Hi, so here is another chapter and this is a horrendously short chapter but I wanted to write about James and grief and everything that comes with it so therefore this was born.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

And the plot will really begin with the next chapter.

Please Read and Review.

The Beginning Of The End

Chapter 10-Extracurricular Activities

James learns how to relieve his life in the aftermath of his mother's death as he Sirius and Lily go back to school to start a new term wherein everything will change. Short Chapter.

The loss of his mother didn't lesson as time went by. The loss of her, of her words, her wisdom, her wit, didn't stop with her funeral. It didn't stop when he saw that great many people that had turned out to pay their respects to her. It didn't lessen when he came back home and Lily was there her red hair in a knot at the back of her head and Sirius and Remus and Peter. Marlene came as well and for the little wake afterwards where it was just the people he trusted in their own little bubble he found that he was exhausted. He felt like his whole body was crashing down around him and he went to bed that night and for the first time found that he could sleep.

But the pain didn't lesson one bit.

James was an old hand at this. He knew what he was facing. The pain of his father's passing had not lessoned over time and now the pain was a fresh as a cut from a curse, bleeding without showing blood, making his whole body and soul throb with a pulse of pain that would not go away.

But he found that he could get up in the morning.

With a little help from his friends.

Lily and Sirius stayed for the rest of the holidays. Remus had to go back to prepare for a full moon around New Years and Marlene had to go as well pretending that she didn't see Sirius's eyes stare at her as if he was trying to burrow through her head and see just what was inside her brain. Peter too had to leave though he did not give a reason. Or had he? He didn't know. If he was being honest with himself he had to admit that there were periods of the day at that time where he wasn't listening. His brain seemed to zone in and out at times and one day Peter was there and the next day he wasn't.

If he was being kind it was a blessing to have one lesson person hovering around.

If he was being unkind it was a welcome relief. And James…well…Merlin help him James hardly missed him.

Between Lily and Sirius there was an unspoken agreement as Christmas turned to New Year and New Year turned into the last week of the holidays. James didn't understand it and if he had been able to feel anything other than the pulsating pain that was racking his whole body he would have thought it rather funny. Sirius and Lily had been enemies almost since their first meeting. Over time her attitudes to Remus had warmed, (he didn't know about Peter) and her attitudes towards him had warmed (he assumed) but her attitude towards Sirius had remained the same. The one constant in this world.

Until now.

Well…there was something to be said for Dumbledore's theory that as students they should all be united against a common enemy, forgoing their inevitable differences.

James might have pointed that out at his mother's funeral (which Dumbledore and McGonagall had both attended along with Hagrid) but he had been too focused on trying to keep the screaming, howling grief from taking him whole. If he was going to break he was not going to do it in public. He was a Potter and he had his pride if not his parents.

Such a thought made him want to laugh and he couldn't understand why. The last thing he should want to do was to laugh at a time like this.

But he did.

It was only three days before they were due to go back to Hogwarts that Lily came down. She was dressed in the flannel pyjama's that she had been taking to wearing to bed in the spare room and James who had been sat staring at a cold cup of tea suddenly found that he could look at her again and admire the natural beauty that was Lily Evans in the morning, deliciously sleep rumpled and her hair in a messy twist on top of her head.

Stupidly like the idiot he was he thought that he would give quite a bit to be greeted by this sight every morning.

Without Sirius in his boxers stomping in two seconds later.

The thought made him smile and even though the muscles felt stiff he knew that it was a genuine smile and the iron band around his heart lessoned a little. It was as if he could see and smile and do all the normal things again.

Maybe Dumbledore was right on another thing as well. Maybe grief was one of those things that no muggle nor wizard could understand.

"I need to go home today" Lily said leaning on the counter. "I need to pack"

"Pack?"

Her face turned to him and her smile was gentle. "Yes James" she said softly.

"Pack. We go back to Hogwarts in three days"

They did, didn't they?

"You are coming back?" she asked looking at him and he laughed, and it felt strange, but it didn't feel bad. And he thought that he could laugh again.

And that had to mean something too.

"Yes" he said finally at her encouraging smile. "My mother would come back as a ghost if I announced I was dropping out my NEWT year"

Sirius patted him on the shoulder.

"Aye that she would" he said and James took in the dark shadows under his best friends eyes and realised that he too had been suffering with James and without him in the loss of his mother. Of his mother too all things considered.

It had been an odd little world that they had lived in the three of them for the past few days and weeks.

Odd but good.

