Chapter 3

Horror At Godric's Hollow

James Potter had never been the kind of man who would turn his back on a fight. The moment someone had risen up with mind to threaten what he had struggled to build, he'd enrolled in the resistance without question. He had fought every battle; literal and internal and denied evil at every turn. When friends had gone missing and family members been slain, he had kept a brave face. Now that his best friends were risking their lives waging war on the darkest wizard of all time, James had been forced into hiding with his new wife Lily and their baby Harry and he felt defective and traitorous.

That dark wizard was now so feared that people no longer dared to speak his name. James and Lily had always dared and thrice defied Lord Voldemort already but others had not been so lucky. It was because of him that ordinary men and women walked side by side with danger and death. People went out to get milk and were never heard from again. The paper was overflowing with disappearances and gruesome murders so often that such headlines no longer came as a surprise. Since school, the toll of the departed had been mounting. The faces behind those crimes remained unpunished and Voldemort stalked the country growing in followers and influence with the seasons. The worst part was that Voldemort's faithful Deatheaters were not just faceless, brainless evil lemmings but people James and Lily had known at school. They were intent upon carrying out Voldemort's will of ridding the world of non-magical blood and somehow James's new family had gained the top spot on their hit list.

A prophecy had named Harry as the only one capable of bringing Voldemort's reign of terror to its knees. Harry was barely off his knees, still crawling around and falling down and little of a threat to anyone. Lily thought it was ridiculous-that prophecies like superstitions only came to life if one put energy and faith into them but Voldemort was exactly the kind of deluded individual who put stock in prophecies. They were moved by nightfall into a cottage within Godric's Hollow, the idyllic village where the leader of the resistance had spent most of his childhood. Come Halloween, six months later, not a single child had called at their front door exclaiming "trick-or-treat!" To all but one, James, his family and their home were utterly invisible. Voldemort voraciously scoured the country for a scent, torturing and beating their friends for information they would rather die than share and James lost the ability to look his only son in the eye. He was sure that his baby knew that he was a coward and he couldn't bear to meet his gaze. It was a gaze as emerald green as his mothers and always reflecting James's desires to change history. He knew as he knew that one day he would die, that he was the worst thing that had ever happened to his wife. She deserved better than a man who would agree to spend the first months of their firstborn's life on the run from the price on their heads. He should have gone running to meet the challenge and killed Voldemort where he stood. At the very least James knew he ought to have died fighting, but he was a father now and sacrifices had to be made for children. A coward for a father was better than no father at all. Still James longed that sooner rather than later they would be found.

Lily longed for contact with the outside world. She felt like the last person alive on a sinking ship. She was standing on the front step of the last cottage on the most southern street of Godric's Hollow. She was watching miniature witches, werewolves, mummies and vampires running wild on the streets, swinging buckets heavy with confectionery and knocking jovially, door to door. Some parents escorted their children, walking hand in hand, whilst others waited for them at home, utterly at ease that even on a night like Halloween they would return unharmed because nobody was lurking in the darkness with evil intentions. It was hard for them to imagine anything terrible happening in such an idyllic place. Lily would have given anything to be one of those parents but she was too terrified by the idea of what was out there to enjoy Halloween. Somebody was lurking in the darkness with evil intentions and even hidden beneath an enchanted sky she was terrified. She was soothed by memories of simpler times. She wanted to play hopscotch on the shining pavements like she was a little girl. Back then she had lived for Halloween. It had been the one night a year that she could fully immerse herself within the fantasies of her favourite books. Now that she knew that the frightening creatures which haunted their pages were as real as the dark wizard who meant to see the light leave her eyes, she couldn't stand the idea of celebrating Halloween. There was no orange and black bunting hanging in their living room, no enchanted cobwebs shrouding their windows, no fake fireflies lighting their garden and no carved pumpkin sitting before their front door. Her Wendy Darling costume had not been worn in years and she had come to realise that there was no such thing as escape to Neverland. She had grown up and she was waiting for fate to find her hiding place.

