PROLOGUE: In the Darkness Is the Light
September 1981
Green was her least favorite color in the world, Lily Potter decided, as shock and panic and anger surged in her all at once.
The phial of Gravitas Potion that she'd carefully mixed her urine into would determine whether or not she was pregnant for the second time in as many years. After the required thirty-second wait, the stupid, bloody phial was now glowing a cheerful clover-green, indicating that the pregnancy test was positive.
Green meant positive.
The pregnancy potion was positive.
The potion had detected enough magic and pregnancy hormone to indicate the presence of a healthy pregnancy, just the same as it had the Christmas two years ago, when she'd discovered she was unexpectedly pregnant with Harry. She was early enough in her pregnancy that the neutral color of green was meant to indicate a healthy pregnancy, with no clue as to the gender of the child yet.
Green meant positive and positive meant pregnant.
The color green meant pregnant again.
The phial floated before her, lazily, its glittering green contents declaring news that left her so conflicted, she instantly burst into hysterical tears.
"I fucking hate the color green!" shrieked Lily. Her cries echoed loudly within the plain, cream-themed bathroom she'd locked herself in to take the test and James came running immediately at the sound. "Why couldn't you be bloody yellow, you stupid tube?" Lily sobbed into trembling hands, the shocking reality overwhelming her deeply.
Yellow would have meant negative.
A serious, bold yellow, according to the instructions from her Potions Apprenticeship textbook, meant that there was no pregnancy hormones physical present nor the development of a new magical signature within her body - a new person within her body, a little witch or wizard. If the potion would have turned yellow, Lily would have been deeply relieved, thankful that she wasn't bringing another child into the world, while they were on the run from the Dark Lord -
The potion hadn't been yellow.
The pregnancy potion had turned green and green meant that Lily was pregnant with her second child, despite both she and her husband having agreed that now was not the time nor place to grow their family beyond the pleasant surprise of their Harry.
When James came into the bathroom, wand drawn in one hand and clutching a wide-eyed Harry close to him with the other, he was alarmed and confused. Neither feeling lasted long, when he noticed the hovering tube before his tearful wife.
He knew what the color green meant, as well.
"Oh, damn," said James, quietly, blinking in shock. "Damn, damn, damn it."
He hadn't even needed to ask what was going on or why, not when he could see the Gravitas Potion for himself. The decision had already been made that Lily would take a pregnancy potion the following month, in October, if she still hadn't seen her menses for a second time in a row - but clearly, Lily couldn't wait that long.
She'd taken the test now, in September with her first missed menses, and now, there was no more speculation needed.
James sighed, deeply, holding a fussy Harry close, and staring blankly at his distressed wife.
"I think we need to think about taking Dumbledore up on that offer, if this is what's going on now," declared James, after several more minutes had Lily through the worst of her crying jag and the baby dozing off in his arms. "It's not just Harry anymore we have to think about, from the looks of it."
"No," Lily confirmed in a watery voice. She banished the potion phial with a flick of her wand, wrapping her arms around herself tightly, as she met her husband's eyes. "It isn't just Harry anymore. Now, we have children to keep safe from the Dark Lord…not just the one child that he's already after and hunting to kill."
The meeting with Dumbledore was able to occur within a day or two of the Potters and the positive Gravitas Potion that had changed their lives, once again.
James and Lily quickly accepted the arrangement from Dumbledore to be placed in a safehouse out in West Country.
The Order of the Phoenix had a warded and Unplottable cottage in a mixed-community town called Godric's Hollow, which James had heard of before but neither had ever been to. The cottage was a three-bedroom home, with a backyard that Harry could play in, and would be well protected from the Dark Lord and his followers, as long as they were careful. They had waited until evening to be escorted to the cottage by Dumbledore himself. It was better to take advantage of the natural rhythm of the town, blending in with the villagers who were going about their ordinary evening tasks, and within hours of meeting with Dumbledore, James and Lily were settled in what they hoped would be the last safehouse they'd find themselves settling in because of this twice-damned war.
Dumbledore had turned the wards over to James. He promised to the young husband and father that there were active wards that would let him know in an instant if something where to happen to James and Lily or their baby - and, departed with a promise to check in soon. The small family was left alone just as quickly as they'd arrived. James and Lily were alone once more, but at least they were together, with their baby - and, now they were safe and protected, even if the price was moving to yet another strange home without warning.
