The first time, it was just sitting on top of her laundry pile. She assumed the house elves had mistaken it for hers and planned to return it to him when he returned from Quidditch practice. She set about tidying her school supplies away and changed from her robes into more casual clothing before heading off to Gryffindor tower to meet the girls; Mary had a date tonight and they had all been sworn in to help her prepare.

"How can you possibly have a date, already?" Alice asked in astonishment, "we've been back for all of two minutes?!"

"Hardly, try two weeks!" Mary replied.

"That's definitely later than last year, she was dating Sam on the Tuesday after we arrived." Marlene replied flicking through her magazine, looking bored with the conversation.

"Guys, you're here to help me prepare, remember?"

"Mary's right, this isn't helping you two," Lily said sitting on the edge of Mary's bed, "let's see what you're wearing then."

After a long few hours of preparing Mary, Lily return to the Head's dorm and attempted to complete a Charms essay due for Monday.

She didn't see James for the rest of the night and hence forgot all about his jumper sitting in her trunk.

The second time it was an accident, she was lying in bed and had awoken during the night from a bad dream; all these newspaper articles about death eater attacks had now invaded her sleep. She couldn't escape it. Glancing at the clock she noted the time, 5:27, she had to be up in an hour. Is it even worth going back to sleep? She thought to herself.

After deciding it wasn't, she got out of bed and grabbed her latest novel to read in the common room. It was colder than she had expected at this time and rummaged in her trunk for a jumper to wear over the top of her pyjamas. She found the one she had forgotten about from last month and threw it on before heading to the common room.

Despite being very obviously too big for her, she was unaware that this jumper was not in fact hers and sat reading The Great Escape until James appeared down the stairs just over an hour later.

"Morning." He said smiling at her, "have you been up a while?" he asked.

"About an hour, couldn't sleep," she replied.

"How come?" he asked as he came and sat on the opposite end of the couch to her.

"Just a bad dream. I got a 'B' on a potions essay and it was the end of the world!" She joked try to hide the fear she really felt.

James laughed with her but didn't seem very convinced. She wasn't laughing the same way she naturally would but he didn't question it, despite being friendly for a while he was still never very sure when Lily was close to shouting at him again.

"Oh well, I'm going to shower before breakfast. Meet you down here in an hour?" James asked.

"Perfect! See you then," Lily responded as they both stood off the couch and headed to their separate rooms.

It was just as Lily was getting undressed to go into the shower and she removed the jumper she saw the golden letters POTTER on the back of the shirt.

The third time it was because she needed the comfort. She felt so alone and there wasn't anyone she could talk to. She wanted to talk to someone, but he was off on a date with some Tara-twit; not that she would ever admit to wanting to talk to him of course.

Her friends had tried to help, but they couldn't understand and she just didn't want to explain her feelings to them, she just wanted held and she just wanted him.

Lily pulled his shirt out from her bedside cabinet and put it on before returning to underneath her covers. She felt numb, her brain couldn't process what she just heard. It was too much.

Professor Dumbledore's words still rang in her ears and try and she might she just couldn't shut them up! She felt angry, she felt hurt, she felt like her whole world had just imploded and there was nothing she could do about it.

Why does it have to be like this? Why did this have to happen? She thought.

She cried herself to sleep wearing James jumper, she needed to have something around her that belonged to someone she really cared about and someone that wasn't dead.

The fourth time, was one week later. She had been absent from classes and everyone had noticed but only a few knew why. Feeling hurt and angry, Lily had yet to tell James what was wrong but took all her feelings out on him whenever he tried to help. It was straining their friendship, Lily knew that, but she couldn't help it.

At least one of her friends was always with her, no matter what time of the day or night, as they didn't want her to feel alone and segregated. James tried to badger them to tell him what was wrong, but out of obligation to Lily they refused.

One day Lily was lying on the couch as James return from classes, she was alone and reading yet another from her endless supply of books.

