Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. If I did, Harry would've actually used love to kill Voldemort instead of some clichéd 'super wand'.

A Twins Life

Chapter 1: The Boy-Who-Lived

Night had fallen on the sleepy muggle town of Godric's Hallow. The inhabitants of the town viewed the Potters as a slightly eccentric but still likable family but they did not know that the Potters were actually wizards. So it was then that the little children of Godric's Hallow went around from door to door in their costumes with their parents watching. One house that was missed was the Potters though that was because no one could quite remember where exactly it was. In truth, the Potter's house was under the Fidelius charm as Lily and James Potter were in hiding from the dark wizard Voldemort.

"And here we go!" James said with a smile, holding the spoon of baby food in front of little Harry who was barely 1 year old but who already had black hair and green eyes. His identical twin David was being fed by Lily "Here comes the quaffle, will he make it…score!" James exclaimed as he put the spoon in Harry's mouth and carefully removed it. Harry swallowed the food and giggled slightly. James started to scoop up more food and then suddenly stiffened as the house wards alerted him to someone's approach. With a glance at Lily, the young couple sprang up and grabbed their wands just in time for the door to suddenly fly open; Voldemort stood there wearing a robe and cloak as black as the night with a yew wand in his hand. James crouched and began firing spells at the dark wizard while Lily stepped back and began a long chant, making broad strokes with her wand.

Voldemort put up a shield that effortlessly blocked James' spells and stepped into the house and was followed by a cowering man with brown hair. Pettigrew!

Lily quickly finished the ritual with two stabs of her wand that were directed toward her children; Lily was so glad that she had planned for the possibility of being betrayed. The ritual she had just performed was a very experimental one that Dumbledore had come up with though it would technically be considered 'dark'; theoretically it would protect up to two subjects from all dark magic, even the Killing Curse, for 1 hour…albeit at the cost of depriving the caster of their magic for that same hour period. There was no way to know how exactly it would bear out in real life but Lily had figured that every little bit would help.

Voldemort incapacitated James Potter with a stunner and moments later did the same with Lily. The dark lord walked around looking at each of the two identical babies, each of them had black hair and green eyes; one of the babies was looking at Voldemort intently while the other's attention was on the ground.

"Wormtail!" Voldemort sneered, deciding to get on with it "Which of the brats is which?"

"I…I don't know m-master," Wormtail replied and Voldemort scowled

"Fool!" he said "Why do you think I brought you along if not to tell me who was older!"

"I…I…"

No matter," Voldemort declared "they are both just babies anyway." Only the most powerful wizards could learn how to see auras and Voldemort had picked up the ability during his quest for power. Now Voldemort used it to examine the auras of these two children in order to try and see what kind of wizards they would one day become. The one child looking at the ground had a weak aura which indicated that he would be an average wizard; but the other one, the one that was looking at Voldemort, his aura was incredibly strong for a one-year-old baby, leading to Voldemort to conclude that this child would grow up to be a powerful wizard.

His decision made, Voldemort pulled out of his cloak a golden clasp that had once belonged to Godric Gryffindor; after setting the horcrux ritual in motion, pointed his wand at the brat looking at him and uttered softly two words "Avada Kedavra!" A jet of green light came out of Voldemort's wand and streaked toward the boy.