Nobody else could hear Harry's crying but it cut away at Lily's very core. She felt as though they were dissolving bit by bit and would soon become as invisible as the house. Harry wailed like he wanted the whole world to hear. His cries seemed to echo not only down one street but a thousand streets. Surely he did not want to be invisible either. Every milestone he had reached so far had fallen upon deaf ears. Only his parents had heard his first word, 'mama', and seen him take his first steps. He was a miracle, made by two inimitable people on their most sincere day of living and he deserved to be shared. Harry had not slept a single night at Godric's Hollow the whole night through. He was as tired as his parents looked. James scooped Harry up in his arms and his crying ceased instantly. He threw his son playfully up into the air, catching him as he came down. Lily watched as Harry flew through the air, his messy hair on end, smiling ear to ear. "James, do be careful. He's just been-"

"Don't worry. He loves it! Look at his face! Look at his-"James squeezed a red faced laughing Harry close and he promptly threw up down his chest. James grimaced in disgust and Lily stifled a laugh.

"Your boy is a born prankster." James stared down at his soiled shirt, holding a dripping Harry at arm's length.

"Credit where it's due. He got me good. Didn't see it coming at all. You two planned this together. You really should have warned me Lily."

The front door shut behind them, locking out the cooling Halloween night. James placed Harry down in his playpen in the living room, turned on the radio and peeled off his soaked shirt. James leaned into the pen smiling at Harry as he chattered nonsensically. "Say papa. Pa-pa. Come on. Papa."

"Padfoot?" Harry asked holding a small stuffed black dog up to his father. James shook his head.

"Still no luck with that?" Lily asked laughing.

"Do you know how it feels to be outranked by you, Padfoot, bath and cup?" Suddenly a song from their youth filled the room. It was a 60's classic Lily and James had once danced to within the comforting castle walls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry under the best Headmaster the place had ever known; Albus Dumbledore. He was also the leader of the resistance of which they were a part, The Order of the Phoenix and the main reason that they were still alive and safe from harm. Hearing the song again, James took it as a sign that one day soon things would be just as carefree as they had once been and pulled his unwilling wife into his arms. He danced her in circles, kissing her neck and her lips. Harry stood up in his pen staring expectantly up at his parents, lost within each other's gaze and memories of a time before his existence had uprooted their lives. The danger which enveloped them stopped the fire beneath their love from ever going out and it was one of the few things James was truly thankful for. Harry threw grasping hands up into the air and fell back onto his backside. Lily pulled away from James laughing lightly. The song ended and their silent, invisible reality dawned upon them both. "Our boy needs a haircut." Harry sat back up with black hair in his eyes, and scrawled irritably on pieces of paper with crayons.

"He would make a pretty little girl," James replied in jest, falling exhausted onto the sofa.

"Just as well...if He's out there looking for a boy!" Lily's green eyes welled up and James pulled her by the hand down onto his lap, holding her close. He had lost count of the number of nights he had found Lily standing over Harry's cot, looking in at him, trying to un-riddle the meaning behind the cards life had dealt them. "Look at him. How could anybody believe that-"

"Flower..." James wiped his wife's tears away with his hands but she was hysterical.

"He's just a baby! Why would anybody want to hurt him?" James sighed. They had had this conversation too many times before. He held her and hushed her and waited for her to calm down.

"You know Lily, sometimes I'm glad that we're stuck in this place." Lily stared at him sore eyed and nonplussed. "I just couldn't take Harry anywhere." James leaned into the playpen to pick Harry up and dangled him in front of his mother's tear streaked face, tickling him so that he laughed. "He's so damn handsome. He'd make the other babies look bad!" Lily stared at their son with his sparkling green eyes and overgrown, messy black hair in a stained onesie with vomit dripping down his chin and she couldn't help but smile. Lily sniffed at Harry and recoiled.

"Bath time I think." James gave Lily another kiss and disappeared upstairs with Harry over his shoulder.

"Bath!" Harry shouted joyfully. Splashing in the tub was one of his favourite things to do. It even made Lily feel safe and normal and almost free of Godric's Hollow, Voldemort, his prophecy and its restraints.

