“Harry”no! Harry, don’t! Stop!”
One-year-old Harry giggled and waved Lily’s wand around some more. Sparks shot out, singeing the sofa cushions.
“Harry James Potter! Give that to Mummy!”
The redhead lunged, narrowly missing the baby as he toddled out of reach. She scrambled after him, but just before she could grab him, big, strong hands picked him up under the arms.
“What have you got there, Harry?” James asked his son. At his feet, Lily huffed as she stood. Harry proudly held out his mother’s wand to James, who took it and pretended to examine it. “Hmm… This looks like Mummy’s wand.” He gave Harry a look; the baby stuck his fingers in his mouth and bent his head sheepishly.
As James handed her back her wand, Lily said, “I’ve been trying to get that away from him for the last fifteen minutes. I don’t know how he got it, I put it in the cupboard over the sink.”
“Perhaps he summoned it,” he suggested absently as he tickled Harry’s neck. Harry squealed and tried to wiggle away. James just held him tighter and smothered him in kisses.
Lily couldn’t hold back a small smile as she watched them. “Perhaps.”
Every couple always says that their baby was a miracle. Well, with Harry that word seriously implies. After Excrutio Venenum, Lily hadn’t had even the merest hope that she could become pregnant. Low and behold, fifteen months after she and James had been married she discovered a firm lump in her abdomen. The following summer Harry was born.
But it wasn’t an entirely blissful moment. Lily’d tried her hardest to procrastinate giving birth until August. For if her baby was born “as the seventh month dies,” he would be one of the two prime targets of Voldemort.
Just weeks before Harry was born, Dumbledore had informed James and Lily that while he was interviewing a new Divination professor, the woman had gone into a trance. She’d spoken in a throaty, hollow voice, the following prophecy:
Dark Lord approaches. … Born to those who have
thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … and the
Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows
not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while
the other survives. … The one with the power to vanquish the
Dark Lord will be born as the seventh
month dies. …"
Lily would always think it just their luck, that when she and James defy what supposed to be impossible and conceive a baby, it would be at a price. Happiness always has a cost, in her opinion, just as freedom doesn’t come free. There would always consequences, no matter how little the cause. The ripple effect.
But a year has gone by and still Harry is with them. It’s an unspoken understanding that no one discusses the prophecy. Besides, the only people who should know of it is Dumbledore, James and Lily, and Frank and Alice Longbottom, for they also have a child the prophecy could pertain to.
However, Dumbledore revealed to them that one of Voldemort’s henchmen had eavesdropped on his meeting with Sybil Trelawney, the Divination professor, and would have surely gone straight to Voldemort with the information. The headmaster didn’t think the eavesdropper had heard the entire prophecy, but he couldn’t be for certain.
It was nearing the end of October, over a year later, and James and Lily try to go about day by day as casually as possible. For the last several months Dumbledore has been urging them to go into hiding, and they’re beginning to submit. They’ve agreed that they may have to throw away their pride in order to protect their son.
Lily hated it, the waiting, the not knowing. She was told not to trust anyone, which was very difficult, but she knew she could at least trust her and James’s friends. They were the last people she would expect to betray the Potters.
“Hey.” Lily blinked and focused on James fingers, which were being snapped in front of her face. “Where’d you go? Can we come?”
She shook her head with a sigh. “Nowhere.” She smiled as she plucked Harry from his father’s arms. “Shall we go set the table, shnookums? How far behind you was Sirius?” she asked James over her shoulder as she walked in the direction of the kitchen.
“He was nearly done with a report, then he was going to gather the others and bring them over. I would say they should be here within,” he checked his watch, “ten minutes.”
“Good,” Lily said, Harry dangling from one of her arms as she used her wand to finish dinner with the other. “That’s just enough time.”
Sure enough, seven minutes later, a big, black, shaggy dog rushed into the kitchen, barking loud enough to wake the dead. Harry had been set in a corner with some of his toys where Lily could keep one eye on him; the dog rushed at him. But instead of being terrified, as any outsider would have expected, Harry giggled and pushed himself to stand. The dog drenched him in kisses before rolling onto its back. Harry, as he’d been taught, toppled onto the dog’s belly.
In an instant Sirius had turned into a human again and was making exaggerated sounds of pain as Harry beat on his stomach like it was a drum. “Ouch, ouch! Show some mercy, kid, I’m your dogfather! I mean godfather! Ouch!”
