A/N: It's been literal years, I know. Most people have probably completely lost interest or don't even remember this story. However, I was looking this over recently and decided that there was no way I was leaving it unfinished. It's close to the end and I generally don't like to leave things off without a proper ending. So if you're here, THANK YOU for reading and I do hope you enjoy this. This isn't the last chapter (as will be evident by the end of it), but we're very close. And I want to thank Alicia Olivia Mirza, geekymom, Ttch, katiek121, sanbeegoldiewhitey, Gjdodbu, nerdwarf, KiaraWangWilliams, GUEST, .168, Guest, and TweetieBird for their reviews! You guys were very instrumental in having me check back with this story and I appreciate it a lot!

Chapter 15:

The morning they left to take Harry to the mirror was so quiet it felt like the world had remained asleep. Perhaps waiting until it could resume in normalcy.

And maybe it was—Lily wasn't sure if these days had been a dream or a hallucination or what…well, no. She knew it was real. Now.

She just didn't know what it would end up being…and that was the nagging problem. And the questions were only becoming louder and more insistent now that the end was breathing down their necks.

The train felt as if it was rather rougher than usual as it steamed ahead early in the morning. Harry had been quiet since James had made a joke about having to raid the laundry for spare clothing for him.

"It's alright," Harry had said. "I always wore Dudley's hand-downs anyway. I didn't have much clothing of my own before…well, before I went to Hogwarts and they gave me the money you left to me…" He drifted off awkwardly, and Lily felt stricken again by the reality of being dead to her son in some awaited future. One glance at James confirmed that he also had been brought to silence by the boy's comment, and the two of them shared a moment of wordless commiseration.

When this mood descended, Harry didn't look between them or watch their interaction the way he had so avidly since they found him lying on the Quidditch pitch. Instead, he turned to the window and remained angled with his back towards his parents for most of the trip.

Lily blinked at his hunched body and let out a small sigh. How was she to say goodbye to this boy…her boy? What did he feel about this? About them? She didn't know.

It was surprising, but Harry was almost just as much a mystery to her now as he was when they first met. It was strange—she saw so many shades of herself and James in him…but he was still so entirely separate from either of them. His eyes were hers, and yet they were filled with a thousand things that she didn't recognize and she couldn't claim as her own.

There was loss and loneliness of a kind she had never felt in her life, in him. She understood that in her head…but how could she possibly feel it? If things merely went back to the way that they were, then Harry would again lose. Their whole little family was doomed. Or it wasn't…

She didn't know how much of a hand fate was playing. Like her life had been draped over with a veil, she couldn't see the trajectory. She could see outlines now, but how did they get there? What was the thing that cost them their lives? How did Voldemort murder them?

Dumbledore told them it was not something to be trifled with…to consider this far too dangerous to manipulate. Lily couldn't forget his words—especially not when he had seen them off at the platform. He didn't look as stern as Professor McGonagall had…but the twinkle in his eye seemed tempered with concern.

"The rest is a journey of your own now," he had told them. "And I trust that all will go as it should be." He looked between Lily and James with kind and calm eyes. "I have faith in your judgement."

From the corner of her eye, Lily could see James flush slightly and it amused her to see someone she had always thought of as an arrogant prat becoming abashed over a few affirming words from their Headmaster.

Sirius had come to say goodbye at the platform as well, with only an askance glance from Professor McGonagall, who clearly disapproved of James' best mate being taken into confidence over this. Lily couldn't help but smile at the kind and elder-brotherly way that Sirius harshly ruffled Harry's jet-black hair and nudged him in the shoulder.

"No matter what, you make 'em proud, little bloke, alright? Give them all hell!" He smirked when McGonagall cleared her throat loudly. "I mean within the confines of the Hogwarts School Rules, of course!"

"Of course!" James agreed cheerily, attempting to keep the peace for once.

Sirius then leaned in and related something to Harry that the others could not hear. Then he clapped him on the shoulder in parting and glommed onto Lily next, with a comically boisterous hug. "Evans, just remember if Prongs starts annoying you on the train, that you do need his half of the genetic material for Harry," he whispered cheekily in her ear.

