Hi all, so I am back to this wonderful fandom with a new story! I am taking a delve into a fandom, an era and a couple that has always fascinated me and it's the James/Lily era.

This is the second part of the story that started in the Beginning of the End and these are the moments in the first Wizarding War and the build up to Harry.

This story will be twenty chapters long and some events/events that do take place might be missed.

Also spelling/grammar...not my best thing. Again keep that in mind when you read...please.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.

Please Read and Review.

And on a side note, I like so many other Fanfiction Authors no longer receive notifications via email about reviews/PMs etc. So if you do send any it might be a while, if ever before I get back to you. Please keep that in mind for it is not intentional-If anyone has a fix please let me know

I do not receive PMs anymore, if you have a question stick it in a review and I will answer it in the chapter notes.

So yeah this one is short because I don't really know how to write Petunia but I hope you enjoy this. Again what happened to Lily' s parents and the breakdown of her relationships with them are my own doing and nobody else's.

The End Of The Beginning

Chapter 5-When Darkness Falls

Lily goes in search of her family to tell them the news about her engagement only to realise that family comes in many shapes and forms.

She had gone to the house alone.

James had wanted to go with her but Lily didn't want him too. She'd had a pretty good idea what she was walking into and she didn't want James to experience the bitchy charm that was her sister and the lack of interest her mother showed in it. considering James's mother had been so nice and so kind even when she had been near death she did not know how to show James that she had not come from the same home that he had done where the love between him and his parents had been free and easy and so manageable. He had known nothing but love and Lily had been loved right up until her father had died and then she had watched as grief had dimmed the love that a mother should have for her child regardless.

All because Lily had been unable to fight death. All because her magic which gave her so much of an option in life couldn't fight against death. Because when death came for her father she had been powerless to stop him as it was supposed to be.

And what had happened?

She had lost her mother in the process of losing her father.

She had never really had Petunia anyway.

But here she was telling her own mother and her sister that she was engaged to a man that neither one of them had met and he wanted to tell them how wonderful it was and how excited for her future she was but the truth of the matter was that it was going to take all of her effort to invite them to the wedding.

And what kind of person did that make her? What kind of family did that make them? If she was worried about telling her mother and her sister about her impending wedding, if she was worried about inviting them, if she was worried about them turning up not because she was afraid they wouldn't but that she was afraid that they would.

How the hell was she supposed to explain that to James?

She knocked on the door and Petunia answered. Dressed all in black she took Lily in like she was a stranger.

"Oh you" she said by way of a greeting.

"Yes me"

"Too late, she's dead" was all she said and then she tried to shut the door but not for nothing was Lily fast and so she stood her foot in the way and raised an eyebrow.

"Whose dead?"

"Mother"

It hit her like a punch to the solar plexus and she gasped gripping onto the door. Petunia watched her for a second and then she sighed opening the door and letting Lily walk into her childhood home that she had knocked on the front door of like she didn't have a key.

She stepped into the house looking around as if she expected her mother to still be there. She was not. She was not and she could understand it but at the same time she couldn't understand it. Boxes were pilled up and she turned to look at her sister and something in her face must have told Petunia to talk and to talk now because her sister elaborated.

"She went in her sleep Lily. And don't look at me like that we both know it's been coming for months, it wasn't just you she stopped communicating with at the end. I had her cremated and buried next to Dad. I didn't do the big funeral, what was the point? I thought…I thought you'd be better off not—"

"Not being there?"

"She didn't want you there" Petunia said flatly. "You think I'm an idiot? You think I don't know that everything in the news is down to your lot? You think I don't know what the deaths and the destruction and the burning and the rest of it is about? I know your lot are heading into a war. Please don't think that because I don't have magic I don't know the signs. I want you as far away from me and mine"

Lily looked at her and she found that she couldn't muster up any irritation. Petunia and her had not had a relationship since she was eleven and she knew that it was too late to start it now. They were past the point now and more to the point she didn't want to fight for it. What that said about her, that she didn't want to fight for it…well…she really could not think.

Not now.

Not ever.

"Did she know?"

"That you were bringing down hell upon us by being what you are? No I don't think so. But she never asked for you Lily. To be fair she never asked for me either"

"I'm engaged" she said quietly.

"So am I" Petunia said and Lily let out a hollow laugh sitting down on one of the faded old armchairs and looking up at her sister who looked down on her both of them exhausted past the point of fighting.

"So that's it then? You bury my mother without telling me? You didn't think that I needed to know and don't say you don't know how to get in touch with me, you saw Dad do it for four years"

"At some point I was going to tell you" Petunia said tiredly. "It's been ten days Lily and then I had to tell Vernon about you and what you are and—"

"Who…oh"

"He didn't like it. Thinks I'm right to let you go"

"Oh is that what your doing?" Lily said sarcastically. Petunia sighed as if she was a child who was up before bedtime and hyper because over overeating.

