A/N Welcome to another story. I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while, but it's only come to life on the screen recently. I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Only characters that I have created.
"Red," said James. He flicked his wand and a puff of red smoke burst from the tip of it. Harry clapped and laughed. Lula just sat, her eyes not concentrating on the colors. Harry tapped her knee, but Lula just turned away.
James sighed and called, "Lily. Lula's doing the thing Maya did. Where she stares off into space. What do I do?" Lily came into the living room, a smile tugging at her lips. Harry looked up and burst into baby chatter, "talking" to Lily.
"I'll put her to bed. When is Sirius coming?" Lily picked up the sad one-year-old, who buried her face into Lily's shirt.
"Tonight I think," said James, picking up Harry. "He's been downright depressed. Someti–" James stopped talking. He and Lily turned to face the window as one. There, gliding up the garden path, was a tall figure, shrouded in a black cloak. James shoved Harry into Lily's arms.
"Lily, take them and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"
James ran down the hall and Lily ran up the stairs. She ran into the nursery and dropped both children into the crib. She hastily shoved a chair and some boxes in front of the door. She turned back to Harry and Lula in the crib.
Hands shaking, she pulled a small knife from her jeans. Making a cut across her left palm, Lily hastily drew three runes on the babies: Protection, Love, and Live. Lily could hear Voldemort walking up the stairs.
"Harry, Lula. Mumma loves you. Dadda loves you. You both are so loved. Be strong. Be brave."
Voldemort blew open the door and Lily turned to face him, blood streaming from her hand, tears in her eyes.
"Stand aside, you silly girl … stand aside now."
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead –"
"This is my last warning. Stand aside and you and the girl may live."
"Not Harry! Please … have mercy .. have mercy. … Not Harry! Not Lula! Please – I'll do anything –"
"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"
"No!"
"Avada Kedavra!"
Lily crumpled to the ground, her hair fanning around her. Voldemort walked over the body towards the crib. Both babies looked up at him. Harry started to cry, they had seen that it wasn't James. Voldemort pointed his wand at Harry.
"Avada Kedavra!"
But as the curse raced towards the baby, the runes drawn in Lily Potter's blood glowed. As the sickly green jet of light hit the boy, it rebounded. The runes glowed and vanished. Voldemort's body crumpled to the ground, just as lifeless as Lily's.
Sirius raced to the house praying that he wasn't too late. "Not James. Not Lily. Not Harry. Not Lula."
He landed just outside of the house. The right side of the house had been blown apart. Sirius collapsed to the ground, defeated. A crowd of Muggles was starting to gather. Sirius shook his head. James and Lily. They could still be alive. He ran towards the house. The door had been blown off its hinges. He started to walk down the hallway but stopped at the foot of the stairs.
James' lifeless body was sprawled on the ground. Sirius fell to his knees and started to cry. He couldn't take James' death. He had already lost so much. His brother, his wife, he couldn't lose James as well.
A cry broke through Sirius' thoughts. He jerked his head upwards, thinking he had imagined it. Surely not. No one could have survived. But it came again. A child's cry. A baby girl's cry.
Sirius struggled to his feet and ran up the stairs. The door to the nursery was open, a chair and some boxes thrown to the side. Lily's body lay in front of the crib, a last defense. Sirius ignored Voldemort's body in the room and rushed to the crib.
"Mumma!" Lula cried. Sirius scooped up the baby and held her tight to his chest. He started to hum a lullaby to her, just to calm her down. Lula kept crying. And then there was another set of lungs mixed in.
Sirius looked down at the crib in disbelief. There, with a cut on his forehead, was Harry. He reached his arms up towards Sirius and was also crying a word.
"Dadda! Dadda!"
Sirius collapsed to the ground for the third time that night. He reached a hand through the bars, Harry's small hand clasping his much larger one. He rocked Lula, holding onto her like a lifeline.
That was how Hagrid found them. Broken and crying, the two little voices mixed with the adult.
"Sirius," croaked Hagrid. "Wha' happened?"
Sirius shakily pointed his wand at Hagrid. He wasn't taking any chances with Harry and Lula. "What did you give Maya as a wedding present?"
"What?"
"Answer the damn question!"
"A photo album. It had pictures of yer from school." Hagrid said. Sirius nodded and turned back to the babies.
"Sirius. Where's Harry? An' whose tha'?" Hagrid gestured to the baby in Sirius' arms.
"Why do you want Harry, Hagrid?" asked Sirius, ignoring the second question.
"Professor Dumbledore is goin' to bring 'im somewhere safe. Sirius give him to me." Hagrid walked over to the crib and picked up Harry. Sirius pulled his hand away as Harry was lifted into Hagrid's arms. "Who's that Sirius?"
Sirius' heart wanted to break. Harry and Lula had survived, but James and Lily were dead. Betrayed by…
Sirius growled. Peter. He was going to kill the traitor. At that moment, Sirius made a decision. He would avenge Lily and James. Hagrid could take care of Harry and Lula.
"This is Harry's twin sister Hagrid. Lyra Regina Potter. They called her Lula though. Take her with Harry Hagrid. Keep them both safe."
As Dumbledore and McGonagall discussed the previous night's events, a low rumbling sound broke the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky – and a huge motorbike fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.
If the motorbike was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild – long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of dustbin lids and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.
"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorbike?"
"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorbike as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir."
"No problems, were there?"
"One, sir – house was almost destroyed but I got them out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. Harry fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol. But there's anoth'r."
"Another what Hagrid," said Professor McGonagall.
"Anoth'r baby, Professor," said Hagrid. "Sirius said her name was Lyra Regina Potter. Said she was Harry's twin sister, sir."
Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby girl, her grey eyes alert and awake. Tears streaked her face. Next to her was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.
"Is that where –?" whispered Professor McGonagall.
"Yes," said Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar forever."
"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?"
"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in useful. I have one myself above my left knee which is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well – give them here, Hagrid – we'd better get this over with."
Dumbledore took Harry and Lyra in his arms and turned towards the Dursleys' house.
"Could I – could I say goodbye to them, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over the babies and gave them what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.
"Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall. "You'll wake the Muggles!"
"S-s- sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c- c-can't stand it – Lily an' James dead – an' poor little Harry and Lyra off ter live with Muggles –"
"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid the bundle gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside the blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.
"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."
"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice. "I'd best get this bike away. G'night, Professor McGonagall – Professor Dumbledore, sir."
Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself on to the motorbike and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.
"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.
Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four. He raised his wand and cast a spell. A thick fog formed around him, spreading fast. He nodded his head in satisfaction.
"Good luck, Harry. Good luck, Lyra," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak he was gone.
A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him, the other grasping Lyra, who had finally fallen asleep. They slept on, not knowing they were special, not knowing they were famous, not knowing they would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that they would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by their cousin Dudley … They couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To the Potter twins – the children who lived!"
A/N So that's the first chapter. I promise they'll be longer in the future, this chapter was just a little shorter. I don't know when the next one will be up. At the end of every chapter, I'm going to ask three questions. Here's the first batch.
Questions:
1. Why did Lily draw the runes and did it help? 2. Whose Maya? 3. What do you think the fog did?
~Phoenix Writer~