Lily took up James's vomit covered shirt and threw it into the laundry basket thinking about how their semblance of safety rested solely in the hands of another. Once Dumbledore had been entirely sure that Voldemort had singled Harry out as Voldemort's lone target, he had insisted that they entrust their whereabouts to one person alone, hiding them in their soul and dropping off of the map. Dumbledore had volunteered himself but James had wanted a friend. There wasn't a single soul he trusted more than his school friend and fellow member of the resistance, Sirius Black. Sirius however was adamant that he was far too obvious a choice and not nearly trustworthy enough. Instead they had gone with their other school friend Peter. He had always been the soft spoken, harmless member of their group and nobody could imagine him holding or spilling such a secret. Now he was the only one who could tell anybody where they were and living in a rented apartment close to Sirius and his partner Remus's cabin in the southern forest. They followed orders and carried on with a show of normality, sure that to retreat from the world would make it obvious that they had something to hide. Peter continued to work at the paper, The Daily Prophet. Remus had stopped writing fiction and started writing facts, guidebooks for how best to combat the evil that was sweeping the country. Against all advice Sirius had dropped out of Auror Training the moment James had and was working part time in a muggle bakery as close to Godric's Hollow as Dumbledore had allowed.

The war had denied them all the life they had envisioned at school. Lily had married the man she loved and had a healthy, beautiful baby with him but somehow the reality of her life did not come to close to measuring up to her childhood daydreams. At the hospital, on July 31st James had barely cut Harry's cord before they were being packed up and forced into hiding. Harry had had his first birthday a few months ago. It had not been the big family party he deserved but a 'Happy Birthday' chorus of two, a small cake and no gifts. Lily had gone to bed in tears. Harry had enjoyed only one day trip into the wizarding world and the arms of his extended family so far. The autumn of his birth he had been christened at a small London church and Sirius named his Godfather. She and James had danced in the street as Remus had snapped their photograph with one hand and held Harry in the other. Sirius had stood by playing guitar and smoking a cigarette whilst Peter warily eyed the empty, frosty street. She missed the sound of their voices, arguing, laughing and poking fun at one another. Nothing seemed fun anymore, Lily thought as she stared at the closed living room curtains bitterly. She kept the curtains drawn for most of the day, unable to stand the sight of the sunlit tombstones lining the church graveyard which stood opposite their cottage. Each one was like a single tooth inside of a smiling mouth, an omen of the death and danger which seemed to follow them always.

Lily was the centre of a roaring mess and the house wasn't going to clean itself. She had graduated from Hogwarts with top grades and could have wiped the house fresh with a single spell but as they were living amongst muggles, use of magic was prohibited. Dumbledore was convinced that it would make it harder for Voldemort to find them but Lily couldn't care less. They were practically living as muggles and she couldn't stand it. She felt as though she had regressed to her childhood life. James had used to use his Invisibility Cloak to go down to the train station and watch enviously as people came and went, greeting one another and waving goodbyes. Lily was secretly glad when Dumbledore had dropped by and demanded that James hand over the cloak. She knew that James longed to return to his magical roots too but he had more reasons than she did to remain in hiding. He had lost family to Voldemort before and refused to do so again. 'Family is not who you are born but who you become devoted to. Three legs can keep a family standing. Stay strong beautiful,' Remus had instructed in his last letter but Lily was finding it harder than ever. The last time Remus had laid eyes on Harry, he had barely measured the length of his arm. He had stared at Remus's amber eyes like they were fireflies. They were pack animals and whilst it was true that absence made the heart grow fonder, it grew blue and lonesome too.

Lily took some comfort in sending one way letters like mini confessionals to Severus Snape. He was an old childhood friend who had long ago lost his way and would not have replied even if he had been given a return address. They had not spoken properly for almost 3 years when she had fallen for his enemy, James in their final school year. He had visited her very briefly at the hospital the night Harry had been born and that was the last time before this whole mess that they had spoken in person. He was now one of the followers of the man who wanted her dead. Despite this, Lily wrote to him often, pouring her heart, hopes and worries into those letters, as though she wished that she alone had the power to pull him back from the edge. There had been a time when she had told him stories and he had been the one to introduce her to magic. It was the kind of bond which was not easily broken and Lily often felt tugs on the string.

James came down the stairs wearing pyjamas and a bathrobe, cradling a clean, worn out Harry in his arms. "I thought you'd like to put him down. He always likes your stories the best." Harry was wrapped in the plaid blanket that he dragged everywhere with him. James placed their son in the laundry basket on the sofa and kissed his forehead. For a fleeting moment Lily spotted the sadness which James tried so hard to hide.

"Halloween's hitting you hard isn't it? I know you're missing them."

"We used to have such great times pranking everybody," James sighed, taking the photo of his best friends up off of the mantelpiece. "Do you remember that great party in sixth year? You were the sexiest phoenix I have ever seen."

