prologue.
There was silence in the bedroom that night, or as close to. There were James's footsteps in the hall. There was the low languid whistle of the wind. And always, the ticking clock, underscoring everything, echoing up from the foyer.
Lily had nightmares of more. Screams that stopped her heart. Crying that went hoarse as the hours ticked by dead bodies unaware of them. She didn't tell James, but he was letting her sleep later, fetching her tea at night.
Trust him to know.
She accepted it all with a smile, but they didn't help. How could she not dream? Her son slept in this bedroom, night after night, and they chatted as the hours ticked by them, hopelessly aware of them, as a dark lord threatened to destroy them all. Even now, there he was, in his crib. She could see him clear from the doorway. Eyes shut, mouth open, helplessness clear in both.
Fear stunted her breath. Calm down. She could hear him breathe if she tried, if she walked closer, if she kept her own breath still.
Eyes shut. Mouth open.
He's this close to looking dead.
"Lily."
James' voice. She turned, and gave him the same smile she knew he probably hated by now.
When was the last time you meant that smile?
"Halloween," he said. He pulled a bottle out from behind his back; held it up."I got some wine."
"Maybe later."
He lowered the bottle. It smacked against his thigh. "You've been standing here for hours."
She sighed, and leaned against the doorframe. Crossed her arms across her chest, hugging herself. "I just want this to be over."
"It will be. Albus will figure it out."
"I know."
Tick. Tick. Chime, as the hour changed. It echoed through the halls, a warbling songbird neither she and James had ever been able to name. They had vowed to figure it out, when they came here. Where had that promise gone? Was it forgotten, or just meaningless now?
"Remember when Halloween used to be fun?" he asked, cocking a grin.
"You mean me carrying you to your room."
"Nothing less."
He opened up his arms, and she dove into the embrace. His scent, grass and mint, basic and clean, filled her, and for a second, she thought she could sleep peacefully tonight.
"Nothing wrong with All Hallow's Day Wine," she said, as the chime finished its 12 midnight bars.
"Just doesn't have the same ring to it," he said. "November 1st is never that exciting."
Nothing happened that night.
Nor the next.
Nor the next.
The night after that, Gilderoy Lockhart had an interesting story to tell, as he stampeded into the Ministry of Magic.
Dirt and grime clung to every free inch of his body-that which wasn't slathered in fresh blood. His eyes, frantic, jumped from wizard to witch to wizard. As if he did not know how he got there and was searching out the cause.
They focused instead on the Dark Lord's head, hanging by a long black lock from his left hand.
It wasn't an ugly face, some of them were surprised to remember. Voldemort wasn't an ugly man. His curling lip, his eyes cold as the death he brought-those were bone-chilling. The features though, relaxed in death, were delicate and aristocratic: a smoothly sloping nose, high cheekbones, long eyelashes that hung like ashes against the pale white skin.
Funny, the things you thought, when shock overcame the system.
Gilderoy seemed just as overwhelmed for he only spoke once, to say:
"Well. I did it."
Then he collapsed, head forward, onto the marble floor.
When he awoke, he was a different man. The Wizarding World had found its new hero, and as most would point out, they couldn't have been luckier. With a brilliant white smile, dazzling blue eyes, and soft blonde hair that fell in soft waves around his face, he looked the part. Not even the scar cutting down his cheek could ruin the image-rather, it hardened the boyish curves into a man's.
Albus Dumbledore watched it all with the careful restraint his life had won him, and asked his Order to carry on as normal.
Some balked; some left.
Most asked the same question he did, the question both Ministry and general public did their best to ignore.
If Voldemort could be so easily removed, that a wizard stumbling across him on a rampage through a Muggle village could duel him and win, why hadn't any among them done the deed first?
"One does one's best, when the odds are stacked against you," Gilderoy answered, in his first public address.
No one pointed out the egregious error in grammar.
ten years later
"Harry, we're leaving without you," James called up the stairs.
The answer was immediate.
"You can't leave without me if I'm the one going!"
James sighed. Shrugged at his wife, tapping her foot by the front door. "What can I say?" he said. "He really doesn't want to go."
Her eyes, green but-he swore-ever-changing with her mood, flashed neon. "He wanted to go yesterday," she said.
"I know-"
"-and the day before that-"
"-Yes."
"-and the entire summer, James, even when I didn't want him to, so what did you say to him?
"I would never say anything." But he raked a hand through his wild black hair, as if the truth would come running out of it if he didn't tackle it first. He hadn't said anything. He had joked, had suggested, that sometimes people didn't get the house they wanted, and Sirius had then some vibrant, colourful descriptions of what a stereotypical Hufflepuff looked like. It was all moot-Harry would be in Gryffindor, as was tradition for his family.
Not that he was being a good example of one right now ...
He tried Harry again. "You know, Dumbledore is going to be sad if he doesn't see you at the Great Hall tonight."
Quiet.
