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.


The End Of The Beginning

Chapter 4-How Bittersweet It Is

James has an important question to ask of Lily. She has a rather simple answer.


The war was not going well.

James thought this to himself and not for the first time as he used his wands to light the candles. Sirius had suggested rose petals as well and Remus back from one of his long stays with…well…whoever doing whatever he was doing for Dumbledore had suggested lily petals and Marlene who had been looking at the ring that she had helped James resize with critical eyes had told them both to stop being so fucking ridiculous and candles will do fine James honestly.

Marlene had been the one that had been at his side when this shit had hit the fan, when he had told Marlene that he had wanted to propose to Lily she had looked at him over the dinner in the pub that he had bought her and then stuffed a chip in her mouth and asked him how he was going to do it.

"Propose?"

"Well yeah" she said finally. "But there's also the fact that marriage is just the first step. You can't keep going between apartments while all of this is going on, you have to have a house especially if you too have children—"

James who had just taken a sip of his pint had choked because no he had not thought of that, he had not thought of that at all.

And that had been a whole other problem that he had not wanted to get into.

But in a way he was glad that she had been the one to bring it up because one of the things James Potter had not considered was, when it came to marrying young and in the middle of world wizarding war was that you might become young parents while you were in the middle of world wizarding war and that had opened up a whole other kettle of fish as Mary had once said.

It wasn't that he wanted children. James did want children. He had seen at the Prewitt brother's funeral those Weasley children and he had thought that they were sweet and rather well mannered and behaved well and he thought to himself as he watched the two brothers lowered into the ground because of their sheer cockiness and stupidity if he was being very unkind (and he was because it was the only way he could keep the howling wind of grief within him) that he managed to get through the whole bloody thing but he had come away thinking the children were rather sweet.

Other than that he'd had no real experience with children. Most of the ones that came to Hogwarts were fully fledged and other than a bit of homesickness that was genuinely cured by Halloween they didn't need babying. He'd been the only child of an older couple who had been convinced that they couldn't have children until by some stroke of good fortune he had come along and he had become friends with people who were the same. Sirius had despised his family brother included, Remus had been an only child and so had Peter. Lily never spoke about her sister and Marlene who had been the only one of their little group to grow up with siblings smaller than herself had not joined their little group until her siblings had been older.

And James knew there was a great deal of difference between being the older brother to a small child and being a Dad to a small child.

Especially in wartime.

And despite what the Prophet was calling it, that was what this was. That was what this was and the death toll was getting higher and higher.

Dorcas Meadows had been a clear example of that.

Dumbledore had been the one to break the news of her death to the Order. She had been found at her home and from what James had heard her body had been defiled in more ways than one, in ways that made you sick to even think about it never mind discuss it out loud. James knew that the general belief was that Voldemort had gone after her personally and the only consolation that she had put up one hell of a fight which to him did not sound like much of a consolation at all to the memory of that kind and gentle woman who had been the first to cross the great divide (so to speak) and welcome the frightened, excited and morbidly curious students who had come to the meeting under the whim of their eccentric (and slightly mad) ex headmaster who had recruited them before they had even left the school.

So no…he was aware that the world was getting worse, that the war was getting worse and that the stakes were getting high. He had survived Voldemort once, he had no idea if he could do it a second time. He had a scar on his back from where a lash curse had hit him when he had seen Benji Fenwick explode in front of his eyes and he had stumbled over in shock. His knee had been mangled and twisted by another curse before Lily had blasted Avery out through a window and had the sense to apparate them away. He knew that they were on borrowed time. Soon, and very soon, they all knew that Voldemort was going to have to come out of the open and declare his intentions. Already they knew that the Giants were in open rebellion, the Dementors of Azkaban were soon going to join him and the Auror Department was being picked off one by one before they would even consider joining what the rich and the powerful called Dumbledore's mad gang.

And even worse was that he was looking to recruit students out of his seventh year class and James really didn't know how he felt about that. He had not been naïve he had known especially after Mary what the chances were for him but these kids did not. They had all been asleep when he had watched the Death Eaters come out of the sky.

They had not understood what had happened and never would until they lived it and the problem with living it was that you were never sure if you were going to live through it.

James had become many things since he had left Hogwarts. Procrastinator was just one of them. Drinker, smoker, solider, killer, fighter were just many of the others.

It was amazing sometimes when you thought about it.

Nor not.

