Chapter One
A/N- It's my birthday in two hours! This is probably the last thing I will write as a teenager so, here goes.
An eleven-year-old boy runs behind another shouting while the other boy with messier hair and a pair of spectacles slipping down his nose laughs. Two other boys follow them, the sandy-haired one explains something to the blonde, with elaborate hand gestures.
James looked at the ceiling of his childhood bedroom, the room he one day wanted to give his son. His eyes fell on the framed photograph of him with his parents. He knew in a few years it would be replaced with one with four boys, his parents, Hope Lupin and Riana Pettigrew. Soon, after the Evans' would join their family photograph, without Petunia of course.
They are thirteen and laughing in the kitchen, as the house elves ask them to take more food. It's Sirius' fourteenth birthday. James slides over another plate to Remus, knowing his friend must be tired.
As he steps off the bed, James stumbles over his feet and lands in front of the broom that went with him to Hogwarts. Once he became Captain, his Dad had brought him another broom, but James knew he wanted Harry to learn from this. His heart fell when he realized he wouldn't see his son for years now, if ever.
They are sixteen and returning from the forbidden forest when Evans finds them. She is both furious and concerned and ends up hugging him once Sirius explains everything, Remus' head pillowed on his lap as the boy sleeps off another full moon. She hugs James for the first time the next month as they return him with a scratch on his face, to her waiting in the common room with hot chocolate and pain potions.
As he looks in the mirror and sees the shock of hair his son would inherit, James' resolve hardens. He would try his best to protect his family, even if Lily never became a part of it or Harry never existed. How could he love her now, when she was a child? Looking over his face, he knows he can make her fall for him again, after all, she had loved him once and he was mature now, but it would be wrong, and he couldn't do wrong by Lily Iris Evans, not even for Harry. Smiling sadly, he leaves the room.
Lily wakes up, heart hammering, to the ceiling of her childhood bedroom, the strange dream still in her head. Only, it wasn't a dream. James had died. And now she was ten again.