I still do not own Harry Potter.

James Birdsong: Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying the story.

CrystalKaouri: Thank you so much for your comment! To answer your question, no, there will not be any younger Potter siblings in the future. This is one area where I feel like my story is a little unrealistic; I think Lily and James were the type to want a large family and if they came back, would probably have a few more kids after a couple years. However, I didn't want to create entirely original characters, and I didn't want to deal with how a sibling would change canon. So, although I'm sure Harry would make a great older brother, we won't see it in this story.


Dear Mum and Dad,

I wouldn't have believed it, but things got worse. Hermione, Neville, Malfoy, and I had our detention last night. We had to go into the forbidden forest with Hagrid to try and find an injured unicorn. Hagrid had found one dead last week. Hermione and I went with Hagrid at first, while Neville, Malfoy, and Fang went a different way. That is until Malfoy snuck behind Neville and grabbed him as a joke. Neville panicked and sent up red sparks. Hagrid was furious. So, he sent me with Malfoy and Fang as he figured Malfoy would have a harder time frightening me.

It went alright until we found the unicorn. Just then, there was a slithering sound; a sound that we had heard earlier before we switched groups. A cloaked and hooded figure came out of the woods, went over to the unicorn, and began to drink its blood.

Malfoy and Fang bolted, but I was too scared to move. It saw me and started to come towards me. Then, my scar started burning. I've never felt anything like it before; it hurt so bad! Luckily, a centaur named Firenze saved me by chasing the thing away. He said it wasn't safe in the forest for me and let me ride him to get back to Hagrid, except we met two other centaurs who were really mad. They kept going on about interfering with what the planets said was going to happen, but Firenze ignored them and took me back to Hagrid.

He told me what unicorn's blood is used for: to keep someone alive even if they were an inch from death. But it is a monstrous thing to kill a unicorn because it is pure and defenseless, so from the moment the blood touches the person's lips they will have a cursed life. I couldn't believe someone would be that desperate, and Firenze said that it would have to be someone that had waited years to return to power and would only have to wait until he could get the elixir of life. That thing was Voldemort.

Snape wants to steal the stone for Voldemort, and Voldemort wants to kill me. But Hermione reminded me that Dumbledore is the only person Voldemort ever feared. As long as he's around, I'm safe.

Love,

Harry

P.S. When I got back to my dormitory, the invisibility cloak was on my bed with a note. "Just in case."


Lily lowered Harry's letter with a trembling hand, her other hand over her mouth. James, who had been listening to her read in an increasingly unsteady voice, ran both hands through his hair. "Merlin's beard," he whispered.

"He nearly died," Lily said in a voice barely above a breath. "Voldemort nearly killed our baby."

James got to his feet, took two strides, and punched the wall. The bang echoed loudly through the room like a gunshot. "What the hell?" he shouted. "Where was everyone? How did this happen?" He paced around the room.

"No one knew," Lily said, still sitting motionless other than her uncontrollable trembling. Her chest hurt with the fear clawing at it, but otherwise, she felt almost numb. She put her hands in her lap, gripping them tightly together, trying to stop their shaking. "Why would they?"

"They should have known!" James snapped. "Dumbledore should have known." He stopped pacing and yanked on his hair. "I'm going up there."

Lily let out a single, bitter laugh that sounded more like a scoff. "Yes, I'm sure Voldemort will just come crawling out of wherever he's hiding just to talk to you," she snarked.

"It's better than doing nothing," said James.

"What is your plan, exactly?" Lily asked. "Just move to Hogwarts and stay there for the rest of the year? Follow Harry around everywhere? Even if that was plausible, it wouldn't make a difference."

The memory of an awful night nearly eleven years ago when neither of them had been able to protect their son hung heavy in the air around them. James spun around as if to hit the wall again, then thought better of it, just standing there, fists clenched at his sides.

Her hands had stopped shaking. Wrapping herself in a calm she did not feel, Lily got slowly to her feet. "I am going to write Harry," she said, deliberately. "Let him know he's safe, and everything will be alright."

James laughed, slightly hysterically. "Everything is not alright! Voldemort is living in the Forbidden Forest!"

Lily knew that. She was just as terrified as James, but she couldn't let Harry know that. It was her job as his mother to make him feel safe, and just because she had done a bloody poor job of that the past ten years, didn't mean she wasn't going to start now. "I'm going to write to Harry," she repeated. "You write to Dumbledore. Now. He has to know what's going on."

She waited for James to nod, before she hurried out of the room in search of quill and ink.