But other than that, there are very few observable similarities between the two. But if you want to know all of this, then why are you not talking to them, Miss Evans?" Professor McGonagall asked of her young student.

"I don't rightly know Professor," Lily answered. The teacher smiled a little before walking away and leaving Lily to figure out her own thoughts.

Inside the Marauders were having a secret meeting, leaving Annie to find comfort in a chair by the window with a good book. Coincidently it was The Guide to Intermediate Transfiguration. When Remus had made a smart remark about her reading it when she had reprimanded him for doing so just a hour ago, she had told him to shut up and finish their stupid meeting so she could beat him at chess. The Marauders soon finished and Remus went over to his sister to begin their long game of chess. James, Sirius and Peter took to lounging around the common room. The room was empty save the five friends. James and Sirius claimed the couch as Peter stretched out on the floor.

"So how do you feel James?" Sirius asked his best friend. James looked at him before responding.

"I feel fine. I can't wait for the holiday to start," James said anxiously, but that was before he was interrupted by a tapping noise coming from the window by Remus and Annie. The siblings immediately recognized the owl flying by the window as that belonging to their family. Annie opened the window as Remus allowed the bird to land on his outstretched arm. Annie took the letter off of the bird's leg and it took off out of the window and into the sky. Remus and Annie put their heads together to read the long letter from their parents. At different intervals the two would glance at each other, both with a worried expression etched onto his or her face. James, Sirius and Peter went over to join their friends to see what the matter was.

Remus and Annie stopped reading the letter at the same time. Annie looked at her brother as she bit her lip. He looked back with an almost similar expression; he wasn't biting his lip.

"What's going on?" Peter asked them. Annie sighed and Remus took this as a sign to explain what was going on.

"Mum and Dad say that we have to find somewhere else to stay for the summer holiday," he told their friends. "Mum won't go into too much detail about why, but it must be big, considering."

"You can stay with me," James offered at once. "Mum and Dad won't mind. They'll love it. They've always wanted another son and a daughter. But I think that was threatening to replace me." Everyone laughed. When they stopped, Annie looked at James and sincerely thanked him.

"Yeah," Remus agreed. "Thanks." James smiled in response and the friends forgot all about the letter as Annie beat Remus spectacularly at chess.

However, there was one person who didn't forget about the letter. Lily had entered the common room about the time James, Sirius and Peter went over to Remus and Annie. She heard James offer to let them stay at his place and never heard a more mature comment come out of his mouth. Slowly, very slowly, Lily's opinion of James was starting to change. She decided she needed to stop that as she quietly left the common room to go to her dorm.