Weeeeeeee, that chapter took forever to write! For a long time, I had so much homework that I could go nowhere near a computer for a long time, then I promised that I'd write other chapters first, but you truly seem to like this, so I made this chapter extra long (or, it seems that way).
Ok, I'm only going to review to replies as necessary, so here you go!
Apotterlover: well, Harry does grow up with Ron, and the rest of the Weasleys', but neither of them meets Hermione till Hogwarts, I'm sorry to say.
Aelotia: well, that's sort of how it goes. He actually sees Harry a lot of times before he actually learns who he is, but he doesn't realize that it's him till Harry's 15. He does, however, hear of a boy named Harry Potter who looks just like him, but James only suspects it's a rumor, or a joke, or something like that. Go figure, I guess James is just having one of those moments where he can't see what people are rubbing in his face. Remus is the first person (not including Lily's friends and family, and the Weasleys') to find out about Harry (oh, and Dumbledor too. It'd be kind of hard for Him not to notice Harry, wouldn't it?)
Runaway Spirit: yes, I know that this doesn't deserve to be reviewed, but thank you for reviewing anyway! To answer your question, James and Harry meet (see each other from far away) when Harry is about 5, but they meet face-to-face when Harry is 15. A long time to wait, I know…
Katie: Yes, Lily "dies" in this, but that's not until Harry is 16, and it's only a dream. About the Voldemort thing, Harry is still in Trouble, but not as much as normal, because Wormtail is James's friend, and, since James doesn't even know where Lily is, why would Wormtail? Instead, Wormtail dies as a regular Death Eater. It takes care of him. Once Harry starts Hogwarts, that's when the trouble really starts, which you will see later.
Sam: HI! Yeah, I only put Joanna in it because of the whole adopting thing. She'll have to be replaced by Mad-eye Moody soon, because it just wouldn't work otherwise. I even plan on putting Ms. Lynn there later, but that won't come till later.
Okay, if any of you have questions about the whole Voldemort thing, just read the reply for 'Katie". That should answer all of your questions.
Ok, if I ever say that I own that is recognized from the "Harry Potter" books, then you should probably go tell j. k. Rowling. Maybe she'll sue! Sure, I'd lose some money, but at least I'd get to meet her!
Hidden Lives
Harry curled up next to Lily and fell asleep.
Lily sat up, knowing that she would never get to sleep at this point. She held Harry, stroking his hair softly. He was growing to look more and more like James as each day went by. She could already tell that he would at least have James's hair and smile.
Why did he have to leave? Lily thought to herself. Almost everyday, she'd find at least one thing that reminded her of James in some way, and sometimes, the thought of him nearly drove her insane.
Had he gotten what he wanted by leaving? Or was he just like Lily, miserable and always thinking of the other? Lily doubted it. James had gotten 2 days to think it over, and it wasn't as if it was too late to come back. He couldn't have gone wrong with that much time to think it over. Lily thought.
'Even if he is happy being alone, I bet he'd love Harry' Lily thought. It was, after all, very hard not to love him. 'Then again, it's not as if I've ever seen him with children. For all I know, he might hate kids'.
James had been staying with Sirius for almost 3 years. There were times when Sirius felt like he wanted to pull off James's head, he'd get so mad, but he only ended up feeling sorry for his heartbroken friend. Although it was James's fault that they'd broken up, the look in his eyes whenever Lily's name was mentioned was enough to make anyone miserable.
It had been almost 2 years since James had seen Lily pregnant. It had hurt him so badly; it had left a truly empty and hopeless feeling inside. He had thought about it for months, and, eventually, it had made him truly depressed, so he'd forced himself to forget about it. He thought about anything and everything but that one scene until he had completely forgotten about it. He'd known that he could never forget Lily, no matter how hard he'd tried, but living proof that she'd moved on was too much for him to handle.
Lily woke up the next morning in extreme pain. She screamed as her nose was being 'pulled off'.
