STROBE

Light streamed through the open-curtained window and shocked Lily Potter awake. She shifted herself onto her elbows and blinked several times before she realised where she was.

Sighing contentedly, she flopped back down and her head hit the pillow with a soft thump. Lily turned her head left and couldn't help but smile. In a mess of black hair that could never be tamed, slept her husband; James. His glasses were laid on the nightstand beside the bed and he was on his right side, facing his wife and snoring quite loudly, but never so loud that it was impossible for Lily to sleep at night.

He must have felt her eyes boring into him, for, very slowly, and with his lips trying not to curve upwards into the mischievious grin that made Lily fall in love with him, he edged himself closer to her and grabbed her.

Lily let out a gleeful cry of shock and allowed herself to be hugged and kissed and touched by James, who had opened his eyes and was now laughing.

In the next room a baby started to cry.

"Ah Harry." Lily sighed, getting up and stepping into her fluffy slippers. She looked back at James, who was gazing at her with a smirk on his boyish face while she slipped into her bathrobe. "Getting a good look are you?" she asked with her eyebrows raised.
James chuckled and reached for his glasses. Putting them on, he said "All the better to see you with, my dear!"
"Have you been reading Harry's muggle fairytale books?" Lily asked. James just winked and Lily left the bedroom with a smile on her face.

At the very end of the hallway was Harry's room. It's door was ajar, and his morning cries grew louder and louder in volume the closer Lily walked towards it.

Over by the window stood a scratched mahogany cot. Hanging from the ceiling, directly above it was a mobile with miniature hippogriffs attached to it, slowly circling round and round.
Lily picked up the still crying baby within the cot, held him up towards the sunlight coming in through the mullioned window, and kissed him on his pale, unblemished forehead - which instantly stopped his crying.

"There!" she trilled, turning Harry around in her arms so she could sniff his bottom. "Oh, Harry has a smelly bum-bum! Let's go clean Harry up!" The baby giggled and gurgled as Lily went on in her unnaturally high voice that she reserved specially for him.

She carried him to his changing table and quickly and methodically removed his diaper, cleaned him up and replaced Harry with a fresh clean one.

Downstairs in the kitchen, James was making breakfast. "Eggs, my fair lady?" he asked, walking over to kiss Harry on the nose. "Yum!" Lily licked her lips and sat Harry down on her lap. She faked a gasp, and Harry looked up, eyes wide. "Har?" she said, smiling. "Want to go on your boom-boom?" Harry's chubby face broke into a toothless grin and he clapped his hands and squealed "Boom-boom! Boom-boom!" Laughing, Lily summoned the broom that Harry's godfather had given him for his first birthday.

2ft up from the ground hovered Harry's tiny broom, Lily lifted him onto it and he started whizzing around the kitchen, screaming delightedly. Lily and James couldn't help but laugh.

"There's our future seeker!" James said, taking up an unbroken egg from the half-empty egg carton. "Harry, look - catch!" He lightly threw the egg towards Harry, expecting him to catch it. But Harry made no motion of seeing the egg at all, and it fell to the ground with a 'crack!'.

Lily took out her wand and said "Scourgify!", instantly clearing the floor of any trace of egg.

"Thank you darling," James said, kissing her on the cheek.

"No problem. Get Harry so we can eat - I'm starving!" said Lily.

Once Harry was reluctantly struggled into his high chair, the three Potters ate their breakfast and drank orange juice for the next half hour, occassionally laughing at Harry getting food everywhere. They were happy in the knowledge that they were safe and that everything that meant the world to them was in that very room.
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After breakfast, Lily brought Harry upstairs to change his clothes and then handed him over to James, while she took a long bath. After she had dried herself off and dressed, she came downstairs to voices. Frowning slightly, Lily entered the living room where Harry was on the floor, his face red and scrunched up as he turned one of James's shoes different colours. James himself was on the sofa, reading the Daily Prophet and nodding along to whatever Bathilda Bagshot - who was sitting next to him - was saying. "Batty!" Lily cried, walking over to giver her dear old neighbour a peck on the cheek.

"Oh hello Lily dear." Bathilda beamed. "I brought over the newspaper, just in case you wanted to see what was going on."
"That's very kind of you. Anything new?" asked Lily, sitting down. "Nope." James said, still reading. He folded the paper up and handed it to Lily, who scanned the front page.

"Hey - it's Hallo'ween!" Lily said, looking at the date. Bathilda groaned. "Those blasted kids better not egg my house again this year. Or rather..." her eyes lit up, "...I hope they do, just to see the looks on their faces when I finally get back at them!" she cackled evilly and James and Lily joined in, though warily.

Lily read the newspaper front to back. There were no stories of whatsoever of Voldemort's latest kills, which was extremely rare.

"That was weird." said Lily, putting down the newspaper. "What? The newspaper?" asked Bathilda, puzzled.

"Yes, it didn't mention anything about You-Know-Who." said Lily.

"Maybe he's gone off...maybe he's gotten bored of killing..." Bathilda said, with hope clear on her face but not in her voice. "Not bloody likely." said James, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for the past half hour. Lily frowned and was about to say something when, on the floor, Harry started to cry.

"I'll just go and see if he needs his diaper changed," Lily said, picking her child up. Halfway out the door she told James to make tea.

With his diaper changed ten minutes later, Lily brought Harry into the kitchen and filled his bottle up with milk. Back in the living room, Bathilda took Harry on her lap and started to talk about Mundungus Fletcher, and his latest black-market shenanigans concerning faulty grandfather clocks that had been bewitched to scream bloody murder every hour on the hour.

