A/N: Another one. Thank you to katiek121, Sailor Saturn fan, lilaex13, LunaNotLoony, MSupernatural, Weirdawesomechick, Lionessof the East, and EriksAngeldeMusica for reviewing! You guys are the best and your comments, encouragement, compliments, and constructive criticism is appreciated to the nth power! Hope you enjoy. Keep letting me know!

Disclaimer: (Yeah, I should have done this 8 chapters ago...) I own absolutely nothing Harry Potter. It's all JKR's. It's her amazing world, and I thank her for it.

Chapter 8:

"Well, then that settles it," said James. "We're going to figure a way to keep us from dying."

Both Harry and Lily turned around to face him, with twin expressions of alarm and unease. James momentarily marveled at how much they actually looked like mother and son. And then he realized what their expressions meant, and glared at them both.

"What?" he said, reserving most of his attention for Lily. "I'm sorry, are we just supposed to blithely accept our demise?"

"…no." The hesitation said everything that her one-word answer didn't. Her eyes guiltily skittered away from his and James shook his head. She wasn't going to make him feel bad about this. If Harry's appearance here meant anything, it was the chance to save themselves. James was certain.

Harry, meanwhile, looked crestfallen. "I shouldn't have told you…" he lamented, biting his lip. "Dumbledore—"

"I don't give a fig about Dumbledore!"

"Harry has a point," Lily interrupted. "We can't just—"

"What? This is insane!" James stepped away from both of them, incredulous that they were actually ganging up on him over this. "Harry just told us that we die when he is just a baby! You don't want to change that?!"

"It's not a matter of what I want." Lily flushed angrily. "It's a matter of whether we should."

"Please Lily, explain to me the downside of staying alive." James crossed his arms, intense irritation welling up in the pit of his stomach.

"It could affect the future in ways that we can't even comprehend, James. And you aren't God, you can't predict what could come of that."

"Sure I can. We live, we live happily ever after with our son…" Lily shook her head and looked away at the implication. And that move made James angrier than anything else that had happened today.

"But of course," he said, sounding bitter despite every attempt to the contrary. "What really steams you about all of this is the very idea that you would ever marry me or have my child, right? Like you would ever condescend to give in to an arrogant burk like me, because nothing's really changed, right?"

Lily snapped her bright green eyes up to his own, but her gaze was stone cold, almost hateful. "Don't you dare ever say that to me again, James. That has nothing to do with this." Her voice was quiet, but deadly and in his discomfort at her reaction, he almost forgot that he was the one who was supposed to be angry.

"No?" he finally said, not trusting himself to say anything else. He automatically ran a hand through his hair, obliterating any semblance of neatness it may have had. And the corners of Lily's mouth twitched as she watched the familiar gesture, feeling something she couldn't identify. But then she sighed.

"No."

James was pretty sure they had just agreed on something. But he wasn't explicitly sure on what. Whatever it was, it made him fractionally calmer. And Lily, seeing her opportunity, seized his faltering resolve to make her case.

"Potter, you've been in this world long enough to know that fooling with time can have extremely dangerous consequences. And that's the whole problem. People think that they know better and what could happen? And they end up doing irreparable damage."

She pleaded to his blank expression with her eyes, and then cast a sideways glance at the young boy next to her. "Harry lived," her voice shook just slightly, the only sign of emotion she allowed to break through her veneer. "We don't even know why… But what if we try to…to fix this and he doesn't? Then not only are we dead, but so is our son. And everything…" she closed her eyes tightly, forbidding them from glazing with tears, "everything that he could become would be gone. And there wouldn't be another chance."

James drew a long, shaky breath, trying not to be moved by her words or the way she was looking at him. But he didn't agree with her.

"Look, Evans, I don't want to argue with you about this." He couldn't opt to say anything more diplomatic. "So let's worry about it later, alright? I'm not saying that I agree, just…that we shouldn't argue in front of the child."

Lily rolled her eyes at his half-joke, but James could see the satisfaction hidden there. He was determined that they continue the issue later. She figured that she had won already. If they ever did get married, he was done for, he thought grimly. She was really only at the point of tolerating him now, and he still felt like he could deny her nothing. What would that mean for him, if they ever moved past mere tolerance?

The evidence that they would indeed move past it was standing right in front of them, his young face rife with distress. He mumbled something that couldn't be heard over the rushing din of the wind. "What?" James asked.