Lily rolled her eyes and smacked him on the shoulder. "I'll be sure to remember."

She went to turn away but he held fast to her wrist and she looked up at him in expectation. He was smiling reassuringly at her, as if he knew what she was thinking, and even knowing that Sirius had a reputation for those disarming looks of his, she felt unwillingly soothed by it.

"Don't think too hard, Evans. Sometimes all you need is your instincts." He patted the dark robes right over his heart and for no reason at all, Lily felt goosebumps erupt on her arms. "Why don't you try that on for size?"

"Why don't I?" Lily echoed. Her mouth was dry and she turned away from him, feeling that it was a suitable goodbye, after all.

She heard Sirius clap James on his shoulder, and say in undertone, "I have your back, mate. Always."

Always.

Sirius meant what he said. Lily had once thought that his good looks and effortless brilliance were all he had to recommend him, but that wasn't it at all. It was really his uncommon loyalty…something that Lily had never known until now.

She understood now.

And maybe there was a difference between yesterday and tomorrow, with or without Harry. Whether or not they remembered.

"We're here," James said unnecessarily, as the train squealed to a halt and they heard the hiss of the smoke as it gave one last chug. Harry sat up straighter and turned to them both, finally. The uncertain fear in his eyes was so…obvious, that Lily was sure that was why he had spoken to neither of them, not the joke that James had made about clothes. The train was waiting for them to disembark and Lily felt that horrible, sinking feeling. The ride was over… now all that was left was the end.

She suddenly couldn't bear it to be sitting in that compartment, with the two of them. "We should go, she'll be waiting."

"Right," James exhaled, spurred into movement. He stood and rubbed his hands back and forth on his trousers with nervous energy. "Let's go on then. Shouldn't keep her…eh, what's her name again?"

"Mairead Mumford," Lily said. She would have been inclined to be impatient with him, but she chose instead to be thankful that he had asked now rather than stumbling through some introduction without the knowledge. Besides, she knew full-well that they all had quite a lot on their minds, the least of which was remembering the names of their eccentric headmaster's friends. She looked to Harry, who had risen from his seat with less energy than James…and she felt a strange urge to cry.

Instead, she took his hand and her heart jumped when he almost instinctively twisted away from her, but she held fast. She wasn't about to lose anything more than she was… time was being lost.

James had already turned out the door. Harry locked eyes with her and his smaller hand felt so warm. She knew he wouldn't dare grip it back right now. She was sure that he was trying to hide his heart from his eyes, but she saw it anyway.

"I can't…" The strangled sound of the beginning of her sentence made her stop, and she turned and tugged her future son gently along. He followed robotically.

An older woman was standing on the platform with James already, she looked to be McGonagall's age, but with a more bedraggled, dotty way about her, and she exclaimed when she caught sight of Lily and Harry beyond James' shoulder.

"Ho! Is that not a sight!" She winked at Harry. "Albus can tell quite a story, you know, but even I couldn't have imagined such dedication to the craft! You certainly do look like the progeny of these two… what is your name, boy?" She held out her hand to him.

"Harry, ma'am." Harry released Lily's hand to take Mairead's. "Harry Potter."

"Yes, and I'm Mairead Mumford." She straightened and turned toward Lily. "What lovely hair. You must be Ms. Evans."

"Thank you for meeting us," Lily said by way of 'hello'. She wasn't sure how to approach this rather bizarre scenario. Did Ms. Mumford believe Professor Dumbledore about the mirror? She hadn't sounded as if she believed the story at all, and if she didn't …then why go to all this trouble?

The older woman waved a hand at her. "Not at all! I've been a trifle bored lately, so I was overjoyed to hear about such an accident of fate coming to my door. But let's not just stand here all day, come along!"

Surprisingly, Mairead decided to latch on to Harry, guiding him along by the shoulder with barely a glance for the older students. "Now I've arranged for a portkey for all of us, I take it you know what that is?"

James leaned into Lily as they walked behind. "Little bloke seems off, don'tcha think? He can barely look at us."