"Hi," James said cautiously

"Hi," Lily replied, she doesn't look mad James though, so he sat at her feet on the other end of the couch. "How was class?"

"It was awful, as per, herbology is really not my thing." James replied, smiling at her.

She smiled back before returning to read her book, she was wearing James' jumper again but he didn't notice.

"How are you?" James tried

"I'm embarrassed," Lily confessed looking at him properly "I'm so so sorry for how I acted. It was hurt and took all my emotions out on you, that wasn't fair and you didn't deserve it. I'm sorry."

James saw tears forming in her eyes and without thinking he grabbed her hand and pulled her in for a hug. He rested his chin on top of her head and she buried her head into his chest. They stayed like that as she continued to sob quietly into him.

It could have been minutes or hours that passed, neither knew, but when they eventually pulled apart James wiped his fingers under her eyes to brush her tears away.

"I'm always here for you, no matter how big or small the problem is, please remember that." James whispered to her, he leaned in and gently kissed her forehead. That was all the encouragement Lily needed as she told him everything that had happened as he held her hand and wiped away her tears, almost as fast as they fell.

She told him about the arguments she had with her mother and father because of her relationship with her sister and how they didn't come to see her off at the train because they had to go dress shopping for Petunia's wedding. She confessed all the problems she had at home with her sister and how was never truly happy when she was there.

When she got on to the reason why she was so broken, James thought she was going to break in half because of how violently she was crying. But he just held her tight as she told him they had died in a car accident and how Petunia was arranging the funeral but Lily was allowed nothing to do with it.

Petunia blamed Lily; there was no reason for it, but she was hurting too and this was the only way she could cope. Lily knew that, but it didn't make it hurt any less.

With nothing needing to be said, the pair lay there until they fell asleep with Lily lying on James' chest still wearing his jumper.

The fifth time it was a rushed attempt to cover up the previous night. They were late for class, very late, and professor McGonagall was not the teacher you wanted to be showing up late to class to, especially as head boy and head girl.

Lily and James grabbed whatever clothes were nearest and threw them on as they ran out of their dorm and down to transfiguration.

Professor McGonagall gave them a stern look when they both arrived over 10 minutes late, but James spoke before she could,

"Sorry, Professor, we were finishing house point tallying and didn't realise the time," he lied with a cheeky grin. McGonagall knew he was lying but gave a curt "don't let it happen again." And returned to her lesson.

James took his seat next to Sirius, Peter and Remus as Lily took hers two rows in front with Alice and Marlene.

"Head duties, eh James?" Sirius asked with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.

Looking confused, Remus coughed and drew his attention to this jumper Lily was wearing. Looking at the golden POTTER emblazed on the back gave their lie away, James looked sheepish but Sirius just patted him on the back as the other three boys laughed.

The sixth time she thought she was going to die. Her head spun whenever she sat up, she felt like she was going to vomit every time she opened her eyes and her nose was absolutely useless was it came to breathing. She was feeling very sorry for herself and James, being the very loving boyfriend that he was, sat beside her for the whole night after he returned from practice.

"Why don't you go to the hospital wing" James asked genuinely concerned,

"Because she might make me stay overnight and I don't wanna sleep without you here. So, no." Lily replied stubbornly.

"Hellooooo?" Sirius shouted from the common room,

"In Lily's room," James responded, "Enter with caution, she may throw up at any minute!"

"Ew Evans, that's most unappealing." Sirius had now sat himself upon her chest at the end of her bed.

"Get out then, didn't ask for you here," was Lily's response.

"Ouch Evans! I know we aren't best friends yet but I thought you would treat me nicer than that!" Lily just rolled her eyes in response and pulled James' jumper over her nose so she could breathe him in as she tried to sleep.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," she mumbled as she ran into the bathroom. James got up to follow her but Sirius just looked disgusted and asked,

"Are you sure you aren't pregnant?"

"Get OUT Sirius!" Lily demanded as she hung her head over the toilet seat.

