Nihil Sine Deus

By: Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-

For darkness there must be light. For mortals there must be gods. For life there must be sacrifice.

This story will contain: language, violence, gore, death, torture, use of religious symbolism from Christianity (More particularly, Roman Catholicism) and a wide range of other religions (from Pagan to Shinto Gods and Goddesses), sexual intercourse, heterosexuality, and homosexuality. Spoilers through all seven books, with varying degrees of usage. This story will take place after Goblet of Fire.

Pairings: Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Various Heterosexual Pairings, Various Homosexual Pairings

Author Notes: Nihil has been in vague planning stages for years—from my memory, at least eight. It's funny that I finally decided to write the story out, rather than letting it rot in my head for all eternity. It's rather nice to write for the Harry Potter fandom again; I haven't even attempted to do it since my spectacular fail of a first public-known fan fiction. Oh, how I will never do that again.

Please note that religion is one of the most important parts of this story—it is the tangled web that has been weaved, so to say. I have spent years researching into this, just for this particular story. I have sat down in my computer chair, a copy of the Bible on one side, next to Paradise Lost, and on the other are all 7 Harry Potter books, and a little over a dozen texts on religion throughout the muggle world. I won't preach—it would be weird, considering I'm Agnostic (I was raised a Roman Catholic, so I'm well-versed in a god portion of what I write, and the rest has been researched), but some of the Muggle characters in this story will. After all, one cannot properly wage war against Wizarding Kind without the use of religion.

The prologue will be considerably shorter than the actual chapters of the story—alas, how am I supposed to start something off with long lines of exposition and bore the ever-loving hell out of you?

Also, a quick note about characters, and character bashings: Frankly, they put me off reading stories, so I will not have them here. Please don't expect that because of the pairing, that I'll have Harry bashing Dumbledore, the Weasley's, or anyone else. In the same vein, don't expect him to love the Slytherins without any explanation. I like in character characters.

Disclaimer: I, Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-, do not own, think I own, or will ever own the Harry Potter series. I am but a humble servant (or perhaps slave) to the whim of fickle ideas.


Prologue


Greedily she engorg'd without restraint,

And knew not eating death.

Satiate at length,

And heighten'd as with wine,

Jocund with boon,

Thus to herself she pleasingly began.

-John Milton, Paradise Lost, (9.791-46)


October 31, 1979

Lily Potter sat in the church, her hands clasped together in prayer. The bare sound of her breath and the occasional gust of wind knocking against the church's heavy doors were her only companions. Despite the time that had passed since she arrived—it must have been well over six hours since the priest had offered to speak with her—she had yet to move. She declined his offer, choosing instead to sit alone in the darkness. What comfort could she be offered?

She wore a black veil partially to hide from the Death Eaters who were out looking for her blood, but she knew it was a poor excuse, at best. The Death Eaters would not bother her, not here.

They would not dare.

But, Lily thought as she rubbed the black tulle between her fingers, Why did this keep happening?

Churches weren't places Lily normally found herself in; she grew up in a Christian household where religion was present but not persistent. Only on holidays did the Evans family find themselves particularly religious, or for particular religious rites of passage, which the Evans family firmly believed of importance. When Lily realized that she was different she all but completely stopped going to church, fearing that if anyone found out about her status as a witch that they would destroy her. Once she even feared that she would burn to death if she stepped into the Holy House of God, only to have Severus drag her inside to prove her wrong. But she could still remember the fear that raced through her veins when he grabbed her hand and dragged her, screaming and begging, through the wooden doors that towered over her like giants.

Sure, she became more accustomed to churches the more she realized that God himself would not strike her down for entering such a holy place, yet it didn't fully make sense why Lily's feet would trek the same path from their cottage in Godric's Hollow when she could muster up the courage.

Last time was almost four months ago—she had lit three candles before taking her seat in one of the back pews, far enough back that she was close to the exit, but to the side so she could hide in the shadows. She always sat in the pew next to the painted glass window of Mary and the baby Jesus—

Why I chose this row I'll never know.

Lily sighed and wiped her cheeks with a handkerchief already wet with her tears. Today she lit four candles.

The Wizarding World was in chaos with Voldemort attacking at every opportunity, his Death Eaters a well-orchestrated monster that snapped its teeth at the jugular of anyone willing to stand in their way. James told her the day before that what was happening to them wasn't because of fate or a cosmic revelation. It was that they were in a middle of a damn war and Lily spent much of her time stressed and worrying about their friends and family. The miscarriages weren't her fault—it was the entire situation that lead up to the loss of four unborn children.

