This was written for Defense Against The Dark Arts Assignment Two and Penelope in the Greek Mythology Challenge on HPFC.
Floating
When he died - he was dead now - it didn't hurt.
Simply a sense of weightlessness, like he was floating. A flash of green light. His weary bones, scarred and torn from the destruction around him, the glass in his hands and the rips in his robes, they were all detached to him now.
"Go Lily!" James said urgently, pushing his wife out of the living room door. "Take Harry and go!"
Lily looked at him momentarily, cradling their son in her arms and tears sparkling in her sea green eyes. Then she moved her free hand up and touched his cheek.
"GO!" James insisted, his fingers meeting Lily's for a split second. Then she was gone in a blur of red hair.
Lord Voldemort blew the window out first, and then knocked the door down. James swore under his breath (bloody wand was upstairs) and ignored the stabbing pain that meant that there was now a spike of glass stuck in his palm.
James would be damned if he was going to let some idiot walk in here and kill his family.
"Ah, James Potter." Voldemort crooned, as James backed up the stairs, trying to hear the sounds of Lily's beautiful voice as she sung to Harry-
"I might not have my wand," James smirked, clenching his fist. "But I'm still going to punch you in the nose- oh."
There was a satisfied smirk on James Potter's face as the green light came spiralling. Voldemort didn't look pleased with his quip.
Mischief Managed was the last thing James managed to think, before the light that had burned for twenty-one years flickered out.
But he couldn't leave. Something kept him tethered to the material world- not a fear of truly dying, but a fear that his son, little Harry, might never know his parents.
James looked down. He was hovering, just off the ground. His arms were transparent, in fact he could see a picture of him, Sirius, Remus and-
And-
"James?"
James spun, or rather simply turned in mid-air, to see Lily, just like him, hovering off the ground, crystal years clinging to her translucent face.
"Lily-flower." James breathed. "He..."
"Harry's alive." Lily said, her eyes crinkling. "But, I suppose, you knew that already."
James smiled thinly. "I couldn't leave him." He said, in a thick, choked voice. "Lils, I couldn't..."
"Neither could I." Lily sighed, tears still running down her face. "Harry needs us."
Then she was in her husband's arms - they could touch each other, if not anything else - and they were both crying.
Crying together. They had a second chance. Someone out there had answered an unspoken plea.
And now Harry would have parents. And even if they had to be tethered to Earth for all eternity, then as long as James had Lily and Lily had James...
They would be alright.