Lily hated that Petunia could still make her feel that way.

She hated everything that Petunia made her feel.

Right now it was hard not to hate her sister full stop.

"You and I aren't good for each other Lily." Petunia said flatly. "You know It, I know it, Vernon knows it, your man probably knows it and that horrible boy from Spinner's End probably knows it too. You and I were never good for each other and we cannot be in each other's lives. I have the right to build a life away from you and your kind and I don't want you bringing danger to my front door. I heard some of the stuff that was being said, your not really considered one of them in some circles and that's why they want to kill you"

It was amazing really Lily thought bitterly, how she could condense the entire war into one thing and make it all about herself. She looked at her mother on the fucking mantle and couldn't muster up any tears for her or for her sister or for this, her childhood home, everything of value she had already taken with her when she had left the last time. She had not looked back then, she was not going to look back now.

The parting of the ways.

How neat and how clever that saying was. How perfect that saying was to describe this nightmare that was unfolding out in front of her.

"Do you really not care if I live or die?" she asked quietly.

Petunia sighed looking at her and Lily knew with the same instinct that she had, had since childhood, that she had irritated her sister again. This time she found that she didn't care. Let her think that she was a freak. She was not going to see the woman again was she? And really what was that but a tragedy in itself.

But no, the true tragedy was that she didn't care.

"I don't want you dead" Petunia said finally. "And I do wish you all the happiness in the world but I don't want you in my life. I don't want the constant danger that surrounds you Lily. And it does. And you are kidding yourself if you think that it doesn't"

Lily nodded.

"I guess I should go" she said flatly.

Petunia nodded and then Lily was gone.

It was the nicest conversation that she and her sister had, had since she had turned eleven, certainly since she had turned fourteen.

And unbeknownst to either one of them it would be the last one that they ever had.

In this life anyway.

When Lily left she did not look back.

There was no point in it anyway.

When she arrived back at the little flat James was making pasta like it was second nature. He took one look at Lily's face and turned the pan off the boil. Lily was just relieved that they were alone. It made breaking down so much easier when one did it in private rather than with her entire friendship group looking in.

"Lily?"

She shook her head her hand over her mouth but not for nothing was James, James and so he took her hand pulled her down to the battered couch and let her cry it out on his shoulder as she told him the whole stuttering story.

"Do you want me to go over there and have a word?" he asked looking furious on her behalf and she felt her heart swell with love for him.

"No" she said truthfully because she did not.

"There's no point" she pointed out and he nodded at her clearly not sure on what to say next and she smiled at him through her tears.

"Looks like my side of the wedding is going to be a bit thin" she said and he smiled wiping away her tears with that same gentle smile that he's had fallen in love with months ago when he had changed from the arrogant prick that she had known and loved to hate to the strong man who she had loved to love. Who she had stubbornly grown to love and who was going to help her make a new family.

"Hey that's fine" he said with a grin. "Mine's not gonna be massive anyway. Besides…family is what you make of it and I think we've got some good friends who will be happy to be the stand ins for you"

Lily thought about it, she thought of Sirius and Remus and Peter and Marlene and the members of the Order that were still here and Hagrid and Dumbledore and McGonagall and though she did not want to think upon it she found that she was thinking of Severus, he too would tell her that Petunia was not worth crying over and she could have laughed because James and Sev had finally agreed upon something (even though they both didn't know it yet) and she knew that James was right.

Family was what you made of it and when darkness falls you found light and that was what she had done.

"Promise me something" she said stroking his cheek with the back of his hand.

"Anything"

"Promise me that we won't be like them when we have kids"

"We won't" James said with a wry smile. "I promise you I won't ever let it. We have each other and we have our friends and we have our love. And we can make the world with that"

She kissed him and she tried to pour all of her love for him into that kiss. She felt him shudder beneath her touch and she stood up and pulled him with her towards the bedroom.

"If we want kids" she whispered against his lips, "I think we should try and practice for them don't you?"

James pulled back and then he grinned and there he was, the man that she had fallen in love with, the man that was untouched by the war and she fell in love with him just a little bit more.

"Fair warning" he said grinning. "I want a whole Quidditch team"

"You wish" she said grinning.

James caught her eye and he kissed her with more passion this time flipping his wand so that dinner was stacked away and the door was locked and silencing charms on the door.

"We have all the time in the world darling" he said and she grinned against his lips her body already responding to his touch and she tugged him towards his room and he followed and they found a new kind of love together that transcended any of the pain and misery that they had felt before.

They were Lily and James, James and Lily and they were all the family that they needed.

And they had all the time in the world to build their little Quidditch Team.

Not that she was going to tell James that.

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

Next Chapter-It's Christmas and the Marauders, Lily and Marlene share what they don't know yet but is their last Christmas the six of them. There Sirius asks Marlene a question and Lily begins to plan her wedding. Peter begins to play mind games.