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Lily Potter was dead on the nursery floor.
Two down, one to go, he thought with a grim sigh. What a way to spend Samhain.
Lily Potter was dead on the nursery floor, James Potter was dead at the bottom of the stairs, and their freshly orphaned child was crying in the corner.
Now the death of James Potter was no great loss to magickind as far as Voldemort was concerned, but he hadn't set out wanting to kill Lily Potter even though he honestly wasn't all that surprised by the outcome. While he held no issue with removing any human-shaped obstacles to his goals Severus had begged him on his knees to spare her, the only personal request he had ever made of his Lord, and Voldemort did try to be a man of his word to the very few people who were worth the effort.
Observing the proper formalities of such things was always important, so he had asked the traditional three times for her to stand aside. Of course she had refused, admirably resolute and defiant right until the very end, so despite it being a waste of such a talented witch there really hadn't been much else for him to do at that point. Leaving loose ends was not his style, and leaving a grieving, semi-feral prodigy alive after killing her husband and infant was just plain bad for business.
It was strangely warm in the nursery for such a chilly autumn night. Maybe there had been some Heating Charms which had faded on the death of the caster? No matter.
Now that he had a moment to breathe Voldemort did a quick review of the mental checklist he'd created well in advance for tonight, confirming that he hadn't missed anything and that everything was going according to schedule. Lily Potter's stubbornness had only amounted to 37 seconds of deviation from the projected time frame for the task, well within an acceptable margin for error. Micromanaging to the extent he did for key events might be the best way to drive yourself crazy for most people, but Voldemort wasn't most people now was he? The preparations for his new horcrux had of course been completed before he even arrived, the runes dried slick and tacky on his torso under his robes and the taste of blood and bitter herbs still thick on his tongue. It was time.
Standing in the crib with its little hands clenched tight on the railing to hold it upright, the child was wailing (not unjustifiably) like the world was ending. It was small and kind of pudgy to be honest, crowned by a halo of fluffy black curls and big round cheeks which were all screwed up and red. This tiny and utterly underwhelming thing in an equally tiny deer onesie was Lord Voldemort's prophesied equal, really?
Not for the first time he wondered if this whole debacle had been a result of the demented ravings of an alcoholic charlatan. Alas, he concluded as always that as unlikely as it was that Harriet Potter was any kind of true threat to him, it was better to be safe than sorry. But Mother Magic and the Witchfather, was it normal for the bloody thing to be so godsdamned loud?
Admittedly his experience with babies was limited, even when he'd been a small child himself they didn't like him and the sentiment was mutual. It hadn't helped that the minders at the orphanage had gone out of their way to keep them away from him after The Rabbit Incident, though he couldn't say he faulted them for that. Plenty of other things certainly, but not that. But even when compared to the sepia-toned memories of his own shitty childhood, he was still confident this brat's seemingly endless lung capacity was something else altogether.
Voldemort's lips quirked with morbid humour. Maybe that was the secret then, maybe it would grow up and attempt to shriek him to death like a banshee, or talk his ear off until he went mad. Wouldn't that be amusing?
Deciding to take a few more moments from his meticulously planned timetable to reflect back on his journey thus far, he pondered again how he'd ended up here, about to murder an infant in cold blood. It was unfortunate that it had come to this of course. He wasn't going to enjoy it, and he certainly wasn't going to enjoy what came after, to say nothing of the fact it had Black blood through its paternal grandmother.
Honestly he'd really been hoping the prophecy would end up being about the Longbottom child, it had no relation to any Ancient Houses for enough generations for it to not matter, so while killing off magical children was distateful to him on principle alone its sacrifice would have been negligible in the grand scheme of things. Certainly not when fucking compared to losing one of the few viable blood descendants, however distant, of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Again, what a waste.
But unfortunately the prophecy - however dubious the provenance and as incomplete as it was - had been very clear, and however much he wished otherwise this was indeed the prophecy child. Nothing less than the future of their world was riding on his victory, so he couldn't risk this pint-sized menace growing up and interfering with his plans. As absurd as it sounded even to him, this baby could ruin him, so the baby had to go. Simple as that.
Nodding to himself Voldemort took a deep breath in preparation. 2 minutes and 14 seconds deviation from the projected schedule was still within tolerances, but any more would be pushing it.
Then it looked up at him, and Voldemort felt that breath catch in his throat.
Staring into the big, weepy, arsenic green eyes of his prophesied vanquisher Voldemort felt - just for the briefest moment - like he had forgotten something important, something so monumentally important. Not the kind of thing you include on a murder checklist either, but more the kind of thing you used to know down to your bones long ago, but lost somewhere along the way. Like the words to a song from your childhood, or exactly how you felt the very first time you watched the light leave a person's eyes.
It made his chest itch with foreign warmth, the strangely invasive heat in the nursery rising until there was the humid promise of a storm brewing in his chest cavity, and for a mad, fleeting instant he was utterly convinced that if he wasn't careful it would crash through his ribs and flood the earth.
Was this some kind of trap?
Normally he would say it was unthinkable that Dumbledore and his sychophants would use a young family like this as bait for him however much they wanted him gone, always far too obsessed with their own hypocritical morality for such a play however effective it might be. But still, something was undeniably off.
Flicking his tongue out to taste the air he couldn't detect anything unusual, the most dominant smells outside his own were pumpkin pie, tears, baby powder and death. There was absolutely no other living being here, he'd stake his life on it. Wizards might be able to make themselves silent or invisible, but almost none ever had the insight or indeed the common sense to hide their scent from him.
So why was he feeling so apprehensive, like he was being watched?
Mind racing to find an answer, it occurred to Voldemort that breaking powerful wards or enchantments often yielded some very impressive magical backlash. Perhaps this was simply the gravity of true prophecy being broken before it could be fulfilled?
Air pressure was building, the storm of magic waiting to happen coiling tighter and tighter around them both just like Nagini in the final moments before she crushed the life out of her victims, as if the world itself was frozen in tensed anticipation. Even the screaming infant had fallen silent with a whimper, staring up at him like it could feel something too even if it didn't understand what it was. They were the two of them the beating heart of the storm, trembling as it patiently circled their fragile mortal shells with all the predatory, golden inevitably of the heat death of the universe.
Well then. That was quite enough of that, thank you.
Voldemort pointed his wand at the child, no idea how many fucking minutes or seconds he was off-schedule by now and even less idea if it was anticipation or fear pushing him on with giddy urgency to commit the act which only minutes ago he was regarding with resigned distaste. But like hell was he going to stop now, whatever warning these strange forces were trying to give him were irrelevant. He refused to be cowed, and in moments it would all be over. With just one more curse his final horcrux would be made, his triumphant victory over both fate and Fade assured.
Just one more Unforgivable thing, and all will be well.
Looking deep into Harriet Potter's otherworldly green eyes as the storm held its breath, he said the words which would finally complete him and save them all. "Avada Kadavra."
The curse hit in one exultant and utterly eternal moment of blinding green light, and in the very next everything ended as he had somehow always known it would: in fire.