Disclaimer: You know the drill!

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As he slowly woke up, James felt something tug on his hair. Hard.

"Ow!" He grunted and squinted his eyes towards the tugger.

Realizing that he was not wearing his glasses, James searched with his left hand until he landed on the nightstand next to the bed he was supposedly lying in and rather quickly grabbed his glasses. Putting them on and focusing he saw a little girl sitting on the bed beside him, highly interested in what he was doing, with a slash of saliva running down from the corner of her mouth.

Chuckling heartedly James poked her lightly in the stomach, "Hello." He did so a few times, making the child laugh uncontrollably.

All of the sudden it seemed as though Anna lost her balance and was sliding of the bed, back first.

James quickly dove and grabbed her just as she was about to hit the floor. Pulling her up towards him he said to her quietly, "See, Daddy's still got it. No wonder I was Quidditch Captain." He winked at her and noticed her big glossy eyes.

She stared up at him, her bright green eyes glazed over with tears and still in shock from the fall.

"Hey, you're okay! No need to cry!" He tried to tell her encouragingly but her expression remained the same.

Pondering for a second what to do next, he lifted her up and threw her slightly up in the air.

This only seemed to make matters worse and soon the baby was bawling its eyes out.

"No, no, no! Don't cry! I was just trying to make- Don't cry! Shhh" He tried, looking in panic at his daughter, holding her up in front of him.

Settling her down on his lap James tried rocking her back and forth, which soon made her stop crying.

"Well done, darling." A female voice came from the door.

"Mum," James acknowledged bewildered, "What are you doing here?"

"James darling, this is my house." She smiled at her son fondly and made her way towards the bed.

James glanced around the room, his mother was right. He was in his old bedroom, old posters and various pictures of him and his friends hung spread over all four walls. Old teddy bears, Quidditch gear and other various things also laid spread over the floor.

As he glanced over to the nightstand on his left and noticed a picture of him and Lily, taken over the Easter break Lily had spent with the Potters during their seventh year, on the far right you could see Sirius leaping in their direction to be in the picture as well.

James had always been very fond of that picture.

Smiling, he turned towards his mother, who was now sitting on his bed next to him.

"I see you've met Anna." Annabelle Potter nodded towards the baby in his arms who was now fast asleep.

"She always keeps falling asleep when I hold her. Does that mean something?" He asked his mother a little nervously.

She laughed and placed a hand on his arm, "You're doing very well." She told him, got up and headed for the door.

Before walking out she asked him "Would you like for me to take her?"

James smiled up at her and shook his head no.

Giving him one last smile, she gave him a small wink and disappeared through the door.

Sighing deeply, James laid back down in the bed on his side, holding Anna in his arms and moved her so she laid on her side, facing him and held her close to his body before he soon drifted back asleep.

His mother, Annabelle, came in to check on them a few minutes later and found them sleeping soundly. She walked over to the bed and very carefully picked up the sleeping toddler. When she did so, James shifted slightly in his sleep and mumbled something inaudible. Smiling sweetly at her son she bent down and kissed er son on the forehead and then proceeded to make her way out of the bedroom, closing the door softly behind her.

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The next day, James woke up startled, breathing heavily and with little pearls of sweat glistening on his forehead.

"Lily!" He breathed out, sitting up. What time was it? What day was it? What was going on? What -…

Putting on his glasses and running a shaking hand through his, messy and rather dirty hair he made a slight disgusted face before realizing to his horror what had happened.

'Where is Lily? Anna? Remus? What the fuck is going on?!' The voice in his head roared.

James jumped out of the bed, only to fall back down, with an aching through his body. He winced as he slowly stood up for the second time, after having taken a few deep breaths, the same agonizing feeling came running through his body.

Making his way out of the room, through the long hall where he walked past no less then 13 doors leading to various bedrooms and down the staircase, he could not help but panic.

Repulsive things ran through his mind with every step he took, the idea of someone close to him dying made James tear up. Running a hand through his hair again absentmindedly he quickly withdrew it as he felt the layer of dirt in it and made a face.

