Title: Casualties.

Potterverse: Marauder's/First War Era.

Pairings: James/Lily, very brief mention of Sirius/Random Muggle!OC & maybe Slightly Implied Sirius/Marlene if you wanna take it that way but you really don't have to :P

Rating: T for angsTy.

Warning: I love controversial. Language, angst, triggers, mentions of casual sex, blood and hookers are all wonderful possibilities! Just kiddin' on the hookers part. Maybe. Who knows with Sirius Black!

Also included in my obligatory ramble: Any opposing views expressed are not necessarily those of the authors - so dun' yell at me. This obligatory copy-pasted ramble does not mean all of these things will be included in this story, but it does mean they might surface!

WRITTEN FOR The Hogwarts Express (Facebook Group) Daily Prophet: Creative Column prompt competition!

Summary: [Casualty · noun: a person or thing badly affected by an event or situation.] The bodies weren't the only casualties of the First Wizarding War. (Marauder's Era, 4-Part One-Shot?)

-Lysium

PART I: PRONGS.

James Potter sucked in a harsh breath as the ice cold water rushed down his unusually ashen, stubbled face, prickling barbs of dull, stinging pain seeping into his high cheek bones and sending an ache down the dip of his rigid, tense spine. His once Quidditch-calloused palms gripped at the sink sides, ragged breaths drawing in quick and sharp: all of which seemed to stop short just before reaching his lungs.

How could they have done this? He wondered desperately as he stared into his own pools of hazel, burning bloodshot veins and deep, dark bags staring back at him; his long fingers twitched against cool porcelain, his eyes beginning to trace the dull tan filigree wallpaper behind him as they threatened to roll into the back of his spinning head.

It was an all too well known fact that James Potter loved Lily Potter like no other - it was also an all too well known fact that he had since he was a 13 year old little punk, grinning and teasing the little spit-fire, freckled redhead in a dimly lit corridor on their way back from Potions with Sirius. But Lily Evans hadn't taken his shit that day - oh no, quite the opposite - Lily Evans had jutted out her dotted chin with all her fire, emerald eyes smoldering like a recently fired pistol, removed her wand from her pocket (Sirius and James had, of course, laughed at this) and blasted him straight back into the corridor wall. 13 year old James Potter had been stuck to that grimy, cold brick for 3 entire hours until a panicking, adolescent Sirius, raven hair tousled around his head in frustration, had finally run off to find a Professor to unstick him.

Ironically enough, it was that exact moment that Lily Juniper Evans had hooked James Fleamont Potter like a fish behind the eye.

Lily wasn't just his wife - oh no - she wasn't just his childhood crush finally captured, wasn't some adolescent challenge he had won, not some trophy wife or golden prize - Lily was his soulmate. People tended to give him strange looks or scoff (especially Sirius) when he voiced such a fact: a lot of people simply didn't believe in the idea of soulmates - but it was something that a person could never fully understand until they experienced it. The feeling of wholeness and content that James felt when he was with Lily was unparalleled - Lily was the sun that sustained everything good that James was. She was the calm that he could wrap himself in at the end of the day, when he washed the dirt and blood from his hands and set his wand down for just the night, the reason he fought so hard to make it home every single day of this war - but how could they have let this happen?

A child. A baby.

His hands trembled as they ran shakily through his jet black mess of coarse hair, fingers knitting at the base of his skull and elbows resting on the countertop as he tried to take deep, even breaths - the memories of their last battle with the Order still burned fresh in his mind. He could still name every single Order member who had been injured, every civilian, every Auror, the names of the muggle families who had been murdered and every Death Eater that had been apprehended and arrested that night as the smoke from a burning muggle neighborhood began to clear. The smell still clung to the inside of his nostrils, so fresh he could nearly taste it on his tongue: sharp and coppery with an overwhelming burn, and the sobs of the orphaned child whose muggle parents had been murdered still rang in his ears whenever he closed his eyes at night. And they were bringing a child into this world.

Did James even deserve a child? A sweet, innocent, half-him baby - a girl who may have Lily's eyes, or perhaps a boy who would be cursed with the untamable Potter-hair gene - he laughed dryly to himself at the thought.

Lily did, James knew without a shadow of a doubt that Lily did: with her healing hands and gentle heart, her kind eyes and her natural habit of mother hen-ing any and everyone around her. Lily had saved so many lives in this war - at St. Mungo's as a healer and working behind the scenes in the Order - Lily had saved countless lives - sometimes even when those lives didn't deserve to be saved, when they would get straight back up and continue down Voldemort's path. Of course Lily deserved a half-her baby, bundled in a pink or a blue blanket - or whatever color it was that she wanted - with rosy little cheeks and squinting little eyes seeing light for the first time - he could picture the maternal smile on her face already, but James?

James had killed people in this war - James had taken sons from mothers and fathers from their children, left wives as widowers and taken away futures: people that may have done true good one day, seen the errors of their ways, repented for their sins. James didn't have hands that healed like Lily, he didn't have hands that did good anymore - he had the hands of a killer, hands that didn't deserve to hold a sweet, innocent baby anymore, let alone have one of his very own.

He exhaled a shaky breath, allowing himself to tip backwards against the wall and sinking down it with the full weight of what they had done.

Of course he didn't regret it - a baby - he and Lily were going to have their very own baby; but the fact of the matter was people were dying, every single day: people on the side of Voldemort, and people on the side of the Order. His friends, his comrades, his old school mates and acquaintances throughout the years: sometimes right in front of him.

And now this pure little miracle was growing inside the love of his life, half him and half her and all love; and as he sat alone on the cold tile floor of their bathroom - shaking and feeling as if he may vomit for the next 18 years straight, anxious and afraid, elated and overwhelmed - a protective flame began to spark in his heart, lighting a fire at the inside walls of his chest and over his taut shoulders. And in that exact moment, James Potter knew that he would do anything to make sure Lily and their tiny half-her, half-him baby made it through this war.

James knew that they would be his new reason to fight, his new reason to ensure Voldemort didn't succeed, his new reason to come home at the end of every day - bruised and battered but still breathing at the very least, he would fight for them until the very end. James Potter would kill, not because of, but for them - and if that made him an even worse person than he already was, at least his little half-him, half-her son or daughter would still have a chance in the world.

James' baby would have a chance to be all the good he would never be again, because James Potter would do whatever he could to achieve a Wizarding world of peace - no matter what that took from him.

These are the casualties of war.