A/N

—Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling—

This is a story of James, Lily, Sirius, and Remus from 1978-1981. They are young Hogwarts grads and highly invested members of the Order of the Phoenix. They are blessed to have one another yet coming of age in the face of loss.

To me, the story of Lily and James Potter ought to be a classic Romance. And if with everything else going on, I can really get to the heart of their love and do their relationship justice, I'd be elated! It'll take me a few chapters to get there, but I think I can make it happen. Bear with me!

I will be staying true to canon (plot, characters) but taking some liberties i.e. adding characters we love (Weasleys, McGonagall) and whom we know little about in this time frame, possibly re-ordering deaths, imagining specificities.

I'd also like to portray Albus Dumbledore as a wise old man who himself has a lot to learn in the two decades "Worlds Apart" and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince bookend. While his leadership isn't necessarily venerable, Dumbledore's flaws I don't think are consequence enough to love him any less. He means well, really. And he has a lot of responsibility—does he not? If knowledge is power, Dumbledore has the most. And with great power comes great responsibility. What is executive decision-making if not controversial? I hope "Worlds Apart" will allow him to learn from his mistakes much like we see at the end of Order of the Phoenix and even in Deathly Hallows.

At its crux, it's still a Jily story. Don't worry.

I might edit chapters (in which case I'll let you know) before posting the next chapter. I've a good idea where the story is going, but I'd also like to write and put my work out there for feedback as I go along. This is going to be my first ever (and complete) fic!

Thank you for reading! I really hope you'll enjoy as much I did writing.

P.S. I think it gets good around Chapter 5.

My dearest Lilyflower,

I shouldn't be sending you this letter. It might not reach you.

If it does, you might not care.

You're furious and upset—and you have every right to be. I'd be mad at me too. In fact, I am.

I should have said my last words to you in person. For that I'll never forgive myself, yet I cannot leave them unsaid.

Where I've gone I cannot say. But I promise I'll be far enough that one day soon enough you'll stop missing me. It's quite another matter, love, that you'll be with me wherever I go. I'll hold you in my heart. Safekeep the few and fleeting moments we shared. And find peace in knowing this was how it was meant to be.

You know I never thought we'd end up this way. I always thought I would have a thousand forevers with you — these vows I would say to you on the castle grounds... us and Dumbledore at an altar encircled in enchanted white and flush flowers... Padfoot grinning from ear to ear, even Moony's eyes twinkling as his left lip curved up ever so slightly... The stars and centaurs blessing us, the rest of the staff and student body in sniffles.

I didn't know it back then, but something within me loved you from the moment I saw you: bright eyed, already in your robes, hair as red as the paint on that titanic engine, dangling out the window, waving your first goodbye. Seven years in the presence of your righteousness, courage, resilience, and kindness, I am a better man owing to that love. Privileged to be the one chosen to receive yours.

You are the one of us who always says we never really have a choice. That we never did. How we chose before in our every breath, thought, act—light or dark—would shine or spill out on its own accord when the time came. The heart would know what to do. The mind would fall silent.

So I know you'll understand—when the upset fades, and it will—why I left when I could have stayed and fought by your side.

For your safety... for the friends who were our only family left... for the world we had wanted for our little Jameses and Lilys.

One we might yet get.

Over the years we have all endured our unfair share of loss—but you perhaps with the most grace. With the most hope. As staggering as this is—trust me Lilyflower, I know. I'm the one leaving but you're not the only one in pain—I ask you to bear it once more.

Yours until the very end,
James

His silent tears had dried with each version of this last letter. Lay before him was his neatest script. Not a single thought crossed out. Not one "I love you so much it hurts." He had told her just enough. What more could he say? She would know. It would do.

In James's childhood bedroom, sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling window in front of the large mahogany desk at which he now sat. He basked in its weight and warmth as if it were the heat coming from fast asleep Lily's body as he lay with his arms wrapped around her. The last morning James would find himself waking up with his love in his arms had come and gone just two mornings ago—without him knowing it was to be the last.

