Chapter #2- Dumbledore's Theory

James and Lily sat silently in Dumbledore's office, watching him pace back and forth in front of them, muttering to himself. Harry slept peacefully in his mother's arms. Every once and a while James would glance over at Lily, wondering if they should say something, but she would shake her head no. Dumbledore was obviously trying to figure out an explanation for the events that had occurred that night.

They had apparated to the gates of Hogwarts merely 15 minutes ago and immediately rushed to Dumbledore's office, ignoring the questioning looks that the portraits and students were giving them.

"James. Lily. What are you doing here?" he said with surprise, looking up from the letter he was writing when they burst into his office. "You aren't supposed to leave your house. What happened?"

James looked over at Lily, but she seemed to shaken to speak.

"He came," James answered solemnly. Dumbledore's eyes widened.

"And you're all okay? Harry is alive?"

"He's fine," James replied. "We're all fine."

Dumbledore quickly conjured two chairs and motioned for them to sit. "Please, explain to me what happened. And don't leave out a single detail."

Lily still did not speak, she just rocked Harry back and forth in her arms.

"Well I was asleep in the living room with Harry, and Lily came in to take him up to bed," James began, wondering how well he could tell the story if he hadn't even been awake. "Apparently right after that, Voldemort snuck into the house and confronted Lily in Harry's room. She tried to shield Harry from him and pleaded with him to kill her instead. But he was only interested in Harry, so he stunned her to get her out of his way."

James paused at this point to see Dumbledore's reaction. He didn't seem very surprised that Voldemort had not killed Lily and was only interested in going after a harmless baby boy. James furrowed his brows in confusion, but continued on with his story.

"I woke up downstairs to the sound of Harry crying and saw that the front door was open. I knew something was wrong. That's when I heard Voldemort cast the killing curse. I ran straight upstairs. Harry was in his bed screaming, and Lily was lying on the floor. I-I thought he had killed her. But when she woke up she said he had only stunned her."

"So the killing curse must have been cast at Harry," Dumbledore said, standing up and beginning to pace.

"Well, you'd think so… but Harry's fine, so something must have gone wrong. Maybe he… missed?" James offered, knowing how stupid it sounded.

"Lord Voldemort does not miss," Dumbledore said shortly. He continued with his pacing and began muttering to himself.

James and Lily sat quietly, waiting for him to offer some sort of explanation. After a few minutes he came to the other side of his desk and looked down at Harry. He brushed the small boy's hair to the side and traced the fresh scar with his finger. Dumbledore nodded solemnly—the scar seemed to have proven something to him. He returned to his seat and put his face in his hands, sighing wearily.

"Well?" James said impatiently. Lily shot him a disapproving look.

Dumbledore looked up at them. "I'm afraid that we can never know for sure what happened tonight. I do, however, have a theory."

"Let's hear this theory then."

"Lord Voldemort came to your house tonight with the sole intention of killing Harry. He nearly succeeded. You heard him cast the killing curse, James, and it was directed at Harry."

"But how…?"

"I think that Harry survived the killing curse because he was protected by a magic so powerful that even Voldemort does not understand it."

James and Lily exchanged confused looks. "The only protection we had up was the Fidelius Charm, and obviously that didn't work out."

"I am not talking about a type of magic that you can conjure with a spell," Dumbledore explained. "Harry was protected by something much more powerful than that. He was protected by love."

"Love?" James exclaimed with complete surprise. He had not had a clue what Dumbledore was going to say, but he had not been expecting this.

"Yes, love. The oldest and most underestimated form of magic. My belief is that when Lily was willing to give up her life to save her son, she put a protective enchantment around him that Voldemort could not penetrate, even with the killing curse."

James looked over at his wife. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she stroked Harry's head. James grabbed her hand and squeezed it, and she smiled at him.

"Wait... there's still something I don't understand," James said. "Even if love protected Harry from the killing curse, what happened to Voldemort?"

"The curse rebounded onto him," Dumbledore said simply, as though stating the weather.

"So he's dead?!" James gasped, hardly daring to believe it.

Dumbledore shook his head. "I am not fool enough to believe that Lord Voldemort is gone for good. But I do believe that his powers were broken, and we probably won't have to deal with him for a good while now."

James and Lily contemplated this newfound information. James looked down at his little son, amazed that he was able to break the powers of the most evil wizard of all time.

"So I suppose we can correctly assume that Sirius was the spy?" Dumbledore asked, breaking the silence.

"No!" James said, looking outraged. Dumbledore seemed confused.

"James, I know he was your best friend, but he was your secret keeper, and the charm was broken…"

"No he wasn't," Lily interjected, finally speaking up. "We changed at the last minute. Sirius wasn't the secret keeper."

"Then who was?"

Lily looked over at James. He looked very upset. She knew how much the idea of one of his best friends betraying him hurt him.

"It was Peter," Lily answered. Dumbledore looked surprised. "It was Sirius' idea. We thought it was the perfect bluff. Voldemort would obviously assume that we would choose Sirius, but who would think that we would make quiet, powerless little Peter our secret keeper? We thought it was a good idea."

"It doesn't mean he was the spy," James added. "Voldemort could have tortured the information out of him."

Lily caught Dumbledore's eye, and knew he was thinking the same thing that she was. It was too unlikely for Voldemort to have figured out that he was the secret keeper and found his hiding place in that short amount of time. But James refused to believe that one of his fellow Marauders would betray him.

They all sat in silence for a few moments, absorbing all the new information they had taken in. Finally, Dumbledore stood up.

"I should probably alert the Ministry as to what happened. They'll probably be wondering…" He was interrupted by the sound of an owl pecking on his window. He opened it up to let it in, and removed the scroll from it's leg.

After a few seconds of reading he said, "Never mind. They seem to have figured it out on their own. Apparently your neighbor, Bathilda Bagshot, informed them that something was going on when she heard explosions… they say there was quite a bit of damage done to your house, and the Muggles are all swarming around to see what happened. The Ministry seems to be under the impression that you're all dead… that won't do… and, oh no…"

"What?" James and Lily asked curiously.

"It's Sirius. They've got him under arrest."

Author's Note: Yay. Done chapter 2! So, no reviews yet... that's pretty discouraging. I would greatly appreciate it if someone did review. Ideas, criticism, compliments, whatever. I'd just like to know that people are reading. PLEASE REVIEW