Hello. Thanks for reading. I began this over the summer just for fun (the length later says otherwise, but really) and was not planning to publish it (and rightly so)...But what the hey? I don't expect anything since I know it's an amalgam of cliche and bad, but here we go. I'm not even gonna promise anything with this...

Good luck.

Edit (05.11.17): I didn't really change much. I think it may be better, but it could just be unnecessary deatil. Just inform me if it's worse than I think...

{TUoM}

October 31st, 1981, Godric's Hollow

"Godric's Hollow. Oh, how the mighty House of Potter has fallen. The Lord married a Mudblood, sired a child with the filth, and now he has deserted his Ancestral Home. The end they'll receive at my hands will be a precursor to the purge of the filthy blood traitors from our world!"

"Y-yes, I couldn't agree more, my lord!"

Blood red slitted eyes glared disdainfully at the pitiful excuse of a man cowering at his feet. The pathetic rat had been nothing more than a useless spy for the Light, providing less information than his life was worth even though he was in the perfect position to know every going on within the Order. The simpering fool had been one mishap away from an Avada Kedavra when he had come to the Dark Lord the location of the elusive Potters. Despite every urge in him demanding he end the pitiful rat's life, Lord Voldemort did not reward his servants with death. He would have to inform Nagini she'd have to find another vermin to feast on.

"Wormtail."

The rat animagus flinched under the ruby gaze on him. "Yes, m-my lord?"

"Leave."

"But m-my lord-!"

The Dark Lord's red eyes narrowed. "Are you questioning me, Wormtail?"

Wormtail, Peter Pettigrew, squeaked, sweat beading on his sallow skin. "N-no, my lord! I would never-"

"Then leave," Lord Voldemort repeated once more, hissing, the small vestige of leniency from the rat's information fragmenting. "Report to me when Bella and Barty are finished with the Longbottoms."

The cowardly rodent bowed to his master. "Y-yes, my lord! It will be done!"

When his servant had long gone with a loud crack, the Dark Lord turned to the quaint house under Fidelius. With a flick of his yew wand, he detected powerful protection wards in an aurora of color that would deter even the most seasoned wizards. Not powerful enough. Only wards set by one of the stature of Dumbledore could stop him, and these, sadly, were not.

White yew tore through the air and the wards were torn with an almost audible ripping sound, the air shuddering violently. A vicious smirk split pale, thin lips at the sound and the Dark Lord didn't hesitate to storm into the house.

"Lily, take Harry and get upstairs! Now!" James Potter yelled, whipping his wand out and blocking the stairs his wife had just fleed up. "You will not touch my son! Expelliarmus!"

Red light arched through the air like lightning but Voldemort merely waved it away with a bat of his wand. The Disarming Charm, it wasn't even worth casting Protego for. "Weak, Potter, for one who's 'thrice defied the Dark Lord'. Aren't you going to protect your dear son?" The Dark Lord taunted. "What was his name, ah, Harry, was it? The perfect name for the offspring of that filthy Mudblood."

Rage twisted James Potter's face and he launched toward the Dark Lord. "Don't you dare call her that or say my son's name! Diffindo! Stupefy! Reducto!"

Voldemort batted away strings of slightly powerful than average light spells for several moments, merely having to flick his wrist as the man circled him, before he grew bored. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. The Potter lord and his wife had fought on the front lines and survived - thrived in even, he had heard - the chaos of the battlefield wrought with dark and insidious magic for a reason. Where were the ingenious transfiguration concoctions he'd heard his followers snarl about 'barely escaping'? The advanced 'wonderous, inconceivable' charms and enchantments his nearly Mistress-level wife excelled at? Where was any indication that the whispers he'd heard of their less than kind methods of incapacitation? Something is amiss...