"If I'd known you were the man beneath the mummy's bandages I'd never have kissed you."

"Behold the beauty of the costume. It was all Remus's idea..." James trailed off sadly and replaced the photograph. Lily stared down at Harry's sleeping form in the laundry basket. James had cut his hair.

"I'll never understand how you get him to drop off so easily."

"No one can resist the Potter charm," James replied smugly wrapping his arms around Lily with a boyish grin.

"I seem to recall myself doing so for a number of years." James ran a hand over his wife's hair and pulled her in closer to his chest. Lily lifted her head to smile at him.

"Everybody knew you were in denial," he said confidently, "You soon came around and after all of these years, you're still head over heels." Lily laid her head on his chest and sighed.

"Your heart beats so loud." Perhaps it was its rhythmic drumming which sent Harry to sleep so easily.

"Always will be flower." For all of the nights shouting themselves hoarse and the silent tension filled mornings, Lily knew that she had been made to love James Potter.

"I love you."

The urgency in Lily's voice when she had said the words he had always longed to hear as a schoolboy unsettled him. It was as though she was worried that if she didn't say it right at that second she might never get the chance to say it again and it broke his heart. It was his job to protect her from worry and he couldn't even do that. He had been more than ready to give Lily his well practiced speech before she had disappeared up the stairs to the nursery. He lashed out at the mantelpiece swiping the photograph and several unlit candles onto the floor. Too often Harry cried the whole night through and Lily would stand over his cot crying too. James would like awake, alone and helpless remembering just how Lily had smiled and cried at the same time during the first dance at their wedding. Harry had not counted into their plans then. They had been oblivious to what their married future would hold. Now he felt like a criminal, running from place to place, living in fear and forever glancing over his shoulder. It wasn't the Gryffindor way and there were so many other ways he could have been contributing to the cause in such dark times. Not that he would exchange Harry for any other kind of life. Life without him was worth nothing. He was the best of both worlds with Lily's eyes and his unruly hair. James wished for him to be as well-read as Remus, as fun loving as Sirius and as steadfast as Peter. James had once lived for those boys and now he felt as though he was missing a limb. He did his best to keep Lily's already waning spirits up but the house always felt cold and they constantly had to sweep the snow their unhappiness made out of the back door. James tried to convince himself that unhappy was better than dead but sometimes it was harder than trying to understand Harry's infantile nonsense. He couldn't admit any of this to Lily and his pride prevented him from putting it all in a letter to Remus or Sirius. Instead he crossed the street into the graveyard and whispered it to the oldest tombstones he could find.

He collapsed into the comfortable cushions of the sofa. Something within the pocket of his bath robe began to vibrate. James took out a handheld mirror. It belonged to a pair he had created at Hogwarts to communicate with Sirius whenever they had been in separate classes, detentions or on holidays. Dumbledore did not know about it and he could not hand it over. He knew that he wasn't supposed to have any contact with the outside world other than hand written proof-read letters but he could not live without his best friend. He wiped his face and held the mirror to eye level. Sirius's smiling face appeared in the glass instead of his own reflection. "Happy Halloween Padfoot..."

"You too man," came the voice James had needed to hear for the better part of two weeks. Sirius's face was not as handsome as usual but cut and bruised.

"What happened to your face?"

"It's nothing. The Deatheaters got a hold of me. We did well to call their bluff Prongs. I kept mute and I'm due to check on Peter in a bit so don't you worry-"

"What did they do to you?" James had read a dozen stories of their brutality and he doubted that Sirius the pure-blood blood-traitor member of the resistance would be let off with a slap on the wrist. "How long did they have you?" Sirius was silent for a moment and then he said:

"Two weeks." James almost choked; his heart instantly in his throat.

"You're okay aren't you?" Sirius was anything but fragile. He had taken beatings before. James just hated to imagine Remus waiting home alone to read in the Prophet that Sirius's mangled body had been discovered in a water logged field whilst they lived in comfort, hidden from immediate danger.

"Don't be like that. You know me. Skin heals. I'll be fine." James was not comforted. Skin was never what Voldemort's Deatheaters sought to break. Sirius could have been in pieces and he was not there to put him back together. "Are you okay Prongs? You sound tired-"James had tried not to allow the exhaustion to shine through in his voice but Sirius knew him better than he knew himself.

"I've been up with Harry since 6. You'll be glad to know that every time I ask him to say 'papa' he says 'padfoot' instead." Sirius let out a bark like laugh.

