They found out she was pregnant three weeks later.

Still mourning the loss of James, his absence still a cleft in their hearts, the Marauders all rush upstairs at the sound of Lily's scream and she opens the door crying.

'I'm pregnant.'

Sirius swears, Peter sits down on the laundry basket and Remus, calm, steadfast Remus, steps forward and kisses her on the forehead.

Nobody really knows what to say.

It becomes a sort of unspoken agreement in the end. Lily's keeping the baby, that was never in any doubt – though Remus privately suspects it might have been had James not died three weeks before they found out – and the remaining Marauders are going to help her. Sirius practically lives in Godric's Hollow anyway now, for all that he can ever drag himself away. He leaves for Order missions, he comes back, and Lily's poor heart stutters every time he does, always expecting a messy-haired buffoon to follow in his wake. But she needs Sirius and he needs her. There's an empty space between them, of course, but they are the only ones who can reach across it.

Remus pops in – less so than he used to because Dumbledore's setting him up for a covert mission – and he brings food, because all too often he's arrived to a house with an empty fridge, save for milk and the odd slab of mouldy cheese. It's not that they don't eat, it's just that they're preoccupied. And Remus understands.

Peter comes round every Saturday with startling regularity considering the Order's general unpredictability. But his constancy is welcome and he's being strangely practical about everything. A cot arrives first, and then a bottle warmer, and all of a sudden Lily realises she has everything by the time she's seven months gone. She's grateful because there's still a part of her that looks down at her bump and cries, because that's James' baby in there. She's having it because of James. This is no world to bring a child into but she misses James so desperately. And he loved her. She needs this physical proof of his existence, no matter much it makes her heart ache.

It's a Sunday night when the worst happens. She's nearly eight months pregnant now. She's watching the telly when the lights flicker. Sirius isn't in – isn't due back until later that night. She sits up as the lights flicker again, takes the mug off her belly and puts it on the coffee table, pulling her wand out of the crack in the sofa. The street outside is silent – not even the wind is whistling.

Someone knocks at her door and she jumps. Her mind is on overdrive, her heart is thumping and god, she hates how much she wishes Sirius was here. She peers her head round the living room door and her heart judders as the knocking comes again.

'Lily.'

Her heart stops and she nearly falls to the floor.

She hasn't heard that voice in nearly 9 months. In nearly a year. She hasn't heard that voice since the morning he left on a fucking routine mission and died. She never thought she'd hear it again.

'Lily, it's me, please let me in.'

Tears spring to her eyes, she can't move. It's James – it's his voice, his stupid, beautiful, posh voice coming through the door and she wants to listen to it forever. She'd almost forgotten what it was like to hear in real life.

But the real, very scared part of her knows that she should be running. It's not him, it can't be him. And if it's not him, whatever it is won't keep asking.

Silently, she ignores another plea as it filters through the front door, closing her eyes at the thought that it could be James, knowing it's not, because he's dead, there's no way, there's absolutely no way he's alive...there's no hope as much as she wants there to be, there is none and she has to run.

She can't apparate – she can't risk splinching herself and there are some awful stories about mothers who apparate when pregnant. She can't risk it now. She makes her way upstairs, ducking past the door and running as fast as her body allows. She barricades herself into her room, pushing her cabinet across the door with as much strength as she can muster and sinking down beside it.

Panting, she pulls out her wand and conjures a Patronus. It flickers at first - her memory is James and James' memory is being hacked by this apparition (she knows its not an apparition, but she's not going to admit to what it is, lest she be physically ill) - but the second time, after she concentrates harder on the day he asked her out in seventh year, her doe appears fully and she breathes a sigh of relief, ignoring the ache that even her patronus brings, diminished only a little by the terror unfurling in her stomach.

'Sirius, I need your help – please. Godric's Hollow, James is back.'

She whispers her message and her doe gallops away into the night. She knows Sirius will catch her meaning, as awful as it is. Lily rests her head back against the cabinet and closes her eyes when she hears him again.

