While You're Gone
By feygoddess
A/N: I own nothing. James and Lily and every other Potterverse character belong solely to Miss Jo Rowling, the bloody genius.
The bed was warm, its sheets sticking to the back of Lily Potter's thighs in the deep darkness of midnight. She lay, extremely pregnant, under the eggshell white cotton sheets, feeling sweat trickle down her brow, her belly, so obviously with child, and the valley between her swollen breasts, listening for that one noise, soft or loud she wouldn't know till the moment, that would tell her James was home.
With a sigh, she rolled over onto her aching back to stare up at the ceiling, the perfect white paint covered in Puddlemere United Quidditch posters, the players winking and grinning toothily at her before zipping by on their broomsticks. Lily had never liked Quidditch, or riding broomsticks. She was deathly afraid of heights, and James was the only one who could even convince her to get on one of the stupid things, which she didn't admit with pride. He had been Gryffindor's best seeker for three years at Hogwarts, before his body had become too muscular and tall to play and had instead resigned to the Chaser position for his last two years, which he'd been exceptional at also.
After ten minutes of thoughts of her absent husband, the heat, like a rough brick wall, assaulted her once more, and Lily rolled over with great difficulty to snatch her willow wand 'Ten and one fourth inches,' she thought mildly, before sending a spell at the window that made the pane shoot straight up, causing the wind to come slowly through into the room, cooling the stifling atmosphere and rustling the floor length curtains.
She returned the wand to the nightstand a second later, which was also occupied by pictures of her and James, one in their seventh year, when she'd finally agreed to go out with the daft prat, and the two were standing on the Quidditch pitch at Hogwarts after her husband's last game as captain, which the Gryffindors had won spectacularly, the seeker not even needing to catch he snitch, as James and the other Chasers had scored so many points. He was grinning madly in his Gryffindor Quidditch robes, his captain's badge glinting brightly in the sun, as he kissed a blushing Lily over and over on the cheeks, before waving cheekily at the camera, and another photo of the two at their wedding, waving at the photographer, Lily blushing, and James looking a little green, stood beside it in a bronze star shaped frame. James' glasses case sat in front of another picture Lily's best friend Arabella had taken of her in sixth year, sitting on the steps of Hogwarts, pushing her hair out of her face as she smiled shyly at the camera before looking back down at the thick book held in her lap, a picture of her studying for her NEWTs a year early.
She almost knocked over the fourth and last photograph as she set her wand down, which was of the four Marauders, James and his three best friends, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew in seventh year, Sirius and James toasting each other with rather large bottles of firewhisky, as Remus and Peter laughed in the background, a smoking cigarette held loosely in one of Remus' hands, and smiling at the ridiculous sight of them, Lily righted the picture, and laid back down, her sweaty hair hitting the pillow once more, pooling about her face like auburn liquid. Her thoughts then almost immediately returned to worrying about her husband, and she clenched her hands nervously together on top of her enormous belly, her fingers fidgeting anxiously.
Most women in her family were small when pregnant, with barely a belly, she knew this from asking her mother about it when she was a girl, however, she'd seemed to have won the prize for most pregnant in her family. Rose Evans, her gorgeous, knowledgeable mother was now long dead, and Lily had no one to call when her husband left on Auror duties, or for missions with the Order.
Sighing, she tried to sit up, but the bulk of her child prevented her from doing so comfortably, and she lay back down once more.
"James," she murmured in the darkness, the only light was the moonlight filtering through the rustling silk curtains and hitting the bed like spilled milk. She loved to say his name now, after all the disgust had melted away, now that she was finally Mrs. Potter, James' dream come true.
Lily smiled in memory than, remembering all the times she'd screamed at him, her hands curled into fists at her sides, wishing him dead for something trivial, such as hexing Snape or pranking an unsuspecting Hufflepuff. She'd loved him than, but didn't admit it, as he usually angered her so much that she'd forget it entirely.