"I said, I wish it had been me…" Harry looked embarrassed at the confession, and Lily looked absolutely appalled, mirroring James' own feelings. Immediately, their quarrel was forgotten.

"How can you say something that?"

Harry flushed, a bit sheepish at upsetting his teenage mother like this. But he shrugged, unable to honestly take it back. It was what he had said right before the mirror brought him here, and nothing that had happened to him had changed that feeling. He didn't care how it sounded; both of his parents would die young, with their whole lives ahead of them. Two lives for the rate of one. He didn't think that was very fair. And he decided that he was more qualified to make that judgment than they were—he had seen life on both ends. He knew better.

"You got some stones to say that, little bloke, considering we're the ones that end up six feet under," said James. Lily's eyes flickered over at him to note that he wasn't smiling. But then, neither was Harry.

"I'm just telling you the truth," Harry replied. "I wish you were still alive."

"Fine, that's normal," Lily said. "But wishing yourself dead instead isn't."

"I'll agree with the lady here," James said. "Do you think that's what your parents—I mean, we would have wanted?"

"Well really, it doesn't matter what you would have wanted because you aren't there."

"Hey—" James started angrily, but Harry bust across him.

"Don't tell me what I should feel about it!" he said hotly. "You've no idea what it's been like, all this time."

"It's better off than being dead, Harry," Lily said gently, exchanging glances with James. This sudden peak of temper from the boy had surprised them. He had been so patient and accommodating.

"Really? How would you know?!" Harry glowered at her. "You know what they did? They told me that my parents died in a car crash and they made me sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. She hated you and now she hates me too! She said she never wanted me because I was a freak! But I never knew why until I got the letter from Hogwarts. And then they didn't even want me to go and just get away from them, no. Because they can't stand anything about magic."

"Who's they?" James asked him, sounding outraged by this, trying to dissect Harry's rant enough that it would make sense.

"Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon," Harry's voice was still raised. "Because you're gone, I have to live with them."

"T-Tuney?" Lily said, her eyes wide. Her sister was raising her son? "But why? Why didn't you live with—"

"They were the only people left," Harry answered curtly. "I don't know. What does it matter? That's who I live with. So tell me that I wouldn't be better off dead, I really don't care. You don't know anything about it. At least wherever you two are, you aren't alone."

Lily and James were stunned by Harry's sudden hostility, trying to work out everything he had said. Harry stormed off, towards the house, but still within sight. Lily made to follow him, but James tugged her skirt lightly, signaling her to stay back. "Wait a sec, okay?"

She obeyed, thinking that as a member of the male species himself, James probably knew when they would rather be left alone. And she was still reeling from Harry's impassioned outburst, feeling increasingly troubled by what she heard from him. And the more she heard, the more she believed one thing was becoming more and more apparent.

Harry's situation was her fault.

"Come again?" James swiveled his head in her direction, his eyebrows halfway up his forehead. Lily hadn't realized that she'd spoken aloud, but she must have and she didn't see the point in getting in an argument with him by lying.

"This whole thing?" Lily lifted a dull, hopeless arm towards the boy sitting near the house, looking up at the afternoon sky. "It's me, James. My fault."

"How'd you figure?"

"Did you hear him?" Lily demanded. "He's miserable. He quite literally wishes that he wasn't alive." Looking for something to focus on, she mimicked Harry, lifting her face and half-hoping the sun would just blind her. "And everything that's happened to him is my fault…" Trying to hide her tears left her voice sounding breathy and high-pitched. She didn't want to get too upset and start having a panic attack. They needed to talk to Harry. That was more important.

"That doesn't answer my question." She suddenly felt James' nearness, so close that she could feel the slight heat of his body, knowing that if she just turned, she could bury her face in his chest. The temptation to do so was magnificent. He breathed, and it ruffled the hair on her head, and she closed her eyes, instinctually taking solace. "What are you on about, Evans?" he murmured, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

Just since this year, without Snape's constant, toxic thoughts in her ear, James had touched her a little more frequently. And she had allowed most of it, laughing it off. Not inviting it, but not necessarily turning it away either. It didn't hurt anything, did it? But this was different…and how? She was struck now by how badly she wanted to just…take comfort in him and accept how gentle he could be sometimes…

She didn't want to consider the fact that this could have been a latent desire, something that had been brewing for at least a couple of months. Rather, maybe it was because Harry had connected them, whether or not he really was their son.