As he neared the kitchen, he heard the deep feminine voice of his mother,

"Yes, Sirius is at Mungo's as we speak, he and Peter are taking turns in sitting beside Lily and Remus, Lily's mum was there too but Petunia was apparently in labor and insisted on her mother being there so she …"

Peeking in through the doorway he saw that her back was turned to him and she was talking on the telephone. 'When did she get one of those?' James thought to himself but shook the thought away almost immediately gave a slight cough to announce his presence.

Annabelle turned around and smiled at her son lovingly, before returning back to her conversation,

"Oh darling, James is up and about again. Yes, I'll tell him that. All right, darling. We'll see you at dinner, yes goodbye dear."

Hanging up she held out her arms and gave James a tight hug, "Are you hungry darling? Thirsty? Still tired perhaps?" She let him go and motioned for him to sit down at the table.

"I think the correct word would be confused, what's going on mum?"

James stared into his mum's hazel eyes and there they sat for a few minutes in silence,

"Darling, we don't know everything that happened, you and Remus have both been unconscious for the past three days, except for when you woke up for about a half an hour. The only thing we know is that there were three people severely injured and eight others stunned. Lily and Remus are both at Mungo's, both still unconscious."

"Are they all right?"

"Well, they're keeping Lily asleep on account of the baby and they're not so sure about Remus. Voldemort threw a nasty curse at him and they don't know what it was or how to cure him."

James stared down at the wooden table, where there lay both old and new copies of the Prophet, headlines and striking pictures giving him a headache.

Looking back up he met his mother's eyes and there they sat for a moment in silence.

"Where's Anna?" James broke it.

"She's taking a nap in her room. Come on, I'll take you to her."

Annabelle stood up and was quickly followed by her son. They walked through the corridor to a room three doors away from James'. She slowly opened the door in attempt to not wake the sleeping child but when they got in they saw Anna sitting upright in her bed mumbling something inaudible to her teddy.

When the little girl noticed the pair she shrieked with delight and threw her hands up in the air to get one of them to pick her up.

James smiled at the sight of his beautiful daughter's toothless smile and bent down to pick her up.

Once in his arms she put her arms around his neck and curled her face in the nape of his neck.

"I want to take her to go and see Lily." He said looking at his mother,

"Of course you do darling, but you're not going anywhere until you've showered." She smiled at him and gave a soft pat on the shoulder.

"Oh yeah, right." He chuckled and handed Anna over to his mother.

"I'll give her something to eat while you wash." She said and left the room.

James stood for a minute gazing around the room. On the wall above the tiny bed there hung a picture of Lily and James, taken in their seventh year during the Yule ball, both dressed up in disastrous outfits, with horrible hair and big smiles on their faces. They had burned their copies of the photographs together but James' mother had insisted on saving a copy.

When James had gotten out of the shower, dressed and failed in attempt to calm his hair, he went down to the kitchen where his mother and daughter sat waiting for him.

They decided that Annabelle would apparate and James would floo there with Anna.

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Once they arrived they were greeted by various Healers who offered their condolences to James and his daughter.

He felt a small thump in his throat growing bigger and bigger with every person who came up to him. Had Lily gotten worse?

When the three of them got to the floor Lily was on Sirius rushed up to them and embraced James tightly and gave Annabelle a kiss on the cheek. He then took Anna, who had been waving her hands desperately out to him, in his arms.

"Things aren't looking so good for the baby." He said gravely "They haven't felt a stable heartbeat for hours… it's always growing rapid and then it slows down and almost stops. They've tried nearly everything, but since Lily is still unconscious. They can't work out what's wrong."

The lump in James' throat now felt the size of a tennis ball

"But you said that they were keeping her asleep." He turned to his mother who opened her mouth to answer but Sirius beat her to it.

"They were, but now she won't wake up."

James now felt like vomiting. "What about Remus?"

Sirius simply lowered his head with a small sigh. When he lifted his head up again he looked James in the eyes and slowly shook his head.

They stood there for a few minutes in silence before Annabelle asked "Do you want to see her?"

