Disclaimer:

I don't own any of this. I wish I did. Really, I do.

If anyone wants to get me the royalties for H.P. for Christmas. feel free.

Lily Potter (nee Evans)'s Greatest Secrets

She always believed in magic, always. When her parents told her stories about witches and wizards and unicorns and dragons, she never doubted for a minute that they were real. It was Petunia who laughed at her and called her a baby for still believing in things like fairies. So, to please Petunia, she'd pretended like she didn't believe it either. But she never stopped, and she believed that that was why she became a witch though Petunia didn't.

She never loved Severus. The first time she saw him, she pitied him. Then, as they talked and played, they became friends, best friends. But she could never have loved him, ever. She knew he loved her and she felt horrible, because nothing in the world could make her feel the same way. Severus was her only friend growing up. The other kids didn't like her because of the things that happened around her. Of course she didn't know it was magic then, but Severus was different. Severus was like her though a small part of her knew that their friendship could not last because, as with Muggles, wizards were different from each other. And Severus and Lily were too different.

But once they got to Hogwarts, everything between them changed. Lily made more friends, lots more friends, most of which grew up to be aurors or healers or other great, influential members of society. Her best friends, Emmaline Vance and Alice Prewett (later Alice Longbottom), both became aurors and joined the Order, just like she did. But Severus, Severus made friends with a group that joined Voldemort almost as soon as they left Hogwarts. While her mentor was Alice's cousin Fabian Prewett, who was in his fourth year when she was in her first. Severus's mentor was Lucius Malfoy, who was the same age as Fabian. Fabian became and auror. Lucius was one of the Death Eaters who helped murder Fabian and his brother Gideon. Perhaps circumstance tore Lily and Severus apart, or perhaps it was the difference between Gryffindor and Slytherin, or the fact that they came from two different backgrounds. But the rift between Lily and Severus began to form the day after the sorting separated them and it hurt more than Lily would admit, just as the way him calling her a mudblood hurt more than she would ever tell anyone, more than she ever allowed anyone to know.

She noticed James Potter the day she met him aboard the Hogwarts Express. She always thought that he was arrogant and proud but never a bully. He didn't know it, but she'd seen the Slytherins try to curse him and his friends when they were not looking. But they were annoying, and more than once, she would have murdered them or cursed the heck out of them if….if James Potter wasn't the best damn dueler in the school, save for her. By the time they were in fifth year, she was developing a slight crush on him. The day Severus called her a mudblood and James stood up for her, she knew that she really liked him. When she found out that he was the Head Boy to her Head Girl and felt giddy, because she got to work with James Potter, she knew she loved him. But she refused to admit it and she hated herself for actually liking him. So, she masked her love away, enough that even she started to believe that she hated him, because she couldn't bear to love James Potter, because you had to feel something, so she replaced love with hate, even though she regretted it for the rest of her life. She was in her seventh year when she finally admitted that she loved him and they'd been together ever since.

She loved Hogwarts, honestly, she did. There was a spot by the lake, near the forest that she loved. She would sit there for long hours, just sitting and staring across the lake, wondering at its beauty. It was her recluse. This was the spot she retreated to when Severus called her a mudblood. She spent the afternoon crying when that happened. Only one other person ever knew about that spot, and that was James Potter. She didn't know it, but he retreated there as well, just to think. He was there that day, he'd followed her to make sure she was okay and she knew he was there. She could feel his presence. He saw her crying and, somehow, just the fact that he was there helped her because she knew that at least one person cared for her. It was then that she realized that he loved her, probably more than he loved anyone else, and she felt guilty about treating him so badly.

