I had the dream again, was the only thing she wrote.

Lily leaned on her desk and put her head in her hands, chewing on her lip. Why must I keep reliving this? she thought desperately.

High-pitched laughter...Green light, then blackness...

The laughter. Lily shivered in her thin summer nightdress. The laughter was a new addition to the nightmare. She had never heard such an unearthly, spine-tingling laugh. It had always been quick before, just the wand pointed at her, the green light, then the pain...

No, stop. Don't think about it, Lily told herself. She tried to put it out of her mind. She sighed suddenly. It would be an incredible relief when the summer ended and she could go back to school. It had seemed terribly long, without Potter's foolish letters and the more often than usual presence of that bloody future-seeing dream...

James Potter, one of the few people in the world whom Lily could not stand, had sent her two long letters every week for the past six summer vacations. This summer, however, there hadn't been but one. Why should she care? True, most of them had consisted of the summer pranks he and his friends had pulled on each other, and some were even silly love letters, but they had always been amusing and cheerful all the while. Lately, at least. She remembered a time when she had absolutely loathed the letters and had sent a furious Howler in response to the first one, but they had kept coming. The loathing seemed to have dissolved last summer, and moreso this summer. Lily still hated Potter's arrogant and bullying ways, but he could really write. She wondered why he had stopped writing them...



* * * * * ** * * * * ** * * * * ** * * * * *



James Potter sat in the front row of the church, unmoving beside his parents. Parent. For now he no longer considered the man beside his monther his father. How could any father do as his had done?

The stout and slightly sweating man at the podium droned on and on. After the first sentence or so, James had blocked out the pastor's words. A fat load of tosh, James thought bitterly. No words could sufficiently describe the life or death of his younger sister, Bett Potter.

James let waves of silent fury wash over him, not for the first time in the past couple of days. His only sibling was dead. He hated, despised, wanted to cause pain to the despicable man that had killed his sister. No, not his father, though he deserved some credit. no man, no human being could have done what He had done to Bett. He could not possibly be in any way human. For in one blow, James Isacc Potter had lost both sister and father at the hands of that Creature, though one of them was sitting beside him. Only one could be held responsible for the destruction of James' entire world:

Lord Voldemort.

James's handsome face contorted with unbridled hatred. I will hurt him in some way, he thought with furious determination as he stared unseeingly at his little sister's coffin. As soon as I can so no one else will have to suffer like this. I will stop him if it's the last thing I ever do.