Lily had been diagnosed with depression. She had gone through counseling with James by her side, and they had worked through things. It finally seemed as if Lily and James would have a normal life. Well, as normal as you can get with two twenty year old wizards getting married. They had grown up quickly. James and Lily had been working as Aurors before Harry came along, and James had been afterwards, but after the prophecy came about they had both decided it would be best to stop, they didn't want their child growing up without his parents. Nowadays they had been looking for other jobs, but nothing had come up yet.
Harry was getting bigger every single day, it seemed. His hair was longer, and it almost seemed blacker. It was almost as wild as James', maybe messier. His green eyes were full of wonder and curiosity. He was just learning how to crawl around, but was not going far yet. His parents were thankful for that.
After they had gone through counseling, they had decided it was finally time to set a date for the wedding. It was to take place the next day, and Lily was freaking out. Actually that was an understatement. She was paranoid that everything was going to go wrong whether it was going to be the flowers, the cake, her hair. Something was bound to go wrong she thought. Her friends were trying to console her, but it wasn't working. The excitement in the house did nothing to calm her down.
See, the problem was, word had gotten out that THE Lily and James were going to get married. They were swamped with well-wishers, and cards of congratulations. Many more people had been invited than originally planned because of it. They hadn't wanted people to know because it was a security issue, now more than ever. Dumbledore was sure there was a spy within the ranks of the Order, and you couldn't trust anybody. Not to mention they thought they were still targets of Lord Voldemort.
So right now there were a bunch of Lily's friends and former housemates running wildly around the house. Some were advising her about how to walk down the aisle correctly, or how to keep the tears from ruining her makeup. She wasn't listening to any of it though.
She just wanted the next day to come and be over with. She just wanted to be married. Of course, she was excited for being the bride. It was the day she had been waiting for ever since she was a little girl, and it was every little girls' dream.
"I'm starving!" one of the younger girls shouted. "We should order a pizza!" another one suggested. "You're going to let her eat a pizza?" a third one shrieked.
Lily rolled her eyes at the mentality of the women. It's not like she could get fat overnight. She in fact looked very good for a woman that had given birth six months ago. She couldn't believe that Harry was already six months old. It seemed like only yesterday...only yesterday that she had not been with James. She shivered at the thought of not being with him again. She couldn't bear being alone again. James was the father of her child, he had saved her life, he protected and loved her.
The doorbell rang and a couple of her friends ran for the door. Harry had been upstairs in the bedroom sleeping, but he was sobbing now, waiting for her to come.
When she came down she saw Peter waiting. He looked really uncomfortable as the women were laughing about something. She noticed how he was blushing. Poor Peter.
Lily went down, covering Harry in the blanket to protect him against the cold, because Peter refused to come in.
"N-nice hair Lily," he squeaked when she greeted him. Lily laughed, for she had her hair up in curlers.
"Oh the little mouse made a joke," one of her friends said.
"Oh leave him alone, Sarah," Lily said, shooting her a nasty look. "What do you want, Peter?" she asked, "Is it James? Is he ok?"
"Yes, I mean no. Well yes, it is James, he's fine. He just wanted me to check up on you."
He pulled out a bouquet of flowers and tried to hand them to her. She shifted Harry in her arms so she could take them, but couldn't.
"Don't be stupid, Peter," Alice said condescendingly, as she grabbed the flowers for Lily. Peter looked even more embarrassed than he had been before.
"J-James sends these, a-and his love," Peter muttered and quickly disapparated away.
Lily quickly shut the door to keep them from the cold and shivered some more. She looked at the flowers; they were beautiful blood-red roses. There was something different about them though. There was something magical, but Lily couldn't figure it out. She heard a crash in the living room and put the flowers on a small table in the entryway while they went to investigate.
It was just an owl that had knocked over a vase. The owl was carrying a letter.
My Dearest Lily (and Harry too),
I am going absolutely mad without you guys. Sirius thinks that I'm just boring. I'm so excited for tomorrow. The guys tried to take me out on the town for a "bachelor" party. I wouldn't have any of it, but Sirius is off right now upstairs, as he's deemed me to be a lost cause. Remus is trying to keep my ,nerves down, but he's tired, he's been sick lately, but he's getting over it. The poor guy is doing all he can to stay awake. So I had to send my flowers with Wormtail. I know, it's not as romantic as getting them from me, but Sirius wasn't going to let me leave.
All my love,
James
There was a chorus of the women sighing. At one point every one of them had had a crush on James.
Harry sniffled. Lily uncovered his face.
"Did you hear that Harry? Daddy loves you very much, he can't stand not seeing you," she cooed to the baby.
"He's so cute!" Alice said. Alice Longbottom was Lily's best friend. They had met in the library at Hogwarts when they were in first year as they were reaching for the same book. They had gotten into a heated argument about who needed it the most, and in the end after a detention together (for causing a distraction in the library) had become best friends. She too had a young son, who had been born on the same day as Harry. The women had gone through everything together, and yet as times were difficult, her best friend hadn't seen Harry, and Lily hadn't seen Alice's child.