A good sign-Harry's usual instinct, contrary to his reserved nature, was to blow up, think later. James continued: "He was looking forward to seeing you and Neville every day now. But, I guess . . ."
A telltale creak broke him off. A few seconds later, Harry's eyes peered out from around the wall, looking down the stairs.
"How sad?" he asked.
"Very," Lily answered.
"Devastated," James said.
Harry inched into view at last, and James held back a laugh. It may, occasionally, concern him, but there was something delightful about his son's worrying. Lily's doing. There was no mistaking the relation, with Lily's green eyes and his ... well, everything else.
It kept things in Godric's Hollow interesting, and for his first seven years, as they tested the waters after Voldemort's end, it had been all that kept it interesting. Sirius and Remus had come in and out frequently, and Albus had his monthly visits, but they'd scarcely left the village in all their time here. The visions of play dates he'd had during Lily's pregnancy, some happy trips out on the broom and some chaotic warzones of broken toys and dirty diapers, had remained only visions. Harry saw Neville on their birthdays, and mostly, that was it.
Unfortunately. The seven years of solitude had taken its toll. He had spent the summer flitting between manic and rambling stories he was going tell all his new friends and whispered confessions from the dark of his comforter that he was sure no one like him. James' fist clenched just remembering it.
Voldemort may have left their son alive, but he'd laid his mark in other ways.
Harry reached the bottom of the steps and Lily held out his cloak. He looked at James though.
"If I don't ... like it," Harry said, stumbling over the words, "I can come back. Right?"
James' flicked a look at Lily; her shoulders popped up, in the slightest of shrugs. No one disliked Hogwarts. No one normal anyway. But say that and he's going to run right up to his room in a fit about how he's not normal.
"There are always muggle schools, right, Lil?" James said with a grin. Lily's eyes narrowed, as if to say, "Thanks for passing it on to me." She put on a smile though, and kneeled down a little, to drape the cloak around her son.
"I was down to go to a muggle school," she said, "and you know everything you're supposed to."
Harry's eyes skidded away from hers and James stifled a snicker. Well, more or less. Ravenclaw, at least, was not in Harry's potential future.
"So, there it is, then," James said, clapping his hands. "Hogwarts or a life doing arithmetic. Both very solid options."
"James," Lily warned, drawing out the name, and he grinned.
"Kidding! But, how's that sound, Harry?"
His son looked at Lily. Looked at him. Then looked down at the floor.
Then, looked up again, green eyes almost glowing. As if he'd shouted Lumos at some deep part of his brain.
"Okay," he said, as Lily hugged him. James sighed in relief, but couldn't look away. Always worrying, he thought-so where does that come from? That fire, that burst of Gryffindor that pushed Harry on to a Nimbus 95 at the age of four and past boggarts in the attic?
Take the charm and don't ask whose wand it came from, his mother's voice said, dancing through his head. He'd never been very good at it, but he'd accept it now. Harry was going to be fine.
He was his son, after all.
I'm very small, Harry thought, as he hung between his parent's vice like hands.
He wasn't. He had a thin, bony frame that he used to get into small cracks in the Hollow, but he was of average height, according to the healer that visited every year around his birthday. As children whizzed around him though, on the crowded platform of King's Crossing, he was unsure. There were children not his own age, but of the ones who looked like they were, most were bigger than him, and only a few smaller. Even those seemed longer, thicker, meaner and laughing to each other-
"Maybe we should have Floo'd".
-and then, there were his parents.
They meant nothing by it, this talking over his head. They were used to it, he supposed. When he was a kid, five or a little older, he was sincere in not caring what they were saying. He had his toy wand or toy broom or the Ghost Under His Bed to occupy his time; they could talk all they wanted.
"Lily, the train is important."
"But look at this place."
He never told them that had changed. That he realized that something they said might have something to do with why he wasn't allowed to leave the Hollow.
He had been nine. Neville'd been over, for their birthday. They weren't on the same day, Neville was on the 3oth, but when Harry was seven, they'd started to celebrate them together. He liked Neville, though the first time he'd seen him, he didn't think he had said a word. Neville hadn't made fun though. He liked plants and, silent as he was, Harry was the perfect audience. So Harry had nodded, and Neville had lectured, and that had been that, until that ninth birthday. They were talking about Quidditch, and the Chudley Cannons game Harry and his dad had listened to on the radio, and Neville had pouted:
"I don't like the Cannons on account of Ron does."
"Ron who?"
"Ron Weasley. He and his brothers almost stepped on my garden and then Mum told them they had to apologize only he didn't."
Harry had shrugged and agreed it was a rotten thing to do, but inside his head, a safe of questions he hadn't known existed blew open. Neville got to see other children? Neville had other friends? Harry knew they existed, and he'd read his mother's Muggle books. Muggles were always making friends with each other and running round without their parents and saving the day, but they also went to schools, which is how he supposed they met each other. Wizards didn't do that, he thought-at least, he never had.
So why did he only get Neville?
