James Potter had a way of making the Universe bend in his favour just by sheer force of will. He had a way of making you believe impossible things.
Lily had first seen it in Fifth Year. She was watching him and his mates, from a safe distance of course, competing in a who-can-fly-the-highest-whilst-standing-upright-on-their-broom tournament. Poor Peter Pettigrew barely made it a foot above the ground before he hit the floor with a soft ‘oof’, causing a chorus of good-humoured laughter. Remus Lupin was next, apparently so surprised that he had managed to last this long that the shock of it sent him tumbling. Sirius Black managed to outlast Remus marginally by grabbing onto the tail end of James’s broom, but not for long, as James gave him a shove and then he was flying (ever graceful) through the air in a tangle of limbs. Then only James was left, 8 feet in the air, grinning like he owned the Universe. He shouted down ‘Who wants to seem me do a jump!?’
Sirius, Peter and Remus shouted ‘Yes!’ at the same time Lily thought ‘No.’
She remembered the looks on his friends faces as they watched. They said of course James is about jump on top of a small, precariously floating object 8 feet in the air. Of course its going to work.
He jumped. Span mid-air and then landed with both feet planted firmly on the broom. And for one spectacular second that even Lily couldn’t help but revel in, he had done it. Then, of course, he lost his balance and landed arse-first on the floor. There was a crunch of bones and a flurry of swear words and he had to be carted off to Madam Pomfrey, but it didn’t matter; he had done it.
The next time Lily had seen it was in Sixth Year Transfiguration. They were learning to conjure birds; a complex spell that nobody had yet managed to master. James had his head down, scrawling something down onto a scrap of parchment.
‘Mr Potter.’ His head flew up.
‘Yes, Professor?’ McGonagall was staring down at him, unreadable.
‘I do hope that whatever you’re writing pertains to the specific nature of conjuring spells, and how this is applied to the Bird Conjuring Charm, or else I fear you may be misappropriating your time spent in my classroom?’
‘Of course, Professor.’ Lily knew this was a lie, as she happened to know James was actually replying the the witty and hilarious note she had just passed him about the potentially questionable nature of Sirius Black’s relationship with his motorbike.
‘Would you like to demonstrate for us then, Mr Potter?’
‘Yeah. Easy. One of my favourites. Remind, me, what’s the Incantation again, Professor?’ There was some scattered laughter from the class as McGonagall raised an eyebrow.
‘The incantation, as I’m sure I have already mentioned, is Avis.’
‘Ah, yes. Of course.’ James brandished his wand in a cavalier sort of way. He had that look on his face, the one that made it impossible to doubt him.
‘Avis.’ A flock of white birds burst from the end of his wand, soaring through the air and then swooping through the isles, dive bombing students. There was a fair amount of panic, but also an explosion of cheering and laughter. Even McGonagall looked reluctantly impressed.
‘Very well, Mr Potter.’ she said, vanishing the birds with a wave of her wand. ‘Ten points to Gryffindor.’ James, in Lily’s opinion, looked far too pleased with himself.
The last time she had seen it had been on their final Order mission. The last one before Lily could no longer ignore the sickness and the cravings and the slight swell of her stomach. They were crouched behind a broken bit of wall, spells flying over their heads, James slouched, almost bent in half. He had been hit with a slicing spell, and although Lily had healed the wound relatively well, he had lost a lot of blood. Scary amounts of blood. He looked broken. Lily had been sure that he would be dead within ten minutes. She didn’t even realise that she was crying until he reached up and brushed tears from under her eyes.
‘Come on, Lils. Don’t be stupid. I’m fine. I didn’t marry you just to die on you.’ There was something sparking in his eyes and somehow, miraculously, she believed him.
She took a breath.
‘Good,’ she said ‘Or else I’d demand a refund.’
She hoisted him up and he winced but remained silent. She half-dragged half-carried him away from the fight, firing stunning spells and shielding spells as she went, James too weakened to do anything other than not collapse. She finally reached the border of the Anti-Disapparition charm, and took James by sidelong apparition back to the Order Head-Quarters.
Healers were summoned immediately and Lily sagged against the wall, knowing that the rest was out of her hands. She refused to move from his bedside all night. She barely moved except to check his breathing every five minutes.
He opened his eyes at 6:48 the next morning.
‘My knight in shining armour.’ he muttered, smiling slightly as she stroked a hand through his hair, tears running freely now she knew he was alive. She laughed. He coughed a little, and said ‘Told you I wasn’t going to die.’
Lily had never loved her husband’s ego more.
She was seeing it again now. They both knew it was him. There was no doubting that, and no time to ask the question that was buzzing in the back of both of their minds like a wasp; how had he found them? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Harry was babbling obliviously in his cot whilst a terrible man stood outside their door.
‘Lily, take Harry and go.’ She looked at him, then, and he looked at her, and the world fell away. She knew that face, and she could tell what he was trying to say to her. At some point during the last five years they had developed a bond that transcended words. He wasn’t saying ‘I’m going to live.’ Even James wasn’t that foolhardy. He was saying ‘It’s okay.’ He was saying ‘I will see you again.’ He was saying ‘This isn’t the end.’
She barely had time to register the flash of green, visible even from the bedroom. She didn’t have the air in her lungs to scream when she heard the sickening thud of James hitting the floor. She didn’t have time to wonder what her husband’s last thought was.
(It was that the green reminded him of Lily’s eyes.)
Her tears hadn’t even cooled on her cheeks before Voldemort was at the door. She rocked Harry against her chest with her eyes squeezed shut as if she could lull both of them to sleep, as if she could take them both far, far away. She knew that she couldn’t.
She placed Harry in his crib, almost relieved in the knowledge that she would die before allowing anybody to hurt him. When Tom Riddle demanded that she step aside, she refused. When he threatened to murder her, she begged for her son’s life, but she did not waver. When he raised his wand and opened the gash of his mouth to deliver the blow that would kill her, she closed her eyes.
Lily had never really thought much about God. She didn’t know what happened to you after death, but she thought it probably involved a lot of Darkness. A lot of Nothingness.
As the brilliant green finally permeated Lily Evan’s eyelids, her final hope was that her husband could be right just one last time.
