When Lily Evans though back on the summer of 1989, it was with mixed emotions. That was the summer where her and her long time boyfriend, James Potter, decided that things weren't working out at the time, and that they needed to take a break. There were other underlying things, such as the Auror training schedule that James had to attend to, as well as Lily working on completing her Charms mastery. With their very busy schedules, it was just plain difficult for either of them to be putting one hundred percent into their relationship. Together, they decided to put things on hold until life cleared up in a few months and see if the spark of their relationship was still there.
The other important thing that happened that summer was completely unexpected. On one of Lily's rare days off, she had decided to attend an exhibit in Muggle London that had just opened at the British Museum. The exhibit contained ancient relics from Greece and Rome, some of which had been lost for millennia and had just been discovered in the Mediterranean. Lily had always been a little bit of a history buff, although spending five years at Hogwarts hearing Professor Binn's drone on about goblin rebellions had been a struggle. But she had always been drawn to ancient times. At one stage in her O.W.L. year she had debated putting her skill with runes and charms to venture into curse breaking and go to work with the goblins at Gringotts.
In fact, she thought with a small smile, she could still go that route, after she completed her mastery. Walking among the stone statues and display cases, she stopped in front of a statute of Zeus. Standing there was a man in a business suit. He had dark hair and had the look of a man of power. Debating on whether she should talk to the man or not, the man broke the silence.
"You know they always get the dates wrong."
Lily blinked. She quickly looked around her and saw that she was the only one that was within earshot. Gathering her Gryffindor courage, she walked up to the statue and looked at it. "Well, a good chunk of archaeology is educated guesswork. That guesswork was also made so much harder by the fact that this was sitting at the bottom of a sea for who know how long."
The man looked thoughtful for a moment before giving her a small smile. "True, true." He extended his hand towards her. "My name is John."
Lily looked at the presented hand and quickly shook it. "Lily Evans. So I take it your family knows a fair bit about ancient Greek mythology," she gestured awkwardly at the statue. The man let out a small chuckle.
"Yes indeed. My family is originally from Greece and has had ties there for years. We eventually travelled around and we finally immigrated to America."
Lily nodded at that. "So I take it you know a lot about the stories of the Greek and Roman pantheon?"
Zeus only smiled at her. "Oh the stories I could tell."
That summer was a whirlwind of romance for Lily. John was a sweetheart and went out of his way to woo her, and this made Lily extremely happy. He was happy to spend as much time with her as he possible could, even if it was just him cooking dinner for her at her flat while she studied for her mastery exam. On the nights that she was not busy, they were usually out on the town and doing whatever they wanted. Money never seemed to be an issue for him
This wasn't to say that she forgot about James at all. They still spent time with each other every now and then. She told him about John shortly after they started seeing each other, and even though James was really sad to hear this news, he tried to be happy for her. This was a risk that they had taken, and besides, who was to say that this was to be forever?
In the weeks that followed her whirlwind romance, Lily started to see many different sides of John. There were times were it almost seemed like he was two different people, although it was hard to spot the difference. There were just moments where he wasn't as free spirited and more stern, but those moments were few and far between. One of the other weird things was that people seemed to subconsciously ignore him, and only seemed to notice him when he was speaking with them. When she questioned him about this, he merely shrugged it off as if it was no big deal.
The summer soon came to a close and Lily was in frantic study to complete her mastery. Their dates were starting to become fewer and far between, and John was starting to pay attention more and more to news that was on the BBC from America. There was a lot of bad news coming from the American president about Russia's involvement in the Middle East, as well as some pretty bad weather coming from back home. She overheard him muttering to himself about his brother and how dare he try to make him look like a fool.
Their last night together was spent in passion, and the things that he did with her was something that she would never forget. After they finished, he broke the silence. "Lily, I have to leave in the morning. Some things have come up back home, and I must leave to attend to matters with my family."
Lily simply nodded. She had known that this would never last. There was something about him and her together that was nice in the moment, but never had the sense of lasting. Their few months together had been wonderful, but it was almost like she was living a dream, and now it was time for her to wake up. "I figured as much. I heard you talking about family back in the states and figured that this was coming eventually."
