A/N Hey guys, I know it's been forever and most of you have probably stopped reading by now (fair enough really, I don't blame you) but I figured I may upload this for you, as well as give you all a bit of an update as to how it's all going. I am no longer going to be authoring this story in this form. It has been adopted by BeckiWriter, who has posted my chapters up to this point. I'm very excited to hear what she comes up with and encourage you all to continue reading with her once new chapters are released.

As for me, I've had this story for so long that the details and way it's been written are starting to bug me. I do want to rework the entire thing and post it up again, so I guess we'll see how I go with that (I promise right here and now to not start posting until the entire story is finished, so as to avoid this kind of thing) Please note this probably won't happen anytime soon, just to let you all know that it hasn't been abandoned. In the meantime I've already started writing a Harry Potter oneshot which I hope will be entertaining.

So now that all my egotistical whining is out of the way, on with the story!

Chapter 7: And the truth comes out

Breakfast the next day was, awkward to say the least. It involved Ainor trying desperately to start normal conversations, about anything really, and Lily giving Ainor strange looks across the table. The marauders sat between them confused and a little bit weirded out.

"Ainor, you've asked us about quidditch three times already, what is wrong with you guys this morning?" Sirius exclaimed, unable to handle the tense atmosphere that had fallen over the group.

"What are you talking about Sirius? Nothing's wrong." Ainor and Lily replied in perfect unison, before resuming their previous activities. Lily shooting Ainor weird looks across the table, trying to catch her eye, while Ainor looked desperately at anything else.

"So, everyone tells me that you guys are the prank masters of Hogwarts, but so far I've seen no evidence to support this fact."

"All in good time," Sirius said making sure no one was listening in, "we haven't been met with a good opportunity yet."

"Oh, yeah, and what would that be?"

"Slytherins walking within hexing distance alone, first years accidently stumbling across our path, that sort of thing."

"Honestly Black, you're in seventh year now, Remus is a prefect, and by some miracle Potter is head boy. Don't think it's time to give up these ridiculous pranks?" Lily scoffed at them all, her attention momentarily diverted from Ainor. The marauders looked at each other horrified at Lily's words, until James seemed to make a realisation.

"A miracle eh? So you're just that glad to get to spend time with me? Well I knew eventually-" He was cut off by a slap in the face by Lily.

"Get real Potter, as if anyone would feel that way about you" she said, just a little too icily and her face a little too red to be considered normal, before storming out of the hall. James tried to save face, but, upon seeing her gone, just looked dejected.

"What did you do this time Prongs? I haven't seen her that angry over something so small before" Sirius looked incredulously at the door to the great hall.

"Like I know, I thought things were going well, I thought she'd get I was joking"

Ainor had heard enough. She left the hall and walked around the castle, on the lookout for her fiery, red-headed friend. She finally spotted her in the library, at one of the lesser used tables in a corner, surrounded by books and already researching something furiously.

"Are you serious Lily, it's a Saturday morning, it's a beautiful day and you're reading Studying beyond the Newts: 1000 hard to understand facts not tested?"

Lily looked up, from the large book, eyes still shining with anger." I didn't have anything else to read ok? I've already finished my homework for the next week, what do you want me to do?"

Ainor sat down opposite her and folded her arms on the table. "Maybe come down and finish breakfast with us?" she suggested, "Spend the day with us, pretend nothing's wrong or tell me what's bothering you, I don't mind which one, but they've all got to be better than sitting here fuming right?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she snapped, not looking up from her book "nothing's wrong, it's certainly not anything to do with Potter, and I certainly don't like him or anything. He's just so..."

"Annoying, frustrating, loveable?" Ainor suggested, grinning at her.

"Shut up Black" she tossed back, before both girls suddenly stopped, realising what she'd just said. "Sorry," Lily said, looking almost a little freaked out "it's just he used to do the exact same thing to me about Potter. Thinking about it, you are very similar…"

"So are you and my aunt, Lily, doesn't mean there's a connection. Not everything's a big conspiracy theory."

"You mean Professor Porter's mother?"

"Yeah, you act the same sometimes, especially when you're angry at me" she grinned sheepishly "anyway, enough about that, we were talking about the secret crush you totally don't have on James, right?"

"I don't have a crush on Potter" Lily hissed at her from across the table

"Yeah, because I totally get offended by joking remarks that people give me and storm out and hide, it's totally normal." Ainor remarked, slightly more harshly than she should have.

"Yeah, like you're one to talk," Lily threw back, "your biggest fear is some idiot French guy finding out some secret you kept from him-" Lily was cut off as Ainor suddenly grabbed her shirt and pulled her up to eye level.

"Never, ever, insult him again if you value your life" She growled at her, as though possessed. She shoved her back down and stalked away, leaving one confused and slightly terrified head girl in her wake.

It was almost two weeks before the two talked again. Lily sat with Alice in all her classes, and avoided the Marauders like the plague, while Ainor used this time to get to know the teenage versions of her parents and guardians better. It was clear that both felt bad about the incident, but Lily was still a bit freaked out and Ainor too confused at her own behaviour, to talk about it. In fact, the real victim in this situation was James, as, from his point of view; it was his little comment that had pushed Lily away for so long. It was almost the start of October before he discovered the truth.