"Nice to know he's got his priorities straight-"

"Is Remus alright? He doesn't hate me because the Deatheaters took you-"

"James. Listen to yourself man. You're being ridiculous. Remus loves you, no matter what and he misses the shit out of you...You ought to get some sleep. You are eating aren't you? Just know that we're doing all we can. Don't worry too much. You wouldn't want that glorious head of hair of yours to start falling out in clumps. You're going to end up a paranoid old crackpot like Snivellus." James laughed and rubbed his sore eyes. "Dark thoughts will choke you in that place so just know that it's not for long. Hold tight Prongs, keep your Lily watered and our Harry happy."

Sirius's smiling face disappeared as the house was plunged into total darkness. The two-way mirror fell from James's hands and rolled under a cabinet. Sirius's voice crackled into static. James jumped to his feet, grabbed their wands from the coffee table and drew the curtains. "Lumos." A hooded figure was standing in the street separating their cottage from the graveyard. There would be no more hiding. Voldemort had broken through Dumbledore's defences and come for them at last. Mornings spent duelling imaginary assailants at the back of the church flooded James's mind; he was ready. James crashed into Lily on the stairs and pressed her wand into her hands.

"It's just a blackout James-"

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's Him! Run! I'll hold him off!" Lily needed no time to gather her thoughts and allow what James was telling her to sink in. This was the very reason that they had been living like criminals for a year and a half. The gravity of the situation had her clinging around his neck, kissing him as fiercely as though it was the very first time.

"No...No James, please. I vowed never to leave you," she whimpered as James kissed her back and pushed her unwillingly up the stairs.

"Lily I love you. Always have...Always will," he said knowing that if he didn't say it now, there might not be another chance. She turned to stare at him, knowing that she might not see him alive again. The front door flew open of its own accord. James stood firm. There would be no more running or hiding. It was now or never.

"I thought your parents had taught you better manners Potter. Aren't you going to invite me in?"

His voice was just as laced with the poison as the papers had all reported. Lily could not imagine Severus or anyone else spending evenings listening to him spout orders and delusions. She knew that if you were unlucky enough to hear his voice you were already damaged or about to die. James would never agree to join him and he was not strong enough to fight him off alone. He was a competent wizard but he had given up Auror Training to go into hiding and had been worrying himself sick for months. His heart was in the right place but Lily knew that he didn't stand a chance. Voldemort had come not in search of a battle but a slaughter. Lily found herself for the first time in her life, assaulted by memories of cold morning visits to airy muggle churches on school fieldtrips and began praying to whoever was listening to spare James. They were all too young to die.

"You took my parents and my sister but you won't take what I've made. Not Lily! Not Harry!" she heard James bellow and the tears began to roll down her cheeks in waves. James had already escaped Voldemort once and he was not in the habit of giving second chances. There were the sounds of violent commotion below, neither of them speaking, just tarrying spells back and forth, shattering vases, knocking down walls, cracking wooden doors and destroying framed photographs. Lily stood above, her back pressed to the furthest wall, her whole body trembling. The crashing had awoken Harry and he was sobbing. Lily closed her eyes against the sound and tried to concentrate on her memories of James but she couldn't. Her mind refused to make a memory out of a living man. Her thoughts turned instead to the last letter inside she had sent to Severus. Against her better judgement, it was his long, pale face she wished to see, striding through their front door, wand raised ready to fight Voldemort off and re-light the fire which had once burned so fiercely beneath their friendship.

As though he knew exactly what his mother was thinking and that his father was falling to his knees downstairs, Harry opened his mouth and said the single word James had been trying to pry from his lips all summer. "Papa..." There was silence below. As much as Lily wanted to be proud of Harry, a part of her knew that if he was saying it now it was only because he no longer had a father to say it to. He kept on repeating it, louder with every single one and Lily willed him to stop. She was out of her mind, racing to the door at the thud of feet on the stairs.

"James!" Her husband had come back for them, arms and smile wide, eyes brimming with happy tears to tell her that it was finished. "No..." Lily fell to her knees, Harry the very vision of his father clutched close to her chest. James was standing in the door but only barely and he was not alone. The predator who had been hunting them across the country for almost two years was standing behind him. Lord Voldemort did not look like much of a man anymore. His slanted red eyes betrayed him. He dropped James's wilted figure to the floor. Lily reached a single hand towards him.