It was the winter of her seventh year when her parents died. They were murdered by Death Eaters who had hunted them down just to hurt her since she'd just turned down Voldemort's offer of joining him. It was Professor McGonagall who told her, right after breakfast. The news….it shocked her to her core. Her parents were everything to her. They were the only family she had left. The rest of her family shared the same views as Petunia and she wasn't close to any of them. She remembers thanking Professor McGonagall and then running. She ran to her spot….the spot she went where she wanted to be alone or to think, under a tree, near the lake in a part that bordered the forest. She didn't even stop to get her cloak, even though the skies foretold a great storm and it was the middle of December and it was COLD. But she went anyway and, by the time she reached there, her limbs were on fire from the cold. It was a matter of minutes before she was numb but she didn't care. Her tears froze on her cheeks because it was so cold but she cried anyway. Her friends didn't come because they knew they shouldn't bother her when she was in her spot but a small part of her wished that, for once, they wouldn't listen to her and that they would come.

It was James who found her around noon, after lunch, when he noticed that she was missing. They had been working together as Head Boy and Head Girl all year and….he'd noticed, so he took his broom and went out searching for her. By the time he found her, she was almost delirious from cold and sorrow and the storm was getting worse. He'd taken care of her. He was easily the only reason she survived that storm because he'd conjured up a shelter and lit a fire. He'd taken care of her and summoned food from the castle because the storm was too bad for them to find their way back. He'd taken care of her, hugged her, and she'd cried to him. He kept her alive through the night and had carried her back to the castle the next morning and up to the Hospital Wing where he didn't leave her side. Even after she was dismissed from the Hospital the week after, he stayed with her all day, just to make sure she was alright. It was then she realized that she loved him and, when she told him, he vowed never to let her go, and he didn't. He never did again.

After her parents died, James was her rock. She blamed magic for everything. It was magic that had torn her away from Petunia, from the rest of her family, it was the reason they all thought she was a freak. It was because she was magic did they torture and kill her parents and, of course, she blamed herself. James pulled her out of it. He took her home with him for the winter holidays so she wouldn't be alone, introduced her to Mr. and Mrs. Potter. And took care of her, no matter what, even after they returned to Hogwarts. If she didn't have James, she didn't think that she would have survived that. At that moment, she knew that James was everything to her and that she'd always loved him, even if she'd never admitted it before.

Fighting for the Order was easy. It was one of the easiest things that she'd ever done. She knew that she belonged there, fighting for the world that she loved. Fighting beside the ones she loved. They were a team, her, James, Sirius, and Remus. They were the best there were, the pride of both Hogwarts and the Order. Lily and James, the two best duelers in Hogwarts, became the husband and wife team who were easily the best aurors in the business, better even than Mad-Eye Moody. And for the first time since her parents' death, Lily was complete, she was somewhere she belonged doing something that was important, surrounded by those who loved her. So saying yes when James Potter proposed, it was the natural thing to do. They belonged together, and she knew it and her wedding day was the happiest day in her life, save for the day Harry was born.

When she found out that she was pregnant, when Harry was born, she was terrified. There was a war going on and she didn't know how to raise a baby. Once again, it was James who grounded her, prevented her from slipping into depression, who helped her. And she knew that Harry and James were the two most important people in the world to her. So facing Voldemort was easy. He was threatening her son and no one, not even the most powerful wizard alive, threatened her little boy. But dying was hard. James was already dead and she didn't know how to live without him. Harry would be orphaned and Sirius, her friends Sirius, the funny, clever man who teased her and played with Harry and helped James cope with being in hiding, Sirius would be blamed. And Harry, her Harry, what would happen to her son. But when Voldemort offered him a chance to live, in exchange for her son, she knew what she had to do. Because she couldn't let Harry die. She'd lost James. She hadn't been given a chance to save him but she was given a chance to save Harry, and she took it. So, he killed her. But death, Dumbledore was right. Death wasn't the end, it was a new beginning. James was there and they watched over Harry together, haunting Voldemort, giving Harry a chance to stop him. Somehow, instinctively, she knew that she, Lily Potter, was the only reason the Order of the Phoenix won the war with Voldemort.

PLEASE REVIEW!!!!! and tell me which characters you would like to see.