Summary: There were supposedly only four people there the night that Voldemort came to the Potter's house. By the time the night was over, two were dead, one was vanquished, and the other, a baby, remembered merely a green light and a laugh. So how, exactly, did everyone figure out what exactly what happened in Godric's Hollow? A series of drabbles on different answers to that question.
Secrets
By Potterworm
I. Severus
When he saw the Dark Lord leave, Severus knew it was the night. He shot a message to Dumbledore and waited only a second before he realized he didn't trust Dumbledore to handle this.
Barely breathing, he disillusioned himself and followed the Dark Lord. He didn't know where Lily and Potter were living, but he wasn't fool enough to think that the Dark Lord did not know already.
Severus knew if the Dark Lord simply turned around, no invisibility charm would cause the Dark Lord not to see him. Still, he had to try.
When they got to Godric's Hollow, he paused when the Dark Lord did. He was surprised when he could see the house – hadn't they used the Fidelius?
When the Dark Lord went into the house, Severus looked in the window to see Potter and Lily. He could hear the Dark Lord talking and realized – with a curse – that he had miscalculated. The Fidelius charm wasn't on the house at all; it was on Potter, Lily, and their son.
Severus could hear the Dark Lord, and he realized he was likely talking to Potter. There was no way Lily hadn't gone to their son. Desperately, Severus transfigured a ladder and cast a charm to make it invisible. He made his way to the window on the second floor. Severus could feel his heart beating in his chest; he had so little time. Where was Dumbledore?!
He couldn't see Lily or the boy, but he saw the crib and knew she must be within feet of him. He was at an angle, so when the Dark Lord entered the room, he didn't look at the window. Still, Severus barely breathed. If he was discovered… he couldn't even think of what would happen.
Severus wondered, for a moment, why Lily had not run before the Dark Lord arrived. Flee out the window, grab a broom and fly out the window. Transfigure a ladder herself. Still, he realized how foolish that thought was. It had been only seconds since the Dark Lord entered the house, and he was already in the room. What was she to have done? (He wasn't fool enough to think she would Apparate and leave her son, and he knew that apparating was next-to-impossible with infants.)
Severus found himself gripping his wand, and he was right there, all he had to do was fire a curse. But if he did, if he fired, he would surely not kill the Dark Lord. If all it took was a curse, then the Dark Lord would have died years ago. If he fired, he would surely be discovered and cursed and tortured and die, and Lily would die anyway too. Still, he found himself raising his wand, when suddenly he found himself blown from the house.
Darkness.
He woke a moment later, laying in the front yard. He looked up, dazed, and saw that the ladder had toppled over – and, to his horror, there was a hole busting from the roof of Godric's Hollow.
Severus leapt up and found his courage. He sprinted into the house, his legs taking the stairs two at a time. Severus didn't think to stop, didn't think to wonder if the Dark Lord was in the nursery still. Instead, he didn't even glance at Potter as he ran past his corpse and ran into the nursery. And – there was Lily.
He knew the moment he saw her that she was dead, but still, half-blood that he was, he found himself taking her pulse. Severus hadn't cried in years, but he found himself sobbing then, sobbing hysterically and holding her body. This was a pain he had never known. If only, if only.
He didn't know how long he lay there when, to his surprise, he heard the boy cry. Severus looked over.
The boy – lived?
Later, Severus would leave the boy behind, not wanting people to know he had been there. Later, Hagrid would arrive and take Harry to his aunt and uncle's home. Later, Severus would sit in Dumbledore's office and explain what he had seen, and later Dumbledore would ask to see the memory himself. Later, they would piece together what must have, might have, could have happened.
Later, the world would raise their glasses to the boy-who-lived.
Now, Severus mourned.
Author's Note: inspired by the scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two. At least five more drabbles to come.