Alice and the others fawned over Harry until he fell asleep, and Lily decided to go to bed also. They all agreed, after seeing it was getting late, and didn't want Lily to be sleeping through the ceremony.
Lily carried Harry up to their bedroom and laid him in his crib. She finally nodded off after a while, but she wasn't able to sleep for long before she woke up to Harry's cries.
Oh great. I'm going to have great big bags under my eyes for my wedding. Thank you Harry.
She was about to roll out of bed, but Harry's cries stopped abruptly. She heard someone moving around.
Someone was trying to take Harry!
Quickly, she flew out of bed, her wand clutched in her hand, and flipped on the light in a half attempt to blind whoever the intruder was.
It was just James.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Is that how you treat your groom?" he asked. Harry was grabbing at James' shirt, "Hey baby," he said to Harry.
"What about me?" Lily asked. "You come here in the middle of the night, sneaking about. Then you don't even have anything to say to me. Why are you here? Is something wrong?"
"I came because I couldn't stay away," James said sheepishly. "I had to see you guys."
Lily smiled, "You can't stay you know, it would be bad luck."
"I don't believe in superstitions," James replied.
"Then why do you avoid black cats, especially since you're a wizard?" Lily countered.
"I don't care about this one then, and for your information I was attacked by a rabid black cat when I was younger, and I have the scars to prove it," James answered with a grin, while he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to show her two thin scars running up the length of his forearm.
They talked for a while more, waiting for Harry to go back to bed. When he finally fell asleep, they both went to bed too. James wrapped his arm around Lily before they nodded off. She felt so like a real family this way.
Lily woke up the next morning. She was surprisingly calm. James was nowhere to be found, but that didn't worry her. She figured that the Marauders had taken him back to Sirius' over the night once they figured out that he was gone.
There were other things to do, she needed to fix her hair and get over to the church. She figured she'd take her hair out of the curlers first. The result was a beautiful mass of curls cascading down her back. She dressed in sweats for now, and put Harry in decent clothes. They were going to go out to breakfast before they headed over to church.
There was a knock at the door. "Lily are you up yet?" asked a cheery voice. Lily shouted that she was and ten minutes later they were in a limo that took them to a quick breakfast. They were then at the church. It wasn't a church actually. It was a giant cathedral.
It was three hours to the wedding and Lily was serene.
Sirius woke up in the morning with his arm curled around a blonde woman. She mumbled something when he tried to get up. He took even more care, and snuck into the bathroom to shower. A few minutes later the door slid open.
"Hey," the woman said.
Sirius screamed, literally screamed. The blonde screamed too. Sirius made a quick grab for a towel but she got to it before him and wouldn't give it to him.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asked, trying desperately to find something to cover himself with.
She giggled in response. Why couldn't he find someone that was intellectual, someone that wouldn't steal his towel in the morning when his best friend was getting married?
"Give me the towel...hey, just give me the towel. I haven't got time for this today," he growled.
When she refused he just got out of the shower and walked out only to find Remus waiting for him in his room.
"Morning Remus!" he said cheerfully.
"Good God Sirius, put something on," Remus replied.
"I tried but some bimbo stole my towel while I was in the shower. I don't see why it should matter though, I'm eye-candy," Sirius retorted while wiggling his eyebrows.
Remus conjured and threw a towel at Sirius, who wrapped it around himself immediately.
"Now is not the time for that Sirius. James is gone. I can't find him anywhere."
"Well, he left a note last night saying that he went over to see Lily and the baby. I don't know if he ever came back though, I was...er...occupied last night. He's probably still there."
"I'll call them. Hopefully there's still someone there."
Remus rushed down into the living room and threw floo powder into the fireplace. He reached Lily and James' house; Alice answered him.
"Hello Remus, nice to see you," she greeted him.
"Hi, we just woke up over here, James left a note last night saying that he came over there to see Lily last night. We can't find him anywhere though. Is he still over there?" Remus asked quickly, there were two and half hours left before the wedding was scheduled to start.
"No, we haven't seen him all morning. Lily mentioned that he came last night, but he left before she woke up, where do you think he went?" Alice said confused.
"I don't know, but we had better find him quick. Lily would be devastated if he didn't show up. You don't think he's having second thoughts, do you?"
"James? They have a kid together Remus, besides James would never do anything to hurt Lily. If either of them had second thoughts it should be Lily. You heard about the prophecy right? She's still so worried that she's endangering him."
"Just don't tell Lily. We'll try and find him, how can I reach you at the church without Lily knowing?" Remus asked.
"Um...just apparate and tell me, I can't think of any other way."
Remus agreed and pulled his head out of the fire. He had two hours to find James.