Authors note: Sorry for taking so long to update. I really like the way this is turning out. I did change a couple lines in the first chapter to match up to the book. This chapter is being uploaded really early in the morning because I got on a writing craze and got to a good stopping point. I'm too tired to edit it right now though so if there are mistakes please forgive me. I will edit it within the next couple days and repost it. I hope you all like it. Please favorite, follow or leave a comment if you do! Thanks! -werewolfgirl136

Over the next couple weeks James and Lily spent their time reconnecting with people. They fell into a regular routine of brunch with the Potter's and then visiting with some of their friends such as Dorcas Meadowes, Fabian and Gideon Prewett, Benji Fenwick, Edgar Bones and Caradoc Dearborn; the last having died after James and Lily. Then they would have dinner with Marlene either at their house or hers. After dinner was over and they were again alone they would sit curled up on the sofa or bed watching Harry. Lily knew that Petunia wasn't a good choice to raise her son, but at least Harry had some connection to her still. It made their hearts ache watching him, but it reminded them what they had fought and died for. Sometimes they would sit in silence and others they filled the air with small talk. Occasionally Lily would speak to Harry as if he was actually there and she swore that he could hear her. The first time she had done it he had been crying and wailing. He had been garbling "Mama, Dada, Moone, Paoot," over and over again hoping someone he loved would come and fix whatever catastrophe the one year old was having, but to no avail. Finally Lily couldn't take it and she walked over to the wall where the video was showing and started whispering. "It's alright love. Everything is going to be okay Harry. Mommy is here. Mommy loves you." Immediately Harry stopped crying and laid down in his crib and starting smiling. Lily talked to him until he fell asleep.

The day after that Lily had recounted what happened to her mother-in-law and Euphemia agreed that it was possible that Harry could have actually heard her. "Children are very aware and open to the spirit world, magical children especially so I see no reason why you couldn't be right. It seems very possible that Harry could still hear you. Most of the time when children talk about having invisible or imaginary friends that only they can hear, they are actually people who have passed on that the child is acutely aware of because of a previous attachment in their world."

"So Harry did hear me."

"Mother." James said sharply.

"Yes?"

"Stop. Just stop. I don't want you to encourage this. We are not there with Harry anymore. He may be able to hear us now but he will grow up and not be able to. I don't want my wife to have this crazy idea that we can still be with him. We are dead. He is not. We need to let him live his life. Even though that is without us."

"I can't believe you would want our son to forget about us! How dare you James Potter."

"Of course I don't want him to forget about us, but I don't want him to dwell on us. It doesn't do him well to dwell on dreams and forget to live. If him living life means him forgetting about us then I would cast Obliviate on him myself!" James shouted. He didn't see his mother back away from him, all he saw was the stubborn woman in front of him that refused to see his side because it was different from her own. A fire was in her eyes that he hadn't seen since school, the one that she used to have when he would annoy her until she snapped. That look deflated his anger a bit. He had never wanted to cause that emotion in her again, yet he just had. He looked at the ground, pulling his hand through his hair and stopping at his neck, absentmindedly rubbing it. "If he forgets, then he won't hurt as much. We won't come back, but Mooney and Padfoot are still there. If he forgets us all then when they don't come back it won't hurt as much. He will know that we loved him, that much is obvious, and we didn't choose to leave him, but what will he think when he finds out that they didn't take him in? That they didn't look for him. I don't want him to feel like they abandoned him."

Lily grabbed James' hands in her own. "Look at me." She didn't continue until he did. "One day he will find out. One day Harry will be old enough to know what happened to us, to know that we died to protect him. One day he will find out about Remus and Sirius. And Peter. He will learn and he will hurt. There was too much pain surrounding his first year for him not to. But he will form his own opinions whether he remembers everything or not. I want him to remember that he is loved. I want him to know every day of his life that his mother and father love him enough to give their lives to protect him. I want him to know that we didn't choose this life for him, but we would do it all over again if it means he lives. I want him to know that, I need him to know that, because if he doesn't then all of this was for nothing. If he doesn't know the power of love then we died in vain and even though he's gone, Voldemort will have won. If I stop telling Harry how much we love him then he wins and I refuse to let that bastard win." A different kind of fire was in Lily's eyes this time. The one that made James fall in love with her, the one that made him terrified of her, and the one that made him concede to her every single time. James smirked before kissing his wife with everything he had.

