Hey, wow, I updated! Believe it or not. ;) Thanks to all those that reviewed; without you, I don't know what I would do! Well, anyway: here is the climactic Chapter 3 of Just a Dream. Please r/r, flame if you want. I like diversity.

LANGUAGE WARNING: some explicit language later in the story

Disclaimer: I haven't had one before, so I'll have one now. I don't own anyone you recognize, anyone you don't I do. J.K. Rowling owns most of these wonderful characters. I own the plot.

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On a cool but unusually sunny day nearing close to Halloween, James took a day off work to spend time with Lily and Harry. He felt the growing urgency (much of it from haunting dreams and a prickly feeling about his neck) as much as Lily did to live and love and spend each day as if it was his last, because it damn well could be.

James wasn't altogether positive that Lily was carrying their second child, but he was telling her of his predictions tonight, regardless. James simply felt he was running out of time. He slammed the bathroom medicine cabinet shut with a resounding crack, and caught a glance of his fiercely angered expression immediately before the mirror shattered irreparably, even by magic, into the sink. "Damn!" James shouted. A silly superstition forced itself into his mind. "Seven years' bad luck…" he muttered, "if I have that long."

Meanwhile, Lily was in the den, reading Harry a book. She heard the slam, the breaking glass, and James' curse quite clearly. She set down the hardcover storybook and said gently, "Harry, love, I'll be right back."

As she walked past the front door on the way to the W. C., to reassure herself of James' safety, her broom fell forward and whacked the floor, bouncing several times. Considering the state she was in, Lily jumped, and couldn't help but remember her mother's one superstition. "Broom fell, company's coming," she murmured, as if in a trance. "Oh, bullocks."

James stepped out of the 'loo to get a dustpan and noticed Lily standing there, staring at her broom as if it had sprouted branches. "I broke the mirror," he said numbly.

She glanced up; still looking a little dazed. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he assured her. "What's wrong with your broom?"

"Oh, nothing. I… it fell, and I thought of this daft superstition my mum used to say. 'Broom fell, company's coming,'" she recited.

"Seven years' bad luck," James repeated wryly. "Oh, why are we doing this to ourselves?"

Lily blinked. "I don't know."

James and Lily stood in the hall in each other's shaking arms for a few moments, the light wind from an open window rustling their hair, before going back into the den. Harry, holding his book, cautiously toddled into the hallway and said quietly, "Mum? Dad?"

Lily pulled away from James and lifted the little boy onto her hip and hugged him. "We're fine, sweetheart. Daddy just had an accident with the mirror, but he's perfectly fine, see?" Lily smiled, as Harry suddenly looked as relieved as he possibly could.

James brushed Harry's hair, remarkably similar to his own, from his smooth forehead. "What say we pack a picnic lunch and go to the park?"

Harry's grin was as good as an answer. Lily set him back down and told him to go into the kitchen. She righted the fallen broom. "Piece of crap," she muttered.

James, carrying a dustpan full of glimmering shards of mirror and a tan wicker picnic basket into the kitchen, smiled sadly at Lily and remarked, "It must be easier for Muggles, huh. They don't have to deal with the future until it's the past."

Lily took the dustpan and picnic basket from him, setting them on the counter. She leaned into the comfort and strength of his arms and whispered, "I don't want to die."

Despite the fact that Lily and James felt much more that the usual weak premonitions about their fates, they managed to have an enjoyable time at the park. They played with Harry on the swings and in the sandbox, and ate their lunch on a blanket, ignoring the wooden picnic tables adjacent. Lily and James took the time to enjoy the innocence and bubbly personality of their child for as long as they could.

Later that night, when Harry was in bed, James took Lily's hand and guided her to the den. She sat down, wondering what on earth he was planning on doing.

James seated himself with the fluid grace that Lily loved so much about him, and said, "We've both been having visions, dreams premonitions, or whatever you want to call them about- well, about things. However, the other night when I had that dream, there was more to it than I told you." Abruptly, he got up and locked the front door. Sitting back down, he continued. "I saw you, pregnant. I saw a baby in a lacy bassinet, and Harry playing with a red-haired little girl. Lily, darling, I believe-"

Lily shivered violently and rubbed the back of her neck. "Sorry, go on."

