A/N: This is from James' pov. Some of his prejudices show through.

Lady of Light

I never noticed her on the train in our first year. I was too exited at meeting somebody who shared my love for practical jokes – Sirius, of course – to be aware of anything else.

Sirius was my first real friend. I mean Peter is nice enough and he's my cousin so we've sort of grown up together, but still… And of course with Sirius I also got Remus. We sometimes called Sirius Romulus, but he never liked the reference.

Too morbid, he said.

It was easy not to notice her, too. She was small and quiet and nothing interesting at that time.

I don't remember her from the sorting ceremony either. Growing up in an old pureblood family I already knew which house I would probably be in and watched the sorting from that point of view. If she'd been a Slytherin I would have sneered at her, if she'd been a Gryffindor I would have cheered for her, if she'd been a Hufflepuff I'd have probably felt a bit sorry for her, but she was a Ravenclaw… Ravenclaws are always too independent and standoffish to actually be noticed.

I had to admit my error later on the quidditch field, though.

So, I didn't know her.

My first years in Hogwarts were filled with every kind of imaginable mischief. They were also filled with friendship, some occasional crushes and secrets shared only among the Maradeurs.

Much to my surprise I did quite well. I was the star quidditch player, but I also had a talent for Transfiguration and I became – sort of – professor Mcgonagall's pet student.

There were some subjects I did not have talent for, though. I can't really count the cauldrons I melted or potions that should have been totally harmless but somehow became highly dangerous and explosive if it was I who made them.

Understandably I was not professor D'Armant's pet. No, that position was reserved for Severus Snape.

I didn't like the Slytherin a lot and there were quite many pranks played on him. But once, the joke got out of hand. Thinking about the possible consequences of Sirius' idiocity turned my sense of humor down for quite long.

That was not a good period of time for the Maradeurs. Sirius and Remus weren't on speaking terms, I was brooding and Peter honestly couldn't understand what was wrong. For some reason we never told him.

But it was also the time I first became aware of the existence of one Lily Evans.

Actually, professor Mcgonagall asked me to tutor her in Transfigurations.

I'd seen and heard of Lily by that time, of course. We'd met in the perfect's meetings and I knew she was well on her way to becoming the next Head Girl. I also knew it wasn't easy to score with her at the goals. But that was sort of intellectual knowledge, we'd never actually talked to each other.

But then came professor Mcgonagall's request and one evening Lily Evans entered my life.

If you are waiting for fireworks, you are going to be dissapointed – that was never the way between us. But friendship was, certainly.

It was tentative at first, me teaching her Transfigurations and she helping me to catch up in Charms and Potions. I was lonely without the Maradeurs and I think she had no close friends at all. So we became sort of "shelter in the storm" for each other.

We told each other things, Lily and I, secrets. Not everything, of course, but we could talk about some of our worries and not be afraid of being laughed at. We understood each other. And trusted.

I became to know that Lily was adopted and her stepsister hated her. She became the co-holder of the mystery of Maradeurs and the secret of Remus.

The latter was added by Remus who somehow became part of our little study group.

Next Lily did something – I think I'll never know what, and Sirius joined us. Of course, it was hard to keep Sirius from Remus for long – or the other way around. For werewolves the choice is for life. And then it was just natural to invite Peter, too.

So the Hogwarts quartet became a quintet.

Lily never joined in on our jokes. That didn't keep her from enjoying them to the fullest, though. Like the time we turned all the Slytherins into red-gold squirrels. She almost choked on her pumpkin juice.

It had actually been a spell of her's we used for the trick. Now that I think of it… We seem to have been using a a lot of her spells and ideas.

And so the schoolyears run past.

We stayed friends after leaving Hogwarts. Sometimes I dreamed of Lily. She was beautiful.

And then Voldemort decided to make his move.

We'd all heard rumors about Voldemort and his Death Eaters, of course, but we were well protected in Hogwarts and nobody wanted to worry the "children". So we were totally unprepared.

We learnt as we fought. I saw many people, many friends die. But I survived and kept fighting. Sirius, Remus and Peter were always by my side.

We saw less and less of Lily. She never told us where she went or what she was doing. I suspect she worked for the Ministery.

Somehow the less I saw her, the more I missed her.

Then came the three months period nobody had any news of her. I don't care to remember that time much.

One night she knocked on my door. I was too glad to see her to ask where she had been. And I didn't question much when she showed me she wanted more than friendship from me.

She kept returning to me. I was happy.

Couple of weeks later she discovered she was pregnant and we decided to get married.

Lily didn't ask that from me, I proposed.

You see, I knew the baby couldn't be mine. The reason my parents had often mourned about, the reason I hadn't used any protection with Lily was that I couldn't sire a child. And no magic could help me.

I knew Lily well and I knew she would not have come to me just to have a husband and a father to her child. The only thing that would have made her decieve me so was the need to protect the baby she was carring. I didn't know from what or who, but for Lily to act like that… It must be something really bad. She has never told me what and I have never asked.

So I proposed and she accepted. It hurt a little, knowing I was not the one she loved. But she cared about me and entrusted me with her child. It meant something, after all.

And she gave me a chance to have a child.

I looked into her eyes as we said our wedding vows and saw that she knew of my knowledge. Everything was all right.

We told my parents that Lily, good with spells and potions as she was, had found a way for us to have a child and she was pregnant now. My parents were exalted.

When the boy was born I put a charm Lily and I had created on him. A charm to make him look like me. But before casting the spell I held him in my arms and looked at him.

Looked at Lily's child.

At our child.

At my child.

And it was all I ever needed to know.

We named him Harry.