"...And it gets worse!" shrieked Bathilda spilling her tea, & bouncing Harry - who was staring up into her face in awe - on her knee. "He sold them to muggles! Muggles! Can you imagine? That Arthur Weasley will have him now..."

An hour later, Lily invited Bathilda to stay for dinner. "Oh! No no. I'd best be going. I bet those little Murphy snots are already going around trick or treating...Anyways! I'll come 'round tomorrow if I'm not too busy. Is that okay?"

"That's fine." Lily said, opening the front door. Bathilda hugged James and squeezed Harry's cheek; when she came to Lily she kissed her on the forehead and hugged her. "Be safe, my dears." she said. She wrapped her shawl tightly around her and stepped outside. "Goodbye Batty!" called James, who held up Harry's pudgy arm and waved it back and forth. "See you." said Lily, closing over the door. Bathilda smiled and waved, and walked off home.

"Batty by name, Batty by nature!" James laughed, going upstairs to change Harry's diaper. Lily grinned and went to prepare dinner.

While the stew was stirring itself, Lily went around the house, lighting candles. Darkness had descended like curtains on a stage, and Lily might as well had closed her eyes for all the good looking out the window had done. The vague glow of a few Jack O'Lanterns could be made out in the distance, but other than that it was black outside.

Back in the kitchen, Lily set the table and quickly heated up some mashed potatoes for Harry. James came bounding down the stairs with Harry and smiled so widely at her when he entered the kitchen that Lily thought she might faint. "Smells good." he said.

"Of course, look who made it!" said Lily, gesturing to herself. "True," James said, right before he kissed her hard on the lips. It would have lasted longer had Harry; who was still in James's arms; not start to slap them both 'til they came apart, laughing. James hugged Harry tight, chuckling, then placed him in his high chair.

The three Potters ate their dinner in a comfortable silence, with James occassionally winking at Lily from across the table. When both dinner and a dessert of treacle tart had been consumed, James quickly cleared the table while Harry and Lily made their way to the living room. The mother and son played the latter's favourite game of "Where's Harry? There he is!" with a tea towel. After a while, Lily looked up to see her husband leaning against the door frame, gazing at her and Harry. She smiled and broke his reverie. James strode over to the couch, picking up Harry on his way and perching him on his lap. Harry looked delighted and clasped his fathers big hands in his equally tiny ones. James gestured for Lily to take the seat beside them.

Lily obliged, and once in a comfortable seating position, asked "What's wrong, love?" James sighed and said quietly "I guess I'm...worried. And a little...scared." He looked down at Harry as he said this. He did not want to look his wife in the eye as he revealed what he had tried so very very hard to forget.

"Scared about what?" Lily asked, perplexed.

"What do you think? Voldemort!" Lily flinched at the name. James ignored her and went on. "He's after us, Lil. After all this time, he's still looking. And I don't see him stopping until he's found us." He finally looked into her wide green eyes and Lily saw pure fear etched into his handsome face.

"James, you shouldn't be worried! He won't ever find out where we are...I thought you trusted Peter?" said Lily.

"I do!" said James indignantly, startling Harry, who was dozing off into his chest. "Of course I trust Peter, it's not a question of his loyalty, not one tiny bit. But we just don't know how powerful Voldemort is..." James finished.

"Okay James, I'm sorry about thinking you doubted Peter. But you have nothing to worry about! No matter how powerful You-Know-Who is, he can't just break a Fidelius Charm. He can't! And I want you to stop thinking like that. As long as we have each other, we - will- be - fine!" Lily emphasised the last four words, and smiled, to show how silly he was being.

"Maybe you're right." James said, looking out the window at a couple of pumpkin-clad kids running quickly past their house. He hugged Harry close to him and smiled sheepishly at Lily. "Sorry about that." he said. "I'm being a right old paranoid wart. But when horrible ideas come into my head, I find it really hard to kick them out. I just can't imagine anything bad happening to you or Harry. I'd rather die." He clasped Lily's hand. "Forgive me," he said, pouting his lips jokingly.

Lily found that she had tears in her eyes. She tried to inconspicuously to wipe them away with her sleeve. "You've been spending too much time with old Batty who has that syndrome that all elderly ladies have of seeing doom in every cupboard!" she laughed. James laughed with her, and soon, Harry joined in too. The young family laughed away every miniscule worry, every bit of fear and animosity that didn't fit into their hearts, which only had room for love - which was all they, and anybody else, needed anyway.

Their laughing subsided, and James looked serious for a moment. "Now Lily..." he said. "Yes James?" she replied.

"You mustn't let anybody-especially Sirius!- know that I, James Potter, showed a trace of fear or worry for the slightest second, and you kept your head! My reputation would be ruined!"

Lily laughed, relieved. "Okay James Potter, I'll take your moment of madness to the grave with me!"
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An hour later, Harry was changed into his blue pyjamas and was stepping cautiously on the floor while trying to catch multi-coloured smoke that was erupting from his daddy's wand. He was laughing so hard that he fell promptly onto his bottom, his thick diaper cushioning his fall.

Lily opened the door and said, "Okay Har, time for bed!" She brushed her fallen hair out of her face. "James I have something to tell you when I get back." She grinned widely so that James would know that it was nothing too serious.

James nodded with a bewildered expression on his face, but a smile in his eyes. He scooped Harry up and handed him to his mother. Lily left the room and went bounding up the stairs.

James threw his wand upon the sofa, and stretched, yawning, wondering what Lily had to tell him. 'Nothing to worry about anyway,' he thought to himself.

Seconds before, as Lily was just making her way up the stairs, smiling and humming to Harry, who was held up against her chest. "How would you like a little brother or sister?" she whispered, ever so softly to him. So soft it was like a happy sigh.

All was well.