Author's Note: update: thanks for pointing out typos, and please continue to do so.

[Lily Potter]

Friday, October 17, 1980

Hello Harry! Just me, today. Sorry to disappoint. Just kidding! How could you ever be disappointed with hearing from your mother?!

The answer, Harry, is of course you couldn't, just to be clear.

But don't worry, it won't always be me- we are hoping to have a few visitors in the next couple of weeks, so you shouldn't get too used to my handwriting. It's probably better than most of the other people's though.

Anyway, I'm not sure exactly who will be visiting, so I won't say just yet. It can be a surprise! Well, funny enough, it'll probably be more of a surprise for me than you. You only have to wait a couple of minutes, and it could be up to a week for me (almost). So… well… not much of a surprise. Oh well.

It doesn't matter who it is that's visiting, I'm just glad that someone is. I'm doing okay, but James is starting to get sick of being in one place for so long. He practically feeds on interaction. Hopefully, this isolation won't last long.

So, I don't really want to talk about the war, but I feel that I have to. Dumbledore's still having James and I stay away from the main action in the war. Unfortunately, there's been a bad turn in the war recently. What's changed lately is that a couple of weeks ago, the Death Eaters slowed down the attacks on muggles, and have started attacking wizarding homes instead.

We don't know why they've made the switch, but it's thrown the wizarding world completely off track. It came basically out of nowhere, at least as far as we know. And it's not just random, either. They've been specifically targeting families that are outspoken against the Death Eater, and who are very pro-muggle.

People are getting scared, and everyone's terrified of being targeted. Maybe that's why Dumbledore doesn't want James and me on the front line- because we have you to take care of. But no one's going to be fooled into thinking James could ever be neutral in this war- he married me for Merlin's sake.

But I'm sure Dumbledore has his reasons, I suppose.

Oh, here's something that you might find interesting. I've been keeping up with the muggle world of course, and today the Queen is visiting the Vatican. I hope to raise you to be aware of both the muggle and wizarding worlds, so I think you might find this random bit of news of interest. It hasn't been done before, you see, and I thought I'd just tell you about my day, even though it's roughly seventeen years in the past for you.

The muggle world isn't doing too well at the moment, unfortunately. The muggles have found other reasons, of course, but a lot of it is because of the war. They've had more deaths, it isn't as safe as it used to be. And their economy isn't doing too well, despite the fact that they don't even know that there's a war going on. I feel so bad for them.

I've saved the baby stuff for the end of this entry, because that's my favorite to talk about. And I'm sure you'd like to hear how you're doing. For one, your hair has gotten even more like James'. I'm afraid that you'll be cursed with the mop he calls hair. Woe is me. Your eyes still haven't settled of course, so we're not really sure on that yet.

You're getting better at looking at people when they talk to you. Sometimes, you turn your head to look at me when I'm talking, or towards James when he laughs. Speaking of laughing, you've done that quite a bit since the last time I wrote here. You do seem to love to giggle, Harry. That isn't to say you've replaced any of your crying, though. Nope, still plenty of that. But that's okay, Harry, we knew what we were getting into when we decided to have a child. And after you grow a little bit, we might have another, but no promises yet.

Well, I mean, of course you know whether you have any siblings, but I don't know that yet. It still feels really odd to be talking to you in your time. Sure you're an adult right now, but you're also the baby in the crib next to me.

I suppose that's why we've all been signing our names, but of course I'm not Lily to you, I'm Mum. Merlin, that's odd. You're almost as old as me when you're reading this.

But I could give it a try.

No matter what age, I love you.

-Mum

Author's Note: Hello! In a review, an excellent point was brought up. This was addressed slightly in the end of this chapter- that all the entries have been signed as names, rather than who they are to Harry. The reason for this is incredibly unsatisfying- I simply hadn't thought of it.

But, luckily, this is a work in progress, so I'll ask you- do you prefer 'Lily' and 'James' and 'Sirius' or should I switch to 'Mum' and 'Dad' and various nicknames and relative terms? It doesn't matter to me, but does it matter to you guys?

PS- I am trying to make a timeline of the events in Magical Britain of this time, but in this chapter, I've also added a bit of actual Britain history. Obviously it would only be things that those in the magical world would hear about, like big-publicity events, etc. What are your thoughts on this- like, dislike, don't care?

Keep in mind that I'm not from Britain, so I don't have an insider's view on any of the history, so if I get anything wrong, please tell me! (Or, if you think something should be added that I might not find out about when I'm doing my research).