I'll see you at the start of term next week babe, love you. She finished up her letter to James, and tied it to the leg of her owl, sending it out the window. She heard heavy footsteps rushing up the stairs and hastily shoved his letter to her in a drawer. Her door was thrown against the wall as her parents burst in, faces red with anger. She backed against the wall, quite afraid of why they were so angry. Had they found out?!

"Why did James Potter just send a letter to you? Y/N, we expected so much more of you! You think we don't intercept the mail? He's a blood traitor, and so are all of his friends! Such lineage should not be wasted on helping muggleborns, and our lineage will not be wasted because you have feelings for a blood traitor. You send a letter to him right now young lady and tell him that you will not be dating him any longer." Your eyes widened and filled with tears as your mom ruined your relationship with the boy you loved.

"We knew something was going on when you refused to join the Dark Lord, but we never thought you would betray wizard kind on this kind of a level. You are a disgrace to this family, and to the Dark Lord." Your dad spat, and you snapped.

"You have NO idea who he is. He's ten times the person either of you will ever be and I hope that when you're burning in hell for what you've done, that you regret being such hypocritical arseholes!" and with that, you pushed your shell shocked parents out of the room, and began frantically tossing things into your trunk. There was a magical expansion spell on your trunk so you could fit everything you needed. You didn't know where you were going to go, but anywhere was better than the hell hole you were living in.

After you had gathered all your belongings, you took a deep breath, held your head up high, and stomped down the stairs, trunk bouncing along with each step you took.

"Y/N Y/L/N, get your blood traitor arse back up into that room and wait for us to call you down. We've arranged a meeting with the Dark Lord that will hopefully set you straight." Your mother snarled, pointing to your room. You ignored her however, marching down the stairs once more. You tried to drown out the, "Don't you dare walk out of that door," and, "Don't bother coming back," that you were getting from your parents, and strutted right out of the door, and onto the driveway, saying goodbye to your family's awful manor. You stuck out your wand arm, and within an instant, a huge purple bus came hurtling down the street, and screeched to a halt before you.

You were escorted onto the bus and to one of the beds in the back, and as you were thrown around while turning corners, you decided on staying at the leaky cauldron. The bus dropped you off and sped away, and you wrote to James the second you got settled into your room.

"Dear James,

My parents found out about us. They said that I had to write to you and break up with you, but I didn't really want to, so I left. I'm staying in the leaky cauldron, room 206, if you want to come keep me company for the day. If all goes well, neither of us will ever have to deal with my parents again. I love you.

~ Y/N"

You sent the letter using the pub's owl, seeing as yours was still on its way to James with your first letter. You flopped back down on the bed and sighed.

Only a day after you had sent the letter to James, he had come tumbling out of the fireplace in your room, coughing and sputtering. His glasses had flown across the room when he had shot out, and you snatched them up for him. He rushed to you and squeezed you so hard, you thought you were going to suffocate. You wrapped your arms around him and nuzzled your head into his shoulder, feeling him grip you even tighter. He had met your family only once before, he had stood up for you when they were berating you in public, but he hadn't seen them since they found out the two of you were dating.

"James, I can't live on my own, I-I'm so scared, I don't know what to do." You sobbed, clinging onto him as though your life depended on it. You supposed it did. He supported you more than anyone, no matter what. He leaned back and cupped your cheeks, gazing into your E/C eyes with his amber ones.

"Darling, breathe with me. It's going to be fine, mum has already agreed to let you live with us. You'll be well taken care of, I promise."

You shook your head in protest when James offered to let you move in, but he cut you off.

"Don't even start. You're always welcome, you know that. Mum and dad haven't even met you, but they already love you, and you won't be any sort of trouble. I think Sirius is more trouble than you are and they had no problem adjusting to him. Please darling, I need you safe." He finished, exhaling as he held you even tighter, still holding eye-contact.

You took one look at his deep brown irises and tears splashed down your face again. He wiped them away with his thumbs, the soothing back-and-forth motions calmed you until all that was left of the tears were shimmery trails where they had slid down your face.

"Are you ready to head back to my house love, or do you want to spend one more night here? I'll stay with you if you wanna stay here." You mulled it over for a bit and realized that there was no point in delaying the inevitable, you were so scared to meet James' parents. What if they didn't want you to date their son anymore? What if they thought you were a bother, and didn't really want to take you in? Your thought swirled around inside your head until they were a constant flurry of negative thoughts spiraling around. James sensed your doubts and squeezed you a bit tighter, "we can stay one more night love, but I promise they're fine with all of this. I think they'd be upset if you didn't come stay with us at some point - I warned them from the beginning that your parents weren't the best" He assured you, and seeing as it was quite late, he wrapped you up in his arms, carried you over to the big four poster bed, and crawled under the covers, holding you the whole night.

You woke up to small kisses being placed all over your face, and you blinked repeatedly, confused as to where you were. The events of the past two days hit you like a truck, and you flipped over to see James smiling at you, his grin brighter than the sun itself. He greeted you with a gruff, "Mornin' princess" and leaned in to kiss you deeply. You couldn't help it, you smiled into the kiss, and felt him do the same. The two of you spent the morning basking in each other's presence. At about noon, James reluctantly got up and reminded you that they had to get to his parent's by one, for a late lunch. Your stomach turned over at the thought of meeting your boyfriend's parents, always a daunting task, and rolled out of bed, pulling on one of James' jumpers as well as some jeans. He walked out of the bathroom, just as you were swooping your hair up into a messy bun. He stopped and smiled at you, it was finally sinking in that he had you back. You were back. You were back and you were his and by god, he was never letting you go. He helped you wrap up your stuff, shoving it haphazardly into your trunk, and hooked his arm around yours. He led you to the fireplace and the two of you flooed to his place.

