Chapter Seven - The Way It Is I

Even as a boy, James had known that wizarding Britain was somewhat backwards compared to muggle Britain and at least wizarding Europe. His father, Fleamont Potter, had further explained that the upper echelons of their society were even more 'dodgy'. At some point during his schooling at Hogwarts, having met the children of this 'dodgy' high society, James had mentally relabelled the majority of the wizarding upper class 'morally corrupt'.

Today, he was trying to relabel them all again, but was struggling. In polite company he'd never be able to use the words needed to label them properly, and in impolite company he'd struggle with using few enough words for it to actually be a label and not a Mastery thesis.

Despite his reputation as a prankster in Hogwarts, he'd developed a strong sense of justice very early on after seeing how the muggle-borns were being treated. He'd carried that strong sense of justice through life with a vengeance ever since. When he wasn't planning or participating in mischief or shenanigans, he was often mentally planning what he liked to think of as a sort of peaceful societal coup d'état.

While he had worried about it initially, their fame following the end of the war had actually turned out to be a huge boon for his egalitarian new world order. The name Potter had come to be considered as almost royalty in wizarding Britain and, while neither he nor Lily cared for social standing, it had given him quite the soapbox from atop which he could push for change and have people actually listen.

Alyssa's Law was the latest and biggest of his societal reform projects, and would be a triumph if the arseholes in charge would stop arguing about it on the basis of purism. His and Albus' plan to spin the motion as a means to protect the Statute had been a resounding success for the vast majority of the Wizengamot, but unfortunately a small number had turned out to be somewhat intelligent as well as bigoted and had seen through their little white lie.

It was a small mercy that the conniving old gits didn't seem interested in trying to sway the rest of the Wizengamot away from voting in favour of the motion at the moment. Unfortunately they also happened to be the people with the deepest pockets and fingers in all the right pies to bastardise the law to be more discriminatory against muggle-born or raised children than it would be helpful. Now the energy that James and Albus should have been spending on getting the Law put in place and helping the changes happen smoothly was actually being spent trying to convince the lawmakers that changing the law wasn't, in fact, in their best interest as the bigots had told them it would be.

The entire bloody system was corrupt and it was wearing James down to the bone and all he wanted to do was spend the evening doing very little with his wife and son. After a very long day of damage limitation, he could now go home and perform a little more damage limitation with Lily after having taken the last of her chocolate with him to the office in lieu of breakfast. Thankfully, he'd actually remembered his misconduct before getting home this time, and so was going unto the breach prepared for once.

As he walked up the driveway, he noticed that all of the lights in the house were off so made his way into the house as quietly as he could in case either or both of the occupants were asleep. Checking downstairs, he found the kitchen in a bit of a state and cringed when he noticed that Lily had added chocolate to the shopping list. The dining table was, as per usual, completely unfit for proper function as a result of Lily's research being strewn across it. Judging by the haphazard piles of parchment and open books, though, it looked as though she'd made an effort to be organised which usually indicated that she'd made some kind of breakthrough. Maybe she'd be in a better mood than he thought.

He crept upstairs, checking first in Harry's room and, as expected, found him tucked into bed - fully clothed though, so he'd done something 'a little weird' again. In the master bedroom, Lily was curled up on the bed, also clothed. Sitting on the edge of the bed he gently shook her and she roused slowly.

'Good morning sleepy,' he said quietly with a smile. 'I've returned with apology food.'

'Hey,' she murmured and stretched to turn on her bedside lamp. She smiled half-heartedly at him and instantly his brow furrowed with concern; she'd obviously been crying if her red-rimmed eyes and puffy cheeks were anything to go by.

'What happened?' he asked, to which she replied by nodding to the chair in the corner of the room. On it, Arty was lying as usual, but he quickly realised what the issue was. 'Oh, Lily, I'm sorry.'

She sniffled a bit and leant into his hand as he caressed her cheek sympathetically. 'Harry could tell he was close to death but in pain, so he put him down this afternoon.'