They'd come to this very room in his parents' ancestral home—James still refused to call it his, though Fleamont and Euphemia had long since passed—"alight with happiness" and more than a lil drunk on pear cider Friday night from some humble celebrations at The Burrow for Arthur and Molly's new baby boys. The entire Order—thirty some members—had apparated from wherever they were stationed for little Fred and George's homecoming from St. Mungos. The war in full swing, any happy moments were hard to come by and not taken for granted. James and his stunning Lily both had had a chance to hold the babies, and later that night they'd whispered in the dark of how it might be to one day cradle their own.

James abruptly subdued these images in his mind—an internal occulumens if you will—attempting to draw his inner turmoil to the level of tranquility abound in the room he now stood. His large, dark, square four-poster bed was made perfectly in densly embroidered gold and navy fittings, matching the lengthy curtains on the window they faced. Not a thread was out of place. Not a speck of dust lingered on his vast mahogany floors. James looked down to see himself standing on the soft carpet he and Sirius would make forts over. They'd sit here on the ground with self-filling plates of their favorite sandwiches and fabricate elaborate plans once upon a time too long ago, though not even two or three years ago perhaps. Luxury was as hard to come by as happiness these days, but his immaculately-kept room was a reminder of the youth he'd long since bid farewell and would finally be leaving forever.

Romey, the Potter house-elf, James knew would take good care of his brothers and the Order. She'd be kept contentedly busy now that he was leaving Potter Estate to Dumbledore as Order headquarters. In its previous owners' prime, Potter Estate had been both a renowned and trusted space. Sorcerers, administrators, and academics would come and converse over tea with James's intellectual old man, and all magical children too young to attend Hogwarts were welcomed to come spend the days learning and playing with James's affectionate mother. Magic was suspended in the air here at Potter Estate. It was a safe place. James knew that not only his house elf but his home as well would take good care of those left siding with good.

Sirius would still have his room here, of course. And Remus, when he came back from his current assignment. And Peter. And Lily.

James sighed.

With no parents between the two of them to express reservations on their living in, James had told Lily she could come live here at the end of summer. Lily had wanted to try mending her relationship with her only left blood relative before Petunia left for university in September. (Muggles went to boarding school after eighteen years of age oddly enough.) But James knew that being back in her childhood home with a bitter, detached sister was nothing but a constant reminder of the life Lily too would never get back.

In fact, on Friday night, Lily had announced to James that she'd given up on Tuney and was ready to come be with James, in his room, in his heart, forever. Wobbling Lily had been so determined that she almost made them apparate to her house right then to pack her belongings before James had to steady her and say,

"Forever is a long time, Lilyflower. We have so much time. We'll go when the boys are around to help."

But the boys hadn't come around yet. In fact, in the last forty-eight hours James's entire 'forever' had changed.

Saturday, soon after him and Lily shared a late breakfast of coffee and sweet rolls and she went off, promising to come for dinner after Monday night's Order meeting, James was summoned by Profesor Dumbledore. A trip to Hogsmeade and a very serious conversation in the back room of the Hog's Head later, James emerged strapped with Dumbledore's latest intel and endowed Dumbledore's trust.

The responsibility placed upon the eighteen-year-old had seemingly turned him from boy into man overnight and unable to face the girl he'd one day hoped to call his wife.

He pocketed the letter he'd painstakingly written. It wasn't time to send it yet.

Dressed in dark jeans and a black sweater, James walked to his bedroom door and picked up a "backpack" with an Undetectable Extension Charm—a gift from Lily for his birthday just last week. Another heart-wrenching reminder of Lily and just how happy they'd been but a few days before. It was now filled with everything James had ever had that was worth keeping.

Well, almost everything.

She won't forgive me, he thought certainly. But he hadn't a choice.

As James then drew his entire attention to his upcoming role, he closed the door on his childhood bedroom and left as a man for the very first time. He wasn't coming back. If it wasn't for the magic suspended in the air here at Potter Estate, it may have almost been as if the boy James Potter had never existed at all.