Although Lily's ritual was not quite as powerful as Dumbledore had claimed, when combined with the prophecy it was enough. Voldemort did not know that his decision of which to kill first, and indeed the very method with which he had arrived at this decision, had effectively marked the boy as his equal. Voldemort, however, only knew the first two lines of the prophecy, namely that one of these children would have the power to defeat him; he did not know that in the course of trying to end the threat of the prophecy, he had just instead set the rest of it into motion. The Killing Curse hit Harry's forehead and then suddenly rebounded back at Voldemort, shocking the dark lord so much that he didn't even move out of the way. The curse hit him and Voldemort would have shrieked in pain except for the fact that he could no longer move his mouth and the clasp fell out of his hands to the ground. Wormtail watched in horror as a dark shapeless form emerge from his master's body, which then fell limply to the floor.
Because of the horcrux ritual and the fact that Voldemort had still technically killed someone, namely himself, Voldemort's soul split. However a wand was necessary to direct the fragment into the prepared vessel but since that was now impossible, the fragment should have simply dissipated. But Voldemort's other existing horcruxes prevented that from happening, a side-effect no one could have anticipated because no other dark wizard had ever before split his soul as many times as Voldemort had. Wormtail saw a tiny fragment of Voldemort's soul split off from the main portion of the black mass and moved toward the baby, entering the fresh lightning bolt scar that marked where the curse had hit. Even as the rest of Voldemort's soul fled the house, poor little Harry Potter began screaming as the fragment attempted to take him over. The fragment had the advantages of possessing a portion of Voldemort's power along with his memories and experience as well as the fact that Voldemort was a master of the mind arts. Harry had one whole complete soul and while he was certainly not be able to match the fragment in raw power and was further handicapped by a very young and immature mind, it was still Harry's body, his soul belonged there…the fragment did not. That might still not have mattered were it not for Lily's ritual and the prophecy magic, which once again acted to protect Harry. But souls are resilient things and so the fragment ended up being only partially destroyed; the essence of Voldemort in the fragment was gone but its magical power remained and so was shunted into little Harry's magical core, forcing it to expand in order to contain the new power. But if the core expanded too rapidly, it could still kill Harry and so his magical genes, in an effort to keep him alive, funneled the newfound power into a large, unfocused burst of accidental which did a number of things. The first of which was that Wormtail, who had just started to pick up his master's wand, was suddenly flung up against the wall and knocked unconscious. Even as this was happening, David's chair was knocked to the ground and began crying as his own genes sought to protect him from the sudden burst of magic; the result was starburst shaped scar on his forehead. The accidental magic did one final thing and caused part of the ceiling to collapse on top of Harry, who continued crying.

Harry's magical levels were now dangerously low, almost at squib level. He would recover and indeed would eventually become a very powerful wizard because the premature expansion of his core would combine with his normal growth to give him at maturity a power-level fit to rival that of Voldemort. Thus had Harry Potter been marked as Voldemort's equal.

Lily and James Potter quickly awoke to the sight of their two children crying, both chairs were overturned: Harry was barely visible inside some rubble and David was on the floor nearby. Reacting only as parents could, Lily picked up David while James dug Harry out before also picking him up, sending a stunner at Pettigrew to keep him knocked out.

"Rat indeed," James snarled. "The traitor!"

Several hours passed before he and Lily were able to calm Harry and David down and put them to bed. James then floo-called Dumbledore and informed him of what had happened. Moments later, the old wizard stepped out of the fireplace and followed the young couple up the stairs to the babies' room and their two cribs that were side-by-side. Dumbledore, like Voldemort, had learned how to see auras and now he attempted to determine which baby was their savior. David's aura looked fairly typical and unchanged, meaning that he would almost certainly grow up to be an average and unremarkable wizard. Harry's aura, however, was barely visible at all and that puzzled Dumbledore for it seemed much weaker than the last time he had seen it but it also had the very specific residue of the Killing Curse…which should not have been possible! The old Headmaster started to say something and then paused. Because Harry had just vanquished Voldemort, he would undoubtedly become very famous and well known and all that fame and attention could very well go to his head…unless…

"I believe that David here is our savior," Dumbledore lied with an absolutely straight face and feeling no guilt about it…it was for the greater good after all…"Note the difference in scar shape for one, you say you found Harry buried in rubble, well that is probably where his scar came from. The shape of David's scar makes much more sense in my opinion. Also, David's aura appears much stronger than Harry's…a clear sign that he will be more powerful." Lily and James nodded silently, agreeing with Dumbledore's explanation.

Harry will forgive me when is older Dumbledore thought as he walked back down the stairs, took Voldemort's wand and bound Pettigrew with ropes It really is for the best…he'll understand…