Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I do own this writing though. One shot.
A Week From Now
Exactly a week from now he will find her. Hair flung around her, like a bloody halo. Her skin so pale, it glows. Her eyes staring, unseeing. The silence will be suffocating. She will be wearing her favorite purple shirt, with grey jean, and black converse. Her arms are spread, legs slightly bent. Her mouth will be open, lips still ready, screams of protest prepared if she were still alive. He will fall to his knees at her body, and hold her tight, wondering what that keening sound was, until he realized it was coming from him. He will beg for her to wake up, when he knows that she never will. After what seemed like hours he will finally realize that her son was alive. He will call Dumbledore.
Three days from now she will be in the kitchen, singing along to "The Weird Sisters", and dancing with her husband in the kitchen before he leaves for work. She will kiss him goodbye, and watch him leave, worrying about what might happen to him at work in these times. These dark, dreadful, cruel times. She will later cry after putting Harry down for a nap, remembering exactly what she had sacrificed in these times. By the time her husband comes home, it seemed like she had never even thought about her parents deaths.
A day from now she will be flitting about the house, baking treats for the children of the neighborhood, and setting up decorations for Halloween. She will coo to her one-year old son, and she will laugh when he changes her husbands hair when he comes home, late in the evening. That night when her son can not sleep she will cradle him in her arms, and sit in the rocking chair in the corner. She will sing him a lullaby, and kiss his unmarred forehead when he falls asleep. She will then smile and snuggle him to her chest and fall asleep with him in her arms.
In the morning of the day, she will wake up to an empty bed, and throw the covers off, running down the hallway, worried about her husband, and child. She will find them both in the kitchen, her husband feeding their baby boy. She will clutch her heart, trying to forget the dreadful few minutes that she had felt alone, when she had thought they were gone. Later, when her husband is at work she realizes the feeling has not gone away, and clutches her son closer to her. He will cry, he will cry like he knows that this is the last day he will ever feel, see hear, or smell his mother. He will scream every time she tries to set him down. She doesn't try to set him down after the first screaming fit. At some level, she understands his feeling too. Her husband will come home and they will pass candy out to the cute little children. After they are done, they will sit down for dinner, their last dinner as a family (their last together). It is filled with tales about her husbands day, she will relax, but the feeling still does not go away.
Thirty minutes before now, the charm will fall, and her husband will tell her he loves her and to run for he was here. She will not cry. Not yet. She will pick up her son and run, run as fast as she can to her sons room. Just as locks the door she will hear the front door crash open, loud as thunder. She will listen fearfully as her husband fights for her life and their sons life. She will listen to the love her life die. She will hear the cold cruel laughter of the Dark Lord. She will turn to her son, as she gently tucks him into his bed she will kiss him on the forehead and tell him, "Don't forget that mummy will always love you, you mean everything to mummy and she will do anything to ensure you remain well protected, and happy".
Fifteen minutes from now, the door to the bedroom she is in will unlock, and the Dark Lord will mockingly knock on the door. She will not answer. He will open the door, and walk in like it is his own house. He will smile cruelly at her as she stands in front of her sons crib, which holds her son. He will laugh at her attempts to save her son and tell her to step aside. She will not move. His smile will fall off his face, and he will growl at her to move, or he will kill her. She will cry now, but she says that she will not move, for she loves her son, and even if it will surely mean her death, she will not move. He will kill her to get to her son, and laugh at the "foolish woman". That will be her sons only memory of her. Her death.
Ten minutes from now, the Dark Lord will aim his wand at her son, and say two fatal words. Her son will be the first to survive the killing curse, and the Dark Lord will die.
Five minutes from now, Severus Snape will enter the room after finding her husbands dead body at the front of the stairs, as if trying to stop the Dark Lord from killing her, and his son. He will rush to her body and howl in grief, as her son starts to cry. He will hold her and ask God to bring her back. She will remain unmoving, and cold as ice.
Two minutes from now, Sirius Black will arrive, and fall to his knees form grief, screaming about traitorous rats, and lost friendships. He will try to run to find his godson, only to be intercepted by Hagrid.
One minute from now, Severus Snape will emerge from the house, proclaiming that her son was alive, and she was dead. He will give her son to Hagrid, and collapse from the sheer pain of knowing she was dead. Sirius will beg Hagrid to let him raise his sweet, little godson, his only remaining light in this utterly damp, dark, world. Hagrid will say no, preaching to him that Dumbledore said he needed to be raised by her ugly, sadistic sister. She will scream in protest from heaven.
Now, Hagrid will disappear on Sirius' bike, and take her son to his personal hell. For ten years he will be abused, lied to, starved, hated, and hidden. He will only know her by her death. He will not know what she looks like, what she was like. She will cry for him, when he cannot. She will watch him as he is forced into something that was not his fault. She will watch him, never able to touch him, or contact him, knowing this was her sacrifice. Her life for his. She would be fine with this, but not with her sons treatment.
Years after that night, he will find a photo, old and frail, of a woman with his emerald eyes, and crimson hair. She will be smiling at him, her rosy lips curved, her eyes twinkling. He will look at the photo in confused recognition. The only memory he could identify with the photo was that of glowing green light, and a proclamation of a mothers sacrifice, a mothers love.