Chapter 1: Prologue
One dark, blustery Halloween night in the year of 1981 in a little cottage just inside the limits of Godric’s Hollow, there was a burst of laughter and clapping. If you happened to look through the window, you would see a man of twenty-one with an unruly mop of black hair and clear hazel eyes. He was waving a wand in the air, creating puffs of delicate smoke rings puff out of it.
A woman sat on the couch opposite him with a baby on her knee. She had coat of red hair that flowed down her back and unusually vivid emerald green eyes that twinkled in the firelight. The baby had inherited his father’s hair, and that he had his mother’s eyes. This baby boy’s name was Harry, and his parents were James and Lily.
They had been sent into hiding fearing that Voldemort would find them and kill them. Albus Dumbledore had told them of a prophecy and stated that the whole family needed to go into hiding. They had, to date, been living in Godric’s Hollow for a week with the Fidelius Charm over their house.
James’ friend, Peter Pettigrew, was their Secret-Keeper. Sirius Black, one of James’ best friends, had been their original choice but Sirius had begged them to reconsider.
“They’ll automatically go for me because I’m obviously your friend, and am like your brother,” James remembered Sirius saying. “They’ll never think to go after Peter.”
So, after much begging and arguing, Peter became the Potters’ Secret-Keeper.
On that chilly Halloween night, the Potters were trying to keep Harry entertained while they waited anxiously for news. The Order was unable to communicate with them without fear of being intercepted, so the Potters were desperate for new information. Sirius and Peter stopped by every once in a while to check up on them.
Lily was unusually apprehensive that night, and even she couldn’t explain why.
“I just feel like something bad is going to happen,” she told James. James hardly reacted, but she saw emotion flicker over his face while he watched Harry trying to grab the smoke between his fists.
“Aw, see the purple smoke? Harry like purple smoke?” he asked, teasing the young boy.
“Honestly, James, stop encouraging him. Little Harry needs his rest,” Lily said, scooping Harry into her arms as he yawned sleepily.
“You’ve been teasing and spoiling him lately, not tonight maybe, but you have been spoiling him like you won’t be there tomorrow. If you keep doing that he’ll be as bad as you were when he goes to Hogwarts!”
“My dear Lily, according to you, no one on this earth could be more of a prat than I was.”
“True,” she sighed, looking bemused. Outside, they heard the gate creak open. “Did you invite someone over?” Lily asked tensely, afraid of the answer.
“No,” he replied, a confused look on his face. Lily noticed that he actually looked scared. She could only remember him being scared twice, once when he had proposed to her, and once when she was in the hospital giving birth to Harry.
This unnerved Lily more than even she knew, watching him try to control his emotions, trying to be strong for her. It’s odd that when someone you trust is scared they try to hide it. Them having trouble with it tends to make you even more frightened.
They shivered simultaneously. James slinked over to the window, trying to see who or what was outside. All he saw was a black robed figure, but that was enough. He knew that none of the Order members, nor Sirius or Peter would wear black robes covering their faces to the Potter’s house. It had to be a Death Eater.
James silently cursed Peter, vowing that if he ever got a hold of Peter, he’d die the most painful death possible. He couldn’t believe that Peter had sold them out to Voldemort. James hoped that Peter was enjoying himself wherever he was, because if he ever saw Peter again, James was going to give him hell. He turned back around to tell Lily what he had seen and to figure out an escape plan quickly.
Meanwhile, Lily was hoping that the creaking gate was just one of the Order members coming to check up on them, or it creaking in the wind. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but one could never be too careful.
As a mother, she knew that she would do anything to keep Harry safe. Therefore, when Sirius had pleaded with them, telling them that Peter would be the perfect bluff for being their Secret-Keeper, they had switched. As she stood there, straining to hear another sound, she realized that he was also the perfect bluff for being a Death Eater.
For who would suspect loyal Peter Pettigrew as a Death Eater? Certainly not James, Lily, or Sirius, who had thought, however grudgingly, that Remus would have been the perfect spy. It was Peter, she remembered, that had convinced them it was Remus. It all made sense now.
Peter had betrayed them, simple as that. He had given their location to Voldemort, and had sealed their fates.
Suddenly, they heard a high, cruel laugh, and Lily’s heart sunk lower than her toes and she sent a look of sheer terror at James as she knew. It was him. Voldemort.
They heard the front door explode, Voldemort not wanting to toy around.
Lily watched as her husband sprinted out into the hallway. She looked around hastily for their wands, quickly searching the room, but she couldn’t find them. She thought she had left hers upstairs, but where was James’?
** “Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! I’ll hold him off!”**
She scooped Harry up into her arms, knowing that she had to protect him at all costs. Lily immediately tried to Apparate, but panicking slightly when she realized that someone, probably Voldemort, had put up Anti-Apparation wards. So she did the only thing she could think of; she bolted into the hallway and up the stairs. She barely got as far as the fifth stair, however, when a curse flew past her head. She turned around, all the while backing up rapidly, trying to determine the source of the curse.
James was now in front of Lily’s eyes, trying to dodge the curse that was sent at him. She continued to climb backwards up the stairs, not taking her eyes off of James. Suddenly, as though in slow motion, Voldemort cast the Killing Curse towards James.
“Avada Kedavra!” She saw, as if in slow motion, James fall to the ground. Her husband was lying spread-eagled on the ground, his last scream still fixed upon his face.