"Avada Kedavra!" Lily drew her hand back, shielding her eyes against the harsh green light. That had not been James's voice. A high pitched cackle filled the room. That had not been James's sweet laugh. His heart was not beating loudly anymore and everything felt lost.

"Give me the child and I will spare your life." Lily would not allow him to spare her. James was in her head and Harry was her heart-both were necessary to survive.

"How did you find us? Dumbledore said we were safe-"She tried to stall him unable to find the words to detail her revulsion. Harry was staring at James's cooling body on the floor, his arms reaching out and his tiny hands grasping at thin air.

"I can imagine," Voldemort spat in mocking, "I have my means-"

"Who did you torture the truth out of? Remus would rather die. Surely it wasn't Sirius-"

"You underestimate Black's loyalty. It was your beloved but foolish puppet Pettigrew." Lily's heart froze. She could not untangle the reasons behind his treachery. "He betrayed you. He was easily bought. The mindless ones always are. He wanted a little glory and I gave it to him where Potter would have stolen it." Dumbledore had warned that it was always the ones who aroused the least suspicion and as always he had been right. If only they had chosen him as Secret Keeper, this could all have been avoided.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" Lily resorted to the only means she had left. She laid her wand down at her feet and turned her back to Voldemort in an attempt to shield Harry from whatever attack was about to be rained down upon them.

"Stand aside you silly girl...Stand aside now..." Voldemort was actually willing to spare her. He was not the same bloodthirsty murderer she had read so many stories about. He still wished to kill her defenceless child and if he was willing to spare her now she knew that she would pay for it in time. She refused to succumb to a lonely life, haunted by Harry and James and indebted to Voldemort. Without them she had nothing.

"Not Harry, please no. Take me. Kill me instead-"She was begging and she was unashamed. James would have continued to fight but Harry was their little boy and she would do what was in her power to protect him. She could not defeat Voldemort alone. She was crying and Harry was screaming, both of their voices lost to the roar of a sudden gale.

"I don't want to have to kill you, mudblood! Just the child...Stand aside and it will all be over!"

"Not Harry! Please...have mercy...have mercy..."

"Mercy? Poor, poor, silly girl..." Lily leaned over the cot, placing crying Harry back inside of it, wrapped in his beloved blanket, beneath his mobile of sparkling stars and planets. She lowered her lips to his forehead, a great shadow looming over her in the light of her discarded wand.

"My baby boy, my baby, your mama and papa love you. Stay strong darling. We will always love you-"

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

The light of her wand dimmed and went out altogether. Lord Voldemort let out a sigh of his own as the girl crumpled to the carpet. Her death had been unnecessary but every wall standing between him and immortality had to be broken down. The infant had exhausted himself and was no longer crying. By all rights he should have been and the intensity of his stare made Voldemort shudder. He had never liked children. "You dare to look at me? Yes, you are the one...and you will be with your mudblood mother soon, Harry." Those emerald eyes identical to his mothers seemed to flash with rage in the darkness and Voldemort felt bile rise in the back of his throat. He could not bear to look at the thing anymore. He held his wand to the infant's head, his hand held steady as he shouted the killing curse for the third time that day; "AVADA KEDAVRA!" There was the same blinding green light and a cry but it was not Harry's last. The killing curse had back-fired. Voldemort was engulfed by agony, his body disintegrated and his soul dispersing into the air. The cottage's foundations began to collapse, the living room walls falling in upon themselves as the Dark Lord Voldemort fled, defeated by the love of a mother for her son. The cottage was left in partial ruins, half of the nursery crumbling down in to what was left of the kitchen, the garden filled with rooftop tiles and a smoking emblem cast high in the navy sky above it. The Dark Mark, Voldemort's mark but there had been no victory at Godric's Hollow.