"I guess we need to decide where we're sleeping, see what's going on with the food situation, and shut it down for the night, yes?" asked James quietly. His arms were still around Lily and Harry protectively, not wanting to let either of them out of his arms nor his sight in this strange, too-silent place that was their new home. "Business as usual?"
Lily nodded, agreeing just as quietly. Harry slept soundly upon her chest, his chubby little fist clutching at her collar securely, and the feel of James's strong, steady embrace made it only slightly less frightening to be in this cottage that Dumbledore had place them in for their own safety, far and away from anything and everything either of them knew. This empty, chilly but safe cottage was where they would stay until - until -
Until who knew what happened next.
Later on in the night, after dinner had been had, a handful of autumn leaves had been Transfigured by James into belongings that filled the cottage and made it comfortable, and Harry was once again asleep, this time for the night, James and Lily had a quiet moment to themselves. The married couple sat on the backstep of their new home, appreciating the chilly autumn breeze and the starry night sky. The enchanted cup that continuously refilled itself with cocoa was passed between them, as they each were lost in their thoughts.
"I dunno what's next, love," said James into windy night and breaking the comfortable silence between them, "but, whatever it is, I'm glad I'm doing this with you. I know we weren't expecting another kid right now, but - well - we're doing well enough with Harry. We'll do even better with this one since we'll be experienced parents this time around. You'll see, Evans..."
Lily couldn't help but smile.
Despite the war that was tearing Wizarding Britain apart and the uncertainty of their future as their family expanded, Lily couldn't help but take heart to her husband's bright optimism and unwavering faith in a better tomorrow.
It was the light that helped ease the darkness they found themselves in - and one of the things that made the constant need to adapt and pivot as they hid from being hunted by the Dark Lord more bearable than it could otherwise be.
October 1981
One rainy morning in October, about a month after their abrupt landing at the safehouse in Godric's Hollow, James made the decision to go to their vaults in Gringotts - a decision that Lily thought was riskier and more reckless than necessary, as James claimed.
"If we're going to be here for a while, then I want to have a few family effects that will help keep us protected," James insisted calmly, despite the fact that Lily had just been yelling at him for ten minutes straight. He continued to prepare to go into Wizarding London for the first time in months; the dueling gear was most necessary, considering the last time he'd been in Wizarding London, he'd ended up in a skirmish with Death Eaters that'd almost ended his life. James turned to his distressed wife, kissing her soundly on her open, arguing mouth. "I will be safe. I will be discreet. I will not let anyone except goblins know that I'm there. I'm going to have a brief meeting with my funds manager, get enough gold to last us and convert into Muggle pounds for a while, and then, I'll go to the family vaults for the effects. That's it and that's all, Evans. I'll be back for luncheon. I promise you, wife."
Lily folded her arms across her chest, almost instantly adjusting her posture as her breast ached with the tenderness of pregnancy.
"You'd better keep your word, Potter." Lily finally said, her voice trembling. She knew he was going to do so and it was an errand that was needed, but that didn't mean she liked any bit of it. "Harry and I will be waiting with lunch and you'd better come back to us. On time, unharmed, and with something interesting from the vaults for both of us. D'you hear me?"
James winked, relieved that she'd decided to stop arguing and kissed her again.
"As you command, Madam Potter. I'll make sure I bring all kinds of goodies back, for my lady and our baby..."
Among the many things that James brought back from his brief trip to the collection of Potter vaults in Gringotts was a plain black journal that was made from dragonhide.
When James had emptied the dufflebag of all the things he'd brought with him, the journal had caught Lily's eyes instantly - and she'd exclaimed in shock, grabbing at it and looking at it with wide, leaf-green eyes.
"What is that?" asked James, distractedly. He'd finally figured out how to animate the charmed hippogriff he'd been holding out for Harry to play with. With their son happily giggling over the toy, James focused on what his wife was holding in her hands and his own eyes widened. "I've seen that before. Wait - that's the - no, it can't be. Wasn't that - ?"
Lily looked up, able to make perfect sense of her husband's confusion.
"Yes, you've seen this before," said Lily, running her fingers over the faded row of initials, stopping at the two most recent ones: DNB scripted in fading gold lettering, closely followed by a brighter-gold marking reading LJE. "Your Aunt Cassiopeia spoke to me for the first and only time when she gave me this, saying that it had been for your mother and now, it belonged to me as her son's wife."
