A/N - THIS IS NOT THE LAST CHAPTER! Thought I would start with that. This story is going to have 21 chapters in total along with a possible epilogue. The two parts that I was originally going to write in this chapter seemed better to me as separate. I like the tone of this chapter and didn't want to change it by throwing in a Dumbledore confrontation which the last chapter will include. Ending this with a smile I felt was much better. However this chapter is very short because I decided to split it. It is just over 1,500 words. Sorry. I hope to get the last chapter out by christmas eve. Epilogue sometime before the new year (if it isn't really bad to write). Thank you all for reading.

Eynsworth Palace, Late Evening, December 23, 1983

""Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now, don't you cry!

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, that's an Irish lullaby."

James Potter tightened his hands around the small boys back as she felt the movement from outside the room the lullaby he was crooning dying in his throat. His place learning a back against the headboard of the oversized childs canopy bed. His body was slumped against the headboard his feet lying straight before him as he held tight to the small boys form. The boy had long since fell asleep but James could not find the strength needed to uncurl his arms from around the boys body and lay him down. Penelope and Jordan had already been checked, bathed and sent to bed along with all of the other children. Remus and Petunia setting out to bring their parents along to the house for Christmas eve so the families could be reunited by Christmas Day. Lily was, to be truthful he didn't really know.

Though it sounded horrible he hadn't really paid all that much mind to anything after he knew Jordan and Penelope were safe and his brain snapped out of Auror mode. A hand laid on his shoulder and his hands tightened more, stirring the boy ever so slightly. Though he knew it was completely irrational he felt as if the hand were here to steal the boy, his boy, from him once again. To sweep the child in his arms away to some distant place were James couldn't reach him. A look to the side showed the all too familiar red hair of his wife as she pressed herself oddly against the side of his back her own hands moving to Harry. Taking one arm James edged her around. Wrapping herself around both Harry and James Lily pressed a kiss to each of the males foreheads.

"Now we just need Dirt Money," she whispered as she laid her head against her husband's shoulder wrapping her arms around him to samwich Harry between. James let out a breathy laugh.

"I will firecall Augusta tomorrow." He said his voice only half there one hand falling from Harry's back to curl around Lily. They were not sitting normally, Lily purchased on his lower thighs, Harry curled in his lap, yet they fit together like oddly misshapen puzzle pieces. Slipping down from the head board positioning Lily at his side and Harry in front of her, relinquishing his hold to allow Lily a death grip of her own as she curled protectively around their boy. Wrapping himself around her he smiled running his hand absentmindedly though her hair until they both closed their eyes falling into a half sleep.

Eynsworth Palace, Dawn, December 24, 1983

"Harry?" Came the first question as Lily and James both entered the kitchen at Ainsworth hours before the dawn, knowing they would not be able to sleep another moment without knowing what was going to happen next. Apparently they were not the only ones, seeing as Sirius, Marlene, Mary, Regulus, Petunia, and Remus were already seated haphazardly around the area. It was Petunia who had spoke, noting their presence first.

"Asleep," Lily nodded as she moved to her sisters side to seek the comfort only family could give. James hopped onto the nearest counter hands folding themselves in his lap.

"What happens now," It was Regulus who spoke this time bringing up a conversation that most of them had already had discussed, though at the moment none of them seemed very poised to answer it. Remus's amber eyes fell away from the groups gaze and fell upon the space directly beside his right kneecap. He was hyper aware of how much weight he held in this particular conversation.

It was a combination of a wish to fight and Dumbledore's goading of debts due that had him running to the front lines and bringing all the marauders with him the middle of their seventh year. Not that James, Lily, Sirius, and everyone else wouldn't have found their way into the war regardless. Now stood a similar situation. Dumbledore would come to him again, wielding a similar speech about how Greyback and pack were pressuring other packs to join Voldemort and how the order could use their numbers, etcetera.

And despite how much the man hated Dumbledore at that moment for trying to take Harry away, for hiding valuable information, for not valuing the lives of his friends as much as Remus himself did. He didn't know if he would decline. Even now he found himself making excuses for the old man left and right. Grasping at straws trying to keep the benevolent omnipresent grandfather image of the man that he had known in school.

Sirius was staring intently at the group around him. Waiting for the first, I will fight, so that he would not haste in joining them. He had other things to think about sure. Astraea, Marlene, his family. But the people who surrounded him were a part of that family. Be it by blood or friendship, and he would not fault to join any one of them who were planning on lining their toe up at the battle line.

Marlene hung tight to his arm one hand at his wrist the other at his armpit as she leaned into him. She hid her face in the most subtle way possible. She knew she would never be on a front line again but the thought of someone she loved being there worried her all the more. She had lost one family the first time around, she was not in any hurry to lose the one she found after that.

Regulus, Nymphadora, Mary, and even Petunia and Lily sat like soldiers waiting for orders. Fight or stand down.

James cleared his throat and slowly opened his lips that seemed to had chapped instantly after the question was posed. He reached out to tighten his grip on Lily's hand before reaching over and patting the hand Petunia had on the counter. Taking the cue she interlocked fingers with Mary and soon the misshapen and broken group of nine adults were all physically connected in some way or another creating a circle that any muggle elementary school teacher would balk at. James then let his face relax to a solemn smile.

"I say, we as a family, have given more than enough on the front line in this war,"

"So we hide?" Lily confirmed. James let out a breathy sigh once again. It was no secret that Lily had not liked the fact her friends were fighting in the war as it went on. Lily had originally believed in the cause enough to fight for it but that fire, that edge slipped away among the order's body count. Soon that edge to fight for justice was only barely there. Then they lost their Harry and that all but smothered any social justice fire she had left. James would be lying if he didn't agree to a similar feeling in himself.

"I... no, there are too many others outside of these walls that we can't abandon" he stops, he stops because though he wants to agree. But at the same time He would never be able to sit back hiding and wonder if Agusta and Neville were okay either. Or his godmother, even if he hadn't talked to the woman in years. Even though he wanted to wipe his hands clean of the fighting and the war a part of him couldn't bring himself to do it without making sure the parts of him he had already gifted to others, the parts he had no control of, were safe as well.

"So do we run?" Petunia asked.

"Now Prongs, you know I have never been one for running. Messes up the hair." Sirius said meeting his eyes from where he sat his face moving into an expression that was less solemn but still held the feeling of gravity it needed.

"Are you serious," Lily asked after a few minutes.

"Why of course Lily-Flower, after all that is what my parents named me." Nymphadora, high on pain potion, was the first to laugh at the statement and soon the others were following. Not long after the group was in pieces each red in the face with laughter that ranged from silent and gasping too loud and snorting. Each one feeling the gravity of their conversation, the stress from the past few months, and everything else melt away.

In that moment they had stopped fighting, completely. Something the rest of the wizarding world had done two years ago and the nine there had never allowed themselves the liberty of. Their war ended in mourning not celebration. They changed from fighting a war to fighting themselves each day to push forward in the wake of what the war left for them. But that was over now, Harry was home, the Nine voted in their favor, No one was keeping anything secret, and well Harry was home.

All was well.

And it was Christmas.

Given the circumstances, what better present could they have asked for?