"Hey guys?" James asked picking at his morning toast, "What do you think it was that set her off, what I said, or how I said it?" There was a collective groan from among the Marauders, but Ainor looked unsure.

"What are you talking about? Who'd you manage to annoy now?"

Sirius looked at her disbelievingly and sighed "well in case you haven't noticed, Evans hasn't been around for the last little while," he spoke slowly, as if talking to a five year old "and the last thing anyone said to her was Prongsie's comment…"

"I am so sorry James" Ainor looked over at his, trying to look as sincere as possible, "I just assumed you knew. Lily and I had a conversation after she left… she hasn't been avoiding you, she's been avoiding me…"

James looked up, his face giving away relief, anger and happiness at the same time, he looked ready to run over and apologize to Lily, but then he sat back down and asked, his voice strangely calm "What did you do to her?"

"Well… I really don't know what happened… One minute we were talking, and then she said something, and I really don't know what came over me… and … it was all just a misundertandi-" James cut her off before she could say anything else, and asked again, this time his voice icy cold "What did you do to her?"

"We may have kind of got into a fight… and I may have… threatened her…" Ainor couldn't meet anyone's eyes, as their shocked looks turned dark.

All four of them looked fiercely protective and glaring at her, Sirius asked "and just what did you say to her, Brown?"

"I told her that she shouldn't speak anymore about something if she…"

"If she what?" James asked this time, enunciating every syllable slowly, trying to convey just how much he was about to kill her in those four words.

"If she valued her life…" Ainor said the last part so softly and ashamedly that she was honestly surprised when they seemed to hear her.

"WHAT?!" James roared as he shot up and used his superior height to intimidate her "You said that to her Brown?! I can't believe you, you know what, I thought you had more class than that, but to say that to a lady, I am ashamed of you. You're not worthy to be called a human, let alone a gentleman!"

At this Ainor could feel the anger welling up inside her, she stood to her full height, tall for a girl, at only a few inches shorter than James and yelled back in his face " You know what Potter? I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm a girl. So stop yelling at me about your stupid chivalry and acting like in the heat of the moment you've never said the wrong thing!" She glared at him, showing that she wasn't afraid of him, and then grabbed her bag and stormed out of the great hall.

James sat down as soon as she was out of sight, still shaking with anger. The other marauders glanced at him, still surprised by the showdown that had taken place just moments before. In the end it was Lily who broke the silence.

"Look, Potter," was all she managed to get out before four heads whipped around to watch her, "I'm sorry for the way I acted towards you two weeks ago, and for not talking to you since, but don't take it out on Ainor. I know that it probably hurts your man pride to know that you can't protect everyone all the time, but all that happened was a misunderstanding, and was, to put it bluntly, none of your business…"

Everyone was surprised to say the least when James, instead of blasting off some stupid retort he would regret later, merely looked to the doors of the great hall and replied "yeah, you're right. I'll give us both a bit of time to cool off and then go talk to her." Sirius later swore that he saw Lily give James a small smile before she went to class, but at the time everyone else was too stunned by James' words to notice. Remus sighed as he realised that, as the sensible one, it was now his job to move three still very angry and bitter boys to class. It was feat deemed impossible for mere mortals, but somehow Remus managed it, and within a few moments the Marauders all moved off to their first class of the day, Sirius and James headed off to the North tower for Divination, Remus left for Arithmathy, and Peter went to join Ainor in music.

That music lesson was designated to theory, as Professor Monach felt that this had been severely lacking in their compositions and described them as "If you all just wrote down random notes, hoping they would sound good together," which did make them feel discouraged, but a fun lesson looking at the tonal qualities of major and minor chords and their variations soon made up for it. Ainor had almost forgotten her fight with James at breakfast, feeling so relaxed with Peter that she almost sat in her normal spot in transfiguration, between Remus and Peter without even thinking. However at the last minute she realised her mistake and instead spent a pleasant lesson about transforming in-animate objects into animate ones, sitting next to a shy Hufflepuff boy named Neil. It was during then lesson, while she was taking notes, that a piece of paper appeared on her desk, reading:

Meet me in the Common room after lunch; I want to talk about what happened this morning.

The letter was unsigned, but Ainor had no problems guessing who it was from.

Sure enough, when Ainor entered the common room after lunch during her free period, while the rest of the seventh years attended ancient runes and care of magical creatures, she met one James Potter sitting on the couch, waiting for her. She had to smile at his awkward manner, obviously not sure what to say, despite having called the meeting.

"Lily put you up to this?" she asked without malice, as she sat to an armchair across from James and shrugged off her outer robe, over warm sitting so close to the fire.

He looked up at her and tried not to look embarrassed, "She may have suggested it," he said, suddenly finding his shoes very interesting.

