A/N: I'm going to make this clear. I don't own the Harry Potter series or it's characters. That right goes to JK Rowling

As Time Gone By

Nearly ten years has passed since James came home to find his home a wreck from the inside, his wife dead, and his son was alive.

Fortunately, with some work with the Ministry, Peter was arrested and send to Azkaban as a death eater. Despite the fact that Peter calling James away from the cottage might have saved James' life, James never forgave his former best friend for betraying his and Lily's trust.

It wasn't until Harry's second birthday, James moved back to the Potter cottage on Dumbledore's request. Dumbledore had put more wards on the cottage that boost the charm Lily put on Harry on the place. But there was a catch. James had let Harry visit Lily's sister Petunia and her husband and son for two weeks a year to secure her family's safety from any Death Eaters that escaped punishment (or to secure the 'normal' life of Petunia's family the rest of the year).

James didn't admit it, but he also agreed to do this so Petunia get to know her nephew for Lilly's sake. James knew that—even though Petunia would never admit it, but the death of her sister devastated her. After all, even though Lilly and Petunia never got along and Petunia denied being related to her, they were still sisters, and some part of Petunia loved Lily, just as much as Sirius loved his brother Regulus despite their differences.

When Harry was four James started working at Hogwarts as Astronomy Professor.

At first James was allowed to bring Harry during the school day, and bring him to Sirius or Remus to stay at night when James had class. But one night Sirius pulled a prank visit by disrupting James' class by bringing Harry to him. Harry claimed it was because he wanted to see his daddy teach, but truth was Sirius bribed Harry to say that so he wouldn't get blamed for disrupting the class since the worse punishment James gives Harry is grounding him from his broom.

Not only that, but when Sirius or Remus both can't watch over Harry (which happens with Sirius date nights and Remus' condition), James would leave Harry with family friends: like Frank's mother who been watching over his and Alice's son Neville after his parents were drove crazy by a death eater. Or with Molly Weasley and her family, who James knew through her late brothers who died in the same order he and Lilly had joined. Or in few occasions with Sirius' sanest cousin Andromeda who—like Sirius—was the black sheep of the Black Family. Although Andromeda's reason was because she choose to marry a muggle-born over a pure blood against her family wishes.

Now at the Potter cottage, everything looked almost like it did before Voldemort. Only there were more photos of a James with Harry over the years: When James taught Harry to ride a broom for the first time, when Harry rode James in his animagus form (A stag), Harry placing flowers on his mother's grave.

In each photo Harry looked more and more like his dad, with the exception that Harry had green eyes and a thin lightning bolt shape scar on his forehead.

But at the same time, James made sure there were pictures of Lilly and told Harry stories of his mother so that he knew what she was like. He even showed Harry some pensive memories.

The room that once was Harry's nursery was now your average bedroom with a dresser, a trunk full of Harry's stuff over the years, a twin size bed with the room painted red and gold—the colors of Gryffindor.

On the bed was a ten-year-old boy (almost eleven) with black messy hair sound asleep when there was a knock on the door.

"Harry! Wake up!" a voice hollered.

Harry groaned and turned his head.

"Come on Harry," James said

Harry didn't respond.

"Suite yourself."

A few minutes later a bucket levitated through the door and over Harry's head. Then the bucket tilt over and splashed ice cold over Harry.

Harry hot up, soaked and shivering as James came through.

"Really, dad?" Harry asked.

"I tried to wake you up with other ways," James said. "Now get dressed we're going to the zoo today."

That woke Harry up. It been a week since his yearly visit with his aunt, and any time Harry makes it a couple of weeks without accidentally using magic on his cousin and his friends, James takes Harry and his friends to a trip as a reward. Last year James pulled some strings with some of his buddies in the Ministry of Magic to get tickets to a Quidditch game between England and Ireland. This year James promised Harry a trip to the Zoo.

This year Harry choose the zoo after his cousin Dudley spend two weeks bragging about his birthday trip to the zoo with one of his school friends. Dudley even found a way to turn it into something to mock Harry for, so James promised his son that if Harry take it for the remaining two weeks, he will take Harry to the zoo.

With a wave of his wand, James cleared the water from Harry's bed and Harry himself.

"Get dressed! Ron and Neville will be here soon," James told his son before leaving.

Harry got up put on some round rim glasses. Ever since he was five, Harry needed glasses, which almost complete his transformation into looking like his dad. His uncle/godfather Sirius often joked around about it, calling Harry mini-James. He even manages to trick Harry's other uncle Remus into betting that by time Harry hit puberty and his voice is done breaking, he would sound like James.

Sirius and Remus weren't Harry's uncles by blood, but Harry looked up to them like they were uncles. He heard so many tales of his father and uncles time together in school as the legendary Maurders that combine the fact that they help raised Harry, Harry saw them as more like family than the Dursleys.