Harry, being the nice guy he is, stopped beating on Sirius. Instead, he reached forward and grabbed Sirius’s nose and yanked. Now the man yelped in earnest.
“ ‘Atta boy, Harry,” Charlie said as she leaned down to take Harry in her arms. Completely ignoring Sirius, she walked out of the kitchen cooing at the baby and encouraging him to torture his godfather any time he could.
Sirius sat up with a sigh. Lily, who’d stood at the sink watching the whole production, went to crouch beside him and give him a hug hello. “Still hasn’t forgiven you, huh?”
He sighed again, closing his eyes and holding her tighter. “No. I don’t know what else to do, Lily.”
She pulled back to kiss his forehead. “Sometimes, when you’ve done all you can do, it’s best to just sit back and let time take the wheel. Just give her time, Sirius.” She smiled a little. “If it makes you feel better, I forgave you a long time ago.”
“Yeah.” Sirius let her help him to his feet, then put his arm around her waist. “That always helps.”
Upon entering the living room, they saw Charlie playing with Harry on the floor, and James, Peter, and Remus seated on the furniture, talking.
Lily winked at Sirius before leaving him to stand behind her husband. Bending over the back of the sofa, she kissed his cheek. “Just wanted to wish you luck. ‘Bye.”
“ ‘Bye?” Instantly James stood and turned to face her as she rejoined Sirius. “What d’you mean, ‘bye? Where’re you going? And why can’t I come?”
“Sirius and I are going to run away to Switzerland and elope.” She moved toward the door of the house, dragging Sirius along in her wake. “Hurry, Sirius, before he catches us!”
Purposefully Sirius dragged his feet, a small smile on his lips, allowing James to vault over the couch and grab Lily up in his arms. She squealed as he spun her around in circles and laughed in between kisses.
This was not unusual. Twice a week since they left Hogwarts the friends would gather at the Potters’ to have dinner and chat. Once every couple of months Lily and Sirius would act out this little scene just so James would get riled up. No one would forget the first time they’d done it almost a year ago; James had been so gullible as to believe it, and had punched Sirius’s lights out. And no one said anything, though they all knew it: that was also the night Harry had been conceived.
At dinner, several conversations took place at once. Lily tried to feed Harry some of the mashed potatoes and corn she’d prepared with the ham. It looked a little like Thanksgiving feast, but nobody minded. It was food, after all.
All speaking ceased only when a glob of potatoes smacked Sirius in the face. There was a moment of silence before Charlie burst out laughing and Harry giggled. “No, no, Harry, naughty,” Lily reprimanded even as Charlie gasped, “Good one, kid, good one!”
After that they all retreated back into the living room to talk some more. After ten minutes, however, Lily announced, “Someone’s soiled his nappy.” She was just getting up to take him upstairs when Charlie leapt to her feet with her arms out.
“No need to get up, Lily, I’ll change him.”
Lily shrugged and again snuggled into James’s side. Charlie took Harry from his mother’s lap and disappeared up the stairs. In the space of time anyone could count to five, Sirius had followed her. James, Lily, Remus, and Peter just looked at each other and sighed.
Charlie laid Harry on the changing table and set to work. She knew the moment Sirius entered the room, just as she’d known he’d followed her. She held the soiled nappy behind her, and she felt his fingers brush hers as he took it from her to be thrown away. He only spoke when she’d finished.
“Charlie, you can’t be angry with me forever.”
“Wanna bet?”
“I’ve watched you hurting over this long enough, and it’s starting to get ridiculous. I came back, didn’t I? I was barely harmed.”
“You were unconscious in the hospital for three days, Sirius. That’s not unharmed.”
“I was the least hurt out of the lot, and you know that. Some of those who’d accompanied me have yet to recover. Some never will.”
“I know.” Charlie slowly turned to face him. Harry, fed and changed, was rapidly becoming drowsy. She gazed down at him, rocking him back and forth in the cradle of her arms. “You don’t know how often I thank God you’re not one of them,” she whispered.
They both watched Harry fight sleep until finally his eyelids became too heavy for him to deny. Silently he submitted into peaceful slumber.
“I came back,” Sirius repeated quietly after a moment. His stormy eyes lifted and met with her chocolate ones. “But I haven’t been able to live. I can’t, Charlie. Not without you.”
