My Sacrifice

 
My Sacrifice
 
 
James looked around; where was he? He slowly surveyed his surroundings. He looked the same, but he wasn’t at his house, and Lily and Harry weren’t in sight at all. In fact, he hadn’t the faintest idea where he even was, or how he could have gotten here. Surely he didn’t over do it with the Butterbeer again, did he?
 
He looked out ahead of him. It was an endless amount of pasture, one in which animals had run wild and free, many centuries ago. A small stream ran through one side, but there weren’t any animals, or any type of wild life at all. He looked up. The sky was beautiful. It looked like a sunset or sunrise, but had just never changed back to plain blue.
 
“James,” a voice, a very familiar voice called out to him, from behind. He turned around and saw her. Lily. But unbelievable as it seemed, he could partly see through her.
 
“Lily, you’re…I can see through you,” James stated, obviously confused. Nevertheless, they walked, without knowing where they were going or what they were doing. All they knew was that they would know what they were searching for when they found it.
 
Together, they disappeared, James first, then after a few moments Lily.
 
 
When spirits pass through to the next world, what are mere seconds feel like ages to them, for they are not used to being so free, and so naive that they didn’t know such things that they knew in their past life. Some of it was pain, agony, betrayal, rejection, fear, and being hunted like a small animal in a cage with no place to hide.
 
James looked down from his station on the cloud, watching the young wizards and witches not playing outside, not having the same type of childhood that he had. He felt like something was missing, as if he had left something behind, something that he should remember, but couldn’t, not without help.,
 
Sometimes, he’d remember what’d he had done in his life, playing pranks, falling in love, but all of that was blur, especially the falling in love part. No, he could remember many things, but never anything about falling in love. He knew that he had been in love. He knew it. He felt it deep inside, and that it was only waiting for the right key to come along and open it up, letting him gain access to what he used to take for granted.
 

Lily was watching the black-haired one, called “James”, and felt something. They had arrived almost at the same time; maybe that’s why she felt such a strong connection to him. Gathering up all of her courage, which some of the others called “Gryffindor courage”, she went over to him. “James?”
 
James slowly turned around. He knew that voice. He knew it. Slowly, he turned around, and gazed upon Lily, her red hair shining, and her bright emerald green eyes sparkling with excitement. He just stared at her for a moment, then grinned.
 
“My Lily, where have you been?”
 
Hello my friend we meet again
It’s been a while where should we begin…feels like forever
Within my heart are memories
Of perfect love that you gave to me
I remember
 
 
Lily looked at James, and remembered kissing him in the rain under a tree, laughing with him at a joke, dancing the night away, marrying him. Loving him.
 
She grinned and the two lovers embraced, both lost in their memories and the fact that they had found each other.
 
James, however, remembered his last moments before Lily did and gazed at her in horror, “You’re not supposed to be here,”
 
“Yes, I am, silly.”
 
“Lily, I died so that you and Harry could live. You weren’t supposed to die, Lily. You were supposed to apparate to the outside of Hogwarts and then run inside with Harry and find Dumbledore. You know that we’ve been over that more then once.”

“James, without you, I am dead. Nothing can change that. This love is rare, and I would’ve wasted away, and Harry wouldn’t have -- oh no. Harry, is he down there?” Lily looked over the edge of the cloud, searching frantically for a small boy with green eyes and wild black hair, but didn’t see him.
 
“Have you seen him?”
 
James slowly shook his head, “Sirius probably has him, he will look after him.”
 

 
“But… he was our secret keeper – people will suspect him!”
 
“Wormtail was, remember, we switched. And didn’t tell a soul.”
 
“I remember, but would they even let Sirius keep him if they thought that he might have -- No, surely they know him well enough not to think that! You two were inseparable! I had to get a chainsaw and saw you apart, because you two were practically glued at the hip!”
 
“Calm down, Lily. If not Sirius, probably another friend took him in. Maybe Dumbledore did,” James said, trying to calm Lily down, though she seemed as if she was to far gone to be saved.
 
“Please, Lily, Harry is fine. I haven’t seen you in ages, please, calm down,” he said, trying to give her his best puppy-dog eyes, which she fell for.
 