Again, it wasn't that he didn't like Neville, but Neville wasn't a very interesting friend. He was nice and didn't mind if Harry didn't know what to say, but didn't like sneaking into the crawlspace under the foyer floor and sneaking up into the attic like they were Indiana Jones ("I don't even know who that is!" he complained).
Harry had asked about it that night, but his mom had only looked at him funny, the way she did when she was sad and didn't like anyone to know it.
"You're a very special boy," she'd said, and she'd kissed him once on the forehead and that was that.
It was only by being small and listening that he'd ever figured it out. He'd been playing, out in the foyer, when he'd heard voices slipping out of the den. He'd stood and carefully tiptoed, down the hall, until he could hear clearly:
"... their business, Lily."
"It's irresponsible, is what it is."
"Or smart." Silence. Probably a glare from his mother. "Kidding."
"No, you're not."
"Well, why are we still being so careful? It's been 8 years."
"Albus said-"
"Albus said that the Dark Lord is biding his time. I'm not disagreeing with him, I'm not throwing Lockhart any parades."
His mother had scoffed, but Harry's ears had perked. Hr knew Lockhart-everyone did. Though his mum said that he'd killed the Dark Lord, whoever he was "by a silver tongue" whenever Harry asked.
"So what are you saying?"
She'd said.
Silence again. Probably a shrug, from his dad. Then:
"I'm only saying ... so long as he's biding his time, we could afford to do a little living, Lil."
They'd set up a play date the next weekend, with the Weasleys. Harry'd kept quiet, remembering what Neville had said, and Ron had called him weird. He did think the crawlspace was "wicked" so he couldn't have been that bad, but Harry didn't know. Ron hadn't come back. His sister, Ginny, had once or twice, and Harry liked her fine. She didn't mind that they weren't allowed to leave the Hollow-she said she was used to being told what not to do, though not as much to listening.
"How do you never sneaks out?"
She'd asked. At the time, he hadn't understood it himself, and hadn't answered but for a shrug.
Now ...
Harry looked right. A group of girls shrieking over a little palm-sized owl.
He looked left. Two five year old boys duelling with wands nicked from, no doubt, the parents running at them screaming.
Now, he thought he knew.
I am very, very small.
It wasn't that he believed his parents when they said he was special-at least not special the way they said it, all sparkling watching eyes and knowing smiles. Different, yes. Strange, maybe, he feared. But whatever it was called, they'd treated him as such, and he only knew how to act as such. What was he supposed to say to these people? The most exciting thing he had to offer were the secrets of the Hollow, and none of them even knew where it was. He wasn't even allowed to name it.
He was just a small boy in a green cloak with a normal, common name.
If he were special, then he must be the least special special child in the world.
"Oh, there's Sirius," James said, and Harry straightened up.
"Where?!" he shouted, looking around, just as leather-coated arms swarmed around him.
"Right here!" Sirius' voice echoed through the platform, as he lifted Harry into the air. Laughter poured out of them both, as Sirius swung him around.
As long as he were small enough for this, he supposed he didn't mind.
"Thanks for coming," James whispered into Sirius' ear, as Lily ushered Harry on the train. It'd taken convincing, to pull Harry off his godfather, but the boy seemed as light and giddy as he had when he first got the letter. Even Lily's eyes had calmed to a grass green.
Sirius grinned. "Like I'd miss this for anything!" He clasped his best friend on the back. "Feels like ages since I've been here."
"Nah. Only a century, isn't it?" James said, avoiding the shove like the Seeker he used to be.
"You laugh, but I found a gray hair the other day. Nearly hexed it off."
"I weep for you, Padfoot."
Lily stepped back, sliding into James' side. His arm responded to the call instantly, snaking around her waist.
"He's on," she said.
James nodded, then kissed the top of her head. "He's on." He was watching from the train door, waving, owl cage still in hand with a delightful snowy he'd gotten for his birthday, but he was on.
James offered him a grin, and was happy to see it returned.
"Brew them up some trouble, Harry!" Sirius whooped beside him, and James' grin doubled. Lily stiffened in his grip though.
"You didn't give him the cloak, did you?"
"Me? Never," he said, though the whistle overpowered him as the train began to move.
Sirius however ...
None of them know.
He watched them, watching the train. So peaceful, so happy, smiles on every face. Smoke streamed around the sides, bright sunlight gleamed against the red and black metal, they all cheered and cried and waved goodbye because none of them know.
No one knew him; no one looked at him.
They wouldn't know where to look if they tried.
None of them know.
Only he did.
At last.
He wrenched his eyes away, and walked through the barrier, into busy Muggle London again. He tapped at his wand, hidden in his pocket, and smiled as it warmed at his fingers.
A secret code went out around the Wizarding World, and none of them knew. Three little words, that even intercepted, would mean nothing to them, pathetic, dribbling over themselves in their mundane celebration of their mundane lives.
Three words.
"It has begun."
DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter has never been, and shall never be, mine. Thanks, Rowling, but just taking it for a free spin.
