Pure Chance
by Healer Pomfrey
All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.
I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes.
Lily Potter woke up, smiling happily. 'Today is Christmas Day, and we're still alive,' she thought, feeling over the moon with joy.
In fact, Lily was a Seer, and ever since she had set foot at Hogwarts a little more than ten years ago, she had had the same dream over and over again. In her dream - that actually seemed more like a vision than a dream - she and James had both died at the hand of Voldemort, and Harry had been sent to live with her atrocious sister Petunia.
However, when that fateful Halloween day finally arrived, everything happened slightly differently than expected.
Flashback Halloween, 1981
It was already dark, and Lily knew that Voldemort was going to attack them during the next few hours, when the fireplace flared and her best friend, Alice, stepped through together with her baby Neville.
"Lily, I'm sorry to disturb you on Halloween, but Neville is running a high fever, and I've no idea why," Alice blurted out, seemingly worried.
Lily was a healer, and, before Harry had been born just a day after Neville, she had been working at St. Mungo's, the wizarding hospital.
"Hi Neville, what's wrong tonight?" Lily cooed, while she gently caressed her godchild's flushed cheeks, knowing that the boy had been fully all right when he had played together with Harry on the previous day.
However, the baby merely let out a small whimper, and Lily quickly pulled her wand casting a diagnostic spell, before she pointed it at Neville's head to take his temperature. "He caught the wizard's flu," she informed her friend and called her house-elf Conny, asking her for the respective baby potions for Neville. 'Thank Merlin I just brewed a new batch a few days ago,' she thought, as she spelled both liquids, the flu potion as well as a fever reducer, straight into the boy's system.
"Now is that better, Neville?" she cooed, causing the boy to smile broadly.
"Fanku," Neville replied, making his mother cast him a proud look. He toddled over to where Harry was sitting on the floor looking at a children's book.
"Hi Neville," Harry said and pulled his best friend down on the floor to sit next to him, glad that Neville seemed to be all right and could play with him.
Thirty minutes later, all of a sudden, the entrance door was blasted open, and with a few loud steps, Voldemort strode into the room, pointing his wand at the children.
"No," Lily shouted, horrified. "Leave the children in peace. Take me instead."
"Out of the way," Voldemort growled, and the green light of the most unforgivable curse travelled from his wand in the direction of the children.
However, the light stopped right in front of the children, before it was flung back in a high speed, hitting the evil wizard square in the chest. As a result, Voldemort vanished into thin air, while both children collapsed, unconscious.
"Don't worry, they'll be all right," Lily reassured her friend after hurriedly casting a couple of diagnostic spells. "I don't know what to think about their head wounds though. They seem to be magical wounds."
End of flashback
Both children had recovered after a good night's sleep. However, unfortunately, the depletion of their magic just at a time when Neville had been ill with the wizard's flu and Harry had just been coming down with it as well, had greatly damaged their immune system. During the seven weeks that had passed since the event, both children had caught various illnesses and been sick at least once a week.
'But I'm alive and can help them,' Lily thought, happily. 'There's nothing worse than to not be here for my own baby.'
HP
"James," she whispered, causing her husband to lazily open his eyes.
"What is it, Lilyflower? Is it late?"
"No," Lily replied, chuckling, "it's only six o'clock in the morning, but I'm so happy to be alive."
"Me too," James replied and pulled his wife close, whispering, "Let's have some fun before Harry wakes up."
HP
An hour later, Lily drifted back to sleep, only to be pulled into a new vision. However, it was a positive vision, which caused her to wake up and remain engrossed in her happy thoughts for a moment, before she realised that Harry was beside her bed feverishly trying to climb up.
Smiling, Lily pulled Harry up and cuddled him close, thinking, 'Next year, there'll be four of us.'
"Today is Christmas Day," she told Harry, who sat up, wide-eyed.
"Chismis pwesi?" he asked in obvious excitement, causing Lily to smile, amused.
"All right, little one, let's go and see if Father Christmas brought you a present," she replied, before she woke up James, and the three Potters headed downstairs towards the living room.
An instant later, Harry stood in front of the Christmas tree, staring at the beautiful tree in apparent amazement.
"Lub de tee," he shouted, cheerily reaching out for one of the colourful baubles that was golden and had the pattern of a black dog with emerald green eyes.
"Harry look, there are presents under the tree," James informed his son, and during the following thirty minutes, the seventeen-month-old was busy trying to dig out presents from under the tree.
Cuddling the stuffed, purple knight bus close, which he had received from Neville's parents, Harry queried, "Nebi pay Hawwy?"
Seeing that his lower lip began to quiver dangerously upon the reply that he would see Neville in two days' time, Lily promised, soothingly, that she'd floo call Alice and ask her over the next morning.
"This afternoon, we don't have time, because we're going to visit Granny Mina at Hogwarts," she told her son, who immediately began to cheer.
"Go Gwanny Mina Hoga," he repeated, happily.
"And tonight," James added, "Padfood and Mooney are going to come here for Christmas dinner."
"Uncy Paf," Harry repeated, smiling. That was the nice uncle who always smiled and did nonsense driving his mummy nuts. He was still unsure what to think about that uncle, as he could not tolerate anyone angering his mummy. She was the best, and she was always there for him, and even for Neville, when he needed her. However, when he received a toddler's broom from Sirius, he decided that his godfather was great fun.
HP
To his chagrin, he could only test his broom in the morning, when his father took turns flying together with him and with Neville on the adult's broom, while the other was allowed to fly on the toddler's broom. Both boys decided that it was a lot of fun - causing Lily and Alice having a livid discussion with James if it would be safe enough to transfigure something into a second toddler's broom.
Finally, Neville's father Frank took the two mothers' side and promised to buy a toddler's broom for Neville soon, so that the two boys could fly together.
HP
Lily could not help feeling relieved when the holidays were over and James, Sirius and Frank went back to work. As much as she loved her husband, she found that he was a bit too reckless in every hindsight, especially when he was together with Sirius - in spite of the fact that they were working as Aurors.
Every second day, Alice and Neville came to visit her and Harry, or she took Harry with her to the Longbottoms, so that the two toddlers could play together. The two friends had grown up together, seeing each other every second day from their birth onwards, and they loved each other dearly.
In fact, Harry also had a cousin, who was just a few weeks older than himself, however, knowing that she and her husband were magical, her horrible sister had decided that she would not allow her precious baby to meet Harry, afraid that Harry could infest her son with magic. In Lily's eyes, it was a great pity, however, there was nothing that she could do about it.
HP
Only by chance, one day, when Lily took Harry shopping in Muggle London, she met a former friend from her Muggle primary school and realised that she had a daughter of about Harry's age. The two children immediately seemed to like each other, and Lily and her friend decided to meet on the playground near their old primary school two days later.
From that time onwards, Harry and the girl became good friends. Her name was Hermione, and there was something like an invisible band that seemed to connect the two toddlers. This did not even change when Hermione was introduced to Neville, and when the toddlers realised that all three of them happened to do the same kind of accidental magic, the three children became inseparable.
tbc... (if you are interested...)