In the time it took to walk down the stairs and through the hallway leading to the kitchen she had made her decision. She rested a hand on the just noticeable curve of her stomach and awkwardly cleared her throat to announce her presence to him.
James sat at the table, his head resting against his hand and his eyes scanning, yet not reading, the words of a column in the Daily Prophet. There were purple crescent moons under his eyes and his face was unshaven. When Lily cleared her throat he looked up, startled. Too many late nights with the Order had put him on edge. He turned and looked at his wife; his eyes first traveled over her face, and then to her stomach. He thought of the life that resided there and his heart sped up, just as it had when she had first told him she was pregnant, just over three months ago.
"I need to tell you something and I need you to listen," she said, her voice trembling slightly.
His foggy, sleep-deprived expression cleared and was replaced with a state of apt attention.
"What is it? What's happened?" he asked, fearing the worst, that Sirius or Remus or Peter was dead, killed in the same way that Mary and Fabian and Gideon had been.
"I'm going to go stay with my parents for a while. A couple weeks, probably. I need some time on my own."
James had not expected that. He stared at her, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
"You can't leave," he said, incredulity in his voice.
"There's too much stress here, James. All I do is sit here and wait for you to come home, hoping and praying that you haven't been killed. And half of the time by the time you get home I'm already asleep because you choose to go out drinking with Sirius after a mission."
James looked away from her.
"Your pregnant wife has been going to bed alone and that apparently means nothing to you," she continued, and she fought to keep her voice from trembling.
"I'm sorry, Lily, please don't—"
"It isn't permanent," she cut across him. "And you can write me."
He remained at the table while she packed a suitcase and remained seated until after she had gone. Then he stood, took out his wand, and promptly Apparated to Sirius's flat.
Lily stood in the kitchen of her childhood home, peeling potatoes at the sink. She gathered the skins in her hands and threw them into the bin. She thought of the way James would always cook hash browns on Sunday mornings. She thought of the time they had tried eating breakfast in bed and had spilled juice all over their sheets.
She placed the potatoes in a large pot of water and set it on a stove burner to boil. She watched the blue flame dance beneath the metallic surface of the pot and pushed thoughts of her husband out of her mind.
"Why don't you go sit with your father in the living room, dear," her mother said as she entered the small kitchen.
"Petunia and Vernon will be here soon."
Lily walked toward the sitting room and tried not to become too anxious about seeing her estranged sister and brother-in-law. Petunia, unlike Lily's parents, didn't even know Lily was pregnant yet. Lily planned on telling her at dinner, and imagined that Petunia would probably think Lily was trying to upstage her, with Petunia being pregnant as well and about a month farther along.
Lily sat down next to her father on the sofa. She had not given her parents a specific reason for why she was staying with them for the next two weeks. She had written to her mother and said that she "needed to be around family" and that James and she were having "minor issues." She figured that if they needed to know more they would ask. But neither Robert nor Diane Evans had asked their daughter for specifics upon her arrival late last night.
Robert looked at his youngest daughter, with her hair in a braid and a thick cardigan wrapped around her slim frame. He placed a hand on her knee.
"Alright, pumpkin?" he asked her.
Lily nodded slightly and leaned her head against his shoulder.
By the time Petunia and Vernon had arrived the house was filled with the warm and savory smells of Diane's cooking. Lily seated herself across from Petunia and her husband. Petunia had kept her usual distance from her sister, only speaking to her when necessary and saying few words.
As the five of them finished their meals, Lily looked toward Petunia.
"Well, I have some good news," she said with a small smile.
Petunia raised an eyebrow at her. Vernon was still preoccupied with his last bit of steak.
"I'm pregnant," Lily said. "About four months along now."
Petunia put on a strained smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"How wonderful for you, Lily," she said.
James's reaction to the news had been quite different. Lily's own reaction had been quite different, and similar to James's. Panic. Anxiety. Fear. What did they know about raising a baby? Their child would be born into the crisis of a war— a war in which both parents were entrenched. To say they were unprepared was a massive understatement. Though she tried to deny it, Lily knew that their unborn child had greatly contributed to James's recent behavior and the strain on their marriage. She couldn't stay cooped up in that house any longer. She didn't want James to constantly be reminded of their coming hardship when he looked at her.
Petunia and Vernon left soon after Lily's announcement. As they said goodbye at the door Petunia pulled Lily aside. She looked as though she was struggling for the right words to use, until she finally sighed and said, with an odd expression on her face, "You'll make a good mother."
Lily thought about her words as she fell asleep that night, her head heavy and her body longing for the warmth of James.