She sat up, noticing Fred and George with identical terrified looks across their faces. She looked back and forth between them when she heard a growling type of noise. Lily looked down to see a gnome hanging off of her nose.
Once again, she screamed. "WHY ON EARTH DID YOU LET A GNOME BITE MY FACE!" she yelled at them.
"We didn't mean to, Lily, honestly, it's just that…" Fred started.
"Mum told us to get degnome the garden, and, well…" George continued.
"George was going to throw it when"
"Fred came up behind me, and,"
"He ended up throwing it into the house"
"Where it went flying until it landed face first on your nose,"
"And, apparently, it tried to bite your nose off."
Lily frowned at them. "So, I'm standing here, the one day that I get to sleep in, and I have to wake up early anyway because an ugly little gnome is trying to chew my face into pieces. Well, this is a lovely way to start out the day," she mumbled.
She and the twins spent the next hour trying to pry the gnomes' sharp teeth out of her skin.
Lily, Harry, and the Weasley family spent the entire day moving boxes from the apartment to the new house, and, now, Lily and Harry were unpacking. Or, rather, Lily was unpacking; Harry was opening boxes and spilling its contents onto the floor.
Harry had finished dumping the boxes of his picture books when he came across a stack of boxes that he didn't recognize. He ran his hand across the top or the first box and sneezed. These boxes had a large amount of dust covering them.
He pushed these boxes into his new room to open them. He ran back to the kitchen and grabbed the safety scissors Lily had set out for him.
After struggling for a few minuets (opening boxes with safety scissors is a very difficult thing to do, you know), Harry managed to get the first box open. He tipped the tall box onto its side and everything fell out. He searched through the numerous package peanuts before coming across something thin and long; rather like a long lamp with the shade at the end; covered in bubble wrap.
Once again, Harry struggled with the safety scissors and cut a small hole in the plastic. He retired from the cutting and ripped it all off.
Inside the bubble wrap, Harry found a large broom. It was long, and sleek, with a polished handle and well kept bristles. There were letters painted on the handle, but Harry could not read them. He looked at it, confused. Why would someone take such good care of a tool used for cleaning?
"Mummy!" Harry called. He found her in the living room, trying to rearrange the furniture.
"Yes?" she asked, turning to Harry.
"Why would someone put this in bubble wrap?" He asked, looking up at her.
Lily examined it. It was a wizards' broom, she could tell by the way it trembled when she touched it. "Well, this was a broom that was used for flying, I can tell you that much. That's why it's so well taken care of, but I also know that it's not mine. I wonder if some of our boxes got mixed up with the Weasley's things during the move."
She examined it for a minute when she noticed it. She'd been on this broom a million times, and she realized immediately why it had been covered in bubble wrap. At the end of the handle on the broom, in fine gold paint, "property of James Potter" was painted.
"Where did you get this, Harry?" she whispered.
He shrugged. "Just from a dusty, old box. There were a bunch of them," Harry said, leading Lily to his room.
In Harry's room, a huge stack of boxes were surrounded by package peanuts. Lily stood the open box upright. On the lid, she noticed, was a small note. 'Some things to remember me by' was written in fine handwriting.
Dropping the note, tears starting to well in her eyes, Lily started to tear the boxes contents out. Harry, thinking it was a game, started throwing package peanuts in the air like confetti.
Pulling everything out of the box, Lily started sifting through the package peanuts to find what had been inside. Lily pulled up a few photo albums, a scrapbook, a video tape, and the video camera that Lily had given James for his eighteenth birthday.
While Lily started opening the other boxes, Harry started running through the house, trying to figure out how to get the broom to fly.
Inside the other boxes, Lily found James's old "Head Boy" badge, a golden snitch that was still trying to fly off the ground while covered in bubble wrap, and a small, black, oval case. Lily opened the case and pulled out a pair of black, circular glasses that had a crack through one of the lenses'. Lily smiled.
