Voldemort's Folly
Chapter 1: The Prophecy
AN: This story is based around the night Voldemort fell in 1981, but the majority of the story is in the year leading up to that fateful night, but there will be some changes from the canon. As a disclaimer, I am not the owner of the Harry Potter books and movies. All rights go to J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros, seeing that I am just playing in the Potter sandbox.
Voldemort was in his base of operations and he was waiting on a report from Severus Snape, his servant and Death Eater. He was hoping that Snape would provide him information about what was happening with Dumbledore. That pest in side was making his life miserable, and the bloody Order of the Phoenix was getting in the way of his goal of making Wizard Britain a fully pureblood society, and removing the blood traitors and Muggleborns, as well as the Mudbloods. How Voldemort cursed being a Mudblood and being left behind by his namesake father. He wanted to make sure that the Ministry would bend to him and he would be the most powerful and feared wizard who could cheat death.
His thoughts were startled when there was suddenly a knock on the door. Snape entered the room and then said "My Lord, I have heard a prophesy surrounding you." Voldemort was wondering what the old man was up to and he figured that this prophesy was going to be interesting. He said in a sharp tone "Severus tell me what the damn thing was!" Severus recoiled a bit and then said "I overheard Dumbledore interview someone for a Divination job at Hogwarts and she said 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies'. I was kicked out and I do not know if that was the full extent of the prophecy."
Voldemort was surprised and stunned to hear of this prophesy. He thought about it for a moment and then he said "Severus you know that there are two couples of blood traitors that have defied me three times. The Potters and the Longbottoms. I expect that you will go back to the Order and look around and make sure that we know who this is going to be." Severus nodded and then ran back to where he had come from.
Voldemort thought to himself that this was a key he could use to remove two very powerful families from the Order. Less blood traitors to worry about and he could better use his resources. And after all, he had to reach out to what he considered the weakest link in the Order. He wrote out an order to a couple Death Eaters to go find and abduct the one they called Wormtail.
AN: This chapter is short, but this sets up what I wanted to do. This story is centered around one of the questions I have had since I first read the books, the question being what compelled Wormtail to betray the Potters. I also wondered if there was a way to make that clear but have things diverge.