January 10, 1961 - Godric's Hollow

It was midnight in Godric's Hollow. The wizarding town had been quiet all evening, but in the dead of the night, had anyone been listening for it, they would have heard the distinct pop of apparition. Peeking out of the shadows, two figures emerged from the apparition point. The figures strode forward, the quiet clacking of shoes on cobblestone following them. Clothed in black and hidden in the dark, the figures set their eyes on their destination, Potter Manor.

They spoke in hushed tones as they approached the Manor. The wards were keeping them from getting too close and they were not close enough to achieve their mission. The people turned towards each other and took out their wands. As they started to carefully dismantle the wards, a cry broke the silence of the night.

"I don't want to leave her here," one figure, a woman, said to the other. She adjusted the blankets in her arm, revealing a small baby. "Not with them." The woman rocked the baby in her arms, shushing and caressing her cheeks.

"You know as well as I do, we don't have a choice," the second figure, a man, argued back. "At least here she's safe from… our mistakes"

"But she'll never know who she is," the woman said. "It isn't right. This isn't the way we do things."

"Well, it's the way we're doing things." The man said, his tone leaving no room for arguments.

The man glanced at his watch and started to take down the wards of Potter Manor. With the woman keeping the baby quiet, he could focus on what needed to be done. They had so little time to accomplish what they came here for, and he would not waste it.

When the wards were removed, the man grabbed the baby from the woman's arms. She resisted, holding the girl tightly to her chest and shaking her head. Tears dropped from her eyes and landed on the small tuft of black hair in her arms. The man wiped the tears from her cheeks before once again grabbing the baby girl.

He took her from the woman's arms and turned away, toward the Potter's front door. He placed her on the doorstep, charmed the black blankets she was wrapped in pink, and placed a kiss upon her forehead. He walked back to the woman; whose few tears had become many. They started back towards the apparition point, but the man turned and shot a spell at the door, hearing the beginning of commotion inside, he pulled the woman with him toward their escape. As they began to apparate away, the couple took one last glance at the door, and watched Charlus Potter kneel and pick up their daughter. With that image in their mind, they disappeared into the night with another pop.

Charlus Potter and Dorea Potter had been in bed at midnight. Their son, James, was finally beginning to sleep through the night as long as nothing disturbed him. Godric's Hollow was a notably quiet town, and the Manor was well warded, keeping most disturbances from ever reaching their ears.

Charlus Potter, however, had awoken to someone attacking their wards. He quietly grabbed his wand from the bedside table and woke Dorea.

"Get James and get to the floo. Someone's attempting to dismantle the wards. I'm going to check it out, and then I'll join you." Charlus said before creeping down the hall to the front door.

As he approached the door, a spell hit it. With his wand ready, Charlus opened the door, slowly peering into the night. With no one to be seen, he started to close the door, ready to call for Aurors, but a low cooing sound stopped him in his tracks.

On his doorstep sat a baby, wrapped delicately in pink blankets. He kneeled, glancing around once again to check for hidden figures. As he picked her up, he heard the pop of disapparition. Shaking his head, he closed the front door bringing the baby inside.

"And who are you little one?" He asked, looking in the blankets hoping to find a name. When he found nothing, he brought her into the parlor where Dorea was waiting anxiously with their son in her hands.

"What happened?" Dorea asked standing to meet her husband. As she approached, she noticed the bundle of blankets in his arms, not unlike the ones in hers. "Is that a baby? Where did it come from?"

"She was on the doorstep, Dorea." He shrugged, rocked the girl to sleep. "I think that was why the wards were removed. Someone really wanted to leave her here."

Charlus and Dorea continued to look down at the baby. She looked to be young, a newborn, in fact. Despite that, she had a small tuft of black hair on her head. She was small and chubby, as to be expected. But even with the baby fat around her features, the Potter's could imagine what she would look like when she got older. Charlus and Dorea came to the same conclusion. Surely, she was a pureblood, and surely, she was related to at least one of them.

"We have to take her to the Ministry," Dorea said desperately. "They'll know what to do. We can't be sure whose she is, the Ministry can place her in a home while they find out."

"Dorea, her parents don't want her! They went through a lot of trouble to leave her with us, do you think it's good to send her back to a home that didn't even want her?" Charlus exclaimed, waking both children. "And the Ministry is shoddy at best when it comes to orphaned children, you know that as well as I do. They'll probably ask us to look out for her or she'll go straight to the orphanage!"

"But Charlus, we just had James. He's not even a year old! How are we supposed to handle two babies?" Dorea said, though she could feel herself caving in. Her husband was right, the Ministry run orphanage was no place for a child. And if she was a Black, as Dorea suspected, Dorea wouldn't want her going back to either Black home.

"We can handle it Dorea! We're going to be wonderful parents, and the more the merrier," Charlus said smiling down at the two babies who had since started to drift off again.

"Well, how do you propose we explain this?" Dorea asked. "It'll be a bit of a shock when we turn up to social events with two children in tow, instead of one."

"You haven't left the house much since James was born. We'll say the mediwitch predicted problems and we weren't sure the baby would make it. Had you on bed rest almost the whole nine months. We didn't want to tell anyone in case something went wrong." Charlus suggested.

"And we what? Keep this a secret from her her whole life?" Dorea said.

"We'll tell her when she's of age. We'll keep records, as many as we can, and we'll put them away until she's old enough to know." He said looking at the baby again. "We'll get her birth certificate from the Ministry; say it was a home birth. I'll charm her on the family tree. She'll be just as much a Potter as James."

"I… I suppose that could work." Dorea said, taking another look at the child. "Did they leave a name in her blankets?"

"No. We'll have to name her." Charlus said looking at his wife. "You always wanted a girl. We could go with what we had picked for James if he had been a girl?"

"Elizabeth." Dorea smiled. "Elizabeth Mary Potter. It suits her."

"That it does, dear." Charlus smiled at his family, which had grown in size unexpectedly, but unwelcomed. "I'll charm the tree and owl the Ministry in the morning, dear. For now, let's get these two to sleep."

Dorea and Charlus slowly ascended the stairs and entered their bedroom. James' crib was the end of their bed. The new parents had wanted to keep him in their sight, and now with Elizabeth, they supposed they would need another. For tonight, they lay the two children down in the crib together, watching as James' chubby hand came to rest on Elizabeth's smaller but equally chubby one.

Charlus and Dorea settled into bed for the rest of the night, silently hoping they had made the right choice.