"Maybe he's insane. Maybe we're mad to believe him," Lily whispered. Even with the gust, he was standing close enough to hear everything she said. She didn't actually believe her own words, but she had no desire to answer his prior question, or to talk about why this was her fault. Unburdening herself at that moment seemed inappropriate. And as she had backed off when the subject of the Shrieking Shack came up, James returned the favor in kind, by giving her some time.

"Part of me would like to believe that," James said. He left it at that, knowing that they were in sync on at least this level. Knowing that Harry was their son made extraordinary sense to them. But they couldn't explain why, and trying to explain to anyone else (except perhaps Dumbledore) would earn them both nothing but a one-way ticket to St. Mungo's for a thorough head examination.

Lily turned into him, his proximity forcing her to turn her head up quite a bit to look him in the eye. "Have you wondered…" she trailed off, a little uncertain, and perhaps a little distracted by how close he was, and the reassuring strength he was exuding.

"What?"

The question had been on her mind ever since Harry had announced that he was their son. And she would be lying if she said she hadn't imagined it even before that. But accepting that Harry could possibly be theirs would be paramount to accepting that she would accept a romantic relationship with James Potter sometime in the future.

She blinked. "How we get from, well….this…to that?"

He was going to guess that "this" meant their pretty steady flow of bickering, teasing and antagonizing on his part, dislike (which he was almost sure was feigned) and exasperation on her part. She told him that she hated him; he told her that she was beautiful. She pushed him away, but he held fast. She never ran fast enough that he couldn't catch her. He didn't think she was even trying anymore.

And he didn't think that was his arrogance talking.

He tucked a finger under her chin and his hazel eyes were just honest and open…like he was allowing her to see everything in him. His lips tilted up in a little smirk and unconsciously, her lips did the same.

"Oh, Evans," he said. "It's not that far from this to that. Not that far at all."

The air wavered between them powerfully for a moment before she willfully broke it off, drawing her eyes to Harry, who was now watching them.

"Is that long enough?" she asked, and she tried to smile, but it felt and appeared forced, and James let his hand drift away from her cheek, frowning down at her as something occurred to him.

"What do we say to him?"

Oh.

Lily hadn't thought of that. That boy, Harry…he was her son. She hadn't given much thought to what that meant. And this wasn't about her, or James, or their problems.

"He's alone."

"Well, yeah, Evans, he walked off."

Lily shook her head impatiently. "No, I mean…he made mention that we weren't lonely…because he is lonely."

James stared towards the house and thought about that, his jaw tightening. He hoped that Harry was exaggerating about that cupboard thing. "Your sister, Petunia, right? She's a bitch."

Lily's immediate instinct was to object to James' slight, but she couldn't. If what Harry was saying about Petunia was true, she couldn't imagine what she had ever done to her sister that she would inflict such cruelty on Lily's only child. James was right; Petunia was a bitch.

"I guess Harry being put in Petunia's care means that there was literally no one else that could take him in."

"Yeah, you know, I don't get that," James said. "I mean, if worst comes to worst, I know that Padfoot would…"

Lily voiced the thought that had struck James, deciding not to remark on the suggestion that Sirius Black would ever raise her child. "Sirius may have died too," she said sadly. "Who knows how many that maniac would bring down before getting to us. He's already extremely powerful. And because of that, all Harry had were two relatives that would never bother to understand who he is and that just—" She bit off angrily, beginning to feel tears again. How could her sister have made her son feel that way? Did Petunia really hate her that much?

James was pensive. "But…when he got the letter, things must have gotten better, right?"

Harry hadn't said anything about his life at Hogwarts. Lily exhaled wearily. "Well, obviously, we wouldn't be any experts on his life, you know, because..." she was having an amazing amount of trouble saying 'dead', so she didn't, settling for a lame, "so I suppose we'll have to go ask him."

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Harry wiped his eyes on his sleeve quickly, banishing the any traces of grief from his face, and stared deliberately into the sun. He hadn't meant to get angry or take off like that, which is why he hadn't gone far. They could still see him and he could still see them. But for the moment, he didn't want to see them.

