Chapter One: Escape
The waves beat against each other, sending white foam
high into the air. Even as the
water reached skyward, the rain pounded it back down. The broomstick plunged up and down as
the rider fought to hold on, fought to stay above the water. The baby clutched against the rider's
chest screeched out it's protests at being jerked around, yet the rider couldn't
hear it, such was the noise of the storm.
The rider's dark hair, cut
to her shoulders, was plastered against one side of her face. Her blue eyes squinted out. It was here somewhere—the Unplottable
island, where they could be safe.
Or rather, where the child could be safe, since after all, he was the one
she had made this idiotic flight for.
Her black robes were nearly invisible over the dark waves, but they
offered little protection from the wind and rain. She shivered. The child
squalled.
An island! Quickly she glanced around, trying to
find the landmarks. Not for nothing
was she the best seeker Ravenclaw ever had: she spotted them quickly and moved
to land. She crashed head on into
the ground, staggering as a fresh howl of wind knocked her aside. The book had said there was a house on
the north end of the island. She
had to get inside before the child froze.
Grabbing her wand, she
hissed "Point Me." The wand
spun around, pointing to the left.
She ran, ducking against the sheets of rain, until she saw the
house. The door was ajar, so she
ran inside, slamming the door behind her.
Panting, she leaned against the door and slumped to the floor, water
running out of her robes and hair, dripping onto the
floor.
"Ahgoo.." the baby burbled,
smiling as though he had not just flown nearly a thousand miles in a torrential
storm. In fact, he didn't look as
though he had been in a storm at all, the woman's cloak had taken care of
that. The red curls on the top of
his head were dry, and the blue eyes were completely
happy.
"You, little sir, are a
little too optimistic for my tastes," the woman groaned. "Remember, you're only with me until
James comes back for you."
"Daddy?" the little boy
wailed, his mood changing as fast as the weather. "Daddy!"
The woman heard him
not. Her head had drooped, and she
was fast asleep.
A thousand miles away…
"What do you mean, Lily and
James are dead?"
"They—they are, sir.
You-Know-Who…he…killed…"
"But the Secret
Keeper!"
"Betrayed them, sir. It was awful. The house was burning down, sir, and in
the bedroom was James and Lily, both dead without a
scratch—"
"The Avada Kedavra
then."
"I don't know sir, but the
little boy, Harry, he's not dead—and You-Know-Who is sir!"
"Don't joke with me,
boy. I may be old, but I'm not
stupid."
"Excuse me, Minister sir,
but Harry Potter lived! The boy
lived through You-Know-Who's curse!"
Kirkle Grundo pushed his
wire-rimmed spectacles higher on his nose.
"You don't say! Send someone
to get him at once, Peter!"
Peter Pettigrew smiled. "That won't be necessary,
sir."
"What do you mean? I told you to go get the—" there
was a crack as the Minister of Magic's neck snapped, and his body draped itself
uselessly across his paperwork.
"Good riddance, sir,"
Wormtail smirked, then ran out of the room.
At Hogwarts…
Dumbledore absentmindedly
tapped his quill on the roll of parchment, wishing that someone else could tell
the world about Voldemort's downfall.
It was so bothersome, putting it in a way everyone could
understand.
A boy dressed in a student's
robes raced in. "The Potters, sir,"
he gasped. "I've been told to tell
you—"
"I already know," Dumbledore
said sadly. "Have they found the
bodies?"
"The bodies of the Missus
and the Mister, but the boy lives!"
Dumbledore frowned. "No others?"
"No
sir."
"That will be all, Mr.
Smith."
Dumbledore arose, mentally
preparing himself for the scene, and he Apparated.
At Godric's Hollow…
The house was utterly destroyed.
Piles of smoke-blackened brick were everywhere, bits
of molten metal pierced what had once been a flower patch. At one end of the house, the
smoke-blackened and twisted cradle that had held the Potter twins lay
melted. Dumbledore looked there
first, swallowing bile. Disgusting
that any human could do that to a little baby. But his search in the crib produced no
remains.
At the other end of the house lay James's body, his
spectacles cracked. His body was
slumped on the floor, one hand out-stretched towards (Dumbledore supposed) where
his wife had stood. But now Lily
was crumpled face-down, in front of the charred remains of what had been her own
Invisibility Cloak. Her long,
brilliant hair flowed across the ground, her pale fingers just brushing
James'.
Reminded of the Invisibility Cloak, Dumbledore made a
mental note to withdraw James' Cloak from Gringotts. Now he closed his eyes, and pressed his
wand to Lily's head. "Tell me…" he
whispered, "Tell me what was…" It
was harder to draw a memory from a corpse, but since this was her death, it
wasn't as hard as it could have been.
"Take him and go! Just go!"
James, Dumbledore thought bitterly. One of the faults of being a true-born
Gryffindor: the lack of ability to realize that sometimes it was better to be
safe than noble.
"James—he's
coming! Oh, God, what'll we
do?"
A tear splashed the pavement. Lily, the beautiful Ravenclaw. Gone.
"Go into the bedroom—take Harry and go! Don't worry about
me!"
"Catch up with me later,
alright?"
"I will."
Dumbledore withdrew his wand, long fingers
trembling. He needed to know no
more. He could see what had
happened. Lily ran into the back
room, wrapped Harry in the Invisibility cloak, then opened the door on James'
dying body. She wouldn't have let
Voldemort through without a struggle, because he never would have killed her
otherwise—it was well-known that Voldemort had always been interested in
her. Beautiful, smart, and she bore
twin boys without a hitch. What
more could a twisted mind ask for?
Dumbledore conjured white sheets and gently placed them over the still
bodies, aligning them next to each other.
They would have wanted that.
He repaired James' glasses, smoothed Lily's hair, and pulled the sheet
over the still faces of the two he had loved as the children he had never
fathered. Another tear escaped, but
by the time it hit the dirt, Dumbledore had gone.
Author's Note: This was written out
of the frusteration of having to read story after story about Harry's twin
sister. If you don't get it, oh well. Read it again.
I'll be posting more whether you like it or not. So
there.