'Lily, don't do this to me! I'm alive! Don't leave me out here alone!'

She knows its not him, but that doesn't stop her crawling slowly to the bedroom window. She rests there, unsure of whether she actually wants to look or not, knowing she shouldn't but wanting to know for sure what her mind is already telling her.

'Lily! Sirius left me – I wasn't dead – I'm alive! Help me!'

Tears are falling down her cheeks now. She wants to help him, she wants to go to him, tell him it's okay, he's back now but it's not him. It's a shell. It's not him. She repeats it to herself like a mantra.

'Please! Lily! I know you're in there! Why won't you come to me? I'm right here!'

She does it then. She raises herself up off the floor and peeks out of the window, looking down onto the front garden. She sees his messy hair first and a sob nearly bursts from her chest before she catches it. It's him; they've done it. They've bewitched his corpse.

She'd heard stories of course. Never actually faced one herself. Remus had, had been escorted into her house late one night by James, who had held his friend as he shook. She had brought them tea, sat on the other side and tried to help but it had been James who had got his friend through it. God, she can't look away.

She can only see the top of his head from this angle but he's not standing right, at all. She doesn't know whether it's a failing on the part of those who bewitched him or whether this is what reanimated corpses look like, but he's all lopsided, his tall, steadfast stance gone as this imposter stumbles on two feet. She's transfixed but then he looks up.

Hazel eyes are white. His once handsome face is gaunt and instead of his bright, crinkly smile, he snarls when he sees her. This is not James Potter and this face will haunt her for the rest of her life.

She ducks down but she knows its too late. He's shouting now, not pleading and she hears the bushes from the nearby park rustle. More are coming. This is what she feared. She doesn't remember what kills them, knows they can't be killed with the Killing Curse or by any other means, but she knew whatever she attempted, more would come and she would be overwhelmed. Now it's simply too fucking late.

'We're coming Lily!' he crows, and she sobs, looking around the room for anything that might help her. She's clutching her wand but what can it fucking do when she hasn't a clue what spell to cast? She hears wet footsteps on the pavement, hears groaning and laughter and James isn't knocking anymore – he's trying to get in.

She leans over the side and casts a blasting curse – several Inferi (for there are now several crawling through her front garden) are blown back but it doesn't stop them for long and more seem to fill their place. She catches sight of James again and covers her belly with her other arm.

She needs to get out of here. She needs Sirius. By god, she just needs James but not this James, not like this. James would be sick if he knew, she can't cope, that's her husband out there – snot is making it hard to breathe and tears are clouding her vision. She's not making the effort to keep quiet now.

She screams, hears the door burst open and screams again.

'Honey, I'm home!'

She swears she's going to kill them all, bring them all to their knees for this, just as soon as she's had the baby. She will see that those responsible never see the light of day again because this is sick.

She magicks more furniture in front of the door and looks outside again, in the hope that there might be an escape route but there's not and she sinks down to the floor again as more of the blasted things spot her. One looks just like Benjy Fenwick. She bites her lip as she clutches her belly again.

She's going to have to risk it. She's going to have to apparate. It's that or wait and if she waits, she's going to die anyway. At least if she apparates she has a chance.

She stands up with a deep breath, ignores the way the voices are getting closer, the way footsteps limp up her staircase – she knows who it is but it's not his footsteps. Not his. Not James'. She takes another deep breath to keep from wailing, and steadies herself, her wand out in front of her as she prepares to spin.

And then the world lights up.

She ducks down as fire erupts on the street, heat blasting her windows out. She ducks further, holding her belly tighter, and hopes, prays, that Sirius has found her at last.

'Lily!'

It's him, oh god, it's him, it's Sirius.

'I'm here!' she shouts back, slowly, tentatively getting to her feet, crunching broken glass underfoot, ignoring the way it tumbles from her back and tangles in her hair. 'Up here!'

He looks up, looks to the open door and there's no hesitation. He makes a run for it. The Order are holding off the other monsters – Frank Longbottom, Alice, Marlene. But Sirius is coming for her now and her head is spinning with the relief.