"If you were him, would you be able to look at us?" Lily murmured back with suppressed emotion. "I want—"

She pursed her lips as James swiveled his head to look at her, and she knew that his expression would be aching for it; aching for her to say that she was wrong and that they should fight. James was so aware of her it did no good. She might as well have finished.

When it was clear she wouldn't, James took the casual liberty of carefully swiping her hair aside, the frown clear on her profile. And after a moment, he sighed and she relaxed. He wasn't going to go on about it, and her cheek tingled where he had touched.

"You only have to say the word," he told her, quite unnecessarily. He dropped it after that, but the reminder still made her sick. The back of Harry's sweet, unkempt head did too.

What was she doing?

She didn't have time for her knees to give out in despair, because they had come to Mairead's portkey. Lily had only used one once herself. Harry hadn't at all, and apparently Mairead hadn't offered a satisfactory explanation.

"Eugh…" Was the reaction he had to the rusty, smelly birdcage that the woman gestured toward.

"Nervous, Harry?"

James wrapped his arm around Harry's head playfully, pulling him inward and roughing him up like an older brother, looking more like Sirius than ever. "Nah, he's not nervous. He's just disgusted, Miss!"

Lily shook her head, but she saw the way Harry fisted his fingers in James' shirt as he pushed him away with an unwilling smile, quickly at ease with the mystery of it. Mairead winked at them with the fondness that was probably all over Lily's own face.

"I told you it wasn't going to be a pretty thing. Now we'll put hands on it. There's a good lad."

Lily truly disliked the pull that the portkey gave, and Mairead had the only graceful landing. She tutted as they scattered to the ground in an undignified heap. "It seems you lot find other ways to get 'round. But pick yourselves up. I've made sandwiches."

James wasted no time in righting himself and hoisting Harry by his scruff. "Can't say we didn't teach you anything."

Lily felt yet another pang and Harry's expression grew narrower, the lightness of a moment before gone already. James rubbed his face in frustration. "Sorry."

There was nothing to say, so they all tramped into the cozy house of Ms. Mumford. Lily only gave it the slightest perusal, but it was sweet-smelling and jammed to the windows with oddities and trinkets. She could very easily envision Professor Dumbledore being friendly with this woman: almost everything that was lying around appeared interesting in some way.

Lily had just noticed the sound of a bubbling cauldron when Mairead swept into the entrance with her plate of sandwiches. "Drop your shoes there by the door. And I will—"

"Ms. Mumford?" Harry firmly interrupted her. "Could you just take us to the Mirror? I would rather just do what we came to do."

Lily was stunned by the request, and if James' silence was anything to go on, he was too. She thought that Harry would want to prolong this, spend as much time as possible with them. Or perhaps that was just what she wanted. Her mouth dried up and her heart pounded furiously, painfully.

She looked to James, but he was frozen and frowning. Harry ignored them entirely, his face tilted up expectantly toward their hostess, who didn't even insist they eat the sandwiches.

"Alright …this is your adventure, after all." She nodded toward the stairs. Lily wondered why everyone kept saying that. "That Mirror of Erised is located within the second door to the left. I would take you there myself, but I would rather like to be surprised at who comes down in the end."

Again, there was such amusement in her voice that Lily was convinced the woman didn't believe their Headmaster, and this was a free show. But she was too upset to really care what Ms. Mumford was saying.

"If you change your mind about the sandwiches…"

James raised a hand, weakly. "I would love a sandwich," he muttered, but the woman had already hurried away. James peered down at Harry. "No sandwich? What's the rush?"

Harry was glaring at his feet. "I think we should just get this over with."

Lily and James exchanged bewildered, gaping looks. If they were older and more experienced, if they were already his parents, they might have known what to say. They might have just honestly told Harry that they wanted more time. He might have started sullenly climbing the stairs anyway.

He did so without those reassurances and Lily felt a terrible, terrible guilt as they followed after him.

