Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Tom Marvolo Riddle met his greatest fear on October 31st, 1981.
Nobody knew immediately. For several hours, the only thing anyone knew was that something had changed. There was an enormous flash of green light and explosion in Godric’s Hollow. The muggles in the area could taste the static in the air, but instead of seeing it as the magic it was they blamed it on a freak weather event that the government caused somehow. The cottage with a missing roof would be hidden under extremely powerful notice me not charms by the time anybody bothered wandering around outside after the weird events of that night.
What the muggles and wixen of the hollow missed was the sound of a baby crying in the ruins.
Sirius Black was the first person to arrive, barely avoiding crashing his prized Bertha by the skin of his teeth and the sacrifice of the hubcaps which he didn’t notice or care about in his panicked state. He’d been halfway across Britain when he felt the pull on his magic. He couldn’t explain it even if he wanted to. One moment he had been cruising down a dark road on his bike, rain hammering against his goggles. The next, he felt every single individual hair on his body rise. He didn’t remember consciously deciding what to do next. He simply knew something had happened and pushed his beloved bike to the limit to get where he needed to be.
By the time he arrived, the rain had stopped and it was eerily quiet. Not the type of quiet that let you know the world was still moving around you. He had the strange thought of the quiet reminding him of the muggle horror movies Lily loved to scare James with. You knew something was coming, but you didn’t know what, and all you could do is wait. However Sirius knew he wouldn’t be laughing after this like he laughed at James when he finally calmed down after realizing horror movies were fake.
He abandoned Bertha and ran when his brain caught up to what his eyes were showing him.
The Potter cottage was gone. Not damaged, but obliterated. The front wall collapsed outward and bricks were scattered about the garden. The windows were shattered and the smoke was thick but dissipating.
“JAMES!”
Silence.
“LILY!”
No response.
Sirius stumbled over a stray piece of wood and nearly fell flat on his face when he heard it. A baby, crying. Alive.
He dropped to his knees in front of the cot, eyes drawn immediately to the thin, lightning shaped cut on his forehead.
“Harry…”
Harry stopped crying and stared at him. After a moment he reached out and Sirius actually did end up releasing something between a laugh but heading towards a sob if he wasn’t careful. He gathered Harry into his arms and hugged him close.
“Your parents are going to kill me Prongslet.”
A voice he thought he might never hear again came from behind him: “Probably.”
James Potter was standing in what remained of Lily’s garden, alive but covered in blood. Sirius’s mind unwillingly flashed back to the last horror movie Lily made them watch and how it really did feel like they were in one now whether they wanted it or not.
“What in the bloody fuck happened James?”
James crossed the distance between them in seconds and took his son from Sirius. Harry immediately grabbed a fistful of his father’s hair and made an unsuccessful swipe for his cracked glasses that he loved to steal. James laughed and started to sob within the same breath.
“Where’s Lily?”
James’ face changed. “She was inside…she got him.” He looked down at Harry and began to whisper. “I don’t know what happened..he came for Harry. I don’t fucking know everything happened so fast.”
Sirius looked around. “Voldemort?”
James didn’t answer. The eerily quiet silence returned. Then the old Potter wards began to sing. It wasn’t music, not exactly. It was a deep vibration in the earth, the kind of sound that isn’t felt by your ears but deep within your bones.
Sirius looked at James. “What the hell is that?” James shook his head. “I have no clue.”
The wards flared, a green light shot up into the sky, and Tom Marvolo Riddle met Death who he had long ago decided was not his friend.
By morning, the ministry was aware. By noon, the newspapers knew. By evening, the entire wizarding world understood that Lord Voldemort was dead even if they had no clue how.
The dark lord who had terrorized them for more than a decade had vanished in an explosion of ancient magic. His followers were being arrested, wards were collapsing, enchanted boltholes now plottable when they were not previously. The war was seemingly over but nobody knew why or how. And nobody understood how Lily Potter survived, but she had.
She was found unconscious buried beneath rubble in the nursery, protected by a cocoon of shimmering gold magic. She woke a full three days later, and immediately asked for Harry. James was beside her before she even finished the word. “He’s fine love, we’re both fine.”
Lily closed her eyes as a tear slipped down her cheek. “James..”
“I know. He’s perfect, you’re perfect.”
She laughed weakly.
“His head?”
“Still attached.”
“My hero.”
James kissed her forehead. “You saved him,” he whispered.
Lily looked out the window. St. Mungo’s typically charmed their windows to whatever location the patient’s preferred, but all the young couple could see was the swarm of reporters outside that would certainly attract Muggle attention if not controlled soon.
“Did I?”
James frowned and ran his hands through his hair. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t remember.”
Neither of them knew it then, but Lily Potter had not simply just protected her son. She had activated something far older. Something that had been sleeping inside the Potter bloodline for generations.
Something that would not fully awaken for another eleven years.