'Oh, Merlin,' he muttered and closed his eyes, not wanting to think how that had gone down. The toddler was absolutely enamoured with Arty. 'How about I go and bury him by the tree in the garden and order in something for dinner while you freshen up?'

Lily eyed the bag that he'd placed on the drawers by the door. 'You didn't bring dinner home?'

He dropped his gaze and looked at her cautiously through his eyelashes. 'Ah, no. That's a bag full of chocolate,' he admitted sheepishly.

While she looked at him somewhat accusingly, she smirked at him slightly, clearly accepting the peace-offering-cum-apology for what it was.

'Pizza?'

Lily hummed as she stretched. 'Okay, I'll shower and get Harry up.'

-oOo-

They'd put Harry back to bed after a slightly more subdued dinner than usual and settled themselves down in the living room with a glass of elf wine - non-alcoholic as all elf wine was, of course on account of the baby, but just as good.

For a while they sat in a comfortable silence, James enjoying the peace after what had turned out to be an incredibly long Friday, and Lily organising her thoughts. It was eventually James who spoke up.

'Did you find something new with your ancestry research today, then?'

She looked up at him blankly for a moment as she was brought out of her thoughts, then lit up once she'd processed the question. 'Oh! Yes! Turns out I'd been looking at the interaction between the different aspects of the ward completely backwards. Once I realised, everything just sort of fell into place. I didn't pick up on it because I was trying to figure out how it was finding out ancestry from blood, but that's not it at all - it's identifying the traces of a person's magic from the blood, which is all kinds of horrifying to think about if the blood purists find out, but means I can start trying to develop a way to list all of the traces of magic in someone's blood.'

He smirked a bit as she cut herself up and looked at him slightly sheepishly, realising she'd started to lecture. 'That sounds amazing,' he said genuinely. 'Do you have any ideas moving forward?'

'Not really,' she admitted, 'but I think I'm going to write to Filius and see what he thinks. I reckon it's going to be a lot of trial and error, but I'll get there eventually.'

That was definitely true - in a decade of knowing her, James had never once known her to give up on something she set her mind to. No matter how long it took, she'd figure out a way to do it. 'How are you going to make it available to people? If you did it through the Ministry then the whole blood thing would get out within a month.'

Cringing, she shook her head. 'Definitely not the Ministry. I had half a mind on doing it privately, but that would just force it to stay in Britain, and that'd be such a shame.'

'What about licensing it? You could have the Goblins and the Gnomes manage it here in Europe, and the Dwarfs in America. I don't know what the deal is in the East, but you know that the banks won't reveal anything about the process if it makes them money.'

She tilted her head in thought then nodded slowly. 'Plus, other races aren't exactly going to care about blood politics anyway, are they?' He shook his head, agreeing with that thought. 'It would mean splitting a share of the profits, but I don't really care about the money anyway.'

'The money doesn't hurt.'

'No, of course not, but it's not the most important thing. God knows we're not exactly struggling as is. But think about it: if this becomes readily available, muggle-borns across the world could prove that they're actually descendants of dormant or assumed-dead family lines just like Amadeus.'

'And how many do you think there are? Revived lines because of squibs?' he asked, to which she shrugged in response.

'In Britain, I imagine it's a shocking amount considering the pure-blood attitude towards squibs. As for the rest of the world, I couldn't even begin to guess. Regardless, there are going to be more than a few old gits who'll have very strong and very loud opinions about it, but that's just the way it is,' she said airily with a flippant wave of her hand, and James snorted at her attitude. 'Speaking of old gits, how was your day?'

He brought his glass of wine to his mouth, only to huff when he found it empty. Grabbing the bottle from the cluttered coffee table, he topped it back up, doing the same for Lily when she proffered her empty glass too.

'Infuriating for the most part,' he sighed. 'Albus makes a fantastic spinmeister and the majority of them ate up every word he said, but Alton Jurrock and Osmund Blunt actually did read it, and have been whispering in Cornelius Fudge's ear to raise an objection to it in the next session.'

Lily frowned. 'Cornelius Fudge?'

'Head of the W.A.S.'

