It was a cold Halloween that year. The muggles didn't let their children out to trick-or-treat for fear of them catching cold. There was an entirely different fear within the walls of the Potter household.

James had just finished putting up the barriers on all the doors and windows when Lily came downstairs.

"Okay, Harry's asleep finally. Did you get the doors?"

"Yes, and—"

"Both doors? And the windows?"

"I got the front door, and the back door, and all of the windows."

"What about the window on top of the house that doesn't go anywhere?"

Despite the reason for these precautions, James smiled. "Yeah, I got the window that doesn't go anywhere, relax."

Lily shook her head and let out an exasperated sigh. "Okay, I'll accept that the house is secure, but I will not relax. He's been after us for months, and now, there's frost on the windows on Halloween and we just got a new secret-keeper."

"Peter will do fine!" They had been over this several times since Sirius stepped down. James insisted that Peter was just as trustworthy as Sirius. Lily didn't like the idea of entrusting their son's life to a man who could comfortably live out his days in a cheese wheel.

"All the same," Lily started, but that was when the toaster went off.

They both shot looks to the toaster.

"Fancy a continental?" James ventured with a nervous laugh. Lily's grave scowl straightened him up. "It's only one of the alarms, it could have been a rebellious kid, or a squirrel with a death wish."

The bird in the cuckoo clock shot across the room.

"Okay, a squirrel wouldn't set off that one."

The lights flickered, followed by a layer of frost thickening over the kitchen windows.

James looked from the ceiling to the windows, then glanced at the front door.

"Lily," he whispered, "get upstairs. Go to Harry's room, barricade yourself in. He's here."

"But what about you?" she asked, already headed for the stairs.

"Go! I'll try to hold him off." He drew his wand.

"James…"

"GO!" he bellowed, this time waving his wand toward her, cloaking the stair case, and Lily with it. She hurried up the stairs, not looking back, not wasting any more time.

A light flowed through the lock of the door, leaves blew under the door from the force of the unspoken spell used to breach the final defenses. The door swung open, and the Dark Lord swept in. James immediately flicked off a stupefy, which Voldemort didn't even raise his wand to deflect.

"Potter," he rasped, pulling back his hood, "at last, I've found you. Where is the boy?"

James kept his wand aimed at Voldemort. "Boy? Voldy, please, I'm 22, would I really have a kid?"

Lord Voldemort made a noise that may have been laughter in his earlier years. "Jokes and bravado in the face of your death. If that is truly the way you wish to die, so be it. AVADA KEDEVRA!"

From James' perspective, everything slowed down as the spell flew toward him. He knew he wouldn't survive, but he had seconds.

Lily…Harry…I'm sorry…

Lily had just finished casting protection spells on the door and was in the process of putting Harry's dresser in front of it when she had the Killing Curse cast. She faltered in sorrow and dropped the furniture. She ran to the crib and scooped up Harry, who had started fidgeting from the magic and malice in the air.

The floor boards scarcely creaked as Voldemort swept through the halls, opening doors with increasing impatience. When he reached the bedroom, all Lily heard was a sharp intake of breath before the wall caved. She spun around, still cradling Harry.

"Lilith. Give me the boy. No one else has to die tonight." He reached his hand out toward her, keeping his wand at his other side.

"No one should have died at all!" she sobbed, clutching Harry closer, who had now begun to cry. She gently shushed him and placed him down with his favorite stuffed hippogriff. "Why are you here? Why did you kill my husband, why do you want to kill my son?!"

Lord Voldemort waved his arm, as if physically discarding the questions. "My business does not concern you, you need only move away from the boy, and you will survive this night. Defy me, and the muggles will have a new reason to fear Halloween night."

Lily looked to Harry, then closed her eyes and turned back to Voldemort.

"So," he said, spreading out his arms, "what will you do, Lily Potter?"

She quickly pulled out her wand and aimed it toward him. She was dead before she got threw her first spell.

"A family of fools," Voldemort sighed, stepping over her body to the crib. "But brave, nonetheless, to have prevented my plans for so long."

He gazed down into the crib. Harry looked back into his eyes. "Such a small creature, prophesied to be my failure. Fate does not shackle me! Avada Kedevra!"

A deep green glow erupted from Voldemort's wand, made within inches of the infant's face before rebounding onto the Dark Lord. He stumbled back in pain and shock, Harry screaming in pain from a new wound on his forehead. Weakened, but alive, Voldemort stumbled his way out of the room, shooting spells into every room he passed on his way out, determined to do away with the wretched child.

By the time his feet his the grass, and he had put his hood back up, the house was coming down, and so was a loud Muggle vehicle that was somehow flying. Under different circumstances, Voldemort could have easily blasted the fool out of the sky, but he knew now that he had to escape into darkness, into memory. Let the world think he had been done away with, while he regained his strength.

As he fled, the Dark Lord didn't see the motorcycle land, or the giant who got off of it and scooped up the completely unharmed child, save for the strange scar on his forehead and torn hippogriff at his side.