You appeared in the living room of the Potter Manor, and almost instantly you were greeted by a very happy dog. You smiled, remembering James and his stories of his dog. Sirius also came down the stairs, helping you up off the ground, and hugging you extremely tight. You two had bonded over your awful families, that was how you had met James. James went in search of his mum and dad, leaving you, Sirius, and the dog in the living room in wait.

The three of you heard footsteps approaching and you tensed immediately. Were you ready for this? Well, you couldn't back out now. Oh god, what if they didn't let you stay, where would you go? Sirius glanced over at you and saw the crease between your eyebrows, quickly grabbing your hand and squeezing it. He too had been nervous, he related to your anxiety, but he knew just as well as James that Euphemia and Fleamont would fall in love with you like James did.

The footsteps got louder, and the door swung open, revealing James, Fleamont, and Euphemia Potter. James rushed and stood by your side, introducing his parents. You introduced yourself and nervously held out your hand for Euphemia to shake, only for her to use it to pull you into a hug. She squeezed you tight, and you saw the parallel between her and her son's hugs. They were both warm, loving and reassuring, they made you feel at home. She stepped back, holding you at arms length by the shoulders, and smiled.

"Oh, Y/N, darling, you're even more beautiful than we've heard."

"mUM" James' cheeks burned red, the tips of his ears also flaming, while his father laughed at him.

"Alright darling, I want to meet her too," Fleamont switched places with her and also hugged you. You didn't know what to do. These people were so so so nice and they looked at you as thought you were already a part of their family. You felt so lucky. Fleamont made everyone a cup of tea, and after your little meet and greet you were led up the stairs. James' father had very boldly stated that the walls were quite thin, and so even though you were sleeping with James, they could hear everything. James had groaned, while you had blushed furiously, Euphemia shrieked and escorted you to James' room. You had set your trunk down and gone down for lunch.

The next day, around three o'clock, Euphemia trudged up the stairs, a letter from your parents in hand. She frowned, it was a howler but it was one that would only go off once you had touched it. She was going to get your permission to burn it, a magical fire should do the trick. She found the door half open, and peeked in, smiling when she saw you and James curled up on the sofa in his room, talking in hushed tones, James' fingers tangled in your hair. She hated to interrupt the silence, but she knocked quietly, not wanting to reveal the fact that she'd been watching. Both of your heads turned to look at her in the door, and she stepped in, brandishing the letter.

Your face fell, knowing exactly who it was from.

"I know you probably don't want to read it, so I'm not going to force you. I was going to ask permission to burn it for you." Your heart soared, knowing that you had a real family.

"Thank you so much Mrs. Potter, you don't know how much this means to me, really." you smiled, getting up as she was beckoning you in for a hug. That was a mistake. Your skin grazed the letter as you pulled away, and the letter began to smoke. Euphemia's horrified gaze met yours.

"I'm so so sorry dear," And with that, the letter tore itself out of her hand and hovered in front of your face.

"Y/N Y/M/N Y/L/N! YOU ARE AN ABOMINATION TO WIZARDKIND! YOU NOT ONLY BETRAYED OUR FAMILY, YOU ALSO BETRAYED THE NAME OF PUREBLOODS! WE THOUGHT YOU REFUSING THE DARK MARK WAS BAD ENOUGH, BUT YOU HAD THE AUDACITY TO MOVE IN WITH THE VERY PEOPLE CONSPIRING AGAINST US! THEY WILL TIRE OF YOU SO QUICKLY YOU WASTE OF SPACE! THEN YOU'LL HAVE NO ONE! YOU'LL HAVE NOWHERE TO GO AND YOU'LL BE ALONE UNTIL THE DAY THAT YOU DIE! WE HOPE YOU KNOW THAT EVERYONE WILL REALIZE HOW USELESS YOU ARE, AND YOU'LL NEVER BE OF ANY HELP TO ANYONE! BUT FINE, RUN TO YOUR PRETTY LITTLE BOYFRIEND, JUST WAIT UNTIL HE FIGURES THAT OUT! HE'LL DROP YOU SO QUICKLY IT'LL MAKE YOUR HEAD SPIN! NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU, AND YOU ARE BETTER OFF ACCEPTING THAT BEFORE YOU RUIN OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES! DON'T EVER BOTHER SPEAKING TO US AGAIN, WE DON'T WANT YOU"

As the shrill voice of your mother echoed throughout the house, the letter burst into flames and was nothing but a pile of ash when it was done. Your eyes were as big as saucers, tears flowing down your face, some streaming down your chest and stopping on your shirt, forming dark spots. You were frozen in your place and you felt a hand come and gently grab your wrist, pulling you around into James' chest. He wrapped his arms around you and tears of his own dampened your hair as you sobbed into his chest.

Euphemia backed out of the room, not wanting to disturb the couple. She marched into the office space that she and Fleamont shared, and furiously began writing a howler of her own. The words swirling through her head, she wrote two and a half feet of angry loathsome words flowing through her head, down the quill, into the ink, and spreading on the paper like venom. She closed the letter and made extra sure that the bubotuber pus that she had placed just within the seal was perfectly poised to spring out and spray all over. She sent the letter off with a small smirk, feeling satisfied with her efforts. You had been through too much already, but Euphemia had no idea just how bad it was.

Back in James' room, the both of you had sunk to the floor, you were curled up in his lap, clutching his shirt like he was your rock. You supposed he was. You were caught between a rock and a hard place but the rock was warm, soft and inviting. The rock soothed your fears and held you when you cried. You came to the realization that he was the one. You smiled a bit through your tears and held him just a little bit closer.