The seventh time was the final quidditch match of their Hogwarts career; she couldn't not wear it now. She roared and cheered with the rest of the crowd as the team flew high above their heads throwing the quaffle and chasing the snitch.

At this point, there was no reason to hide it. Lily wore his jumper proudly with red and gold all over her cheeks and the biggest smile on her face. The game was close and the snitch had been seen. Whoever caught it would win the match, either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, and then the Quidditch Cup.

Each side of the stadium screamed for their team as if they were competing against each other. With the final blow of the whistle the teams returned to the ground and the Gryffindor's celebrated their triumphant win.

The crowd ran down to the pitch and as soon as he saw her, James ran toward Lily, picked her up and swung her around, her face beaming with nothing but pride. She pulled his neck down until their lips met and kissed him hard, for a moment they forgot they weren't alone.

She wrapped her hand around his neck and ran her fingers through his hair as he wound his arms around her waist and picked her up until she was straddling his waist. If Remus hadn't pulled them apart the crowd would have seen another show that might not have been as pleasant.

Lily remained in that jumper until very early the next morning when James was pulling it off her himself.

The eighth time was the worst day of her life. Her heart was pounding in her ears, she couldn't hear what Mary was shouting at her. She felt nothing. There was blood, so much blood, all over her, all over Mary. There was so much blood.

She looked around, people were running and screaming and she wanted to help. In her head, she knew she could help, but her body wouldn't move. Her best friend was lying on the floor, eyes open and glazed over. It was Marlene's blood.

Mary dragged her with tears streaming down her face in any directions there wasn't flashes of green light. There was so much blood. She felt nothing.

Mary almost collapsed with relief when she saw them. Remus, Sirius, Peter and James ran over to the girls and it was clear James was more freaked than he had ever been. She couldn't hear what he was saying, she saw his face and his lips moving but couldn't hear what he was saying. She felt nothing.

James picked her up and threw her over his shoulder as he ran with the four others until they couldn't run any further. There was no one around and the screams and cries had been replaced with silence, an eerily deep and haunting silence.

Yet Lily still saw blood, so much blood.

They got home, she doesn't know when or how. But they got home. James pulled his jumper off her and threw it to the ground as he pulled her into the bath, he sat her facing away from him and against his chest as the lay there in silence.

Lily hasn't said anything but the tears don't stop falling down her face, she's shaking and petrified. She doesn't know what's happening. All she sees is blood; so much blood.

The ninth time it takes them by surprise.

"Lily? Did you just wet yourself?" James asked laughing

"No." Lily turns to him, "that was my water!"

"oh, my god, oh my god! It's happening? Like now? What do we do? The hospital…we need to go there!" James responds as he grabs the baby bag and apparates, leaving Lily still standing in the kitchen.

It takes him longer than she expects to return,

"It would be good if I took you with me though, wouldn't it?" James asked

"Yes," Lily replied laughing. She had never seen James look so out of it, it was the only thing distracting her from the pain.

As the pair arrived at the hospital, together this time, the nurse began to check them in.

"And your surname please?" she asked. James spun Lily around and he pointed to the back of her jumper.

"Potter then?" the nurse asked laughing as she wrote it on the chart. "Well good luck to you!"

Five hours later, she is still wearing his jumper until she takes it off, James charms it and dresses their new baby boy in it.

"Welcome to the family, the newest Potter!"

The tenth time is the final time. Harry is wearing it before he goes for a bath. Lily washes him and plays with the rubber broomsticks in the bath as James tidies his clothes away into his room.

The jumper stays there as the family play downstairs and get ready for bed, Lily takes Harry upstairs just as the door opens.

She hears James' voice and she hears the other, the flash of green light is that last thing she sees as she runs with Harry into his room. Lily comforts Harry as she puts him in his cot, she promises him that he is so loved and that she was always love him no matter what happens.

As he enters the room she protects Harry with her life, in her last few moments she sees the jumper on the shelf and smiles as she remembers all the good times that jumper has seen. The memories almost distract her from the voice and the pain and the light.

Almost; but not quite.