Her heart sinks when she realises that he's going to see James too.

She aims and spurts her own flames out of the window and down at the crowd of dead bodies in her street – she's not thinking about it, she's not thinking about it, that's not Benjy Fenwick…

'Sirius!'

And that's not James.

It's not James.

'You fucking pieces of shit,' Sirius' voice is trembling. Lily knows what he's feeling. It's not like they hadn't known what was going on, but the reality...well, this was something else.

'My old friend. Did you miss me?'

Heat comes through the crack in the bottom of the door as Lily's landing lights up. Her house is on fire and she's on the second floor with no way out, with flames filling her garden. She going to have to apparate anyway, she's going to have to leave – she doesn't want to abandon Sirius but there's black smoke filling the room and she'll die, her baby will die and-

The door bursts open and her barricades are tossed aside as Sirius runs in, coughing.

'I've got you,' he says, or chokes really. 'I've got you.'

She nearly falls into his arms but he speaks truthfully when he says he's got her.

He blasts cool air through the flames, clearing a path down the stairs for them both.

'Careful, now…'

It's funny, she's never heard him sound so gentle, not even when...not even when he broke the news to her all those months ago but now...she wonders if she looks as bad as she feels.

Somehow he manages to get her out of the house, out of the garden, without an injury and the flames are mostly gone now, it's just black smoke billowing in its wake and the smell of...she gags just thinking about it.

He sits her on the pavement in the next street. He crouches in front of her, sooty hands on either side of her face, forcing her to look at him. She feels like she can't breathe.

'Lily, come on. Don't do this. Look at me, it's me, it's okay-'

His face is covered in soot and she crumples forward, her forehead crashing into his shoulder as she cries. Her shoulders shake and he holds her.

'It's over. It's over,' he repeats, sounding shaken, but he doesn't leave her side.

They take her to St Mungos, Frank, Alice and Marlene, and her and Sirius get a bed side by side one another. Sirius has smoke inhalation and Lily has a few cuts and bruises from the windows, but mostly, she's just shaken. Although there's no just about it.

The baby is okay, they assure her. Doing fine, will be fine, nothing adverse. But Christ, what about the mother? Lily can't sleep, can't focus, can barely even feel relief that her child is okay, because its father is dead and the last thing she saw of him was white-eyed and hollow.

She vomits over the side of the bed before they can get her a dish.

They give her a potion then. Sirius holds her hand until she falls asleep and he's still there when she wakes up sweating, a scream dying in her throat.

She hasn't woken him. He's not asleep. She bursts into tears.

He climbs onto her bed and cradles her as she cries. He knows, oh god he knows, and it's a wonder he's not run for the hills yet. Sirius doesn't do well when he's hurting and feeling trapped.

'We'll get them,' he assures her. 'They will pay for this.'

It's too late, she wants to say, it's too late. It happened and James is dead twice over now. God, she wants to die, but she can't. Not now.

So instead she just nods. Yes, they will pay for this. Yes, she will see to it that they do.

She marvels at Sirius' gentleness again as he strokes her hair – he never used to like her, not at school. Yeah, they got on alright, but there was tension, especially when James fell for her at first.

Unbidden, memories come of the way that Sirius held James after Benjy Fenwick died – after Benjy Fenwick's chest cavity burst all over him to be truthful – and she nearly vomits again.

'How do we do this?' she asks quietly, clutching Sirius tighter. 'How do we carry on?'

Sirius' breath hitches and he shakes his head. He opens his mouth to tell her he doesn't know but another voice answers instead.

'Because we must.'

Peter stands in the doorway. He used to bring flowers whenever he visited St Mungos but he's stopped. His visits are getting more frequent and flowers are losing their meaning.

Sirius and Lily look at him sadly, hopelessness pouring out of them, and Peter faces them with a strange but somehow welcome calmness.

'For James.'

Lily starts crying again.

Sirius nods tightly.

'For Prongs.'