Dumbledore had agreed with her, she reminded herself. With every ridge of disappointment in her little boy's body, with a glance at James' suddenly stone face, she reminded herself why she had taken the view she had. And what's more, it was likely they wouldn't remember. And if they didn't, there was no decision to make at all.

"Don't think too hard, Evans. Sometimes all you need is your instincts."

"Shut it, Black," she thought to herself. Why was he still on her mind?!

Unlike the rest of the house, trinkets did not fill the room with the Mirror of Erised. It was by no means lonely, but it was obvious that this object was prized. It was beautifully made, so much that Lily would have been wary to get close, like it was an artifact in a museum. Harry walked up to it with no hesitation, and touched the glass. His reflection looked no different than it would have on any other mirror.

James cleared his throat. "So uh, what should we do?"

Harry shrugged as he stared. "I have to look at it by myself. I don't think it will work otherwise."

A few over-long seconds ticked by, and nothing was happening. Lily shifted uncomfortably. "Are you seeing anything?"

Harry didn't answer.

So she watched his reflection as they stood off to the side, as the seconds passed interminably, as his eyes filled slowly with tears and her heart shuttered to a stop.

"Stop," James announced fiercely, his voice making her jump in surprise. He was looking at her, not at Harry.

"W-what?"

Harry had also moved away from his position, startled. He watched them, expressionless. James looked between them angrily.

"So this is it?! The little bloke buggers off while you and I watch and do nothing?!"

Lily's eyes darted toward Harry, trying to figure out what he wanted—any minute sign or change. But she didn't dare look long. And she felt her own prickle of anger.

"Why are you acting like I decided this?" she demanded of her stupid, messy-haired classmate. "I didn't choose to come right up here! I didn't skip out on the sandwiches!"

"The sandwiches?!" James cried in disbelief. "Who bloody cares about that? You're the one who—"

He cut off his speech abruptly and Lily felt something warm tickle her upper lip. "James?" She swiped her hand across the tickle and it came away red. "Oh."

He took two long strides toward her and whipped a handkerchief out of his pocket, pressing it to her nose and pushing back on her neck. "Here. Look up."

His face filled her vision as she obeyed and he answered the question in her eyes with a no-nonsense tone. "Been carrying them around since the Hospital Wing. For this."

"Should I go get something?" Harry asked from behind them. His tone was less forbidding now, but James shook his head, having taken total control of the situation without missing a beat.

"No, it'll stop. And once …well, it's almost done now." There was the smallest quaver in his voice and Lily closed her eyes to avoid looking at him, because he was too close to look at anything else.

"You're right," she muttered to him, realizing it only as she said it.

James paused, still gripping her neck and hovering abominably close. "I'm what?"

Her eyes opened and she gave him a heated glare. "Right. You're right. About what we were about to argue about." Her voice was slightly muffled from the press of the handkerchief, but she persisted. "We have to talk about this before…"

"Right."

"I don't want to talk about it."

Lily pulled away from James' hands to see Harry. Thankfully, the blood had already stemmed. "Why not?"

Defiance was shining back out at her from her own eyes and the eleven year-old's face had gone paler, but his words were clear. "Because there's no point. I still have to go back. You might not remember—or you probably won't. Why talk about it at all?"

"Because that's not what you really want," Lily said with preternatural certainty. "It isn't."

Harry's eyes scrunched behind his glasses. "You don't know what I want."

Lily suddenly realized she had gotten in a stand-off with this stubborn child, who would one day be hers. Who was acting as if she couldn't see the emotion he was desperately trying to hide. Who would have been crushed if they had turned him away now and just couldn't admit it. And if she had had any inclination to give him his way on this, it was lost with one look at his face. His sweet, terrified face.

"Oh Harry…"

"Hey," James put out a hand between them, but his focus was on their son-to-be. "Maybe that isn't what you want, but guess what? We are going to talk about it because we need to talk about it, alright?"

"We don't need to!" Harry said, his voice rising. "This is all wrong, isn't it? I have to go back and everything—" he blinked rapidly. "Everything…"

"Harry," Lily said softly. She clenched a fist as she watched a tear escape his eye and trail down his cheek and under his chin while he pretended it didn't.