John only looked at her sadly. "There is something else that you need to know." He leaned over, kissed her on the cheek, and whispered in her ear. Lily's eyes flew wide open as she tried to process what she had just been told. She had just had an affair with a god? Part of her almost couldn't comprehend or believe what she had just been told. But as she processed the information more and more, she started to slowly accept the information that she had been given.
He slowly got out of bed and got dressed. Lily simply sat there still trying to process that information. He leaned down and kissed her once on the forehead. "I am sorry that it took me this long to tell you. Even though this was not meant to last, I did love you and the time we spent together." He reached into his pocket and withdrew a charm bracelet. "Wear this often, and think of me when you can. When the time comes, you'll know what it is and how to use it." He gently placed the delicate charm bracelet around her wrist.
Lily looked at the bracelet for a few second, looking at the delicate bronze links and the charms that dangled from the bracelet. She looked back up to her lover in astonishment. She could feel the power that radiated in the bracelet, and from the charms themselves, but for the life of her she could not understand the meaning. She nodded slowly, tears brimming unshead in her eyes.
And with that, he walked out the bedroom and she never saw him again.
Lily shook herself out of her memories. That had been almost two years ago. She glanced down at the messy head of black hair that was in her lap with the rest of him spread out on the couch and smiled at her husband. Shortly after her fling had ended, she and James had picked back up where they had left off. Their relationship had changed from what it used to be, and that was good. James kept her grounded, which was something she had needed desparetley in her life.
Within the remaining months of that year, they both had finished the things that had first caused interference in their lives. Lily had completed her Charms mastery while James was apprenticed to a senior Auror for his first year to help him learn the rest of the ropes that weren't able to be taught at the Auror academey. While they did not need the money, they both had felt the hard times that had been going on in the wizarding world. The Death Eaters were slowly becoming radicalized and had gone from whispers behind closed doors to open fighting on the streets.
Their master Voldemort was as strong as their former headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, and Voldemort was careful not to engage the man directly. In the few interactions that the Potters had with the Dark Lord, they were lucky to get out alive. The two of them threw everything that they had at him. They resorted to multiple mean to try to stop him, starting with magic before they moved on to muggle means and tried to simply shoot him. But he was able to take every hit that they dished out and he still was coming.
Her pride and joy chose that moment to run into the living room still dressed in her costume. Lily glanced down at her daughter Melanie Leanne Potter and gazed into her emerald eyes. Her daughter was the splitting image of her. Her baby soft curls were turning from baby blond to red. Her daughter had just turned one a few months prior, and had just celebrated her second Halloween ever.
Things were difficult since the birth of Melanie. Dumbledore had approached them and their close friends, Alice and Frank Longbottom. Their son, Neville, had been born the day before Melanie was. When the met with Dumbledore, he explained that a prophecy had been made that could have described either one of their children. A death eater had heard part of the prophecy and had fortunately been caught before he had managed to hear the entire prophecy. That had been three months ago. After the birth of both of their children, that same Death Eater had visited Dumbledore himself begging to save them and that the Dark Lord was aware of the prophecy.
Although they had been unfortunate this year that they were unable to actually go trick or treating that year due to them being on Voldemort's personal to do list, they had still celebrated quietly at the cottage in Godrics Hallow. Sirius had been over with Hestia Jones, another member of the Order of the Phoenix, along with Remus, Peter, and surprisingly, Professor Dumbledore. Now with the night winding down, Lily was finally ready to call it a night and put Melanie to bed. She had just started to going up the stairs when the house violently vibrated as the first of their protective wards fell.
James sat up immediately, fear evident on his face. He knew what was coming, and he was damning himself for being so stupid. "Lily, he's coming. Quick, take Melanie and try to get away as soon as you can. I will follow as soon as I know that you're safe." Lily quickly turned on the spot and tried to apparate away, only to run into a disapparation jinx. Fear was evident on her face. She turned to face James just as their front door was blown in.