But back to the point that he was originally getting at that conversation with Marlene had meant that he had to think about children and thinking about children meant that he had to think about being a Dad, having a marriage and being a Dad and the one person that he had wanted to speak to…his own father…was dead and buried and the house that he had thought naively perhaps would make a great home for him and Lily was actually boarded up, covered in dust and riddled with ghosts.

He had thought about asking Arthur Weasley or Edgar Bones who were the only two people he knew who were fathers but James knew that Arthur Weasley didn't want to go near the Order simply because he wanted to keep himself and his wife alive for the sake of their children and Edgar Bones had done the opposite. They were two different men with two different walks of life and he didn't know how to ask either one of them when he was just about to turn nineteen and scared stupid and not sure if he would even live to see his wedding never mind a child.

Also…when he had snapped one night and told Remus over a bowl of peanut butter cookie dough (and seriously where did the man find these ice cream flavours from?) Remus had stared at him?

"Did you ask her?"

"No"

"You think maybe you might wanna ask her and then start worrying about kids…you know…when you and her can sit and talk about it like the adults you are trying to make out to the world that you are?"

There is a pause as James takes that in and then he nods because…well…yeah Remus has a point. Damnit Moony has always been right when it comes to stuff like this. He has always been right, he's always been the smart one.

James loves his friend. He really, really does.

And so that leads him to here. Lighting candles in Lily's living room as Marlene takes her out for dinner and then will shove her into the apartment so James can ask her to marry him while Marlene and two bottles of champagne (and knowing Marlene, chocolate flourless cake for Remus, cheesecake for Peter and something with meringue and whipped cream and that she and Sirius are going to use later that will create hell on the bedsheets—see—he even sounds like a responsible adult, hysterical thoughts, hysterical thoughts) and then one way or another this whole hell that is proposing will be over.


And just like that Lily is in the room.

She steps into the door as Marlene with a cackle that is not out of place in some muggle children's horror book (doesn't matter what you say a witch that poisons a woman with an apple because she is prettier than her is not a child's fairy story but rather a cautionary one)

"What's this?" Lily asks quietly looking around at the candles and the warmth of the apartment and James suddenly feels sick with nerves. He runs his hands down his jeans feeling his palms sweat and he forced himself to smile.

He'd rather redo his NEWTS than do this he thought randomly. His world was going to be made or broken into pieces by a few words. The world could move right or left by a few words come to think of it.

"James?"

Oh God she was right in front of him.

"Yes?"

"What's this for?"

"I…well…Lily I have to ask you something"

She tilted her head to the side and looked at him and he could see every freckle on her nose even with the dim lighting that the room provided.

"Okay?"

No turning back now Potter. Grab your balls and say the words before she realises she can do much, much better than you and she leaves you for someone else.

"I…I know that we are young and I know that the world is falling apart and so much is uncertain but perhaps it's because of all of those things…no damnit…I love you Lily. I love you with everything that I have and I love you with everything that I will ever be. I love you, I have loved you since I was eleven and I know I will never stop loving you. You are my heart and my soul and you light up my life like the sun and all that romantic stuff and I know I am fucking this up massively but—"

And then before he could make it worse he dropped to his knees fumbled with the ring and finally managed to show Lily the ring that his mother had given him for that special girl that makes you smile son. It was a simple diamond on a gold band and there were two little diamonds either side. The band was also covered in three diamonds embedded in the band either way and Lily's mouth dropped open as she stared at it, as it glinted in the candlelight.

"Lily will you make me the happiest man in this world and do me the supreme honour of marrying me?"

For a second she blinked her green eyes wide and James didn't dare breathe, he didn't dare move. He would happily stay on his knees preserving this moment for the rest of eternity it would help matters but thankfully that didn't have to happen. Just as he was sure that his heart was going to shatter onto the floor Lily took a shuddering breath and tore her eyes up from the ring to James and she smiled her eyes glassy with tears.

"Yes" she said simply. "Yes James, yes I will marry you"

For a second he couldn't breathe, he couldn't…he didn't know how to move or how to put into words what he was feeling because she had said yes. Despite everything, despite everything that happened she had said yes to marrying him.

He James Potter, was going to marry Lily Evans.

"Yes?"

"Yes" she said again and then she was smiling and the ring was on her finger and he was spinning her around as the door opened and his friends and Marlene were there and everything was golden and happy and James had no reason, none at all, not to think that it was going to stay that way.

And the ring stayed on her hand where it would stay for the rest of their lives.

That at least…that at least was the truth.


And there you go, a fluffy but yet somewhat heartbreaking chapter when you think about what's coming. Next chapter will be up soon.

Next Chapter-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.