Chapter Four: In Which I Learn The Word Marauder And We Are The Kids Who Lived

1 year, 1 month, 21 days, 7 hours, and 18 minutes had passed since that fateful Order meeting. I was 4 years, 1 month, 20 days, 7 hours, and 18 minutes old as I screeched, "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" upon entering the kitchen.

Mum looked up from her mug of tea and smiled. "Happy Halloween to you too, Anna-Banana."

I grinned and yelped, "BOO!"

Mum laughed. "Your dad likes Halloween too."

"Someone say my name?" grinned Dad as he too entered the kitchen.

"What on earth are you wearing?" snorted Mum.

For Dad was wearing a gray, ragged, hooded cloak over his Muggle clothes.

"It's my Halloween costume," he explained. "I'm a dementor." He flailed his arms. "Woooooooooo!"

Mum snorted again. " You know, dementors don't usually wear round glasses..." she smirked.

Dad stuck his tongue out at her good-naturedly and bent down to kiss her. I faked gagging as she gasped dramatically.

"I have been kissed by a dementor!"

Dad snickered. "What are you going as, anyway?" he asked her.

"I'm going to be a werewolf!" She threw back her head. "Awooooooooo!"

"Awooooooooo!" repeated little Harry, who had just toddled into the kitchen. He had learned to walk a few days before he turned 1, and he was very good at it by now.

Mum grinned. "You would make a nice full moon, wouldn't you, honey?" she said, kissing Harry's neck.

About half an hour later, Harry, Dad, and I were sitting in the living room. Suddenly something randomly occurred to me that I had been wondering for weeks.

"Daddy, what's a marauder?" I asked. He looked up.

"What?"

"What's a marauder?"

He just stared at me for a moment. Then, slowly, a mischievous (you know, I'll be using that word a lot in this series) smile crossed his face.

"Well..." he said. "A marauder is someone who causes trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" I demanded.

"Just general trouble," he explained. "You know, like pranks and stuff."

"Oh." I was silent for a minute. "I like pranks. Do you think I'm a marauder?"

His smile widened. "Oh yeah," he said happily. "I think you would make a great Marauder."

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

It was now 8:12 at night. Dad was entertaining Harry and me by making coloured lights come out of his wand. We shrieked and clapped whenever he made more.

Mum came in, her hair in her face slightly. "James," she said, scooping up Harry. "I think it's time to get the kids to bed."

"Awwwwwww!" I said as Dad flopped back on the couch. "But I don't wanna go to bed, Mummy!"

And then we heard the door open.

Dad went to see who it was.

"Lily!*" he yelled, his voice laced with panic. "Take the kids and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!*"

Mum stiffened. She grabbed my hand and raced upstairs and into Harry's room.

I looked back. I could have sworn I felt a little breeze on my back...

The door to the bedroom exploded. I screamed.

In walked a nightmare. A nightmare called Lord Voldemort.

He was tall, and thin, and his face was deathly-white, and his nose was unnaturally flat, and his eyes were red with vertical pupils.

Mum dropped Harry into the crib, whirled around to face Voldemort, and threw her head back and out-stretched her arms. I pressed myself farther into the corner and screamed again, eyes bulging, shivering in spasms of terror.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!*" she begged.

"Stand aside, you silly girl...stand aside, now,*" snarled Voldemort.

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—*"

I screamed, if possible, ever louder, and shook my head frantically. I may have been 4, but I knew what dying meant. And I didn't want my mother to die.

"This is my last warning—*" hissed Voldemort.

"Not the kids! Please...have mercy...have mercy...not the kids! Please—I'll do anything—*"

"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!*"

He waved his wand. I was momentarily blinded by green light, but I saw Mum's silhouette crumple and hit the floor.

"NO!" I howled. "No, Mummy, no..."

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" roared Voldemort, pointing the wand in my face. I flung myself back into the corner, facing the wall and shielding the back of my head, but I still felt a breeze shooting toward me. I braced myself for my imminent end, but it didn't come. Instead, the stream of brilliant green bounced off of my neck, off my brother's forehead, and hit Voldemort instead. He didn't die, he...kind of spontaneously combusted, as did our house. He was a stormcloud, a snake, and a newborn baby all in one.

I felt a horrible sensation. Some invisible thing was pushing itself against me, encircling me, suffocating me, making its way inside me through my mouth and my nose and my eyes, forcing me to swallow it, allow its entry into my body...

And then this thing, whatever you would call it, whooshed away into the night.

I looked over into our yard. Huggy, my best friend, my special place, was a mouldering, charred stump. This was what really set me off. I sat down in the corner, wrapped my arms around my legs, buried my face in my knees, and began to cry as the world erupted all around me.

*Quote from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 17, Bathilda's Secret, page 344