The Darkness within us all

Naga's Shadow 10/11/05

Disclaimer: Despite what is written above only the name is mine, the rest I borrowed from J.K.R

Reviewers have asked me to continue but I've run out of ideas to turn this into a full-length story. As such I'm going to leave it as a one shot. For those of you who read this before I've added something that was originally going to be in the second chapter. I hope you enjoy.

"M-my L-lord the Potters have made me their secret keeper." The figure sitting on a large obsidian thrown raised an eyebrow and stared at the paunchy and balding young man that knelt before him. Peter was a coward, but not a lair.

"They have? I was under the impression that Black was their secret keeper."

"They wanted y-you to think that…" he quickly added "my l-lord." The lord that he was talking about wasn't paying the sniveling rat any mind. Lord Voldemort's mind was racing. He had found them, after all this time he had found them, found her. She had been right, he hadn't seen it then but now, now he understood and tonight he would make up for his actions. If everything went as planed tonight he'd have his revenge and they'd be re-united.

"Where are they?"

"T-the village of Godric's Hollow. Number seven Windcrest lane." One of the other cloaked figures in the thrown room stepped forward.

"My lord, should we prepare a strike team?"

"No Bella, I'm doing this myself." He stood and walked out of the room, stopping at the exit.

"Wormtail."

"Y-yes my lord?"

"You're coming too." The man behind him audibly gulped but followed after him.

It had been a little over two years since he'd seen her, he hopped he could get her to remember. He picked up three constructs from his room and apperated to the site. Wromtail followed but hesitated outside the gate. The cottage was up on a hill with no one around for almost half a mile.

"Wait here." He instructed and left the traitor with his three constructs. Wormtail eyed them nervously but knew better than to ask questions. Voldemort spent a few minutes collapsing the wards over the property and placing up a set off his own. A light flashed from one of the closed windows in the house. They knew he was here. The need for subtlety abandoned he slammed the strongest anti apperation wards he had on the property and hurried up the path.

"Reducto!" The front door blew open and flew across the room, Voldemort rolled in and came up behind a couch. It was a good idea because if he'd walked in he would have eaten a killing curse. James Potter stood on the other side of the room, his wand drawn and leveled at the intruder. Potter threw another killing curse but he merely levitated the couch into the way.

"You shouldn't use the big guns if you haven't got the guts." It was true, Potter was already panting in exhaustion.

"You bastard! I won't let you have him." Potter tried again but met yet another piece of furniture. Tiring of this Voldemort began to fire; he'd not earned the title Dark Lord for nothing. Meteors and streamers of lights flew from his wand; Potter raised a shield but was still forced to take cover.

"Expereranius! Stupefy! Revitasvio! Crucio! Crucio! Stupefy!" Potter dodged the pain curses and reflected the rest. Voldemort muttered Obscuro, and a thick cloud of smoke issued from his wand. Potter created a flaming whip out of the tip of his wand and swung it in a horizontal slash, Voldemort sensed the attack and dropped to one knee, while casting a tremor curse into the floor. The floor rippled, shattering the wood and tossing Potter off balance. His grunt of pain also gave away his position.

"Crucio!" Potter's screams confirmed a hit. He held the curse of ten seconds and then released it, while dispelling the smoke and walking over to the twitching Auror. James Potter still had his wand and shakily raised it towards his assailant.

"Avada Ke…"

"Stupefy!"

Potter slouched down, out cold. Voldemort took his wand and tied the sleeping man up, with a flick of his wand the limp form of Potter levitated up the stairs after him. Voldemort left Potter outside the only magically sealed door on the second floor. Lily had warded the door quite well, it would take a few minutes to remove all the charms she had placed, but he was in a hurry. Pointing his wand at the wall next to the door.

"Reducto!" The wall blew inward, shattering all over the nursery. Lilly was inside by a crib, she had been hurt in the explosion but not badly, thankfully. She scrambled to her feet wand raised but he quickly disarmed her.

"No please, not Harry. Take me instead!" She was standing in front of the cradle her arms out to block his passage.

"You don't remember anything do you?" The red headed paused in her pleading and looked at him funny. He shook his head and raised his wand. She screamed.

"Oblivato reverso culposioro!" A white light jumped from his wand and struck her in the chest. The beam connected the two of him and Voldemort brought all of his mental powers to bear, to break the artificial blocks on Lily's mind without shattering her. Lily was swimming in memories; she'd forgotten all of them but now that fateful summer two years ago all came back.