James coughed lightly. He whispered, "Lily, my love, I think- no, I know you're carrying our second child."

Lily's face lit up. She opened her mouth to reply. The tightly locked door flew open and smashed into the wall, the window shattering in eerie similarity to the bathroom mirror. A chilling, foul wind burst in and screamed about the room, knocking over pictures and candles. A tall, dark figure completely enshrouded in a cloak stepped into the house.

Lily screamed. "No!" She sprinted towards the stairs, James following close behind. The man laughed shrilly, in close, lackadaisical pursuit, not bothering to stop them. He stepped lightly up the stairs, yet every footfall sounded like a textbook slamming on the floor in a quiet classroom.

James and Lily stood in front of Harry's bedroom door, hands clasped tightly. Voldemort laughed derisively, removing his wand from his cloak's sleeve sinisterly. "You may be powerful, kids, but no one can stop me! Lily, Lily, so codependent. What are you going to do when Jamesy-boy isn't there for you to hang on?"

"Screw you!" Lily's green eyes flashed with righteous power, and Voldemort realized his cloak was burning rapidly with blue flames of fire licking up the sides. He quickly extinguished it, roaring in anger and pain.

"You'll pay for that, you skinny wench!" He flicked his wand at James, shrieking, "AVADA KEDAVRA!" A deafening roar rushed through the room, accompanied by an incapacitating green flash. James' body buckled like a rag doll's and fell to the ground, his life no more.

"Oh, James!" Lily wailed, dropping to her knees. She began to pray. "Hear my words, oh Lord, listen to my sighing. Hear my cry for help, my king, my God. To you I pray, oh Lord…" Voldemort watched her grief, pleased. She wiped her tearstained face, and to his surprise, stood again. "All right, you demon, kill me. That's what you came here to do, right?"

Voldemort narrowed his snake-like eyes. "What do you know about what I came here to do? Maybe I'll just kill 'ickle Harry first and watch you suffer some more. It's quite entertaining," Voldemort replied in a scratchy voice, trying and failing miserably to sound sweet.

"I know more than you may think, Tom," Lily replied tiredly.

Voldemort growled. "Stop calling me Tom. So you think you're a great little divinator? Did you see me kill your baby boy?" The dark lord stepped forward menacingly.

"No," Lily switched from intimidation to pleading, "Please, no. Don't kill him, he's barely lived." Her eyes widened as he began to wake up. "Just get it over with!" Lily pleaded.

Voldemort giggled wretchedly. "What will you give me?"

Lily's eyes hardened. "You like being on fire, Tom? Why won't you just kill me and get the hell out of here?"

Voldemort explained, patronizing, "Because then I won't have the satisfaction of seeing you see your firstborn dead. Now, kindly get the fuck out of my way, I have other things to do tonight."

Lily didn't even budge. "How about no."

Voldemort sighed. "Must you be so difficult? Repulsior!" Lily flew into the wall, her bones breaking and plaster falling. Harry's eye's jerked open, although he wasn't truly awake yet. "Now, AVADA KEDAVRA," cried the heartless wraith for the second time that night.

But as he shouted the forbidden words that boded death for those in its path, the wounded Lily threw her body in front of Harry's crib. She shrieked, "Nooo-" but her cry of despair was cut short. Before she hit the ground, Lily Potter was dead.

Voldemort frowned. "What a killjoy your mother was!" He cooed to the wakening Harry. "Sorry sport, but you're next."

Voldemort began to say the incantation again, but the evil words turned into a primitive howl of agony as a surreal white light surrounded Harry. The spell left a bloody, lightning-shaped gash on the young boy's head, but he did not die. Meanwhile, Voldemort was in a much worse predicament. His body melted into a fine, gray ash, which blew into the air and wafted through the ceiling. An almost inaudible, animal wail shivered though the humid air like a chandelier in an earthquake.

Two souls holding hands floated above a hopelessly confused, crying baby in a nice neighborhood somewhere in England. A legacy began in those moments of despair.