WHO: James Potter, Lily Evans, and some surprise visitors
WHAT: They get interrupted while snogging on the floor
WHERE: Potter residence!
WHEN: Summer '78

There were loads of good things about having your own house. No one to interrupt snogging time, you got to eat when you wanted and could make what you wanted, you got to personalize it with your own little quirks and special somethings, and---well, loads of other stuff, but currently James was focused on the first thing on his list as he was currently lying very heavily on top of his fiancée in the middle of their living room floor.

They hadn’t decided to lie on the floor to snog; there was a perfectly good couch less than a meter away. It was more of the fact that they were looking through some pictures from last summer that consisted of Lily in a bathing suit and, could you really blame him? His fiancée was hot, there was no doubt about it, so when a knock at the door interrupted his rather one track mind, James just shook it off.

“They’ll come back---if it’s important,” he muttered, moving his lips down Lily’s jaw.

Lily was inclined to agree. And she did--or tried to. Talking while snogging had never worked very well, after all, and it sort of came out as a "snndghmm". But he knew what she meant. There was no way that she was going to give up their well-earned, uninterrupted snogging time... even if they'd already had this time twenty-six or -seven times (she had lost count around fifteen) since they'd moved in last week. And they certainly had christened just about all the surfaces of their new flat. She recalled the time with the kitchen table, in the middle of all the boxes of silver and glass wares, with particular fondness--ahh, and you probably shouldn't get her started on everything that master bedroom had already seen.

Ahah.. haaa--what the fuck, they were still knocking?

Lily rolled her eyes in obvious agitation and reluctantly pushed James off of her. Well, she supposed if was a neighbor or something, it might be important; and in the meantime, she should straighten her shirt and smooth back down her hair. Floor snogging, especially when you were laying under your partner, was not exactly condusive to a clean look afterwards. "Do you want to get it? I'll be there in a second."

“No, no I don’t,” James muttered as he pushed himself to his feet, pulling his shirt down and not bothering with his hair; it was always a mess, no one would know the difference. He looked down at Lily with a pout before stepping over the photo albums and making his way to the front door. If it was a salesman, James was going to pull out his wand and give them a piece of his mind. Peering through the peephole, James jerked back slightly, sending a look back toward Lily,

“It’s an Auror,” he whispered, and turned back to the door, opening it. Not only was in an Auror, but in tow with him were two people that----he didn’t know them, but they looked incredibly familiar and the woman, she had---James felt his chest tighten in realization as he realized why these people looked so familiar, that---that he’d just looked at some pictures of them a few hours ago when Lily---he’d had to calm her tears before, because she’d cried over---pictures of her…of these people.

“Mister Potter?”

“Mmm?” his voice barely strained, eyes not leaving the green eyes of the very tired looking man on his doorstep. The Auror tugged on his sleeve, snapping James out of his trance.

“Is Miss. Evans here?”

“Mmmhm. Lily?” James croaked, backing away from the door.

"What, who is it, James?" Lily asked, coming around the couch with a smile, now that she didn't look so much like she had just been making out with her fiancée on the floor. She couldn't see who was at the door and hadn't really paid much attention to the tone of James' voice, and so that smile stayed on her face until she came up beside him. He looked shocked and she touched his arm, suddenly feeling a bit of concern--and then slowly turned her head towards the door and the people on the other side of the threshold.

It was a good thing that she was holding on to James, because if she had not been able to tighten her hand around his arm, Lily probably would have fallen over right then and there. The hundreds and hundreds of thoughts that were swirling through her mind at--oh god, oh god, how was this even--how was this possible? No--it wasn't possible, because if it was that would say that Clark and Samantha Evans, her mother and father, who had been dead for almost two years were standing at the front door to her flat and that was most certainly not possible.

"What--what is this?" The tone of her voice was hardly a whimper in the greatest desperation to know how what was happening could be happening.

James’ arm wrapped around Lily because if he was ready to faint, it was a miracle that she was still standing. Somehow, some way, they moved, and the Auror and the…the Evanses made their way into the living room and everything was just moving extremely fast and slow at the same time, because while his eyes were seeing everything move at normal speed, his mind just wasn’t comprehending.

They were literally seeing ghosts.

“I’m sure you’re aware of the recent raids of suspected Death Eaters’ homes,” the Auror said, and James nodded dumbly, remembering reading something about it on the wireless constantly these past few days. “Valuable items were found, along with…prisoners. They’ve been with us for a few days, their memory not intact, and it wasn’t until Mister Evans recalled the name Potter, and we took things from there.”

“Jesus Christ----” James let out, mouth dropping. There was no way---

Lily listened to the whole thing numbly, her mind halting completely after the word 'prisoners'. Prisoners. Her parents were--they hadn't been killed. They had been taken and--two years and they had lived as prisoners to Death Eaters? The same people that had tried to kill her numerous times because she was Muggleborn had kept two full-blooded Muggles alive for two years--Merlin, oh, what had they seen? Torture? Worse? James probably had a few ideas of what that entailed, but--

--and what was she doing, standing here like this? Her bloody parents had just shown up on the other side of her door and she was standing here holding onto her fiancée?

Choking on a sob that the realization, the final acceptance that this was really happening, Lily stumbled forward and threw her arms around her mother and buried her head in the woman's shoulder. It was probably for the best that she couldn't see the shocked (and somewhat annoyed, for a split second) look on Samantha's face right before she uncertainly returned the hug, loosely. Of course she didn't remember, but God she was hugging her mum again. Never in a million years did she think she'd get that chance.