Lily was in a bathroom, it wasn't very large. She knew that this was one of the bathrooms on the Hogwarts express. She was sitting on the seat, but she didn't have to go. She just wanted to be alone. She had been crying, her eyes were red and tears had made the subtle amounts of makeup she wore run. Life was just so hard; she remembered why she was in here crying her eyes out. James Potter. He had tried to fondle her just a few minutes ago and when she had smacked him he'd called her a mudblood whore. James' friends hadn't seen what had happened but they had taken his side and had cursed her and her few friends, not literally. She was a Ravenclaw and had no friends in her own house. In fact her only friends where all in Syltherin, Bellatrix, Narcisa, and Severus where the closest things to friends she had. They weren't true friends though; no one in Syltherin ever dropped that last mask. She hated James so much, that arrogant bastard spent so much of his time hitting on her, she wasn't interested in him last year and she wouldn't like him next year either. She wiped the last traces of tears and makeup out of her face and stood, the train was coming to a stop and it was time to get off.

No one was waiting for her, she knew that though. Her parents had died in a car wreck over the Christmas break. Her sister Petunia and her fiancé Vernon were staying in a flat in Surry and they were going to let her rent a room. She had met Vernon before and it wasn't an experience that she wanted to repeat, he was somehow ticked that he'd ended up with the plainer of the two sisters. Not that he'd even ever know her. Lilly returned to her compartment, thankfully it was empty, and grabbed her stuff. When she disembarked from the train she headed immediately for the barrier back to the muggle world. At least she fit in there, if she kept quite. She was halfway there when she heard the distinctive pop of apperation. A lot of pops.

Black robed figures showed up and immediately began to hurl curses around. There were only about ten but they sent the hundred or so students and parents who were milling around into chaos. Her friends all prided themselves on their combat skills and that was what they did on their spare time, duel. Lily wasn't the best but she learned far more curses than they did, her favorite were the dark curses that were restricted. No one was going to tell her that she didn't have power. She picked out a tall man standing near a pillar, he wasn't dueling with anyone now. Instead he seamed to just stand there and bask in the destruction the others were causing. She'd fix him, putting all her anger and hate for James and Vernon and everything that had gone wrong that year she fired a nasty curse off.

"Flamma penitus" A dark purple light jumped from her wand and flew towards the figure, he hadn't appeared to be paying attention, but he still spun at the last moment and the lethal fire curse missed. It stuck the pillar and began to melt it. The cloaked figure looked at her, surprised by her defiance. He was a decent looking man, looked just over thirty. He would have been gorgeous, save for his eyes. They were a blood red and seamed to glow. She fired two more dark curses and a really nasty one of her own creation; he blocked the first two and ducked the third. It hit and melted a luggage trolley behind him. He glanced at her work before turning back to her.

"Naughty girl aren't we." His voice sent chills up her spine, she just figured out who she was up against, this was the Voldemort who had proclaimed himself the dark lord of Britton last year. Then he counter attacked, firing spells faster than she could catalogue them. She blocked the first few and dodged the next but a stunner connected with her and she saw no more.

Voldemort had been surprised that this girl, this mudblood, had even tried to challenge him. He was shocked at the dark magic she knew, the second spell she had used he'd never even seen before and if it had hit him, well it would have probably killed him. He decided that she was worth holding on to, for at least a little while. The raid had accomplished its affect, he ordered his minions to retreat and then he grabbed the girl and apperated away.

The first thing Lily noticed when she awoke was that it was dark, and that her head hurt. She looked around as the world came into focus, she was in a cell. She had been captured! Memories of her fight with the red-eyed man swarmed back to her. She sat up and took in her small cubical of stone. There was water but no food and only one locked door. She sat and waited, eventually he came. His name was Lord Voledmort, or at least that what he wanted to be called. They talked, he was intimidating, but it was a mask. Eventually she was moved out of that dank cell and into a well appointed room, beneath the dark lord's exterior there was an insightful and lonely man. He never told anyone else his past, but he told her. She stayed with Tom Riddle for that summer, she fell in love with him, and he with her. When fall rolled around she was allowed to leave, but she stayed anyway.

The memories of that fateful summer those years ago kept coming back and then she remembered their last days together. It was Christmas Eve. Lily and Tom were spending the time together before Tom's presence was required at the home of a wealthy family that supported his cause. Lily didn't believe in his drive for genocide but he assured her that he used his actions against muggles and muggleborn only to keep the purebloods behind him. She was going to tell him the next morning that she was pregnant, but she had never gotten the chance. The order had attacked while he was away. The few people who knew about her and Tom where killed in the attack. She was captured and taken away. Several days after that were a blur but she did know that her memories of that magical time with Tom was taken away. She remembered when she returned to Hogworts after Christmas break, she was dating Potter. She didn't know why she was dating him, but they had become the perfect couple. She had forgotten the dark magic she had learned over the previous five years and distanced herself from her Syltherin friends.