"You're right." he whispered against her lips.

"I'm glad you finally realized the truth." Lily smiled before kissing him again.

One day Lily and James decided to throw a picnic for their family and friends. They had set up some picnic table on a nice sunny patch of grass and even found some muggle BBQ's in someone's garage. James and the Prewett brothers were wrangling the BBQ while everyone else lounged around letting the sun soak into their skin while the light breeze ruffled through their hair. The birds were chirping and an occasional squirrel or chipmunk could be seen scurrying across the grass and rushing up a tree.

"It's so nice to be able to enjoy the sunshine." Lily commented with her face toward the sun, eyes closed and head back. "We didn't get much of this in England."

"No, we definitely didn't." James agreed, coming up and kissing her on the top of her head. He scooted Lily forward on the bench and sat behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She sighed in contentment and leaned into his warmth.

"Who's that?" Lily opened her eyes to look at who Benji was talking about. The smile slipped off her face and she pulled out of James' arms. Two people, hand in hand, were walking toward the group of picnic tables. Once they got close enough, Lily's hands covered her mouth as a gasp escaped.

"Hello everyone." The man said.

"We've missed you." The woman added before her face was obscured by a waterfall of red hair and Lily held her tightly.

"What happened mate?" James asked after giving Frank Longbottom a quick embrace.

"Bellatrix." Lily gasped. Everyone knew how much Bellatrix Lestrange loved torturing people before finally killing them. The word mercy was never in her vocabulary and people didn't dare utter it around her.

"I'm sorry." Lily said, hugging Alice again.

Alice wiped the tears from her eyes. "Thanks. At least we knew what was going to happen when we saw her. I can't believe Sirius would betray you two like that. I guess the Black blood ran thicker than we thought."

"Sirius is innocent." James practically growled. Lily placed a gentle hand on his arm.

"They don't know." She reminded her husband before turning toward the couple. "It was really Peter who betrayed us. We made him the secret keeper at the last minute, thinking that Voldemort would never suspect him. Turns out Peter was really on his side."

"Wow." Frank ran his hand down his face, trying to rub the shock away. "I guess that would make any man go insane. No wonder Sirius blew him to smithereens. Good riddance."

"I wish. But Pettigrew isn't dead. Sirius went to Azkaban for nothing. Peter is an unregistered animagus. He turned himself into a rat after he cast the spell that killed all those people and escaped into the sewers. That coward."

"Sirius." Alice whispered. They all knew what was on her mind. Their friend lost everything in the course of a twenty-four hour period. His best friends murdered, his godson taken from him, being labeled a traitor and the only thing he had to hold onto, the fact that justice had been served against the real traitor, was a lie. Alice started to cry for her friends, for herself, for her husband and her young son, for everyone that was too young to be caught up in a war stemming from ignorance. She collapsed to the ground, pain in her body starting to cause her to scream. Frank lunged for his wife, only to have her fade from their sight and disappear.

"What happened? ALICE! Where did she go?" Frank was franticly looking back and forth around the group of faces that had gathered since their appearance.

Finally Euphemia spoke up. "Did Bellatrix use the Cruciatus Curse on her?"

"Yes. Me as well. Why?"

"If the Cruciatus Curse was used on you then you may not really be dead. If you were tortured enough then your mind could have turned in on itself, as a form of self preservation, to help you cope with the tremendous amount of pain that your body was dealing with. Unfortunately, once this happens you can never fully go back. A part of you died when that happened and that's what brought you here. You may have flashes of clarity and coherence, which is what just happened to your wife, but for the most part you will reside here, waiting for the day your body decides to give up and your spirit can fully join us. There is no telling when you will flash in and out or how long you will be in each place. I'm sorry." Fleamont held a comforting arm around his wife. She leaned against him as a couple tears slid down her cheeks.