"Look," she said, trying her best not to laugh at the pure awkwardness coming off the conversation in waves, "no hard feelings ok? Honestly, I don't really want you to see me as a girl that you need to defend or take care of or whatever, I just want to be your friend, and I don't care if you hold me to the same moral codes as the others. It's pretty funny actually," she said as James looked at her grumpily, "and I'm sorry for yelling at you this morning, I admit what I did was the wrong thing, thanks for blatantly pointing it out to me." She grinned, hoping that her little speech would be enough to save their friendship, without making either of them feel the need to throw up. When James looked up and grinned back, she felt as if a weight had been lifted.

They were both about to get up and join the rest of the marauders in the corner of the room, when Lily walked past and, making some comment about how jealous she was of 'boy's' friendships, as they seemed to repair and heal within minutes, dragged Ainor up to the dormitory with her and closed the door.

"Ok," she said sitting on her bed and looking up at Ainor, "there are things we need to talk about, and we are not leaving until the things that need to be said have been said and we can go back to normal. Now I know" she added holding up her hands in the symbol of surrender "that you can just brush things off with the Marauders and then suddenly everything's fine, but hopefully you realise, as I do, that our friendship just won't work like that. So… what started all this? I mean, when did we start thinking we couldn't trust each other?"

"Well, I guess it's just because I'm so dodgy," Ainor said grinning at her. Lily did not look amused. "Fine," she sighed and sat down on her bed, knowing that this conversation would take a while, "I guess that whole thing with the boggart would have set you off. But really not to sound rude or anything, I don't really see you as all that strange or mysterious. I mean, you are scarily observant sometimes and you like a certain Marauder a lot more than you let on but apart from that…" she switched topics, upon seeing Lily's face "so the boggart right? Well, I don't really think there's much to talk about that I haven't already told you about, so back at my school in Australia-" but Lily cut her off before she could continue.

"You're not still going on about that are you? Do you really expect me to believe that's where you're from?" As Ainor had said, Lily was scarily observant. She had watched as Sirius had asked her about her accent and, while the marauders had soon forgotten about it, Lily had researched further and was now almost positive that the girl in front of her had never set foot on The Land Down Under, let alone lived there all her life. Her accent was one thing, as was her lack of knowledge on Australian mannerisms and customs and her extensive practice with British ones. How she never said anything strange, that was out of place in Britain but completely acceptable in her home culture, as Remus had frequently done in his first year, and was still known for his occasional slip ups. How Ainor's skin was pale, like those who lived in Europe, and not naturally tanned from the harsh Australian sun. And lastly and, this had been the major part in Lily's mind her extensive knowledge in French and her very similar appearance to one Remus Lupin.

Lily wasn't entirely sure what to make of this. She was certain that Ainor had lived in Britain for an extended period, and had probably also spent some time in France, but she couldn't work out if the similarities in looks between her and a certain werewolf were mere coincidence, because of her possible French origin or something more. But more than anything, Lily could not understand why Ainor would lie to the entire school about this, and why Dumbledore would find it necessary.

Ainor sighed, now knowing that her lies would no longer fool the very perceptive girl sitting in front of her. "Okay then," she started, not really knowing where she was going with this sentence "you know that I'm not from Oz, what else have you figured out?"

"Well, I suspect that you're from England, you might have been to France and you have startling similarities with Remus, but honestly I have no idea how all this fits together…"

"honestly, you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you…"

Lily raised an eyebrow

"Not that I was going to use that as an excuse not to tell you or anything. Geez Lily what do you take me for?"

"Look Ainor, I'll help you. Obviously if I've already worked out you're lying, you won't be able to fool the Marauders forever. If you want them not to find out, telling me is your best bet. Now that I've started, it shouldn't take me too long top find the truth anyway."

"Fine, Lily, do you want to know the big secret? We're from the future. Professor Porter and I."

Lily's expression flashed from shock to her thinking face, and it was only about thirty seconds before she was blurting "You're Remus' daughter aren't you?"

"I can't tell you anything about the future Lily."

"You are aren't you? Yes! That's why you're French and you look a little like him and you act like him and" her voice suddenly cut off with a sudden "oh."

"Oh?"

"You don't want to know. Trust me, if someone knew this about my Dad, I really wouldn't want to know." Lily looked almost embarrassed at this.

"Oh come on, I'm not allowed to keep my big 'could create a time paradox so big that it could destroy life as we know it' secret, but you're not going to tell me this?"

"Fine. I was just thinking about the future… Sirius must be… Well, you probably haven't even noticed…"

A grin slowly spread itself onto Ainor's face. Lily really was more observant than any one else knew.

"Don't worry Lily, it's never really been a problem. I mean, sure his parents were a bit disgusted, but I was their only grandkid and I'm technically still a pureblood so they didn't put up that much of a fuss"

Lily's head snapped up but her mouth stayed put, leading to a face which quite resembled a guppy.

"What… you don't mean"

Ainor's smile grew wider "I can't tell you anything about the future Lily."

"But, is that even biologically possible? How could that happen?"

"Trust me, I have never, nor do I ever, want to know."

And with that Ainor got up and left the dormitory, leaving Lily with different but just as many questions.