LILY

31st October 1981

Her life had been shattered in so many ways on the night of October the 31st, 1981. Her short life was already littered with horrors and tragedies that none should endure.

She was standing in her child's nursery, clutching at the one thing she had left in life. Her son.

The house was eerily quiet, but she knew that she wasn't the only one there. The blue walls of the room that had seemed so bright only hours ago now looked sad and forlorn. Shouts and bursts of laughter could be heard from outside, where other children were having fun. Where other children's' mothers' didn't have to worry about their lives every day.

She had just heard her husband being killed, and she was willing to do anything to make sure that her son didn't go the same way. The shout of the intruder and the thud of his body were unmistakable. It was true Her husband was dead.

She would never see him again, hear him again, and get to hold him again. His smiles were gone forever, he was gone forever, and now both her son and she were being threatened to go the same way. She would never see him again.

The child in her arms squirmed. He didn't like the tight hold his mother had on him. She tenderly put him down in his cot and turned to face the danger.

She could hear his footsteps ascending the stairs. Slowly, tauntingly. She adopted a protective stance in front of the cot, and spread her arms out to shield him from view.

She was frightened. Scared. Petrified, even, but nothing would stop her from trying to save her only child.

Tears coursed down her young face, and she tried to hold her broken heart together for its last few moments. She had to stay strong for her son.

The snakelike head appeared in the doorframe. His robes swirled around him, electrified from the aura of his power. Lily tensed up. It was now or never. This is when she would die.

The murderer fixed his empty red eyes on the child behind the weeping woman. He made to approach him, but she blocked his way.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" she cried. Tears were falling freely down her face.

"Stand aside you silly girl," the cruel man ordered, "stand aside now."

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead!" she wept, throwing herself in front of the cot to block her son from any harm. She wasn't going to let this cold-hearted man touch her child.

"Not Harry! Please … have mercy … have mercy…" she was on her knees now, and had no wand in sight. Her son was still hidden behind her shaking body.

A shrill laugh erupted from the man's vile mouth. Did this woman really think she could protect her child from him? Voldemort raised his wand and, for the second time that night, he called the worst Unforgivable Curse.

"Avadra Kedavra!"

There was a flash of green light, and then everything went black.

The cruel man observed the young boy with a strange type of curiosity. He had been wrong before. This child looked exactly like his father, but with his mother's eyes.

The child was now crying. It had realised that his mother wasn't playing, and wasn't about to jump back up. He wanted his mother. The man could solve that.

He laughed again, once. It was high and cruel and didn't last for long. Voldemort raised his wand again, called the curse for the third time that night, and then it went black for everyone.

Lily Potter died protecting the one she loved.