A few days pass by with Harry and Lily meeting every day, spending several hours together. Those few days were some of the happiest Harry had experienced in the last several months, possibly over the entire year.

The more time he spent with Lily, the happier he felt. Her infectious laughter and the constant smile on her face were more than enough to keep his mood bright. It had reached a point where Harry would spend almost the entire day after their meeting, looking forward to the next one.

Harry hurried out of his house, eagerly walking towards the park that had become their regular meeting spot. This time, however, Harry had a purpose. A purpose he would accomplish no matter what!

Alternating between walking at a brisk pace and jogging, Harry reached the park in record time. He looked towards their usual meeting spot and couldn't help but be disappointed.

"Hey Lily..." He said dejectedly.

A giggle escaped the seated Lily's lips.

"Still trying to get here before me?" She asked with an amused grin.

"Well, can you blame me?" Harry asked, pouting like a child. "How do you get here before me every time, no matter when I leave, anyway?"

Lily burst into laughter as she pulled Harry on to the bench next to her.

"I'll make it up to you, so don't be so upset," she said through her giggles.

"Ugh, fine." Harry said, though his lips curved up into a small smile.

After her giggles finally subsided, Lily looked towards Harry and asked.

"Looking forward to going back to school?"

"Oh yeah, I can't decide what I'm looking forward to more. People mocking me for being an attention seeker or people being afraid of me for being potentially unstable," he replied sarcastically.

"Now, now, Harry, I'm sure your friends will still act the same. They'll probably be supportive even." Lily said. Even though they hadn't talked about this after the first day, Lily knew this topic had been bothering Harry for a while.

"Some friends…" Harry began, but he stopped and sighed. "You're right. They might have some reason for doing what they did, or didn't do in this case."

"Exactly! Keep that positive attitude up and you'll get through this year easily!" Lily paused, "Well, maybe not easily, but at least you'll keep your sanity, right?"

"Nice pep talk, Lily," groaned Harry.

Lily giggled again before changing the topic.

"Who do you think will be the defence against the dark arts teacher this year? I hope it's Emmeline Vance." She says, barely containing her excitement.

"Emmeline Vance?" Harry asked.

"I've been following her career for years! She is, by far, the most amazing witch ever!" Lily exclaimed.

As if a dam had opened, Lily started jabbering.

"When she was at Hogwarts, her scores in almost all the subjects were pretty average, but she stood head and shoulders above everyone else in her year in defence against the dark arts. After school, she became an auror and she single-handedly caught over seventy criminals!" Lily said. If she hadn't run out of breath, she might not have paused.

"In the last wizarding war, she alone fought against three death eaters and beat them. All she got was a scratch on her arm and that too from a piece of rubble that flew past her from her own explosion!"

"How do you even know all this?" Harry asked the moment he had time to get a few words in edge-wise.

"There are magazines about the lives and histories of famous witches and wizards. Do you have any idea how big an honour it is to be featured in one of those magazines? They featured Emmeline in four of them, Harry. FOUR!" Lily's voice became louder and louder the more she spoke. "She's the reason I want to become an auror when I graduate."

Harry laughed awkwardly. "If she's that great, then I hope she doesn't actually become our defence teacher."

"What?" exclaimed Lily, standing up and towering over Harry with a furious expression. "Why the hell not? She would be absolutely perfect for it and we would learn more than what any other teacher could teach!"

"Calm down Lily, that's what I'm saying. Since she's that good, then it's better she doesn't fall into whatever weird curse that's being going on with the defence against the dark arts teaching position."

"Well, it was a string of bad luck really, not enough to be a curse…" said Lily, though she herself did not sound as sure of herself. She lowered herself back onto the bench.

"It has to be a curse. Look at what happened to every one of our teachers. The first one, Quirrell, seemed like a scared, meek teacher who knew a little of what he was teaching till it turned out that he was basically housing Voldemort."

"Excuse me? Quirrell was, what now?" Lily asked with a shocked expression.

"You didn't know?" asked Harry before he narrated the events of their first year briefly.

"I did not! We knew that you guys got past the teacher's enchantments and fought Quirrell over something, but none of us knew what it was."

"Anyway, after that we had that lunatic who didn't know how to wave his wand without taking someone's eye out. Though all you girls seemed enamored by him for some godforsaken reason." Harry said while rolling his eyes.

"I'm sorry but I had no such enamorment for that git. Every time he spoke, I felt like socking him." Lily huffed with righteous indignation.

"My respect for you just went up a notch." Harry laughed. "The one after that was Professor Lupin."

"I liked him, he was one of the few professors who actually taught us something." said Lily. "Nothing happened in the entire year, there's no way something would have happened afterwards. Barring that freak accident towards the end of the year, which seems to have had something to do with your gang. Again."

"It's not like we go out looking for trouble," said Harry defensively.

"Right, of course you don't," said Lily with a roll of her eyes. "That just leaves Professor Moody."

"He was a great professor, till we found out that he was Voldemort's spy in disguise and his entire purpose was to send me over to Voldemort to be slaughtered like a pig at the butcher's." said Harry, "Great teacher otherwise though."

"Well, the real one is still alive, so he might still teach us."

"There's no way that's happening, and this basically proves my point. Even good people had horrible stuff happen to them because of the job, so it's better if Emmeline Vance doesn't take the job. At least not until someone figures out or fixes the curse," said Harry.

"Ugh fine. Still hope to meet her someday though," said Lily with a resigned sigh.

"I'm sure you will." Harry said as he got up, "Come on, let's walk around a little. I'm tired of sitting in one place."

As they strolled around, a bright flash of light flashed in front of them.

"What the-" Harry jumped in front of Lily, pulling her close behind him.

As the light faded, Harry and Lily could finally see what had appeared in front of them.

"Is that a... phoenix?" asked Lily with uncertainty.

Harry nodded promptly as he walked towards the bird. Inspecting it, he noticed the plethora of wounds on its body. Some shallow but many rather deep, it was no wonder that the phoenix seemed to be unconscious.

"It looks like Fawkes," said Harry.

"Fawkes?"

"Yeah, he's Professor Dumbledore's phoenix," replied Harry. "I wonder what he's doing here and why he's so injured."

Harry carefully placed a hand on Fawkes' head while he moved his other hand to lift Fawkes' body up. The moment his hand came into contact with Fawkes, the phoenix burst into flames. However, unlike the last time, Fawkes didn't turn into ashes.

Instead, the ball of flame floated up, giving out so much heat that Harry had to scramble to his feet and step back. The ball of flame floated in the air for a moment before it shot towards Harry.

Surprised as he was, Harry had no time to react as the ball of flame collided with his chest.

"Harry!" yelled Lily.

The last thing Harry saw was the ball of fire being sucked into his chest and his eyes blurred and he blacked out.