She received the first letter from him the next morning. It didn't say much. He did not beg her to come home. He told her he loved her and missed her and that when she came home he would work to make things right. Lily felt a sense of relief wash over her. He was surviving without her. He would be okay. They would be okay, eventually.
After she finished reading the letter Lily decided that a nice hot bath would do her well. She opened the small closet that once seemed so large to her and looked for a bath robe. Instead she found a photo album. She leafed through its pages, the idea of a bath forgotten. She gazed at a picture of her and Petunia, when she was about five or six years old. She wore a denim pinafore and twin braids in her red hair. Petunia wore a sundress with bright yellow daisies in the pattern. The sisters stood in front of a large tree, embracing one another tightly and smiling so big their eyes were squinted shut.
Lily shut her eyes and put her hand to her stomach. She could not look at the photo without thinking about how separate she was from her family. Petunia and she did not take pictures like that anymore. Lily and James were rarely able to come to dinner at the Evans', due to James's busy schedule with the Order and exacerbated by the fact that Petunia could not stand to be in the same room as James Potter. Diane and Robert Evans had become privy to this early on, and in order to not shatter their daughters' already paper-thin relations had resolved to only have Lily and James over when Petunia and Vernon were not there.
Another memory came to her suddenly, a memory of her and James lying in bed. James had held her as she cried, telling him that she felt as though she did not have a family. James had consoled her by saying that they could make their own family. They hadn't intended, of course, to start so soon.
The week passed slowly, accompanied by another letter from James, asking her how her parents were and if Petunia had given her any trouble. Lily replied by telling him they were well and that her sister had been surprisingly decent toward her.
At the end of the week Lily and her parents had dinner with the Thompsons, family friends who lived just down the street. At one point during the meal Mrs. Thompson inquired about Lily's husband.
"What did you say his name was, love?" she asked, eyes peering at Lily curiously behind horn-rimmed glasses.
"James. James Potter," Lily replied, eyes still on her food. She felt uneasy talking about James without him being there.
"And what was it that he does for a living?" she asked.
Lily hesitated. Her parents knew that James was unemployed, and that he worked with a group to take down dark wizards. They did not know the extent and severity of the war, let alone that it was even being called a war. Lily had simply told them that there were an increasingly large number of wizards who formed prejudices based on blood status, and that James fought against them and their efforts to achieve ministry reform based on said prejudices. She had told them that she too had been involved with fighting these dark wizards— that is, before she became pregnant—though she did not mention how often she had been in actual combat.
"He…works in law enforcement," was the answer she settled on.
"With the police, you mean?"
"Yes," Lily replied. "Though his job is actually a desk job," she lied. "He mostly processes legal documents."
Lily imagined James sitting at a desk with a stack of papers in front of him, his glasses on the tip of his nose as he scribbled notes on a legal pad. She had to refrain from laughing.
"Oh well that's nice. No danger in a desk job," Mrs. Thompson said, chuckling.
Mrs. Thompson's words echoed in her head as she sat in the bath later that evening. How simple life would be, she thought, if James worked in an office. There would be no worrying about whether or not he was injured or killed. He would come home every day at the same time, and she would cook dinner for the two of them. She had grown to hate eating alone.
That night Lily dreamt of her baby. She held the child in her arms as she walked along a path in a lush forest. She looked down into the face of her sleeping son and thought of how he looked so much like James. She smiled and cradled him closer to her chest.
When Lily awoke she was filled with undoubted certainty that her child would be a boy.
Later that night she decided to go for a walk, thinking about the crisp air of the forest in her dream. She bundled up in a coat, scarf, and hat, and made her way into the cold February evening. As she walked through the neighborhood snow crunched beneath her boots. She walked to the end of the block, down to the park where she and Petunia used to play as children. She played there with a boy named Severus, too. Lily grimaced as she thought of him. What was she doing here, really? She rested a hand on her stomach. James and the baby were the new chapter of her life. She was no longer a resident of Cokeworth; she was no longer friends with a boy named Severus; she was no longer her sister's playmate. She looked down at the snow at her feet and realized that she was standing in the past. She had turned back the page and was now in Chapter One again. It was time to go back to Chapter Two.
When she came home she found him in the kitchen. He was standing at the stove, cooking dinner. She hadn't told him she was coming home.
"Hi," was all she said from where she was standing in the doorway. James, startled, nearly jumped. An expression of great relief washed over him when he saw her. He rushed to her, gathering her in his arms and burying his face in the crook of her neck. Slowly but surely she raised her arms until she was returning his embrace. She thought she felt wetness against her neck.
She thought of the baby that was still small enough to fit in her hand. Yes, she thought, she would have a boy. She hoped he would be like his father.