"What happened?" Alice was kneeling a couple feet away from where she had disappeared. Frank ran over to his wife and helped her to her feet. She winced as she stood.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"My whole body is sore. I feel like I was trampled by a Hungarian Horntail." Frank started rubbing his wife's back as he led her to the picnic table. "But how is that possible? I shouldn't feel pain since I'm dead, right? And where did I go? I couldn't see anything, but I felt cold. I felt cold and pain." Frank looked toward Euphemia, his eyes begging for her help.

"How about we go back to our house and get you a cup of tea. We can explain everything there." Fleamont said starting to guide his wife back to their place. Frank looked at Alice. He had never seen her look this helpless before. Even when she was being tortured, she was strong. Now she just looked scared and frail. He leaned down and scooped her into his arms holding her tightly before following James parent's to their house.

After watching his parents leave with Frank and Alice, James looked over at his wife. He pulled her into his embrace and kissed the top of her head. "It'll be alright love."

"How? There has been too much death. Too many lives cut down too soon. Too many children orphaned." She choked up thinking about their Harry and Frank and Alice's son Neville.

"Voldemort is dead. His followers are being hunted down and locked up. The war is over." James reassured his wife.

"For now." Lily whispered.

Years passed and James and Lily fell into their new life, or death, easily. They had lunch dates with James' parents, Lily and Marlene would go on walks or have tea together for hours and Alice and Frank would come over for dinner twice a week.

At first Alice and Frank flashed in and out every couple days, then it gradually became less and less often. It often would happen when Frank's mother would bring their son around to see them. She decided when Neville was nine that he was old enough to see them for half an hour every two weeks. Alice and Frank especially liked those times. They were there with their son in body, but never fully in mind. It was only when they would flash back that they were able to fully appreciate that time. Their mind cleared and they could remember the time they spent with him. They couldn't control when they flashed back and forth, but hearing Neville's voice seemed to trigger something inside them most of the time and they flashed back to his world.

Lily was always slightly jealous that Alice was still able to be in the same room as her son, but she knew that wasn't really living and that Alice would never wish that on anyone. Instead James and Lily had to settle for watching Harry grow up. Most of the time Lily watched his day to day life by herself, James couldn't handle seeing the way Petunia and Vernon treated him and he always blamed himself, saying if he had been stronger then Harry wouldn't have had to go live with someone else. Lily would tell James of Harry's accomplishments; losing his first tooth, tying his shoes by himself, or getting top marks on a homework project. What she left out was that he lost his first tooth when Dudley punched him, he learned to tie his shoes from a book he stole from Dudley after he refused to learn to tie his own and his parents bought him velcro ones and forced Harry to wear his old ones, or that the top marks he got on a homework project was Dudley's that Harry was bullied into doing. Lily did have her low moments where she would only check on Harry once she knew he was in bed and alone. When she didn't have to suffer through watching her sister and her awful husband treat her little boy so horribly. Those quiet moments were the ones where James was more likely to join her. They would hold onto each other on the couch or their bed and find comfort in the small fact that Harry was breathing and alive. That was the best thing they could ever ask for. James and Lily were just holding onto the hope that once Harry went to Hogwarts, his life would change and he wouldn't have to be around the Dursley's ever again. He would be with his own people and would finally find a place in their world, the wizarding world.

A year before Harry was to start Hogwarts, they had a newcomer. Pandora Lovegood joined their circle of friends. She was a lovely woman with long, wavy blonde hair and soft eyes. She was very smart and creative and her and Lily had an instant bond. Pandora had been experimenting with a new spell when it went wrong and she accidently killed herself. Her nine year old daughter Luna had been in the room and saw it happen. This was Pandora's one regret and relief at the same time. Regret that Luna had to witness that at a young age yet relief that Luna had not been hurt. She wouldn't be able to forgive herself if something happened to her sweet Luna. Once she arrived, Pandora was a regular at Lily and Marlene's teas and she often joined the lot of them when they got together for a picnic or dinner at someone's house. She slid easily into their group dynamic and soon they forget that they didn't know her before their deaths and that they hadn't been friends forever.

They had fallen into such a rhythm of normalcy that when Harry received his first Hogwarts letter, chaos ensued.