Prologue
It was a stormy night. Not the kind of storm that makes you grab a hot chocolate and huddle by the fire. Or the kind that makes you want to reminisce of times past. Nor was it a storm that somehow brings a state of tranquillity to the passive spectator.
It was the kind of storm that made babies cry and families huddle in fear.
On this night a pale man strode towards Godric's Hollow, towards the Potter's Cottage. He strode with a purpose and killing intent in his eyes. The wards of the Cottage hissed and glowed as the man approached the quaint looking building. The wards soon vanished with a quick flick of his wand. Making his way up the winding path a wooden door stood in his way; the font door of Potter Cottage.
The door blew open, flying of the rusty hinges with enough force to alert the whole household to his presence. Fortunately the residents were missing, only an unlucky babysitter who took the wrong job at the wrong place at the wrong time was there, looking after the children of said residents.
She was dead in seconds.
The mysterious man ascended the stairs with his dark cloak billowing behind him, coming to a stop in front of a nondescript door. Inside the room two cots stood side by side with names etched on the end of each one. The left hand cot held a pudgy looking boy with a short tuft of red hair, he was sleeping soundly despite the danger approaching. The name Daniel Potter stood out on the cot in cursive writing, seeming to glow in the dark room.
In the right hand cot a slim looking boy with messy black hair sat, his piercing green eyes watching the door with an alertness that doesn't belong on the face of one so young. The door swung open and in stepped the pale man. The floorboards creaked as the man approached the cots, with an expression of elation imprinted on his normally blank face.
His blood-red eyes met ice-green and time seemed to stop, a battle of wills in its most primal form was taking place. The young child refusing to back down in his youthful ignorance and the man becoming more infuriated by the second at the calmness and serenity shown in the eyes of the child.
Red eyes darted away as they looked over the other baby, an expression of disdain flitted across his face before his gaze returned to the enigma that was the green eyed child.
The man could take it no more and so his wand was raised. Pointing firmly without hesitation at the infants chest, yet still the eyes looked at him, unwavering, unyielding. In an almost imperceivable movement the child rose towards the wand, almost begging for the wooden tip to touch his chest.
Red eyes widened in surprise before quickly narrowing. The pale man's mouth opened ready to utter the words that ended the lives of so many.
Advarda Kedavra
A beam of light hit the boys chest and in that fraction of a second the infants eyes glowed with the eerie green of the killing curse. And the light shown back and hit the stunned man, causing him to scream as he fell into nothingness and was no more.
The resulting explosion destroyed the Potter's Cottage and caused the red-haired boy to awaken. He cried loudly as pieces of debris fell around, a sharp piece cutting a deep x-shaped gash across one of his brown eyes.
Suddenly people were rushing in, the parents and a certain Albus Dumbledore among them, having been alerted by the failing wards that the house was under siege. Dumbledore quickly took in all his surrounding, including the black robe crumbled on the floor and the crying child.
He made a split second decision.
Raising young Daniel out of his cot with a simple levitation charm, he proudly declared to all who listened:
'Meet Daniel Potter, the boy-who-lived'
Everyone gasped and revered the young child, yet none seemed to notice the baby slumbering right by them. The one with messy black hair that fell over a lightening-shaped scar. The one which had Harry Potter etched into the end of his cot.