“I have missed you so much, James. I knew something was missing, that something wasn’t right. I just knew it.”
 
“I knew it too, Lily, I knew it too. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing is between us now, no more barriers of any sort.”
 
 
When you’re with me
I’m free…I’m careless…I believe
Above all the others we’ll fly
This brings tears to my eyes
My sacrifice
 
Another one that had fallen to the Dark Lord looked at the happy couple and weakly smiled. The chances on finding a past love was very rare in the this realm, for it housed those whose deaths had to be avenged, to be made right.
 
He was an old man, and with a toothy grin he watched the happy couple talk like love struck teenagers. “Well, they do look like teenagers,” he murmured to himself, but the couple didn’t hear him. Everything else around them was gone, and it was as if nothing else mattered to them but each other.
 
Lily looked back up at James, grinning wildly, a smile that showed pure happiness. “Promise to never leave me again.”
 
“Oh really? I thought you were going to leave me?” he said and playfully punched her arm, grinning.
 
“You haven’t changed one single bit, have you? Well, now I think of it, I think you gotten younger, which is no fair, Mr. Potter.”
 
James smiled and looked back down, down towards Earth, where he had a son that was growing up. ‘I wonder if he knows anything about Lily or me,’ he thought to himself as he watched two boys chase each other, under a watchful eye of a middle-aged witch.
 
Lily looked down as well, and had a longing to be in that witch’s place, to be around happy children that caused chaos every day, and came up with different things to do everyday. She faintly remembered wanting to have a big family, for she only had an older sister. Although her memories of her sister weren’t what she would call fond ones.
 
No, she’d wanted a house, that was crammed wall-to-wall full of love and excitement, with her and James’ kids, maybe a little girl that had his brown eyes and her red hair, or a boy that his green eyes and black hair, or even little miniatures of themselves. She smiled at the thought, and then realized that it never would become into reality, for that was that world, and she had already made her journey through it, and there was no turning back.
 
“James, tell me something that you remembered that we did.”
 
“Well, like what?”
 
“Like, a prank that we did with the gang.”
 
“You know, you weren’t considered ‘part of the gang’ till I started seriously dating you in the middle of 6^th year, and they decided that, ‘They’re not separating, might as well include her on a few things’.”
 
Lily laughed. Oh, it felt good to laugh again! She laid down on the cloud, enjoying its warmth and softness, and took in a deep breath.
 
James looked at her. Deep down, he knew that it had been his fault that she was here. Voldemort was a Slytherin, and that as a Gryffindor, he would be forever in danger; but Lily, she could’ve grown old and had that huge family that she wanted. Instead, she had chosen him, and her imagined family had disappeared in a flash of green light.
 
He sighed and was pulled out of his thoughts when Lily had dumped a bucket of water over his head.
 
We’ve seen our share of ups and downs
Oh how quickly life can turn around in an instant
It feels so good to reunite
Within yourself and within your mind
Let’s find peace there
 
He remembered what then happened next; Lily lifted it up and grinned, “I thought you were thirsty.”
 
James looked up at her. He still had his glasses on, and they made everything blurry, all except for Lily. He could see her, and he knew what she was doing, grinning like she did when she had beaten him in their 1^st year in all of the exams.
 
‘I made the sacrifice -- but if she’s here, she must have made one too,’ he thought to himself as he was drying his glasses.
 
Together, they watched the witch call in the two boys, and darkness settle over the Earth, both of them content with the other. Never wanting this moment to ever end, just for it to continue for eternity, like the love they had shared, and shared even now.
 
Lily was now sitting beside him and leaned against his shoulder and slept, leaving him to his thoughts. Occasionally, he looked down at her, and grinned, at the fact that she was still there, and was forever his. He knew that even if they ever did get separated, one day, they would find each other, and they would find Harry one day, and his family.
 
I just want to say hello again
 
“We’ll have one big reunion one day,” he muttered to himself as a breeze came by and ruffled Lily’s flame red hair, making it hit his arm.
 
“One day, we’ll all be together, like we were supposed to be. One day, Lily, I promise.”