A/N:Sorry for the MUCH longer delay, but numerous graduations and work took up quite a bit of time. I actually still have to refine the second part of this chapter (canon Harry's part), but I do want you all to have something, so I'm putting the first half of the chapter up now. The second part will be up as soon as I finish Harry's exchange with Draco. (Something to look forward to!)

Hope you all enjoy this shorter-than-I-desired first half of Chapter 5!

Chapter 5: Godric's Hollow

James Potter had just finished putting his infant son back to bed for the second time that evening. It had become clear to him very quickly after his birth that although he may have had a good time being the life of the party during his Hogwarts career, he had to be more mature now that he was raising a child. He was still very much the same light-hearted person who was so popular at Hogwarts (at least as far as he was concerned), but he knew his first priority would always be Harry.

Harry had been particularly stubborn the whole night when it came to eating his dinner or staying still. All he had wanted to do was play with Remus, who was visiting that day. He liked how personable his son already was, but also wished that he was easier to keep under control.

Runs in the family, I guess, James thought as a smile came across his fatigued face. There may well be a second-generation Marauder running wild through school in a few years.

James went back down the stairs as Remus was walking back into the sitting room from the wash room.

The sitting room was the part of the house James was quite proud of. Seeing as he did live in Godric's Hollow, he saw fit to deck the place out with red paint and gold (or at least yellow or light brown) furniture. When he once went to spend time with his now-wife, Mary, she asked if she could pick out the furniture. There was a fairly extravagant muggle furniture store in her part of England, so they bought from there.

While there, they purchased a gold-colored couch, love seat, and two chairs, which now took up the center of the room and all sat on top of a red rug James found. It was red and had a large griffin on it. They lined the walls with two dressers, mainly because Mary thought they looked good, and a cabinet the Potters had owned for years that belonged to Godric Gryffindor himself.

James' favorite addition, though, was a yellow shag carpet that he discovered at the muggle shop. While shag carpeting had existed in other parts of the world for years, no one James's family knew had flooring like it. He loved its soft-yet-chaotic feel that resembled his hair and thought it gave the house something no one else could match.

Mary did not agree. She advised against it at first and still commented on it from time to time. She said it was difficult to keep clean, even with magic, but mostly she was aware of its prominence in the muggle world the decade before. She'd come across muggle movies at the time and felt it made the place feel too much like a place Godric Gryffindor would live in if he had been roommates with Barry White, the muggle singer.

James caught up with Remus near the doorway and said, "That kid just loves to play, and he has so much energy."

"I'm actually impressed at how good you are with him. A few years ago, I don't think you'd have been anywhere near ready," Remus replied.

"Well war does that, I guess. A bloke can't survive what we did if his skin doesn't harden at least a little."

"True. I guess we all aren't the same merry band of pranksters we were back in school, eh?"

James looked aghast. "Now wait a minute! Speak for yourself. Just because I've gotten all grown-up and such for my son doesn't mean I'm not a Marauder through and through. I'm just as capable of coming up with some of the most, "creative," solutions to problems."

"Creative is certainly one word for your ideas," Mary snidely commented from the chair as the two sat back down.

"You just wait a few years. Before Harry goes off to Hogwarts, I'm getting our map back from Filch. It'll be my greatest gift to him for school," James said proudly.

"I don't want Harry becoming a wild prankster like you all did," she said firmly. "It took you over six years to end up with me and I don't want my son scaring off all the good girls for that long."

"Oh come on! It would be great! Remus, you can't tell me we didn't have fun at Hogwarts. Even when you were at your stuffiest, you enjoyed a good prank on Snape."

"I won't deny that a lot of our time was enjoyable, and we were really creative at times," Remus had to take a moment to chuckle from the memories, "but there are definitely things we did during fifth and sixth year especially that I wouldn't want my son doing."

"Since you bring up the future of your personal life, I met some witches who just moved into town from Ulster. Mary and I thought the short redhead… what was her name? Lea, maybe? Anyway, she seemed to be a right match for you. Want me to set it up?"

"Thanks anyway, James, but I'd rather not," Remus said as his demeanor seemed to darken.

"You always say that," James said, trying to mask his frustration. This was far from the first time a conversation like this seemed to abruptly stop. "Even at Hogwarts you never really tried to flirt like Sirius and I did."

"NO ONE tried to flirt like Sirius and you did."

"True, but it was an absolute rarity for you, and I know you showed interest in girls at times. So what's the issue?"

"Is it your… condition?" Mary said, trying to approach what was clearly an elephant in the room.

"Partially. I don't know what would happen if I lost control."

"But Snape, grating as he can be sometimes, has given you plenty of wolfsbane. It's not like he'd stop," James offered.

"It isn't just the danger of losing control, though, it's what it could do in the future." Remus withdrew into himself as he said in a barely audible voice, "I could have a child who was… like me. Who had the same problems. I couldn't put a child through that."

"But there's no guarantee that that would happen," Mary said.

"Nor one that said it wouldn't," Remus said pointedly, finding his voice again. "And even if my kid didn't, too many other factors could go wrong."

"You're sounding more cowardly than I'd ever expect from you," James said.

"I'm not being cowardly. I'm being realistic!"

"So you're just going to avoid love for the rest of your life?"

Remus hesitated before he answered. He didn't know what he could say. But one thing he understood was that this decision wasn't made hastily. He had been weighing this issue more than ever since Sirius and Petunia married, leaving him as the only one of his friends without someone to share his life with. It was a lonely life, but one that he felt he had to deal with.

"It's late. I need to get home."

"Are you actually going to walk away from this conversation?" James asked as he stared unable to comprehend how his friend could be this unwilling to deal with this.

"There's nothing to run from. I'll see you later." And with that, Remus went into the fireplace and used the Floo powder to get home.

"It's a shame, really," Mary said after she and James finished preparing for bed in silence. "He's great with Harry and I think he'd be great for someone."

"But he's got a lot to work through, clearly," James said. "Sooner or later, he's got to learn that eventually, everyone's baggage comes back home to roost. You've just got to deal with it when it does."

James and Mary then climbed into bed and sought as much sleep as they could before Harry awoke again.

Remus got home and lied in bed for nearly two hours before finally getting to sleep.

Neither man had any way of knowing that Severus and Lily Snape were finding out firsthand how true James' words to Mary were.

Nor did any of them know how much the Snapes' baggage would affect them all in the morning.