Her unborn babies.

Lifting the tear-stained handkerchief back to her face, Lily felt a shudder run through her body. This couldn't just be about stress—there must have been something else involved with why she hadn't been able to carry a baby fully to term. She was healthy and more than ready for a child, and despite her husband's wish for them to wait until after the war, something inside of her called for a child more than anything. Why, Lily couldn't say. All she knew was that every time she miscarried it tore her apart.

"I don't know what to do," Lily whispered into the cloth. There wasn't any answer that anyone could give her—Poppy and the other healers didn't understand why. She even asked Dumbledore to check her for old, dark curses that maybe someone afflicted her with during an attack. Anything, any answer, was better than the unknown.

"God?" she asked, getting on her knees, dropping the cloth on the pew next to her. "I don't understand."

It felt like someone whispered in her ear. The skin on her next prickled with goosebumps and for a moment it felt like there was something weighing her down, pulling her from her belly down. The feeling left Lily out of breath, her body shaking. It felt like something was next to her, watching her.

A hand brushed against her arm and Lily was on her feet, wand flipped from the crook of her arm in an instant.

"Hey!" James put his hands up in a gesture of mock-surrender. "Hey," he said again, softly. "It's just me. I wanted to get you—it's dawn already. I made you some breakfast, thought it would make you feel better." Her husband reached up and took the veil off her head, brushing her cheek with his thumb. "Why don't you come back to the house?"

Lily swept her wand back into her holster, putting one hand on her stomach. What had been that weight pulling on her? Did she have to go back to the healers to make sure that she was okay?

But why did it feel like someone was watching me?


February 16th, 1980

The healers told her that her pregnancy was going remarkably well—she finally passed through the first trimester without miscarrying. From what Healer Templer told her, the baby by all accounts was perfectly healthy.

Lily cried.


April 4th, 1980

A dream, Lily told herself, once again, it was just a dream.

She sat in her kitchen, staring at the dark knots in the maple table. Her hand absently circled a ring of discoloration where she placed her tea every night, for the last six weeks, or so. It gave her comfort, to some degree; feeling something under her hands, something that was tangible and so very, very real.

She couldn't call them nightmares. There was nothing, technically, scary about what visited her in her sleep—in fact, it was a sweet, soft presence that seemed to reach a small hand out for her's, wanting to be touched, to be adored. It was the soul of her child, she thought, the child in her belly, growing from the nourishment and love she presented to it.

What would you give for me, Lily Potter? What would you sacrifice to bring me into this world?

Anything. She would happily give her life for the child inside her; would die a thousand times to protect her baby, the baby she wanted more than life itself. She would never admit it to her husband, but being a mother sometimes felt like her entire purpose to be on earth; she was just meant to bring life. Her mother once told her the man who baptized her foresaw birth in the water in his hand. Later, Monsignor Nicolai told her, on the day of her first Communion, that she should take the name Margaret (for the Saint Margaret of Antioch, who fearlessly and without temptation secured her virtue from the dragon Satan himself conjured, only to be beheaded by the heathen pagans she called her townspeople(1)) as her Christian name for her Confirmation. She only nodded her head and allowed the man of God to place the Eucharist on her tongue and tip the deep red wine into her mouth.

It tasted of blood and shame.

It was the day before she received her Hogwarts letter...

Lily shook her head and grabbed the handle of her cup, taking a taking a sip of the now cold tea.

Would you follow my word and place your trust in me?

It scared her how much she wanted to believe in the words she heard. Magic, maternal instinct, her own imagination, or perhaps a contrived combination of the three—what she did know was that she wanted to believe, more than anything, that she was hearing her child.

The voice accompanied her since the day in the Church, on Halloween. Once, she thought it may have been the remnant of a lost soul searching for peace of mind, attaching itself to her on the day the veil between life and death was at its weakest. But, the more she listened to the weak whispers, the more she knew.

She took the fruit from the Forbidden Tree, and tasted the sweet nectar.

And she would do as the voice asked, because she could feel it deep within her.

Calling.