That was as much as his tired brain could call it. Maybe one day when he was old himself and his own son was an adult he would be able to look back and remember this part of his life with more clarity. But as of right now it was a struggle to remember what he packed when he went to Hogwarts.

"I…shit did we have holiday homework?"

"Tons of it" Lily said quietly. "Sirius and I got ours done during the night" she side-eyed his friend for a second and then her lips quirked a little as if she was fighting a smile.

"You are not…too terrible at Transfiguration I suppose"

Sirius shot her another cock-sure grin that had been missing on his face since they had come home for the holidays.

"And I suppose you are not…too terrible at Potions"

James smiled again and then—

"Shit was I supposed to—"

"No. McGonagall mentioned that you had a clean slate. But you might have to have a couple of catch up lessons just for the theory. But that's fine, she's also lined up a substitute for the next match if you want it as well"

"Why?" James said feeling slightly insulted. "Does she think I'm gonna fly myself into the ground or something?"

"I think" Sirius said quietly. "That she was thinking of you mate. Thinking maybe you didn't want to be the centre of attention at a Quidditch match in the first week after…well…everything"

James could concede the point only too well. Indeed the thought of going back to school was sending butterflies through his stomach and he didn't know why. He had gone back to school after his father had died and it had been okay. But then again he'd had the knowledge that his mother was always an owl away or a floo call depending on how generous a mood McGonagall was in. Now once he left this house there was nobody in it to make it a home.

Not unless he had a family himself.

And he was a long way off from that.

Shit…what was he supposed to do with the house? Find a house elf to look after it in his absence? Rent it? Sell it?

"Don't" Sirius said kicking him under the table. "Don't get lost in your head James. Next door will look after the house. And then we will be home come Easter"

"Seems strange how fast the year has gone" Lily said quietly taking a sip of her steaming mug of tea.

"Seems strange at how fast all of them have gone" James said just as quiet.

"Seems like just yesterday we were starting. All of us nervous as fuck and terrified about what was coming next"

"And excited" Lily said quietly. "I was so excited to learn how to use magic. And to think…of everything that's happened between now and then. And of what's going to come next"

There was a pause at her words and James thought he understood just what she was feeling. When he had started Hogwarts he'd had two parents, she'd had a sister that was still speaking to her (it hadn't been hard to get that story out of Marlene), and her best friend had been James's worst enemy. Sirius had, had a brother and a mother in his life and nowhere to turn from the endless abuse he had suffered simply because he was different than all the rest and then there had been the happiness that had permeated the first years. That was the problem with it now. The first years that he had seen on the train leaving school had looked apprehensive. James could understand. A lot of them didn't know what they would be returning to or if they would come back to school at all.

Strange how in a few months everything could change.

"I should get dressed and head out" Lily said wincing as her neck cracked a little. "Thank you for your hospitality James. I will see you both at school I'd think"

"Do you need help apperating back?" Sirius asked.

"If you wouldn't mind. I'm three weeks away from my test with the rest of the Hogsmeade lot."

"You can do it though"

"Of course I can"

"Then why don't you—"

"Because that would be wrong Sirius" Lily said and she sounded much more like her usual self than she had done all the days that she had been living here helping James with arrangements and the simple day to day things.

Like making sure there was food that he could eat (or at the very least pick at under the guise of eating).

He took a mouthful of tea and let the warmth wash over him again.

He couldn't stay in this house forever, he couldn't stay in this perpetual cloud of grief forever either.

It was time to start putting one foot in front of the other.

But the grief didn't lesson.

One day he knew it would.

But not today.

"Your sure your okay to go back?" Sirius asked him as they climbed on the train and stowed away their trunks.

"Yes" James said quietly. He felt like he had been telling everyone and their dog (pun not intended as far as Sirius was concerned) that he was ready to go back for most of the day. He was ready to be around people. He needed to be around people.

The grief didn't lesson however.

He wasn't looking for her but he saw Lily out of the corner of his eye come on the train with Marlene who was looking windswept. It was a dull, grey windy January and the further they got up north the more chance there was of snow which meant that everyone was as bundled up as they could be.

Lily caught his eyes and brown met green and she smiled. James smiled back. It was getting easier and easier to do that now. To smile and laugh and just be himself. Be James. For better or worse.

The grief didn't lesson.

One day he knew it would.

And today he knew, was the start of everything.

And there you go, I hope that you enjoy this chapter and I will do my best to bring you the next one sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter-As our main plot begins, James, Lily, Sirius, Marlene, Remus and Mary go to Hogsmeade on their January night trip. One moment everything is golden and then...then all hell breaks loose.