However, her husband had grown out of useless pranking and pulling her pigtails. He was a mature man now, and even though he was prone to pranking his co workers at times, such as Moody or Kingsley, which had never come out well at all, he was till a hero to the wizarding world. A man looked up to for his sheer skill in battle, his resilience and stength. She was just an Unspeakable, unable to even talk about her day with her family. It was a wonderful job, rewarding, looking after prophecies and such in the Department of Mysteries, researching strange disappearances not linked to Voldemort, but sometimes she wished she'd just gone into Auror training with James and Sirius when she'd had the chance.
It would've been better that way, she supposed. Than she would at least know where the bloody hell James was going every other night, when he kissed her goodbye and left with his co-workers to do some unknown thing he never talked about when he came home. It was strange, being the quintessential wife, so like the women she used to think petty when she read historical romances as a teenager, when her only worries were Potions finals and what prank the Marauder would pull next. Now, she worried about her husband, her friends. Would she wake up in the morning alone, without James' snores and warm muscular bulk beside her, to a knock on the door downstairs? Would Moody arrive with a piece of parchment telling her to come by the Aurors' office at the Ministry to pick up her husbands belongings?
'Would there be any point in living when James was gone?' she wondered then, her fingers lightly stroking the hard skin below her naval, a single tear making it's tragic path down the silky freckled skin of her cheek. She knew there wouldn't be, but she was also aware that if that came to be, she'd live for her baby, for the infant steadily growing inside her. If not for anything else, it would be for the child.
A loud crack at what sounded like the foot of the stairs disturbed her morbid thoughts. Her hands pushing her up out of the bed, Lily padded to the top of the stairs and turned on the large glass light at the ceiling with a flick of the switch near her doorway. James stood below her, his glasses dirty with grime, and his hair sticking up comically in every direction. His broad shoulders and the brown skin of his handsome face were illuminated by the lamplight, and he looked up in panic, jumping as he tried to remove his robes without waking her. "Lily," he murmured as his hazel eyes settled on her figure, which stood at the top of the carpeted stairs, clad only in the lacy lavender thigh length nightgown he'd gotten her for their first marriage anniversary. He smiled tentatively, hoping she wasn't mad at him for arriving so late. "You scared me kitten," he laughed a little before removing the last of his robe with a flourish and setting it down on the chaise beside the front door.
Fingers cracking with the effort it took to keep her back straight, Lily descended the stairs as fast as her swollen ankles would allow before waddling to James and burying her face in his chest, a relieved sob escaping her throat. 'No Moody with parchment tonight' she thought happily, as her husband's now bare muscular arms, brown from Quidditch and too much sun, wrapped around her waist, if she even had one, her belly bumping against his flat cobblestone abdomen.
"Hey baby," he murmured against her sweaty hair, kissing the crown of her head before pulling away. She was so short she only came up to his sternum, and he smiled as she pulled her head back to look up at him with those startling emerald eyes. The same eyes he'd fallen in love with at the tender age of eleven, on a train ride to a magical school.
"I was so worried James, I couldn't sleep." Lily whispered, her fingers tapping her belly, her eyes scanning his face for any injuries.
He felt guilt then, for keeping his darling wife awake on such a stifling night. His large tanned hand came up to brush a few tendrils of damp ruby hair away from her cheek before pressing a kiss to her temple. "I'm sorry love. I should've Flooed you when my mission was over, but Moody wanted to have a meeting, as always."
She smiled a little, but it was watery, and her eyes lit up. "It's alright James," she murmured, raising her left hand, with her glittering engagement and marriage rings on her fourth finger, to tug at the collar of his black shirt. "You're home now." She buried her face into his warm chest once more. "I love you."
And it was then, with his extremely pregnant wife held tightly in his arms, his hands straining to touch one another over her vast back, that James Potter realized for the millionth time just how damn lucky he was. And he smiled, kissed his wife, and led her up to bed.
A/n: Another crappy one shot. However, I hoped some of you enjoyed the pointless ramble! Death of a Butterfly should be coming along very soon. Expect the first chapter right after this one.