She began to question the large amount of time that she spent with the Headmaster, Dumbledore, all the potions that she took and all the spells he cast on her. She remembered when she married Potter, when he told her he loved her and they shared vows she'd felt empty. Like something was missing, Tom had been missing. She'd never loved Potter, did he even love her or was this just another trick by Dumbledore? Or was he in on it?

Then she rembered when Harry had been born and all the spells Dumbledore had cast on each of them and all the potions he'd given the boy. What scared her the most was she had no idea what all of that meant.

"I…I remember. Tom." She threw herself in his arms and the stood there in the bedroom for a few minutes.

"I'm glad I have you back Lily."

"What happened to Potter?"

"He stunned outside."

"You wouldn't happen to have any Verisnitum on you, there's something I have to know." He pulled a small vial out of his robes.

"Make it quick, we don't have much time."

"What are you going to do?"

"Tonight the Dark Lord will meet his end, and we can be together." She kissed him and then walked out into the hallway were she woke James up. As he was coming to she forced his mouth open and poured a little of the potion down his throat.

"Lily what's going on?" He stopped talking and his eyes took on a blank effect, the potion was working.

"What happened to the baby?" Tom looked at her questioningly.

"You were given a potion weekly that delayed your pregnancy until after we were married."

"But that would mean…" She and Tom turned around to look at the crib. Harry having no idea what was going on was standing up and watching the three adults.

"Why does he look like you?"

"He was given a blood adoption potion shortly after birth." James continued in his potion induced monotone.

"Lily what's happening?"

"When I was captured, I was pregnant."

"Then the boy?"

"I'm sure he's your son, but a blood adoption potion, I've never heard of it."

"It's considered an illegal ritual by the ministry. It causes the person to take on features of the blood donor as they grow. The older he gets the more he'll look like Potter."

"Can it be reversed?"

"Yes." Tom and James answered. Lily couldn't believe it, how could they say the Tom was the evil one when Dumbledore was doing all of this to her?

"Why did I marry you?"

"Your memory was modified, Professor Dumbledore couldn't erase it all so he blocked out many of your memories and used a combination of a counfudis charm and love potion and a variant of the imperious curse to ensure that we were together."

"Why?"

"Professor Dumbledore did not tell me. I believe that he is going to use Harry to kill the dark lord." Lily never felt more betrayed in her life, how could he do this to her? The past two years, all the affection he had shown her. He'd been lying the entire time. Not lying, he had only wanted her body. She shuddered remembering just how many times they had… Tom, he truly cared for her. They had been together only once, he thought that it was wrong. Odd that he'd have moral objections to sleeping with someone so much younger than him but none with all the other things he'd done on his dark crusade.

"How could you do that to me?" Tears where in her eyes.

"Any other poor friendless mudblood who had nothing going for her but her body would have jumped to shag the rich and cool James Potter." It was chilling how he could say such hateful things so calmly. The blank expression lifted from his eyes and he shock his head.

"Lily, I didn't mean it. Him, he rigged the potion. I would have never said those things to you otherwise. I love you…"

"LOVE! How can you proclaim you love me and then admit to all of those things? You can't lie to a truth potion."

"What, you're going to believe You-know-who over me? He's only interested in himself, he's a manic!" James' voice was rising now, getting more desperate as he saw the anger and pain in his wife's eyes.

"James I don't know what to think." Tom stepped forward and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. James saw her relax at this gesture and got even louder.

"GO ON THEN SIDE WITH THAT BASTARD! YOU WERE NEVER ANYTHING BUT A DARK MUDBLOOD WHORE ANYWAY!" The fact that James had just dug his own grave and jumped in it didn't seem to come to mind. Lily's normally passive features screwed up in rage, she knew that what Tom had told her was the truth when he used the words he'd said three years ago on the train again.

"AVADA KEDARVA!" With a whoosh the green bolt of death streaked out, catching James Potter in the chest. The force of her anger blew him through the wall he had been leaning against. Tom let her stand there for a few seconds before he walked over to Potter's body and vanished the ropes.

"Get the boy. Its time for phase two." She followed his instructions and met him down stairs.

"See that man over there." She lifted the squirming toddler so he could see Tom who was instructing Wormtail to move the constructs into place. "That's your father."

"Pronggs." Harry cooed. Lily's face fell slightly.