Jolted into the harsh reality that James Harold Potter, the man she had vowed to love all of her life was dead. She screamed, a breathtaking, ear-shattering scream, and then started sobbing more hysterically than before. Suddenly, an emotion filled her. It was more overpowering than any emotion she’d ever felt in her life. It was pure rage.
“YOU BASTARD!” she screamed, adrenaline and rage still pumping through her body. Almost immediately following her statement, she realized that she had just given away that she was still here, and fear rushed through her and replaced the adrenaline. This man would kill her, just like he had killed James.
She scrambled up the final step and into Harry’s nursery, where she barricaded the door feebly with a chair. She tried to move the heavy dresser, but could only move it a few inches.
She swiftly set Harry in the crib, giving him one last hug, trying to save him from the death that was certain to come. She couldn’t find her wand; she knew she had left it in the den. She couldn’t believe she had been so reckless as to assume that she had left it upstairs.
Tears still streamed down her blotchy face, and she whispered hurriedly, knowing that there wasn’t much time for either of them.
“No matter where you are or what you do, I’ll always be with you. I’ll always love you. Just remember that. James and I will always love you.” She hugged Harry fiercely and kissed his forehead, not exactly sure why she said that, as he was almost certainly going to die too.
She swayed slightly on the spot, the enormity of the situation pressing fully down upon her. James was dead, and she and Harry were in a room with only two ways out- the door and the window. As they were on the second story, the jump would most likely injure or kill them.
Lily heard a slight creak as Voldemort ascended the first stair. She darted over to the window, only to have her suspicions confirmed. A drop from that window would either break someone’s neck or kill them. She shivered. More thuds, then a creak as Voldemort climbed up the remaining stairs.
Silence.
Then the door was shattered by a Blasting Curse, and Lily ducked while she stepped in front of the crib, shielding Harry from the flying remains of the door. She gasped as Voldemort entered the room. His wand was trained on Harry, his slit cat-like eyes fixed on Lily, and she knew she was going to die. But if she could help it, she would die defending Harry.
She threw her arms wide in front of the crib in which she had placed Harry.
Hysteria was bubbling up inside of her, and she knew it was hopeless. She would beg him if needed.
** “Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!” **
She couldn’t believe she was reduced to begging, but at this point, it looked as if she didn’t have a choice.
**“Stand aside, you silly girl...stand aside now,” **he hissed, his snake-like voice even more apparent.
** “Not Harry, please no, take me, and kill me instead-” **
She pleaded with him, not expecting it to work but desperate enough to believe anything at that point. She lifted Harry out of the crib, hugging him close to her body, as if that would save him from the man - no, monster - that was currently standing about fifteen feet in front of her.
** “This is my last warning!”**
Voldemort’s wand hand was twitching now, almost daring her to go on with her desperate begging.
** “Not Harry! Please…have mercy…have mercy…Not Harry! Not Harry! Please- I’ll do anything-”**
Lily’s voice was up to a scream now, and desperately searching for a way out of her current predicament, holding on to Harry as she had never done before, knowing that she was going to die even if he had mercy on her precious Harry.
** “Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!”**
Lily did not move. She didn’t waver or think about it for the slightest moment. She had vowed to protect Harry, and that was what she was going to do. She stood firm, waiting, wanting it to all be over. Then, as if Voldemort had read her mind, he hissed the deadly words, and they echoed eerily throughout the room.
“Avada Kedavra!” She saw the electric neon-green light leave his wand and thought with all her heart, ‘James, if you can hear me, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you to die. But at least we’ll be together, you and me.’
The Killing Curse hit her. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, she couldn’t hear. Everything went black for Lily Marie Evans-Potter, who had done what she had meant to do. She had sacrificed her life for her only son, Harry James Potter, so lovingly cared for, and therefore had unknowingly given him the protection he needed to survive the Killing Curse that came at him only about half a minute later, which rebounded onto its caster.
Voldemort was ripped from his body, and barely alive, and merely part of a soul, he fled into the night, leaving behind a screaming and crying one year-old black-haired boy, who now had a peculiar lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead.
Then, an unusual thing happened, though no one but Harry was around to witness it. Out of Lily and James’s bodies, a white light rose and floated out of the house, intertwined with each other, and settled into the base of a tree trunk at the edge of the property. At the same time, the bodies of Lily and James Potter disappeared. When Rubeus Hagrid and Sirius Black arrived, they couldn’t find Lily and James, no matter where they looked. At first, Sirius refused to believe that they were dead, but finally agreed, however heartbrokenly, that Lily and James were gone.
It was assumed that when Voldemort was destroyed, their bodies had been destroyed as well, as no one ever found their bodies. Over time, the parts of the house that hadn’t been damaged and the grounds around the house were destroyed, but there was one tree on the property that didn’t die, an Oak tree on the very edge. It stayed alive throughout the years, and the in the spring of 1982, for the first time since it was a seedling, blossoms appeared on the tree’s lower branches.
More Than A Memory by nancydrewgirl
Chapter Notes: Hey! I'm Aubrey, and this is my first fan-fic.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I am not Joanne. If I was, I'd be writing a book about the second generation right now, most likely.
1st chapter: What really happened that fateful Halloween night?
Chapter Endnotes: ** Parts are quoted from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Well, There you go! How was the first chapter?
Read and Review please!
~Aubrey