The Life of Harry Potter

Halloween

3 years later

October 31, 1989

James POV:

Even after eight years, Halloween still brings up bad memories for James, he knows it does for Regulus as well.

Harry knows what happened to his mum, knows how she died and who killed her. They hadn't wanted to tell that to a child but he deserved to know why he wasn't allowed to do certain things that Draco was.

James and Regulus have kept her memory alive. They have shown Harry every picture they have of her, many of them are hanging up on the walls of their house along with other photos of the people they love.

They tell Harry stories about how brilliant she was, about how good of a friend she was, and of course her beauty. About how much she loved Harry that first year of his life.

It's safe to say that Harry was not planned by James and Lily. He loved Lily in the most platonic way possible, but other than an obsessive crush during fifth year, James had never wanted more than friendship with Lily. He was always too enamored with Regulus, as was Lily with Mary.

But during the war, things got rough. Sirius and Remus were both out on a mission and it was just James and Lily at the orders safe house.

The Mckinnons had just been killed and James still felt betrayed by Regulus, Mary was missing.  The two of them got too drunk and slept together to distract themselves from the heartbreak going on around them. It hadn't messed with their friendship, they brushed it off as two friends helping each other.

When they found out that Lily was pregnant, James assured her that he would support whatever decision that she made.

Lily knew from the start that she was having the baby, she gave James a choice and told him he didn't have to be involved if he didn't want to, but James instantly shot that down, of course he wanted to be apart of his child's life. He once again assured Lily that it would be ok and that they could raise the baby together as friends.

James wrote to Regulus, he knew he shouldn't but for some reason he felt guilty about it, he told Regulus what had happened between him and Lily, he also wrote that if Regulus ever wanted to come back that he and Lily would welcome him into their off little family. He couldn't deny that he missed Reg terribly.

They moved to Potter manor, which was empty after the death of James parents. They live there all through Lily's pregnancy, Harry was born there. Remus, Sirius, and Peter came to visit often. During the first few weeks of Harry's life they lived there with them, helping James and Lily with the baby.

When Dumbledore came and told them that they had to go into hiding, that Voldemort was after Harry, his first choice as a secret keeper was Sirius, of course it was, he trusted Sirius with his life.

But Sirius had convinced him that using him would be too obvious, that they would be safer if they used Peter, James was a little hesitant but knew his best friend had their best interest at heart so James went through with it.

When James heard the doorbell that night, he knew that Peter truly was a rat and had betrayed them, Peter had never before rang the door bell when coming to visit them. He yelled for Lily to run before he even opened the door, she should have had time to escape, he doesn't know why didn't. As soon as the door was opened Voldemort raised his wand and then James was out.

Apparently Regulus was about 30 feet away from James front door, under an invisibility cloak that he may or may not stolen, when he saw James get greeted by Voldemort.

He shot a spell, he knew it was a long shot that his aim would be accurate from that distance but he had to try, he got lucky and his spell hit James and knocked him out right before Voldemort's spell could hit him. Thinking he was dead, Voldemort started walking up the stairs towards Lily and Harry.