James had taken her to see Macbeth once on the West End. It was one of Shakespeare's plays that she'd never taken the time to read, and had never been made to as she would have if she went to Muggle school. The play itself had been excellent, but Lily couldn't help but feel terrible for Macduff. Macduff had tried the whole time to do the right thing, to stop Macbeth's madness and put the true king of Scotland on the throne. All he got for it was a dead family. Macduff had nothing left.
Afterward, James couldn't stop sniggering about the way the witches had been portrayed, "Honestly Lily that was ridiculous. I'm offended for witches everywhere. Could you imagine if prophecies came out in rhymes like that? They're confusing enough as it is." And Lily laughed as they walked down the street, but her heart wasn't in it. It was with poor Lord Macduff and his dead family.
Lily's worst fear had never been dying. With her life and the war, death was a prospect she'd become accustom to. Friends, parents, family, from illness, accidents, and murders. It seemed endless. No, Lily didn't fear death; she feared being left behind, being the only one left with no one there to comfort her.
At least she did. Then she became a mother.
She became the mother of this beautiful perfectly wonderful human being that she never wanted to ever let go. James teased her for not letting him hold his own son enough.
"Maybe he'll start to look like me if I hold him all the time." She'd say, and James would laugh, but it was a serious thought in her head. Harry was basically a clone of his father. Had she not experienced the labor, she would question whether any of her DNA was present in their son. Not that she would love him any less, because she wouldn't change her baby boy for anything.
"Just wait a bit, love, you read those books, same as me. His eyes won't stay blue. Give it a few months," James would say with a wink, then kiss both of their foreheads.
It was a gradual process, over the course of the next few months. The color in Harry's eyes had swirled and changed, and for a while Lily had expected them to end up hazel like James'. But when Lily went in to wake Harry one particular day, she'd found her own eyes staring back at her. James came to the nursery to investigate a few minutes later and found his wife bouncing their baby with a brilliant smile on her face, Harry giggling madly from delight. And with their faces right next to each other, James couldn't fail to see the resemblance, the bright color and the way their eyes squinted as they smiled.
"Told you so," he said with a grin. "Happy Christmas, Lily."
And then came more dead friends, and prophecies, and old fears started to creep up again. But none of them could dominate the fear of leaving Harry alone to face to world. Harry had to have a family, had to have his parents. Had to have his mother.
She starting to make contingency plans after they heard the prophecy and went into hiding. She made out a will with a Muggle lawyer and with the Ministry of Magic, made Sirius Harry's guardian in case she and James died. She started writing letters, made James write a few, too, and addressed them to Harry. She left them in his toy box in the nursery. James said it was morbid to do so, but Lily thought it was stupid not to. Why not control their last words to their son, should it be necessary? James always did what she asked when she had tears in her eyes.
But none of her fears, or plans mattered when Halloween night came. Because Voldemort was here and James was dead- James was dead- and life was either going to end or never be the same.
When confronted by Voldemort with no hope of survival, Lily Evans would have shouted profanities, told the bastard to go to hell, and spit in his face before dying with her head up and shoulders back, looking him straight in the eye. Lily Evans would have been fearless.
But Lily Potter was a mother. And Lily Potter begged and pleaded with the monster who killed her husband, because she wanted her son to live. Because when faced with death and the death of her child, Lily realized her greatest fear. It wasn't becoming Macduff, it wasn't her own death, and it wasn't leaving Harry alone. Her greatest fear was letting Harry die before he got to live his life.
Harry was their little miracle, tangible proof of the love she and James shared. Harry deserved the chance to experience that, too. He deserved to fall in love, get married and have babies to cherish and adore. He deserved to go to Hogwarts, make friends, and play Quidditch. Harry needed to live, and if that meant Lily had to die, had to let him go, so be it. She could only pray it would be enough, and that Harry would always know that his parents loved him more than life itself.
"Not Harry! Please, no, not Harry — I'll do anything!"
And everything was gone.