He saw tears pool in her eyes as he reached behind her neck to grasp the thin gold chain. Deftly his fingers unclasped it and withdrew it from under her shirt. Hanging on the chain was the ring he’d given her, the ring she’d taken off her finger but hadn’t been able to part with completely. He slid it into his hand, then held it up between their faces.
“Choose now, Charlie. Decide whether you want me to take this and leave, or put it back on your finger where it belongs, so we can finally be together.” He looked back down at the sleeping Harry. “So we can finally have a family of our own.”
The only thing that moved was the sole tear that ran down Charlie’s cheek. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity; at last Charlie moved. She took a slow step back, then another, and another, before turning around fully and walking to Harry’s crib. Sirius shut his eyes tight and clenched his teeth against the sharp stab of pain in his heart. But before he knew it, her arms were around him and her lips were crushed to his.
That was the last time all the friends were together. A few days later, the Potters went into hiding. They moved to another house, upon which the Fidelius Charm was cast. Sirius, at the last minute, begged off being their Secret Keeper, claiming it was too obvious. They made it Peter instead. That decision cost them their lives.
For Peter had been in league with Voldemort since around the time of Harry’s birth. On Halloween night, October 31, 1981, he betrayed his friends’ trust and told Voldemort the Potters’ location.
As Lily walked down the stairs that night, she had a strange sense of déjà vu. When she stepped down off the last step she stopped, closed her eyes, and tried to think of why she was so tense.
Nothing came to her, so she sighed and shrugged it off, walking into the living room. She plopped down next to James on the couch, kissed his cheek, and tried to see what it was about the article he was reading in the paper that was so interesting. After trying and failing, she wiggled into his lap and pressed against him. That got his attention.
She kissed his neck and nibbled on his ear. Huskily she whispered, “Wanna neck?”
Before he could reply, however, they both heard a soft click. A wave of déjà vu hit Lily that was so intense she nearly fainted. As the black spots cleared from her vision, she murmured, God knew why, “The back door just unlocked. He’s come for Harry.”
James studied her with a strange expression on his face, but because her statement unsettled him, he got up to walk to the kitchen. Of their own accord, Lily’s feet carried her to the base of the stairs.
Only when James shouted, “Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off!” did she break out of her daze. She flew up the stairs without hesitation; she didn’t see the flash of green light burst from the kitchen, but she heard the high, eerie cackle. And knew she was alone.
Lily rushed into Harry’s room. Something had already woken him up. He was standing with his hands on the rails of the crib. Lily picked him up and held him to her chest tightly, feeling as though this had happened before.
“It’ll be all right, shnookums. Mummy’s not going to let him hurt you.”
The door burst open unexpectedly and smacked against the wall. Lily spun around and came face to face with a man she’d seen before so many times and had hoped never to see again. Voldemort.
“Not Harry, not Harry, please,” Lily said desperately. She wasn’t sure if she was imploring Voldemort, or praying to God.
“Stand aside, you silly girl! Stand aside now!” Voldemort hissed.
But she didn’t surrender. In the instant before the curse took her, she suddenly knew where she’d seen and felt this all before.
She’d already died once in her dreams.
Dying for her son was the only defense she had, and she knew it, harnessed it, and used it.
She’d never felt more alive than she did the moment before she died.
Sirius was first on the scene that night. He found Harry, had everything planned out in his head for he and Charlie to raise him, when Hagrid showed up with strict orders from Dumbledore to take Harry to number four, Private Drive to live with his mother’s Muggle sister and her husband and son.
Sirius insisted for a moment before he realized that only he, Lily, and James knew about the Secret Keeper switch. Not even Dumbledore knew that it was Peter who’d really betrayed them. So, recognizing defeat, Sirius gave Harry up.
The following morning he had a run-in with Pettigrew. He went mad with anger, grief, and heartache. But Peter was way ahead of him. He cut off his own finger and blew up a street full of Muggles before turning into his Animagus form of a rat and scampering off. Sirius was accused of too many murders to name and thrown into Azkaban prison where he rotted and plotted for the next twelve years.
With the death of Lily and James and little Harry being sent off, and Sirius in prison until death does he part, Charlie ran away. No one ever knew where she went or what happened to her. Some say she died. Some say she joined Voldemort under false pretenses, and he killed her instantly. Some say she’s still out there, waiting for the Grim to come relieve her of her pain.
No matter which story is true, one thing was for sure: poor Remus was left all by his lonesome.
There is no happy ending to this story.