Red eyes narrowed, glowing intensely for a moment before the words of the incomplete prophecy echoed through his mind. The blood traitor was just attempting to delay him, another obstacle obstructing his path to his 'vanquisher'. "I have no time for this nonsense," he hissed. With magic enhanced speed, he sidestepped a silently cast exploding spell, and twisted his wand harshly through the air as a magenta shaded spell that had been hidden behind it reached him. Clever, but not nearly clever enough. "Pantumna." He snarled the Greek spell that froze the magenta magic in the air, distorting it's nebulous shape as if invisible hands were contorting it, before snapping back towards its caster. Even as the Potter evaded, the reflected spell honed on him like the Muggles' heat-seeking missile, as it was designed to, and sent the man flying into a wall with a sickening crack.

Voldemort hissed in surprise upon seeing cuts as fine as those made by scalpels split the skin of Potter's upper body, particularly the arms and wrists. The spell wasn't a mere repelling charm, but one aimed to render a person unable to wield a wand, cutting through muscles if the neuropathic-like twitches of his fingers were any indications. "Someone's been dabbling, haven't they?" Voldemort murmured, amusement curling his thin lips. "That wasn't a light spell, Lord Potter. What would your dear Dumbledore think if he learned of this?"

The young lord gritted his teeth and glared murderously. "Nothing you'll ever know, I assure you. The dead can't intrude on the minds of old hypocrites after all." He sneered.

Cocking his ahead almost curiously, Voldemort gazed down coldly at the bleeding man below him. "Pity you aren't a Seer. Else you'd not chosen those to be your last words. Fear not, your wife and child will be joining you soon enough." He aimed at the man before he could waste any more of his time. "Avada Kedavra."

James Potter's body slumped to the bloodied floor and Voldemort took to the stairs. He stopped at a door he sensed the Mudblood hiding behind, protected by a measly Locking Charm and he almost felt insulted if not for the dark smirk that curled his lips once more. You're making this so easy - too easy, his mind whispered, but he dismissed it. The woman was pathetic, had she even attempted to escape? He blasted the door away with a burst of magic from his wand, not even needing to say a spell, and took in the sight of the fiery haired, dirty blooded witch shielding her child from view.

"Please! Not Harry!" The witch, Lily Potter begged, not even reaching for her wand. "Take me! Just not Harry!"

The Dark Lord stilled and hissed at the witch - one of the so-called greatest of her generation despite her blood, yet immediately fell to begging instead of using the magic she'd been blessed with. Another reason why filth such as this aren't worthy of this world, they're nothing more than waste "Stand aside!" Severus had been a good servant and informed him of the prophecy of his vanquisher, so at his faithful servant's request, he would grant mercy to the Mudblood - if she did not stand in his way.

"No! Please not Harry!"

"Then you die," the Dark Lord stated coldly. "Avada Kedavra."

Had his mind not been so addled by the prophecy, he would have seen the minute curl of the witch's lip before the curse hit and felt the slight but defined shift in magic in the air that permeated the room.

Mudblood fell soullessly to the ground, earning less than a glance from the Dark Lord. He spared a short thought on Severus - he'd have to address the Potion Master's allegiance after such earnest pleas for mercy - before turning his attention back to the matter at hand. The prophecy. His vanquisher. Nothing more than a defenceless child.

"Eh, eh, mama?"

The Dark Lord turned his blood red eyes to the source of the voice and found a child, little more than an infant standing in a crib, gripping its edges as his large, verdant eyes stared unblinkingly at him. The serpentine man walked toward the child and raised his wand to where it was almost touching his forehead.

"Avada Ke-"

The Dark Lord froze as the child's vibrant eyes seemed to glow as he suddenly smiled and his small, chubby hand reached up to grasp the end of his wand. Voldemort's eyes widened as he felt the strong, magic-soaked wave of air that swept through the room. The child was barely over a year old and his magic was already greater than some of his lower tier Death Eaters. That was, admittedly, pitiful for adults, but for a child only a year old, it was substantial. And not only that, he also appeared to have magic similar to his own, if the reaction of his wand was anything to judge by.