It was the first time he had ever felt something approximating anger towards his parents. There was never any reason for him to be angry with them. If anything—they had given their lives for him. But how do you tell someone who makes a sacrifice like that, that they were better off keeping it to themselves?

He went over what he had said to Lily and James and winced to himself. He probably shouldn't have gone so far as to imply that he wished he was dead, but… in that moment, it was what he believed. And now…

He furtively glanced over at the sixteen year-old versions of his parents and saw that they were standing very close to each other. Lily looked upset and James was saying something to her in a low voice, tucking her hair behind her ear tenderly. Harry huffed and looked away, unable to understand them—their strange combination of animosity and intimacy. He doubted that he would ever understand it. But really, he thought reluctantly, something about them together did make him smile. And he wasn't sure why that was either.

Harry looked over again and now they were so close that you probably couldn't have slipped a sheet of paper between them. James was tilting Lily's head up to his and they weren't saying anything. But the spell was broken the next moment, when the redhead turned and caught Harry watching them. And after another short exchange, they started walking his way.

Harry briefly pondered getting away from them again, but ultimately decided against it. They had now said so much that he didn't know what they were going to say to him. And he didn't know what he wanted from them.

When they reached him, Lily gave the Shrieking Shack a wary look before sinking down to sit next to Harry. Harry offered her a tight-lipped smile, to show that he wasn't going to bite their heads off for approaching him. She smiled back and he idly thought she was very pretty when she did that. James seemed to think so too, because he watched her for a beat longer than usual, before sitting back on his haunches.

"We're sorry, Harry." Lily said. "We didn't mean to upset you."

"I know…" Harry mumbled. "I'm sorry I got so mad."

"You don't have to be sorry, mate," James said quickly. His hand went to his hair, shuffling it nervously. And to Harry, it was funny to think that this man, who was really not even a man yet, was his father. With their age difference, James could have been his older brother.

"You know, ah, we haven't been there…obviously. We don't know what your life has been like." James laughed awkwardly and his eyes dropped to the ground. "We just…we wanted…"

"Harry, it's just that…we died." Lily ignored the word and pressed on. "And I know that if I…if I were to have done that, like you said…the best thing that I could know for myself is that you were all right. That you were being taken care of and you knew that you were loved."

"Exactly," James sounded relieved. "Just what Evans said."

"And we know that we're not your parents right now." She looked down at him, wanting to make sure he was looking back at her and that he heard this. "But I believe you when you say that we will be."

Harry felt a weight suddenly lift from his chest at her affirmation. They believed him. They believed that they were his parents. They believed he was their son. He didn't have to hide the fact that he saw them as such, because they knew and they were okay with it. They accepted it and they accepted him.

"Thanks," he said, unable to express how much it meant.

Lily nodded.

"Of course, that also means that we can't have you go wandering around wishing to be dead," James said. The words were flippant, but pointed. And Harry bowed his head.

"I don't know if I completely meant that…"

Lily placed a hand on his shoulder, warm and solid. "I hate that my sister has treated you like she did. And if I were alive, I'd curse her into oblivion for it." When Harry looked up, his mother was smiling ruefully. "But…I hope that since you've been to school, things have been better."

"It has," Harry said, deciding to be truthful. "I mean, at first it was…everyone knew more about me than I did. And everybody was telling me what you both were like. That was weird. But I fit in, I think. It feels good to be at Hogwarts."

"That's good." Lily sounded like she had a head cold and James looked slyly at her.

"Aw, no tears now, Evans. The little bloke is fine and even sorta happy. Why do you birds always cry about the good things?"

"Shut up, Potter!" she whacked James with the back of her hand, upsetting the balance of his crouching legs and causing him to fall back. She resolutely refused to wipe at her eyes. "I'm not crying."

But James was still grinning, sitting back on his hands now. "Whatever you say, love."

"Git…"

James shifted his attention to Harry. "Well then… Harry Potter." Lily noticed that their smiles were identical. "Why don't you tell us what the Hogwarts from the future is like? I think you mentioned Dumbledore still being alive?"

They still needed answers. James and Lily would surely have another argument about what to do with Harry's information about their deaths. They didn't know how to explain their disappearance today to their friends. But in that moment, they pushed it aside. In that moment, it would be enough for both of them just to sit with Harry and talk to him.

Harry laughed. And tell them he did.

A/N: Love it or hate it? All opinions are welcome...I think ;)