"No Prongs hurt your mother, but he won't ever again." This is the first time that Wormtail noticed Lily. He immediately pulled his wand.

"L-lily? M-my lord she's still alive."

"Crucio." Wormtail shrieked and went down in a heap. "You will not point your wand at her ever again. He turned back away and levitated the final constructs into place, using a transfiguration spell to make them look like the Potter family, and one for himself.

"Wormtail, you will wait outside with Lily and the boy. Nothing is to happen to either of them."

"Y-yes master." Lily looked disdainfully at her late husband's friend. She'd never liked Peter; of course she'd never gotten along with Sirius either. Remus was the only levelheaded member of their little gang. Inside Tom quickly walked to each of his constructs and blasted them with a killing curse. While they were not alive the residue would remain. When he was satisfied with the crime scene he walked outside and promptly obliviated the confused Wormtail.

"Now what?"

"Now, we fake our deaths." Tom pointed his wand at the ring he wore. He wasn't big on decoration; this ring was the object that linked him to each of his death eaters. He mumbled crucio and then instructed the ring to go silent. Turning to the house he began to chant and released as massive dark spell at the house. Grabbing Lily the Dark lord, Lily Potter and Harry Potter disappeared as the house they had lived in exploded. When Peter came to he remembered going with Lord Voldemort to the house, he remembered his master killing the parents. He remembered that when he tried to kill the boy the curse reflected and hit his master instead. He looked at his mark, it had gone a pale gray, rather than the dark black it usually was. Realizing what had happened Peter returned to headquarters to let the others know what happened, all the while wondering what he was going to do.

Albus Dumbledore sat in his office at Hogwarts. He was reading when a small alarm went off. He sighed, now was the moment of truth. If his plan worked the Dark lord was now dead. It was a shame to lose the Potters, well James at least, but sacrifices needed to be made. Tossing some floo powder in the fireplace he called on Hagrid to go check up on the Potters. If the boy had died the spells he'd cast would take Tom with him, if the child survived. Well that would be a problem, but on the bright side he'd have a near useless dark lord to deal with and a hero to parade to the world.

When Hagrid arrived to the utterly ruined house he found James and 'Lily's' bodies easily. The body of 'Voldemort' was disfigured by fire but still identifiable. The construct that should have been Harry was vaporized in the explosion and the papers the next day declared the dark lord dead, and his killer Harry Potter missing. They speculated that he had been kidnapped by his traitorous godfather Sirius Black, who became the subject of the largest manhunt in Briton after blowing up his good friend Peter in a street full of muggles then fleeing.

In the wake of the defeat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Wizarding Briton was lost in one long non-stop party. During that time the only people who knew what was going on were the Aurors rounding up the remaining death eaters. Several of them, like Lucius Mafloy, sold out their comrades to avoid prison time. Of course during all of this no one bothered to check the records department. When the Potters were confirmed dead the records were sealed and no one saw when the file for Lily Evans-Potter changed to Lily Evans-Potter-Riddle. Likewise no one was there to see the copy of Harry Potter's birth certificate update itself. The name changed from Harry James Potter to Harry Evan Riddle. In the wake of all the celebrations no one really gave a damn about what three 'dead' people did.

Lily Riddle fingered the wedding ring she'd just put on last night. Tom and her had been married at a small muggle church near Tom's birth town. The witness was the minister's wife. The ring was in the same place that James' ring had been. While this ring was less ornate than the ring that had been here, she liked it more. Knowing that she'd had a choice in accepting this ring made all the difference. Now she stood in Heathrow airport, with her one-year-old son Harry. Tom was buying tickets. America was to far to apparate to easily and international porkeys were monitored by the ministry, so they were doing it the muggle way. Tom had transferred a small fortune to a Swiss account for 'emergencies' and they were going to live off that now.

Harry squirmed in her grip interrupting her train of thought.

"Calm down Harry, were going to go flying." Harry licked to fly; she knew what Sirius did whenever he could. Lily thought it had been a bad idea, sticking him to a broom and all, but James didn't care. Come to think of it James had never cared what Harry did as long as he didn't kill himself. She took a deep breath and wiped the scowl off her face.

"Lilly are you ready to go?" Tom was back with the tickets, he was carrying the one suitcase they had between them. He was wearing a trench coat to cover the black robes he was still in. His very noticeable red eyes were glamoured to their original blue; he wore sunglass on top of that. Lily was wearing the sundress she had been wearing last night. She nodded and the two of them boarded the next flight to NewYork, ignoring the drunken man in a 'bathrobe' who tried to wish them a happy Potter day.