Here's a little story that has been stuck in my head the past couple of nights begging to get out. For whatever reason it got stuck that Lily might have considered what life would be like for her and Harry without James if she survived. A sort of processing mechanism I suppose. Anyway nothing to serious, hope you enjoy.

It felt like the floor was giving out beneath her. As he crumpled to the ground, all the hopes and dreams they had shared crumpled too.

This happened in mere moments as she clutched, what felt like all that was left of their love, to her breast. She ran up the stairs, her thoughts now only directed towards her son and his safety.

Lily watched as Harry began to explore his new surroundings. She watched as he, at first, crawled his way around the sitting room. She watched as he slowly began to pull himself up using the armchair in the corner. And she clapped as he took his first steps towards her.

Lily laughed as Harry played with his new friend, neither of them used to the company of other children. Neville was quite an unassuming boy with a lovely temperament. Whereas Harry was very much like his father, a resemblance that Lily was continuously telling herself was becoming easier to reconcile.

Lily watched in wonder as her nearly six year old boy sat quietly reading in a patch of sunlight on the floor. It was one of those rare quite moments that gave her peace. For all that he, they, had lost he seemed to be a fairly well adjusted boy. A bright cheerful boy.

Smiling at the joy in Harry's eleven year old face, Lily listen as he listed off all off his hopes and dreams for the next seven years. All seeming to emerge from the crisp parchment and green ink before him. It was a new beginning for him.

Tears threatened as she watched him climb aboard that old train. So much had changed and yet nothing looked any different. Lily waited and watched for that messy thatch of dark hair to pop out of a window and wave franticly to her as a similar one once had years before. When it came she sighed with affection at the antics of the owner, and with a longing for years past.

Harry was sitting at his desk, scrolls of summer homework littering his room. Books propping up other books, used as stands for empty mugs, and hiding Quidditch magazines in a terribly unconvincing manner. Lily smiled at the memories of her own years of homework during summer holidays, a return to the world of magic when the start of the new term couldn't seem farther away. She always made sure that she was on hand to provide any support he needed, although this summer her help was needed less and less it seem.

She sat at the graduation clapping with the rest and smiling, heart full of love. She watched him with his friends as the day came to an end, her hopes and dreams of this day almost solidifying into a light hand squeeze and a gentle whisper that it was okay to let go, he had to grow up someday.

She was a grandmother surrounded by love. Never replacing those lost but adding to it through the love of a growing family. Her boy was going to be fine without her, she could let go now knowing he would be loved and cared for. And most importantly he would live. She could be at peace.

She rushed into the nursery placing her little one into the cot under the window. Hopes and dreams for the tiny baby flew through her mind. She could still be there for her son even if his father wasn't. Right?

As she turned to face what was coming she knew what must happen as she felt for the wand that wasn't there. As long as she breathed she would let nothing would harm the little bundle of potential behind her. She would be there for all of those moments she silently promised her son, in one way or another.

She just hoped that he understood that.