PROLOGUE - THE PROPHECY

FRIDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 1980

Lucius Malfoy was pacing back and forth down the corridor of the first floor of Malfoy Manor.  It was ten o'clock at night and he had been pacing since ten o'clock that morning.  In those twelve hours he had developed quite a headache.  Listening to constant screams and threats to his bodily organs had made him anxious.  Now he was simply hoping that soon it would all be over.

While Lucius was wearing a trench into the seventeenth century floor runner, Severus Snape sat on a hardback chair reading the newest version of 'Moste Potente Potions' while simply observing, with a slight smirk, the emotions fleetingly forming on Lucius' face.

Suddenly the door at the end of the hallway opened and a small house-elf named Dobby stepped outside.

"Master, Sir.  Madam like to see you Sir!"

Lucius pushed past the house-elf and burst into his bedroom.

There, lying on the bed, was Narcissa Malfoy cradling a small bundle of blankets in her arms.  She looked up and saw the inquisitive look on her husband's face and gave a small smile.


"Lucius, darling, we have a son!"

He smiled a genuine ear to ear grin and moved to the side of his wife, forgetting all about the house-elf and medi-witch still in the room.

"A son!" he said disbelievingly, "A son!"

Peering into the blankets for the first time he knew that the child was definitely theirs.  The child's sharp features could have been cloned from his own and the tuft of hair, on the crown of the babies head, matched his parents in both colour and texture.

He gently peeled the child from Narcissa's grip to hold his son and heir.  The silence in the room was broken with one almighty shriek from the mouth of the boy.  "My, isn't he a feisty little dragon!" a voice exclaimed from the doorway.  Severus was now laughing outright at the surprised faces of Lucius and Narcissa.  "Draco?" Lucius asked the small child.  As abruptly as the screaming had started, it ceased.  Narcissa looked towards the two most important men in her life, her husband and her son, smiled and replied with a tone of finality – "Draco!"

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At the other end of Britain in a small private London hospital, Stewart Granger was also pacing.  Hilary, his wife, had only been in labour for one hour but Stewart was already anxious to be with her.  When the mid-wife emerged from the delivery suite to take him to his wife, he was shaking like a leaf.  He sprinted into the room so fast that he slipped and fell at his wife's side.  Hilary giggled at her husband's antics and only hoped that their child would not be so accident prone as he was.  Stewart stood up and smiled at his wife while apologising at the same time.  He looked lovingly at her and the small bundle in her arms.  The child simply gazed at the man peering into the warm blankets, until he said, "Hilary, it's like magic, she's so beautiful!"

"Hermione," Hilary sighed while looking from her daughter to her husband, "how about that?"

Stewart thought about it for a few moments and then agreed full heartedly, "Hermione is perfect.  Hermione Granger, our little girl."

To this statement the joyfully happy new parents received a gummy grin from the newest addition to their family.

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Meanwhile, back at Malfoy Manor in a secluded part of Perthshire in Scotland, Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape were wetting baby Draco's head with a bottle of vintage single malt whisky.  They were about to refill their glasses when a searing pain in their left forearms ceased all other thoughts.

"Why now when we are celebrating?" Severus asked in an agitated tone.

"Severus, you know our Master will call only if it is of the utmost importance."  Lucius replied.  "Let me just inform Narcissa and we will be off."

With that he walked from the library to the bedroom and back within a few minutes.

"We had best be on our way, you know how our Lord detests to be kept waiting!"

Automatically they each touched their arms, said a quick incantation and apparated swiftly to the Dark Lord's side.

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"Ah Lucius, I feel congratulations are in order."

"Thank you my Lord.  I am most pleased at the birth of my son."

"And tell me Lucius, you know of the importance of the child's upbringing and the responsibilities bestowed upon the Godfather, do you not?"

"I do my Lord."

"Have you decided on an appropriate candidate?"

"We have my Lord, Narcissa and I had decided to ask Severus here.  We hope and wish that he shall accept."

"And do you accept, Severus?"

"I do my Lord."

"Then I must inform you both of a prophecy given to that muggle-loving fool Dumbledore by that seer, what's her name?"

"Trelawny, Sybill Trelawny, Master."  Severus replied.

"Yes Severus, that's her.  Where was I now, ah yes, the prophecy.  The basics are that a child born on this day will have the power to destroy me.  It then carried on to another part of the prophecy which directs my attention towards that Potter child. Now this child may have the power in the future to destroy Voldemort but, he shall never kill my body, my filthy muggle father's namesake child, me, Tom Marvolo Riddle.  Potter will never kill that part of me."

Lucius and Severus looked at each other then back to the Dark Lord with questioning glances.

"The child born today will completely destroy me.  Not just my soul, but my body and my being.  Alas, if this portion of the prophecy does come to pass both Lord Voldemort and Tom Riddle will be no more."

After an uncomfortable silence the reverie was broken by Lucius' whisper.

"My Lord, if I may be so prudent to ask how this can be avoided?"

"Yes Lucius, I thought you would ask seeing as your child may be my downfall."  Voldemort paused in his speech and in the quiet you could faintly hear the crashing of waves against the cliffs.

"The child," he continued, "will join my ranks on the evening of his seventeenth birthday.  If he does not, then Lucius my friend, he shall be 'dealt with' before he reaches eighteen years of age!"

There was silence in the room after the shock announcement.  Severus was feeling disbelief.  He couldn't comprehend that the tiny baby sleeping in his crib in Malfoy Manor could ultimately destroy the Dark Lord.  He was Draco's godfather.  Draco was his responsibility should anything happen to Lucius and Narcissa.  Severus was doing a great deal of thinking in the silence.  He knew that if Draco took the Dark Mark his life would be over as his had been but, if refused to join the Death-Eaters his life would be over, full stop.  It was a double-edged sword hanging over the baby's heart.  At that moment Severus swore that nothing would ever harm his godson.  He would not allow it, not while they were both alive.  He was deep in his own thoughts when a cold grovelling voice pulled him back into the present.

"It will be done, my Lord."

That night Severus Snape visited Albus Dumbledore, confessed his sins, swore to protect Draco from the future and began his new life as a spy for The Order of the Phoenix.