April 5th, 1980

It had been a surprise attack on the Ministry. It was late enough in the morning to be bustling with witches and wizards readying for their day at work, but also early enough to catch most of them before they could fully and completely wake. Lily herself hadn't been able to even finish a cup of coffee before the entire building's foundations shook and the pictures on the walls around her began to crash down.

Immediately awake, jostled by the immediacy of the Death Eater's actions, Lily send her patronus out and down the quaking halls at a gallop. James was on the second floor, she on the ninth. He was no doubt fighting with the intruders, and who knew if anyone else in the Order was able to shoot off a spell to warn the others. The Atrium was just a floor above her and people were no doubt in need of help, but...

Lily looked down at her growing stomach.

There was no safer place she could have been; the Ever-Locked room was impossible to penetrate... But... she felt the breeze of someone touching her, a mouth mumbling words into the shell of her ear.

She kissed her left palm and laid it on her stomach (a gentle kick almost breaking her resolve) before pulling up the black hood of her Unspeakable robe.

This was what she was supposed to do.


She lay on a cot in St. Mungo's, staring up at the ceiling.

"Oh, Lily," James whispered, kissing her hands over and over. There were tear tracks down his face, and Lily felt one brush against the skin of her palm, more delicate than his lips.

"I saved all those people," Lily whispered, her voice sticking in her throat. "I saved all those people."

"I know, Lily, I know."

"Then why does this hurt so much?"

James untangled one of his hands to place in her long auburn hair. Rubbing circles against her scalp, he said, "Because... because..." he couldn't finish his sentence.

"Am I a bad wife?" Her voice was childlike. "I shouldn't have left the room—I knew it was dangerous, but it felt right... I had to do it."

He shook his head. "You saved at least a dozen people's lives—you took a curse from of the the top Death Eaters and that's why you're here. You saved a lot of people's lives, a lot of people..."

They waited to the healer to come, Lily being stable enough to wait while they saved the lives of others. Her child, if there was anything left, would wait. She understood the reason, understood that an adult right now was far more important than a bundle of cells. Her unborn child couldn't fight against Voldemort, couldn't risk his body and neck on his own accord for the side of Light.

Something lurched in the deepest core of her being, and Lily couldn't contain herself as she vomited up spirals of coffee and bile. Even with her husband's hand in her hair holding it away from her face, she had never felt so alone.


The doctor arrived shortly after, and with his Healer robes still covered in the blood of innocent people, cast a spell to remove the remains of the Potter's child.

It was a boy.

It had been a boy.

His remains would be put into the Potter mausoleum, a child who would never see a sunset or hear the bell of his mother's sweet voice as he was whisked away into a tender, sweet sleep.

And as all Pure-Blood families required, he was given a name.


April 13th, 1980

There was a kick.

Lily knew of phantom pains; members of the Order who lost limbs during the war sometimes spoke about it—a feeling they knew they couldn't possibly feel, but it existing either way. There were muggle doctors who spoke of it, and she remembered Moody once quoted one, when he explained the feeling of loosing a foot to her. He referred to it as thousands of spirit limbs haunting him, just as it did with any other.

She wondered, for a moment, if her subconscious would do this for the rest of her life—torment her without qualm. She deserved it, she knew, for leaving the Ever-Locked room, for wandering out of safety and into the palm of Voldemort's followers.

But, there was another kick, and Lily could not calm herself, as her breath quickened and she reached for her wand, hidden inside of her robes. She was always particularly good with Charms, and knew the incantation (for she used it more than once) so when she cast it, she knew it was not lying.

She cast it again, just to make sure, and when the light blue light pulsed in front of her to the beat of her child's heart she fell to her knees in prayer.


"It looks like everything is in order, Lily," Poppy said, only offering a small smile. Lily could see it in the woman's eyes that something was off, and she quickly jumped on it.

"Are you sure?" she asked cautiously, holding her hand over her swollen belly, leaning deeper into the white hospital blankets that reminded her of when she was still a student and her only fears were those of classes and friends; not Dark Lords and miscarriages.

The woman bristled away Lily's question, wiping her clean hands on even cleaner robes. "Of course, dear," she murmured. "There just are not many cases when professional healers miss these kinds of things! I have half a mind to call St. Mungo's and launch a formal complaint in your name!" The woman briskly snapped her fingers and a small house-elf with a fig-branch embroidered tea cozy on its head popped into existence. (2)

"What cans Samael do for the Mistress Pomfrey?" the boyish house-elf asked, his blue saucer eyes expectantly staring at the woman, adoration clear within their depths.

