A story of another time, a familiar place, and false security that was going to vanish. My job, here and through, is to make sure this story doesn't slip out of our grasp as did many others. If so, all hope is lost.

It started, as most stories (though I use the term loosely here seeing as this should not by any means be interpreted as some fictional bedtime story) do, somewhere. This somewhere was named Godric's Hollow. This somewhere was also a village in England.

Godric's Hollow was by most means an ordinary village. It had it's gossips, and bakers, it's lawn-mowing husbands, and homemaker wives. However, one thing did differentiate Godric's Hollow from the usual village in England. It was a magical place.

Oh, no no! Not magical in the sense that it was beautiful or sparkly or the way the word is used on vacation pamphlets. It was magical in the sense of wand-waving, spell-casting, and pointed hats above magical-being's heads.

Before we go on, I must clear something up. This magic was also not the kind of pulling rabbits out of hats, or card tricks where the ace was really up the "magician's" (another loosely used term) sleeve. It was the magic of innate abilities, shunned squibs, transfiguration, and butterbeer. Yes, it was that kind of magic.

This story also had another usual thing in it, people. Unfortunately, the people introduced at this stage of my telling will not…in softer words…be here for the continuation. One will though, and this one, will be the survivor, the boy-who-lived.

Or as he would later rather be called, Harry, just Harry.

…..

…..

Oh, dear, I am getting ahead of myself, aren't I. Well, do let me clear it up with the following:

James Potter and his wife Lilly were very happy. The action of this story takes place on a bright Friday morning when a boy was born. If you have been paying attention you should have grasped hold on whom this boy is by now.

There, proud as could be, were the parents, James and Lilly, with Lilly (having finished her pushing and screaming of words that aren't very appropriate) holding her baby son. Little did they know what would happen, that is what I would say if it were true. However, it is not. They knew of a possibility delivered to them by the most powerful wizard of the century, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. A possibility they would try their hardest to pretend they knew not of.

"Ignorance is bliss" they think remorsefully. And indeed it is, but not a very safe bliss. "A bliss of unknown danger, and precaution not taken" says I. To humor myself, I will say that I am right, whether or not that is true, you may decide.

That, is why they are in the aforementioned village of Godric's Hollow, hidden to all but one, who would, as human's tend to do, betray them. That is why the boy-who-lived would get such a name, for he did live, and against some of the most unusual and death-defying (pun intended) circumstances. So he lived, and they did not, as is the way of life. But my life is to tell you, in my own round-about way, of his…

"Time goes, you say? Alas, no, time stays, we go" – Albus Dumbledore

"Y-yes, master, it-t will b-be done" quivered a rat, in all meanings, while kneeling on a cold stone floor somewhere in Siberia.

Master's (though I loath to use that term for such a disgusting, foul being) heart had something in common with the floor, it was also cold and made of stone. Irony to the details.

The rat was the pivotal point in this "story". He was the one that made the-boy-who-lived the boy-who-lived; the one who made his parents the ones-who-died (honorably, of course). He was the murder in all accounts but the deed. His name was Peter Pettigrew, and he would be sentenced by fates to 12 years as a pet rat to red-haired boys as some sort of ironic punishment. Fate and Irony, quite a pair they are.

Master, who's former name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, had red eyes. He was a leader to some of the most evil beings, and feared by all (or so he liked to think). He was thin, and was colored with an unnaturally white pallor. His fingers were long, and would later be though of as reminiscent of a spider's legs.

Pettigrew turned slightly, and bowed his way out of the room, but before he could escape, a Crucio was cast upon him.

Pain-filled screams will end this chapter.