'Why him? Why not do it themselves?'

He shook his head. 'He's expendable. If the motion still passes despite an objection, it looks like whoever objected doesn't really care about protecting the Statute, so they wouldn't dare do it personally. If Fudge objects based on something as basic as wording, they'll have to do a full review of the motion, and no matter what spin we put on it, they'll see it for what it is.'

'Ah,' Lily said, her face a picture of consternation. 'What can you do about it?'

'I'm not sure,' he admitted. 'I'm meeting with Albus on Tuesday, but I really don't know what he plans to do about Fudge. He's already trying to position himself for Minister once Bagnold's done, so he's a firm puppet for Jurrock. Honestly, Jurrock has his hand so far up Fudge's arse, I wouldn't be surprised if he could feel the back of the bloke's teeth.'

'James, that's disgusting!' Lily complained, though she still laughed despite herself.

'Maybe a little,' he conceded with a laugh, 'but that's the way it is.'

Their laughter quieted in an instant as the sound of Harry stirring slightly came through the muggle baby monitor. He settled quickly, and they quickly went back to quietly chuckling, but not before James caught a slightly anxious expression flit across Lily's face.

'What's worrying you about Harry?' he asked gently and she sighed.

For a moment, she didn't respond and looked to be weighing up whether or not to brush him off, but eventually decided against it. 'It's not so much Harry, it's more me.' She caught his look of confusion and elaborated. 'I feel like a terrible mum,' she said with an air of complete defeat.

James' eyebrows hit his hairline with surprise and he argued incredulously, 'Lily, you're an amazing mum.'

She averted her gaze in badly veiled disbelief. 'I just- I mean, take today. My almost three year old son was heartbroken because he could tell that his pet was in pain and dying. Instinctively, he knew that he could end Arty's suffering, but didn't want to say goodbye, and I convinced him to put him down.' Her head snapped up and she looked at him in despair, tears running down her cheeks. 'I convinced my three year old to end a life, James. What kind of mother does that make me?'

He got up and moved to sit next to her, wrapping her up in his embrace. 'He's not just any old three year old, though is he? Death told us that nobody had ever accepted the burden as young as Harry has, so that makes you a singularly unique mother, and the same goes for me as his father.'

'What do we know about raising a boy who is essentially tantamount to a demigod?'

'Nothing. But Fate accepted his offer, and must have done so knowing that it wouldn't be problematic, so maybe that's the point. Maybe we're not supposed to know how to raise the Master of Death. Maybe we're not supposed to do that at all.'

'What?!' she exclaimed, looking up at him in panic and he instantly realised how what he'd said must have sounded.

'That's not what I mean,' he rushed to explain. 'I mean, we shouldn't raise the Master of Death and we should just raise Harry. Sure, there are going to be points where that becomes difficult, like when he has his episodes, but other than that we raise Harry the exact same way that we'll raise Thea. We raise him to be loving, and kind, and just, and when he's older he'll know we're there to support him and advise him as best we can.' He pulled Lily closer into his arms and kissed the crown of her head. 'We'll do our best, and raise him to do the same.'

'I could have lived to be a hundred and still never have been ready for this,' she mumbled into his chest.

He chuckled softly, his breath tickling the back of her neck. 'Me too, but he has his burden and so this is ours. I guess that's just the way it is.'

'You say these wonderful, wise things sometimes that make me really struggle to believe you're not an imposter who replaced James Potter in 1975,' she said lightly after a second.

'What can I say? You're a terrible influence on me.'

Her face was the very picture of affront as she tore herself from his arms and smacked him on the thigh. 'Excuse you, I'm the best influence.'

He laughed and leaned forward to kiss her, but she yawned before he could. 'Bedtime, I think.'

She closed the distance between them and placed a kiss on his lips before yawning again. 'Definitely.'

A/N: Hope you're enjoying the story so far! I've been asked a couple of times, so I will say that we are seeing Hermione soon, but Harry won't be meeting her yet.

If you notice any errors or inconsistencies in this or any other chapters please let me know!

Take care, amidland.