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Chapter Two

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"Voldemort," the four adult wizards breathed together, turning around to face the largest menace to society that the world had known in centuries. At his side stood two Death Eaters, properly robed and masked, who already had their wands drawn and held at the ready.

"It's nice to hear someone finally using my name," he commented coolly. "I went to all that trouble to find one intimidating enough, and now no one ever dares to utter it. Pity, really. I suppose I did my job too well." His cold smile was not returned by any of the full wizards.

"Uncle!" Harry screamed, leaping up to bow in front of the Dark wizard as he had been trained. Voldemort barely acknowledged the kneeling boy with a nod before returning his meticulous attention back to the older Potters.

"I knew that this was coming, that you would not be fully dedicated to me. After all I have done for you: providing everything for you and your son, granting you with power, and allowing you the right to live, especially since you had been fighting against me for years. "

"All you ever did was enslave us," Lily grated out, her knuckles turning white from the firm grip that she kept on her polished wand. "I'm not grateful for that!"

"And you didn't provide for Harry; you corrupted him!" James hissed.

Both of them knew that this was their time to make a stand. They had run away from the issue before, uniting powers with evil in order to save their own lives. Sirius and Remus would surely never have done that. Now, though, the point was moot as Voldemort would most likely kill them out of either sheer spite or in order to make an example of the couple to prove to the other Death Eaters the consequences of rebelling against him.

"You should never have contacted your old friends," the cruel wizard admonished sharply. Beside him, the two Death Eaters stirred as if they were dogs scenting blood Voldemort motioned them to stillness before anyone else dared to speak up.

"They didn't contact us, but we should have come much sooner!" Sirius shot off, pale cheeks burning with a flush of anger.

Remus chimed in with his considerable knowledge. "You're just picking on others because you are insecure about yourself. Putting yourself above those you decide are inferior is just a ploy to convince yourself of your own importance."

Voldemort laughed, a high, shrilly sound that scratched across the air as an almost tangible presence. He did not stop for several long minutes in which everyone shifted their positions slightly, attempting to position themselves in the perfect dueling form. Finally, the chortles cut off aprubtly, and Voldemort once again surveyed the defying group through his narrow, red slits of eyes.

"I do what I do in order to cleanse the world from those not powerful enough! Only those strong in magic deserve to have strength, and I will guarantee that it is so. But I do not have to explain myself to you, fool."

"Then why did you just do so?" Sirius muttered dryly, shaking his head while rolling his eyes.

Voldemort ignored him. "I grow tired of bandying words with this group of incompetents," he declared, moving so that his black robes billowed out behind him, adding to the drama of the moment. He certainly was a fearsome sight, inky cloth swirling about him, contrasting so sharply with his chalk white face. His calculating eyes seemed out of place on his face, but not as much as they would have done so on a normal man. There was some inhuman quality that his features had gained over the years, something that made him slightly surreal and more than a little intimidating.

"You have reached the ultimatum!" he announced, hands stretched out beside him. "Either you join me or," a definitive note of utmost pleasure entered his voice, "you will die!"

The choice was made in an instant, though it was not a callous one. The pros and cons were weighed again, and the outcome was still the same. Voldemort smirked when they did not cease their offensive stances and remained rooted to their spots on the carpeted floors.

"Very well then." He raised his wand until it was level with his shoulder, drawing out the moment to exact as much perverse joy from it as possible. "Crucio!"

Lily collapsed into a shivering heap on the floor, pain wracking her slim body and sending her spine convulsing into positions that were previously thought impossible. James knelt down at his wife's side, forgetting the danger that the dark wizards presented, abandoning all in the terror of seeing his wife tortured.

Voldemort chuckled again, eyes wide with the pleasure of his spot of fun, breathing deeply through his slits of nostrils. A maniac light entered his face, one which all too many- wizards, witches, and Muggles alike- had seen immediately before their deaths.

Sirius, Remus, and the two anonymous Death Eaters were not immobile while the other three were trapped in the torture. All four were busy flinging curses and hexes at each other as quickly as they could bring the incantations to their minds. All were forced to ignore the shrieks coming from the lovely young woman lying spread-eagled on the ground, the Death Eaters so that they did not become too involved in the pleasure of the moment and the two friends so that they could remove the threat before they acted rashly, destroying any chances of rescuing the woman.

Harry, in the meanwhile, had scuttled backwards until he was pressed firmly against one of the warm vermilion walls of the room. What was happening? Why were his mum and dad trading curses with the man who had helped to see to his needs for the past four years? Who were those two men, and why were they attacking his Death Eater friends?

Needless to say (though it shall be said anyway) Harry was befuddled. He had no idea what was occurring around him, so he simply remained huddled in his corner, unsure of who he should be helping.