"Please get the Headmaster; I have a question for him regarding Mrs. Potter, here..."

The elf's ears bent downward. "Samael is very sorrys, Mistress Pomfrey, but the Master Dumbly sayses that the elfs shouldn't come into his roomses today."

Poppy's eyebrow rose up, now hidden by her hat. "He did, now?" She looked critically over the small elf, before huffing. "Then I'll just have to go see him myself! Samael, take care of whatever Mrs. Potter needs," the nurse jostled by, giving Lily a wave, "and don't you move from that spot!"

It was hard for Lily to hide her smile. Poppy would always be Poppy...

The house-elf popped out of existence for a moment before returning, carrying in its small arms a large, heavy silver tray with biscuits and tea, staring at her with his perturbing blue eyes, and a shudder ran down the small of her back. She pushed the thought away and opened her arms for the tray, taking the heavy object from Samael.

"Thank you very much," she said as she placed the metal on the foot of the bed before sweeping a hand through her red hair, smiling at the young, boyish elf. He nodded his head, ears flopping happily at the side of his head.

Lily looked away, grabbing a biscuit and took a bite before offering the plate of sweets to Samael, who barely contained his excitement over the offer, tripping over his feet (though he up righted himself very quickly, she noticed with a hint of curiosity) to rush to her.

"Thank yous," the small elf said as he quickly took one from the plate, looked up at her with the adoration she had seen him give Madam Pomfrey. "Mistress Potter," he asked, squeaky voice seeming to intone with a plea, "can Samael feels the Mistress's belly?" His eyes looked into hers, and touched something very deep, almost hidden inside her.

"O-okay, Samael," Lily whispered, nodding her head with small shakes. She placed her biscuit down on the plate and wiped her hands on the white sheets. "I've only ever had Healers or close friends and family do this, but," it's a good day. I still have my child.

"Oh, thanks yous so much! I love babies!" he gushed, and nearly tripped himself again as he darted forward to place his tiny hands on her stomach, his eyes closing in what she could only imagine as rapture.

"He's going to be a very special little boy," the house elf murmured, "a very, very special child. What would you give for him, Lily Potter?" And Lily could hear the change in the house-elf's sweet voice, and when she jerked her head up to look at Samael, the only reminder of his presence was the tray and a little smear of red where his hand lay moments before.

What would you give for him?


July 31st, 1980

Blood.

There was blood dripping between her legs, puddling on the white linen. There was so much that the sheets, so saturated with red, couldn't take any more and from the cleaning spells Poppy sent at the floor, it had begun to spill over.

She could feel it on her chin, see it speckled on her husband's glasses, smelled it everywhere. So much...

Her baby would be born in blood.

What would you sacrifice to bring me into this world?

"Lily, you need to open your mouth," James begged, holding a blood-replenishing potion to her mouth, and she remembered Monsignor Nicolai holding the chalice of red wine to her lips.

"The blood of Christ," she whispered, turning her head away.

"Get that potion in her before she goes into shock," the nurse yelled as she summoned another house-elf, snapping at it to get more Healers from St. Mungo's.

With a pop the little house-elf with blue eyes disappeared, feet soaked in the sacrificial offering.

Lily could only hear the words whispering in her ear, and she knew the answer.

Anything.


"Lily," James was kissing her hair as he spoke, a bundle of blankets cradled in his arm. "Lily, you did it."

She could barely keep her eyes open, her eyelashes glued together by tears that dried. Her throat felt raw and her body on fire, but she fought against it and roughly whispered (though she was unsure if James could hear her) for her child.

Her Harry.


October 31, 1981

And so it is done.


(1) It is believed, within some circles, that Saint Margaret of Antioch is actually not a true Saint at all, and is in fact the Christian version of Aphrodite, Goddess of love, sexuality, and virility. Since Margaret was to have lived in 304 A.D., it is impossible to tell whether there is truth to this particular story. Also, she has cults. A lot of them... and for being so devoted to a Saint, they do apparently participate in some bizarre orgies.

(2) Samael. I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count.

Thank you so much for reading; I don't think that I can properly convey how happy it makes me that I finally plucked up the courage to put this up, and I hope that you like it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Please Review—it would mean the world to me to hear your thoughts so far!