Disclaimer: I own nothing, the world and characters belong to the amazing J. K. Rowling.
WARNINGS: Dark theme, torture, violence
Prologue
His steps were silent as he entered the village. He slowly walked toward the house he could now both see and sense. Light was shining through the windows, they hadn't gone to bed yet. This would've been more quiet had they been asleep, but oh well. He'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy a struggle, feeble as it may be.
He slowly opened the gate and stepped toward the front door. It would've been amusing to knock and have them open it, only to see the enemy on the other side. But that's not how he did things. So he simply raised his wand and shot a spell so powerful it blasted the wood to splinters and shredded any wards guarding the entrance. From inside he could hear Potter yelling to the woman to take the boy and run, that he would hold off the Dark Lord. He wanted to laugh at the man's stupidity.
He stepped through the doorway and saw Potter standing there, wand raised and with a defiant look on his face. Potter cast a spell easily avoided before being struck right in the chest by the Dark Lord's killing curse. Without taking a second look at the fallen body the Dark Lord walked up the stairs and approached the room where he could sense the frightened woman. He blasted the door open and heard her scream "Not Harry, please not Harry!" But her pleas meant nothing. His killing curse hit her and she fell to the floor, as dead as the man downstairs.
The boy was sitting in a crib in the corner of the room. Strangely, he had not started screaming or crying when his mother had been killed. The Dark Lord approached the crib and looked down at the boy. Finally the prophecy would be fulfilled, the only one who would ever be able to defy him would be dead.
He looked down at the boy, at his surprisingly green eyes. He raised his wand and spoke the words.
"Avada Kedavra."
What followed next he would never be able to describe. An explosion of green light and a pain so strong he, the Dark Lord, prayed he would die (or at least pass out) just to escape. But neither happened. Instead it continued. His veins were filled with liquid fire, his bones were being broken, crushed, his organs were being twisted, ripped, turned inside out and his head felt like nails piercing the skull, fire pushing against it from the inside, all while burning, twisting and breaking. It went on until he couldn't take it anymore and then it kept going. When he though he would finally go mad it stopped. Just like that. His body ached from the pain and what he had done to get rid of it.
He slowly got to his feet and looked around. The roof had been ripped off the house and outside it was still dark. The pain hadn't lasted as long as it had seemed. The night wasn't over, someone would've noticed the house being torn to pieces.
Then, he remembered the boy. Slowly, he turned. There was the boy, still in the crib. He was lying down, eyes closed. The Dark Lord assumed the boy had died, until he noticed a small shift in the boy's tiny body. He stepped closer and saw the small shift yet again. The boy was breathing. How in all the worlds could that be possible? The curse the Dark Lord had cast shouldn't have left anyone alive, let alone a one year old boy. But there he was, breathing, like nothing had happened.
How could a baby have survived that, when it felt like he barely had? He looked down in the crib when the boy turned over and saw a lightning cut on his forehead. And the Dark Lord realised what had happened. He had to admit, he was fairly impressed by the boy's mudblood mother, she had performed an ancient, tricky and powerful bit of magic to protect her son. He couldn't be sure the protection wasn't still on the boy, so trying the curse again was out of the question.
Suddenly, the boy's green eyes blinked open and looked up at him. And a thought that would change his life crossed the Dark Lord's mind. An old saying. "Keep your friends close, your enemies closer."