It was a pity the boy had to die. He had so much potential. But Voldemort would not allow any threats to his rise or the Dark's to live and thrive. The child would die here and now.

The Dark Lord looked down at the child gripping his wand and giggling, unaware that it would be the tool to end him. "Goodbye, child," he whispered in parseltongue. "Had you not been the child of Potter and that Muggle filth, you might have lived to be an ally of mine." He poised his wand. "Avada Kedav-"

"Bye-bye," the child said, no, hissed.

The Dark Lord's eyes widened once again as the snake's tongue left the child's lips. The child was a descendant of Slytherin? But that was impossible. He was the last of Salazar Slytherin's line, there were no other bloodline tangents outside of the Gaunts, as they never married outside of the family. This child, Harry Potter, could not have this ability, his power.

So much potential. And yet it must be wasted.

For the first time since he was a young child, Voldemort felt a twinge of regret before he squashed it as he gripped his wand and pressed it to the child's forehead. The child would die. He had to. He would.

"Avada Kedavra."

As the ghoulish green magic shot from his yew wand's tip, he looked into the child's eyes and gasped as he realized the irises weren't verdant but almost the exact same hue of the curse he'd just cast. Nothing good came from anything with that color, he knew, but it was already too late. Searing, splitting, agonizing pain shot through him as he saw the Killing Curse rebound and collide with him, sending him flying. He felt as if his body were consumed by flames hotter than Fiendfyre, burning down to his soul, destroying the tethers that bound him to his body.

"Ahhhhhh!"

The walls flickered an unnoticeable shade of red, etched in invisible runes of old magick, before they combusted and collapsed under the wild wave released from the Dark Lord's body as it was rendered to ashes. His tormented, splintered soul was forced away by the strength and all that remained was the ashes of his serpentine body and the dark, thick magic coalescing in the night.

In his crib, Harry Potter giggled and babbled in his newfound snake tongue as he twisted his little hands in the magic flowing turbulently through the air. A lightning shaped scar smarting bright red, but the child didn't seem to notice as the dark magic circled around him, rotating in a gyrating spiral. His bright, ghoulish Avada Kedavra eyes glowed and he laughed with joy as the magic suddenly closed in, rotating closer and closer, until the spiral sheathed his small form, fluctuating madly before retreating into the lightning shaped scar.

A pained cry left the child before the magic disappeared as if it had never been there and his small body fell in the crib, eyelids fluttering shut.

{TUoM}

Pale blue eyes with no twinkle watched the swaddled child in his arms breathe in and out as he carried him to the doorstep of his only living relatives. He was aware the Muggle couple had also just borne a child, and despite the couple being staunchly against the Wizarding kind, they were the only people he could leave the boy with. They would not provide the best home, but they would keep the child separated from those that could possibly taint him.

Albus Dumbledore wasn't delusional enough to believe he was acting on the sole behalf of the child's well-being, and even if he wished he could, he couldn't. The Vow he made prevented him from doing anything that could risk the Wizarding world as a whole, and allowing this child - Harry Potter, to live amongst his own kind, would tip the delicate balance between the Light and Dark. In what way and how he knew this, he could not tell - he never had - but he was more than aware that if he left the boy here, in the custody of the admittedly vile Muggles, the balance would remain at an equilibrium...for longer than otherwise, at the very least.

"Forgive me, Harry Potter," the old wizard whispered as he sat the child on the doorstep of the Muggles' home, finger twitching slightly as he cast a Warming Charm for the chilly night. He set a note on top of the slumbering child's chest and turned away, reaching his old student, now friend. "Come, Minerva," he said before the witch could speak her protests.

"Albus..." Minerva McGonagall murmured stiffly. "I dearly hope you know what you're doing."

Dumbledore began to walk, not responding immediately as the witch began to walk at his side. Then he looked up at the sky, watching the clouds float past the full moon. "As do I, Minerva. As do I..."

And the two vanished in a near silent crack.