Title: I am Not Afraid
Author: RedHandedJill44
James/Lily post-Hogwarts Marauder era - pre death. And I guess Harry is in here too. Kinda.
Just a determined drabble in honor of this candy filled (yet sad) holiday in which we get sugar highs and cry about the deaths of James and Lily Potter.
I own nothing - Rowling owns it all.
Death was not a strange concept to James. Nor was dying. The realities of life and the casualities of war were facts that he faced daily - ones that he couldn't ignore or leave behind.
He was four the first time he encountered death. He remembers running into his mother's arms, tears streaming down his face as his father carried his first owl out to the backyard. She was an old owl - a descendent of his father's first - but she had taught him to fly as he would frantically follow on his mother's broom.
His mother said she was sleeping. That she wouldn't wake up.
That's what death was for James Potter. Falling asleep. Closing your eyes and if you stop breathing for long enough, you'll never wake up again.
As he grew older, the science and reality grew cold and harsh and a part of his mind would still run to the solace of his mother's words to a four year old. Words that somehow give peace in a desperately illogical world.
He closed the blinds and slowly walked back to bed, his eyes drifting over Lily as she slept. Her swollen belly protruded on his side of the bed, much to his disdain. Of course he was joking. James Potter always jokes.
James is no stranger to death. He faces it every day. The Order of the Phoenix has a death sentence on them, and with the Prophecy placed upon his unborn child, that makes him and his wife at the the top of the list.
He is not afraid of dying. At certain times it seems that simply falling asleep is a wished for thing. And then he remembers his wife and child and a small smile comes across his face. A small smile quickly followed by the fire in the eyes of a determined father.
He feared for his wife. For Lily. For whatever little boy or girl they would soon come to parent. They would not fall asleep. They couldn't.
Not while he was still awake. Not while he was still fighting.
Because although James sometime felt like sleeping, he was not afraid of his own death.
And he would protect those he fears to live without for without them, life would be a living nightmare. A nightmare with no respite.
James was not afraid. And sleep was not an option.
Not yet.