"Cease!" Voldemort cried out, following his own command by dropping the Cruciatus curse off of Lily. The Death Eaters lowered their own wands, one of them stopping mid-jinx in his hurry to obey his master. Sirius and Remus were more hesitant, flinging one last curse each before desisting, but both kept their wands held in the dueling position.

Each of the combatants had bruises and scrapes, and Sirius's dark hair was singed from a fireball that had clipped his ear. Lily was shivering on the floor, sobbing with the pain. James held her gently, whispering reassurances in her ear. He seemed to have regained enough of his mind to pull his wand out of his pocket, and he held it nervously between his thumb and forefinger.

"This," Voldemort informed them coolly, "is your last chance. You will join me, or you will die!"

Sirius, still a bit of a joker even in the lethal atmosphere, murmured softly, "I thought that was what you said last time." Remus glanced at him sideways, clearly wondering how his friend could make an attempt at levity in the humorless situation.

It was James who gave the real answer, standing up proudly with his feet shoulder-width apart. "We won't be parley to your cruel whims any longer!" he declared. "Kill us!" The words were very brave, even if they would surely cost him his life. James found that he did not want to continue to live if it meant he would be the subject of such a heartless, hypocritical master.

"I was almost hoping you would say that," Voldemort rejoined with evident glee. "Avada Kedavra!"

A blinding flash of green light, a single last gasp of breath, and James toppled over, dead.

"No!" Lily shrieked, flinging herself on top of her deceased husband's already cooling corpse. "NO!"

James. He was a friend, a spouse, a constant companion. She had spent almost every moment for him for over half of a decade, and they had known each other for years before that. He was a steady presence in her life and now he was... gone.

Rage clouded her brain, streaking her vision with red. Red for the blood that was no longer flowing through the veins of her love. Red for his house, for Gryffindor. Red for his valor, his loyalty, his stalwart courage.

Fury was all that she had room for now. Fury and the scant possibility of saving Harry's life. Harry was all that was left to her now, the last of James' legacy, and she was determined to make that count for something.

"You bastard," she hissed at Voldemort. "You'll pay for this!" Her green eyes narrowed with her anger, and her hand clenched her wand so tightly that there was a danger of cutting of the circulation to her slender fingers.

"I rather think not. After I dispose of you, I will have full control of your son." He gesticulated to where Harry was curled up in his corner, eyes squinched tightly together in his confusion.

"No! You won't have Harry! Whatever you do, leave Harry alone!" she pleaded hopelessly. Desperation filled her voice, making her voice crack and falter on the words. Her knees buckled, and she would have fallen to the floor had she not locked her legs together firmly.

"Silly girl, stand aside. You're not important; he is. Stand aside, or you will die!" he growled in response, nearly shoving her aside in order to reach the boy.

"Not Harry!" she yelled, raising her wand up, lips forming into a wide "o" as she started to utter a single spell that would stop Voldemort.

She never finished.

"Avada Kedavra!" Another flash of green light, illuminating the formerly cozy chamber with sickening light. Harry's eyes snapped open of their own accord, just in time to see his mother sink down to the bright, cheery rugs, her eyes rolling up into her head and her hair spread about her like a crown of flames.

"Mum!" Harry shrieked, flinging himself onto the corpse of his mother, shaking her by her shoulders. "Mum, mum, wake up!"

"She won't wake up, boy," Voldemort explained. "She's dead."

"No!" he screamed, still prodding his mother in an attempt to see her smile again. "She can't be dead!"

"She can and is. Come along, boy. I have other matters to attend to." Voldemort held out a sickly white hand, one that looked as if maggots should be feeding on it ravenously.

"You killed my mum!" Harry whipping his wand out of his robes as he did so.

"And you're mummy's friends killed my Death Eaters. Fair is fair. Come along!" he added with impatience, gesturing again for Harry to join him. Harry glanced around warily, noticing the crumpled forms of the two black- robed figures and the two adult wizards who had their wands trained on Voldemort.

"I don't care! You killed my mum and dad; I'll kill you!"

"I grow tired of your rebellion, boy," Voldemort warned. "Come with me, or suffer the same fate that your parents have already met, and that their friends will." his voice was dripping with impatience and annoyance, as well as a small portion of disdain.

"No!"

"Very well. You could have been great, boy." He flicked the wrist that grasped his wand with a well-practiced motion, and mouthed the dreaded words. "Avada Kedavra!"

There was another blinding explosion of emerald illumination, this one accompanied by a high-pitched scream, although not one of a child. Remus and Sirius were thrown to the ground roughly from the resulting pitching of the house in the aftershock. Harry cried out in pain, clasping his hands to his forehead where a lightning-shaped gash had opened up. For all four of the living inhabitants of the house, everything went black.

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