Harry got dressed in basic English muggle clothes.

He came to the living room just as his first guest same through. A plumped woman with fiery red hair with one child with her. The first one was around Harry's age, a tall boy with big hands and feet with freckles all over his face and fiery red hair.

"Molly, thanks for letting Ron come with us," James responded.

"OH, it's no problem, James," Molly said. "Arthur would have volunteered to come with you, but worked called him in for a raid."

"That's okay." James responded.

"Hey Ron, you want to play wizard chess before Neville gets here?" Harry asked.

"Yeah!" Ron responded.

They raced upstairs to Harry's room to get his chess set.

One of the reasons Harry and Ron were friends was due to the fact that the Weasleys were one of few magical families that didn't treat Harry like he was a fad as the boy who defeated Voldemort and survived.

James tried his best keeping his son out of the spotlight since in truth it was his wife's own sacrifice that led to Voldemort's down fall, but whenever they stop by a magical community, there always been someone who treated Harry like a celebrity. It didn't help that some idiot publishers decided to publish books on Harry's amazing survival without mentioning once about Lily's love saving him. Too them Lily's death was just something ordinary in the war against the Dark Lord, and that the true story was the boy who lived.

James would have sued them if Dumbledore didn't stop him.

But Molly Weasley understood that Harry's survival was due to Lily's sacrifice. After all, it she was in Lily's shoes and her kids was in Harry's, she would probably done the same subconsciously.

Not too long after Augusta Longbottom came with her grandson: Neville.

Neville was a round face boy with dark hair. After finding out what happened to Frank and Alice, James and Augustus decided to arrange Harry and Neville to have play dates together, and quickly the two became friends, even when it was thought that Neville was a squib (a non-magical child from a magical family) until he was eight when his great-uncle accidentally dropped Neville out of the window sever floors up and Neville survived by bouncing harmlessly on the ground.

With Neville Ron and Harry hanging out together, Sirius often joked how James just set up the next generation of Maurders. Although Ron's twin older brothers Fred and George were more Maurder material than them. Harry Ron and Neville hardly ever got into as much trouble was James Sirius and Remus had, when they do pull pranks, it's mostly to get back on Ron's older twin brothers for their own pranks. Like when Fred replaced Ron's teddy bear for a spider for breaking his toy wand, Harry and Neville helped Ron get back by hiding dungbombs into the twin's bedroom. It took the twins an hour of blaming each other to realize who caused the prank and another hour to find the dungbomb.

"You're not taking care of the boys yourself, I hope James?" Augustus asked.

James laughed. "Nah. Remus agreed to come help keep these three little second generation Maurders out of trouble since Arthur and Sirius is working today."

"Oh, good. At least I know Remus won't let the kids get away with any mischief," Augustus said.

"I don't let the kids get away with mischief," James responded.

"No, but you don't notice anything until someone else does," a new voice replied.

A man around James' age with sand-color messy hair had appeared in the house.

"Uncle Moony!" Harry tackled his uncle in a hug.

"Hey Harry," Remus ruffled his son's hair.

"Well since Remus is here, I better go," Augustus said. "If Neville decides to stay for the night, foo me to let me know. Other than that, I want him home for dinner."

"Yeah, we know," James responded.

…

Shortly after Augustus, left everyone piled into a ministry rented car James got for the day since they were going to a Muggle community.

"So Charlie settled in his new job at the Dragon reserve and the dragons are huge. Mum nearly had a heart attack when she heard about Charlie almost being burned by a Norweigon Ridgeback," Ron regale the news of his second older brother Charlie Weasley who had moved to Romania to study dragons after graduating from Hogwarts a few months ago.

"Well at least Charlie is adjusting," Remus said.

"Hey dad, can we go to Romania next year to visit Charlie?" Harry asked.

"Maybe, buddy. But first we need to get you three through your Hogwarts years," James said.

"That's if I can get into Hogwarts," Neville said.

"I wouldn't worry about that, Neville," Remus said. "I'm sure your magic has grown enough for you to receive your letter."

"Yeah, don't worry," Harry responded. "Grandpa Dumbledore has to be crazy not to send you a letter."

James couldn't help but smile at his son. Harry may have inherit some of his mischief personality, but Harry also had Lily's kindness. Whenever Ron complains about how poor his family is, or when Neville is worried about letting down his parents, Harry was there to support them, just as Lily was always there to support her friends.

"James, are you all right?" Remus asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Because you just missed our exit."

James smile turned into a frown and he muttered some incoherent words under his breath about stupid muggle roads as. Why do they have to drive there again? Oh, right. Because it was a muggle location and magic is not allowed to be used in front of Muggles.