Lily dashed up the stairs, nearly taking them two at a time as she tried to get to Melanie's room, where they kept their emergency port key. Placing Melanie down in her crib, she ran to the dresser, frantically throwing things out of the dresser. She heard things shatter downstairs as spells were thrown by her husband and that monster. All of a sudden, there was a loud thud, and then silence. Lily was visibly panicking now and her hands were shaking so bad that she dropped the port key as soon as she picked it up.
Not having enough time to grab it she turned to pick up her daughter just as the nursery door slowly opened. There he stood. The dark lord Voldemort. He had been handsome once. She could still see traces of the man that he had once been. But years of tinkering with the dark arts had changed him into something serpentine and twisted. Lily swallowed down her fear, and quickly prayed, hoping that he was listening, and stood between Voldemort and her child.
"Hello, Lily Potter," the dark lord said quietly. "I am not here for you. Stand aside and you shall live. I am only here for your daughter."
Lily shook her head. How could he expect her to leave her daughter and to save her own life? "No, not Melanie," she pleaded. She drew her wand and pointed it at him. "You will not have her!" She threw several spells at him, ranging from bone breaking curses to explosion charms, hoping one would hit him so she could try to save her and her daughter. Sadly however, she was not that lucky.
The dark lord chuckled lowly. "Is this the best that Hogwarts is turning out these days? Pathetic." He leveled his bone white wand at her, and said, "Avada kedavra." The green light flooded over her, and she was thrown back into the wall. Voldemort turned away from the dead woman. What a waste.
Lily surprisingly, was not dead however. Her wrist was burning from the charm bracelet that had been given to her years prior. Lily could only watch in terror as the dark lord stood over her daughters crib and cry as he once again cast the killing curse, seemingly ending her daughter's life. Once again to her surprise, the killing curse did not kill her daughter. Instead, it struck her in the head and rebounded on the dark lord. Voldemort let out a ghastly scream as his physical body disintegrated in front of her. She watched in terror as a dark spirit fled from the house.
It took Lily several moments before she was able to gather the strength in her body to stand up and go to her screaming daughter. Blood ran down her face from a jagged cut on her forehead where the killing curse had struck. She picked up her daughter and hugged her tight as Lily finally broke down and started crying. She didn't have it in her to go downstairs to look at her husband's corpse. She had lost her one rock in the wizarding world, and she didn't know how she would go on without him.
She barely noticed when Sirius arrived at the house, and had no idea what was said when he tried asking her what happened. She was practically catatonic, simply sitting there holding her daughter and crying.
While the wizarding world celebrated the news of the demise of the dark lord, the funeral of Auror James Potter was a very somber affair. The funeral was dark and dreary, like all funerals were meant to be, and Lily was surrounded by the remnants of her surrogate family. Sirius and Remus had gone to great lengths to hunt down the traitor that had ratted the Potters out to the dark lord, Peter Pettigrew. He was still awaiting his trial.
After the funeral had ended, she sat in the car with Sirius and Remus, trying to think of what she would do next. There was hardly anything holding her to England anymore. The same went for her two companions. Eventually, Lily looked up and told them her plans. "Moony, Padfoot, Melanie and I are leaving England." The two could only nod at her.
Moony spoke first. "I was expecting something like this would happen. You both sacrificed so much to see the end of this conflict."
"True, true. I am going to miss Prongs dearly, and I don't blame you from wanting to get away from it all," Sirius added.
Lily smile sadly at the two. While she had once hated everything about the Marauders, and to a lesser extent Remus, they had quickly become the brother she had never had. "Melanie is going to need her godfather and uncle with her to be her big strong protectors across the pond. Will you come with me?" The two remaining Marauders turned to each other and for the first time in days, they were both able to smile.
So this is my first story back in sometime to fanfiction. I have been reading alot lately and was finally been bit by the famous rabid plot bunny. Please read and review and tell me how I can improve. Also, any ideas will be taken with a grain of salt