"NO." James' eyes burned as brightly as she'd ever seen them, his jaw unbreakable. "We are a family. You don't go back until we agree."

"It won't make—"

"Oy!"

Lily blinked at the bark and saw James as the stern, resolute father he could become someday in that one syllable. He seemed to grow taller, and caused something in the room to change. And she was held captive by it.

"Even if it ends up coming to nothing. Even if we forget. You are not leaving until we agree, because we are together in this. Even if we'll never be together again after today…" his voice turned hoarse, but his gaze was still fire. "We either do this as one, or I don't care what the bloody laws of time and space are, we don't do it at all!"

James held out his hand and didn't break the boy's gaze. Harry looked between his face and his outstretched arm, his fingers twitching. James didn't give up. "Come on, little bloke," he said gently, sorrowfully. "…don't leave us like we left you."

Harry's hand shook slightly, but it clenched around James' all the same. Lily, moved by the same force, put hers atop theirs. They had been together, acted together before, but this was different. This was solid; it wouldn't be wrested apart by anyone.

Lily was the first to sink to the floor and fold her legs under her, but the boys were quick to follow.

"I should probably talk first, since I think I'm the one at odds." She licked her lips nervously. "I …I keep thinking about the fact that in a few years, we will be at war." James nodded at her encouragingly. "It's—war, it causes you to have to make sacrifices. I don't know why it happened to us, or if our deaths saved pain for someone …or more than one person. But that's just it. And I think about Harry—what about him?" She swallowed. "What if trying to change things costs his life instead?"

"How would that be?" James' brow was furrowed.

"I don't know! That's what scares me! I don't know! But I couldn't…"

"He had to bear it, though," James pointed out. He nodded his head at Harry. "Tell her how you feel. Tell us what you want to do, but make it the truth this time! We can't make a plan without knowing."

"I've told you how I felt," Harry said in a rush. He rubbed at his lightning-shaped scar with one small hand. "What else do you want me to tell you? That it was the worst? That I wish it hadn't happened? That I always hoped that—" he faltered.

"What did you hope?" James said, leaning forward. "What?"

And then Lily understood.

"You agree with me," Lily spoke into the silence, drawing both Harry and James toward her. "Don't you." She felt amazed by this revelation, but the more she spoke it aloud, the more she knew what he felt. And it was because she was feeling it herself.

"You agree with me, but it's only because you don't want to have hope in it."

"That's not true," Harry said, but there was bleakness, drowning the weak denial. "I want to hope that things could change. More than anything."

"But you can't, right?" Lily whispered. "Because if it didn't work out, it will hurt worse than it ever did. That's what scares you…" She took a deep breath and did what James told them to do. "And that's what scares me too. It's not about …I mean, I want to do the right thing. I want to help, I want the world to be better. But I'm selfish." She laughed, a little, self-deprecating laugh and she saw the wall Harry was drawing up get a little weaker. "I'm afraid it won't work."

"Evans…" James Potter drawled. There were unshed tears in her eyes, blurring her view of him, but she could still see the love emanating from him, somehow. "Thanks."

She puzzled his meaning for only a moment, and then she smiled. She could have never imagined that the day would dawn when James Potter would make complete sense to her, when all she would see is the partnership they'd form one day. But it had…

"We're gonna do this," he promised her, and he was the hope she couldn't give herself. "This is our adventure, right? Let's make it ours."

She wanted to kiss him again. If they had been alone, that's exactly what she would have done. She had to settle for waiting. Hopefully, she'd be settling for more.

"But there's something else," Harry said, breaking the loaded moment. "About the mirror."

Lily drifted out of her confession and back to their current predicament. She had guessed that it was more than a bad mood that prevented Harry from answering what he saw, but she had hoped that for once, it could be simple. "What's wrong?"

Harry's gaze skittered off to it, before returning to them. "I didn't see anything."

A/N: I'll leave it there for the moment. If you're back, thanks for picking this up again! If you're new, welcome! If you have thoughts, let me know ;)