James turned his head to her with an unreadable expression on his face and she took his hand and led him to the door of Lily's room.

She opened the door for him and then returned to where Sirius stood with Anna in his arms.

Lily's room was large and white, the marble floor and high walls made it seem cold in a way. There were three beds, two empty and Lily's at the end of the room next to the window.

As James walked slowly to her, he felt a rush of pain in his heart with every step.

Soon he found himself stand at the foot of her bed, looking down at a person he almost couldn't recognize.

Lily's skin was as pale as the sheets that covered her, her red hair had lost the fire it once had had and now it just lay there on the pillow.

He sat down by her side and took her hand with his… it felt cold; she seemed dead in a way.

Tears stung James' eyes as he let slowly go of her hand and touched her stomach with his own. Although there was no bump yet he could somehow sense that the baby was in there. As he stroked it tenderly and ever so slightly he spoke softly "So you're the one who's causing all this ruckus?"

He then moved so he now lay beside her in the bed, he felt his thoughts slowly leaving his brain and was soon asleep.


-Flashback-

"Come on! Keep up will you!" A tall thin teenage boy called out to a much shorter redheaded girl laughing as he did so. The pair was running down the main street in Hogsmeade through a large crowd of witches and wizards. Everyone was apparently on a Christmas-gift shopping high.

Sprinting as fast as they could across the icy grounds past the Quidditch field and the Forbidden Forest they quickly got up to the large doors which led to the entrance hall.

Panting and trying to gain control of breath, the boy pushed the door open so they could enter the castle.

This was the last Hogsmeade weekend before Christmas break, that started the following day, and both Lily and James would be going home to stay with their families over Christmas vacation so they wanted to spend their last day together. They had made a deal to buy their Christmas gifts for each other that weekend and give them to each other later that day.

Sliding her hand into James' Lily gave a slight sigh as the warmth in the castle met her cold face. They made their way to the Room of Requirement in complete silence, almost every student and teacher had gone to Hogsmeade.

Lily leaned up against the wall as James walked three times past the door to the room with concentrated face. It opened slowly the third time he had walked past it.

They had been together for nearly three months now and things were going as well as you could expect them to go with the pair. The arguments hadn't stopped but it was as though they were meant for each other, they always had a way of working things out.

It had come to most people as quite a shock to learn that Lily Evans was going out with her nemesis, the notorious James Potter, but after a week or two the news was as old as yesterdays garbage and people liked the fact that they didn't have to witness Lily's tantrums anymore.

"Well milady?" James smiled and handed out his right hand to her as he gave her a small bow, she giggled and grabbed his hand as she bowed to him as well. Taking his arm around her he led her into the room that had shrunk down so there was only room for a small sofa and the tiniest fireplace Lily had ever seen.

"Why so small?" She asked James.

"I think it's cozier," He told her and kissed the top of her head and as he did so he smelt her hair.

"Why does your hair always smell so nice? Do you use some sort of special enchanted shampoo?"

"No, it's merely my natural musk." She answered and laughed at his dumbfounded face.

Taking a seat on the sofa she clapped her hand down next to her indicating to James to sit down next to her.

Throwing himself down onto the couch he let out a deep sigh.

"I'm so tired!" he said loudly as he snuggled into Lily's sweater.

"Do you have any idea how hard it was to shop for you?"

"Hey, how about for you? At least I told you what I wanted, unlike you."

"You only said books! I wasn't going to give you books for Christmas! Alhtough, I think you'll be happy with my gift."

"Good," Lily laughed, "I think you'll be satisfied with my gift as well."

James murmured something into the sweater she couldn't understand.

"Sorry?" she asked with her eyes closed while she stroked his hair.

He lifted himself up and looked at her face for a second before repeating what he had just said.

"I love you"

All of the sudden the door burst open, interrupting James' dream, Sirius came in out of breath and bellowed "Remus woke up!"

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Yes well, this was a long one so the next update won't be up as quickly as the past three have been, just f.y.i.

BUT if you review I might just speed it up a little, let's get the reviews past forty shall we? greeeeat thanks!