James blinked, remembering that odd, uncomfortable interaction with his elderly aunt at their wedding. Cassopeia Black had been firmly aligned with the rest of his mother's family about his choice of a Muggle-born bride - but still showed up to the wedding and spoke to Lily personally, if briefly. The memory made him frown. Cassiopeia Black was his aunt, but only because she was his mother's elder sister; he hadn't any relationship with the witch, outside of her disdain for him and how thoroughly Potter he was for the son of Dorea Black.
"I don't think you should have it. Give it - "
Lily moved the journal out of his reach, instantly.
"Hands off, James Potter. This has nothing to do with you."
"This has everything to do with me! You don't need to have something that came from my mother's sister. The Blacks were as Dark as they come - remember, it's the same family Sirius ran away from and my mother rarely, if ever spoke to, for her own safety. For your own safety, Lily - give it here. Now!"
"No! And don't speak to me like that, Potter! You have a child, and his name is Harry - and whatever it is we name Harry's younger sibling. Not me!" Lily dodged James's attempt once more to grab for the journal and drew her wand, warningly. "I mean it, James - back off! This journal belongs to me, now, no matter if it originally was for your mother and given to me by her sister. If you'll notice my initials are on here and it was in our vault, the Potters vault - not your mother's family."
James was glaring, but he didn't step any closer than was necessary to look at the fine, ancient calligraphy on the dragonhide cover; he'd been hexed by Lily plenty and was never in any hurry to experience it, again. Warily, he peered at where Lily was pointing on the cover of the book. There was a list of initials down the cover, nearest the spine - and, sure enough, right there at the very bottom, newer than any other set of initials on the book, were Lily's own initials.
LJE.
Lily Jessamine Evans.
"I don't understand, but I don't have to understand to not like it," James declared, huffing after a moment of trying to reason through how a journal for his mother now belonged to Lily after being given to her discreetly by an old crone of the House of Black. "It should go back where it was, although I don't know how it got here - "
"It got here because it's meant to find me, obviously," said Lily, briskly. "I thought that it was gone with the rest of our stuff, after the fire in Suffolk - " Lily winced as James paled at the unintentionally casual mention of the incident that had killed his father, last summer - "but, I must have been mistaken. It must have been in the vaults this whole time."
James wanted to argue the point further, try and make sense of it - but an outraged cry from Harry kept them both from saying any more about it. Their attention was focused fully on their son and as they went about their day, James mostly forgot about the mysterious book that had somehow found its way into their safehouse from Wizarding London.
Lily, however, did not forget.
Nor did she dismiss the obvious sign that it was, for Dorea Nimphidia Black's Grimoire to find her once again, when she needed it the most as a wife and a mother and a witch, in unthinkable times.
Within these pages, Lily knew she'd find something that would help protect herself, her husband, and both of their children from the looming threat of the Dark Lord.
She would only have to start studying every page, word, and reference she could find to discover just what generations of family magic from her pureblood husband's family had to offer her and her desperate wish that they remain protected from whatever awful plans the hunting Dark Lord had for their little family.
Two weeks before Halloween, Dumbledore visited for the first time since bringing them to the safehouse - and, it was for a grim reason, indeed.
James and Lily listened hollowly, as Dumbledore shared that he had credible information that made him believe that Voldemort - the Potters shuddered at the mention of his name in their home - would soon make a move towards attacking the family he truly believed qualified for the prophecy.
The couple watched their infant son tumble around on the carpet and giggle at the fun he was having with the enchanted toys he adored. Both green eyes and hazel eyes were glittering with unshed tears, as Dumbledore sat in grave silence with them.
They'd known since last summer that their son, along with five other children of Order members, could be the person spoken of in the prophecy that predicted the downfall of the Dark Lord. Harry and Neville Longbottom were both born in the final days of July, the seventh month, as it died and turned into August, while all three of Edgar Bones's children had been born with in the last few days of September and Marlene McKinnon's daughter had been born seven months into her mother's pregnancy, in September, as well. The Dark Lord had started with the Bones children and Marlene's daughter as the possible children. The four children had been born in the month named after the number seven, despite September being the ninth month of the year. It seemed plausible and he'd struck like a viper, hunting down Seraphina, Emily, and August Bones and Honoria McKinnon with frightening single-mindedness.