As smoke was settling and dust dying an hour later, a man came rushing down the street, black robes billowing out behind him. "No..." A saddened whisper left his lips as he realized that no one could have survived such destruction. He frantically clambered through the ruins littering the front garden. He tore down the front steps, into what was left of the living room, extinguished the fire, stepped over scattered letters and books and pulled himself up the shattered stairs. The body of his schoolyard enemy James Potter was lying broken in the stairwell. He had imagined him dying many times during their youth but never like this. His handsome face was not frozen in determination. He had not died in battle but been slowly beaten down. Severus leaned down and shut his eyes, continuing up to the top of the stairs to look right into the empty bedroom and then left into the nursery, half of which had gone crumbling into the garden. The way the carpet was scorched black told him that it had happened there. He returned to the ground floor to where the broken empty white cot was sitting, half on fire and half buried in rubble, filled with broken wooden stars. The child had to be dead. Severus was standing, ready to leave, having seen enough and with little hope that he would ever see her again when a tendril of red hair blowing lightly in the breeze just a few feet away caught his eye. He dug away what he could of the cutlery, smashed plates, burnt stuffed bears, bricks and plaster until her face was visible. "Lily..." He knew better than most what the faces of the dead looked like and hers was unmistakable. He needed this last moment with her. He wanted her to know that he would never forgive himself. She had sent him a series of pleading letters, begging him to turn back to the boy who had grown up a few streets from her and away from the Dark Lord, to leave his side and be at hers fighting for what he knew was right. He had ignored her and insulted her, done his best to pretend that he didn't care about her or about the lives Voldemort was destroying. He had no family and he had seen no reason why anybody else should enjoy the fruits he was so denied. It was slowly becoming the biggest mistake of his life.

Large booted feet broke glass underfoot. "Show yourself!" The half giant Hagrid, sent by Dumbledore, called out into the fading darkness. Severus Snape disapparated into the night. Hagrid stemmed tears of his own as he searched the steaming rubble for James Potter. When he found him on the stairs he carried him outside and laid him down beside his wife. Hagrid lost his footing and bent down at the sounds of cracking glass. James's glasses, the lenses shattered were protruding from beneath his large boots. There was the roar of a motorcycle. Hagrid had barely had time to turn around before Sirius Black had fallen to his knees at Hagrid's feet rubbing dirt from the face of his best friend with his hands. He was sobbing uncontrollably, all snot and shuddering breaths, and it scared Hagrid to death. Sirius had never been what anybody could call calm or composed but few people had ever seen him cry. He had been tortured mercilessly by Deatheaters for days and never spilt a tear. The fact that he was doing so now and without control seemed to mark the beginning of the end. "Oh James...Are those his glasses?" Sirius stared up at him wiping red eyes with dirty palms. Hagrid nodded and dropped the twisted metal into his awaiting hands. "He can't see without his glasses you know..." Sirius was white and trembling when Hagrid finally managed to pull him to his feet. Sirius had pulled Harry's favourite tartan blanket from the rubble and was standing repairing the burn holes and tears, still crying hysterically.

"Am' sorry-"Was all Hagrid managed to get out, before he was cut off by a child's weeping echoing through the dusk. Both men brightened at the prospect of a survivor from such destruction.

"Harry!" Sirius called out as he went scrambling over broken window frames and shards of wardrobe in search of his Godson. Hagrid found him first, blood streaming from a deep cut on his forehead. Sirius rushed to them, wrapping Harry in the blanket and using his sleeves to wipe away the blood streaming into his glassy green eyes.

"Not deep. He looks alrigh'-"

"Let me hold him Hagrid, please." Hagrid was cautious but felt too badly about everything to refuse. Tears were still making tracks down Sirius's grimy cheeks as he looked down at Harry squirming in his arms. "I'm his Godfather. I'll love him. I'll be like a father to him-"

"Sorry lad. No way, no how." Hagrid forcefully removed Harry from Sirius's arms and he fell backwards into the dirt. "Strict orders from Dumbledore. 'E wants 'im outta our world for now. Gotta' take 'im to 'is aunt an' uncle's-"

"Muggles? No! Me! It's what James would have wanted-"

"Well James ain't ere is 'e!" Sirius seemed instantly snapped out of his hysteria. No longer shaking, he jumped to his feet and wiped away the last of his tears with rough hands looking down at his fallen friends.

"No, he isn't..." Sirius trailed off, his mind racing, chest heaving and hands curling into fists, blue eyes cast outraged at the lightening sky, "You take my bike Hagrid..."

"Tha's mighty good a yer, Sirius. I'll bring it back-"

"Don't worry about it. I won't be needing it where I'm going." Sirius Black made his way out of Godric's Hollow with blood on his hands and revenge on his mind. James and Lily had gone down with their ship. He planned on doing the same and he was taking mutinous Peter Pettigrew down with him.