"Whose stuff is this?" Harry asked, walking back into the room.
"This was your dads' stuff. I guess he forgot to bring them when he left," she said, her voice trailing off.
"Oh," he said, sitting down next to her. "Why are those glasses cracked?" he asked.
Lily laughed. "These were the glasses that he wore when we were back at Hogwarts. He used to be very good at knowing just how to make me mad without meaning to;" she started. "And, one day, I just got so furious, that I couldn't take it, and I punched him so hard that his glasses broke."
Harry laughed before picking up the snitch. "What's this thing?" he asked, starting to take the bubble wrap off of it.
"That's a snitch. Its part of Quidditch set, and, unless I'm wrong, James always used to carry it around and show off with it." She said, smiling. After a minute, Lily stood up and started to open the other boxes.
After a while, Harry got bored and left the room while Lily continued going through James's things.
Inside the last box, she found James's two guitars in their cases', a folder of music, and a bunch of drawings that he'd done. Lily opened the folder and searched through the sheets of music until she came to a song that she knew all too well.
The heading of the sheet read 'Canon in D, Pachebel'. Lily had learned to play it on the piano when she was ten years old, when she had heard that it had been played at her parents wedding. She taught it to James to play on his guitar not to long after they moved in together, although it had taken James two months to learn it. He had been planning something behind her back when he was learning it, Lily remembered, and she found out the night he had proposed to her. Lily felt the tears falling down her cheeks.
"What are all of those squiggly things all over that paper?" Harry's voice seemed far off and distant.
"They're notes, and this is a sheet of music that I used to play for James" she whispered.
"Will you play it for me?" Harry asked her, his green eyes looking up at her, pleading like a lovesick puppy.
Lily smiled, picking him up and taking him to the living room where the old piano sat. She had not played the old piano since she and James were still living together. He would convince her to play the song, but the downstairs neighbors would come trudging up the stairs, complaining about the noise, so she'd give up. That is, until the neighbors went down the stairs and James would start playing his guitar so loud that the landlord would come to complain. They had almost been kicked out three times because of the noise, but Lily would've given anything to go back to those days. 'I guess noise isn't something I have to worry about anymore!' She thought to herself.
Lily sat down on the piano bench, placing Harry on it next to her. She played the first lower notes slowly, and, as the song got longer, she felt Harry falling asleep beside her.
After Lily put Harry down to sleep in her room, she went back to clean up the mess that had been left in his room.
Lily picked up the boxes and cleaned up the package peanuts. Picking up the leftover things that had been unpacked, she tried shoving them into a closet when she slipped, dropping everything and falling backwards.
Trying to catch her breath, she looked around for the thing that her she slipped on. Finding nothing, she felt around on the floor for anything she that might have caused her to trip. She almost gave up hope when she finally felt something brush her hand. She ran her hand over the spot, feeling it again, but not seeing anything. She picked it up, noticing that it felt like cloth, before seeing her hand disappear, her wrist hanging in midair.
Yeah, I know, it took me a million years to write the worlds shortest chapter, but I was so busy writing it all in a notebook that it took forever for me to edit it and transfer it to the computer! I'm really really really really sorry! Oh, and, I know, Harry seems more like a five year old instead of a two year old, but, hey! He's a wizard, maybe wizarding kids are super smart compared to muggle ones! If not, well, bare with me (I know I spelled that wrong, so sue me!) Okay, I'm in a bad mood, can you tell?
Okay, in my other stories, where Harry's younger, I'm comparing him to my one year old cousin who is THE CUTEST THING ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH! Okay, so, that's what everyone says about a baby that they love a lot, but, I was pretending to be a cat when we were visiting her, and I started meowing at her. After a little while, she started growling and barking at me, so we've started this little game where she does that whenever she sees me, and it is SO ADORABLE! Yes, I am in love with my baby cousin, but I doubt any of you really care, so I don't really know why I am telling you this, so I'm just going to stop now…