Within a week of each other, the Bones family and the McKinnons family had all been killed.
Their gruesome deaths had left only Neville and Harry as the children that qualified for the prophecy.
They had all been agonizing for months when or how soon after the Bones and McKinnon tragedies that the Dark Lord would make a move.
It appeared that the time had finally arrived.
"I make the same suggestion and the same offer I made to the Longbottoms, as it concerns their son," said Dumbledore once James and Lily had gathered themselves and were no longer tearfully clutching at each other. "I suggest that you go into a deeper level of hiding, using a method of advanced magical concealment such as the Fidelius Charm. With magic as complex and intricate as this, I offer my skills at being the Caster, as well as the Secret-Keeper, once the Fidelius is casted."
James looked between Lily and Dumbledore, as his wife put both hands over her mouth in shock at the Headmaster's words.
"As I didn't bother with a Charms NEWT like Lily and Sirius, can someone tell me what the Fidelius is?" asked James, as lightly as he could.
Lily looked at him with conflicted eyes. Her hands were over her womb protectively, as she shared: the Fidelius Charm was an advanced, ancient Charms ritual that concealed a secret of the Caster's choosing with a person's very soul. The Secret could only then be divulged by the knowing choice of the person that was selected as the Secret-Keeper.
"The Headmaster is asking us to make ourselves Unplottable to an extreme degree, to keep it as plain and simple as possible - and he will keep our secret, until - well, I don't know, I guess - " Lily struggled for a moment with the reality of what undergoing the Fidelius to hide from the Dark Lord meant. "We'd be hidden with only the Headmaster able to tell our whereabouts, until He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is no longer after our Harry, I suppose."
Dumbledore left them alone with their decision, urging them to decide as immediately as they could. Time was limited. The same information that had Dumbledore believing that the Dark Lord would be making another move towards the suspected children soon also had the Headmaster believing that Halloween would be of significance.
It was a bitter and frightening thought that they should be preparing to be attacked or suspect something just as awful within as little as two weeks.
As the days of October continued to pass, unable to be content with sitting and waiting and needing to feel as though she were actively doing something to ward off the coming threat - Lily opened the grimoire when she could, studying and pouring over the contents, desperately.
There had to be something within the endless pages that would help her protect her son.
While James focused on planning the casting of the Fidelius with the Marauders, the foursome believing themselves to be more powerful as a unit than as individuals, Lily focused on studying the grimoire for even a trace of magic that would protect herself, her husband, and especially the two children that they had made.
She wasn't sure to be reassured or afraid, when she finally discovered what she had hoped she would find - on the same morning that James announced the Fidelius was ready to be Casted and he and the Marauders had everything planned, perfectly.
There was no turning back, now.
On the morning that James and Sirius and Peter had Cast the Fidelius Charm over the Potter family, Lily quietly and discreetly carried out a ritual of her own from the grimoire for the Potter family that same night.
Neither of them could have possibly realized how within a week's time, both attempts to protect their young, budding family would be tested and proven in the most unthinkable way possible.
October 31st, 1981
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's HIM! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"
James would not understand until much later, well after his death, why Lily wanted their last moments together to be a kiss so savage that she drew blood from his bottom lip.
Harry would not understand until well after his father and mother's deaths, why Lily had been determined to sit him in his cot, spat the blood from her husband into her hand, and quickly make a cut so that their blood and saliva mingled enough to be considered one.
Only Lily understood why it was necessary to mark Harry's forehead and her own navel with the blend of blood and saliva and raw burst of her own wandless magic, right as the Dark Lord blasted open the door of the nursery made it clear he'd found the child he wanted to destroy, at last.
A sickly green light exploded from the tip of the Dark Lord's wand, rushing towards her.
Lily spread her arms wide, determined to spend her last moments before the ritual activated protecting her son from whatever awful, terrible experience being hit by a spell from the Dark Lord was about to be.
The spell hit her, feeling like a thousand hands had reached into her very bone marrow and were ripping her upwards and away, the green spell light engulfing her entirely and silencing everything that ever existed, plunging her into depthless darkness.
Green was her least favorite color in the world, for many more reasons that she could have ever known.