The Boy Who Lived

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Author's note: Thank you thespianpoet, Sirenstrong0617 and scrappy8 for reviewing and all those who favorited and followed. It meant a lot, and gave me the inspiration to plow through this chapter. Also, I just wanted to make sure that I am not making this a manipulative Dumbledore fic. Yes, Harry is going to be super-powered with wandless magic and animagi and all that, but I will try to stick as close to canon as I can.

A loud crash was again heard and his head snapped in the direction of it. Was it him, returning, here to kill the remaining members of his family? But he made up his mind that no, he was not going to let that monster murder the rest of his family. He had already killed his Flower.

But deep inside his mind, a small part of him desperately wanted the crash to be Voldemort, to just land a hit on his serpentine face and to pay him back for all the misery he had given him. He had killed all of his family, except Harry, first his parents, then Lily.

He quickly ran to the living room, leaving the unconscious Harry in his crib and snatched his wand. Last time, he had foolishly forgot his wand and had gotten knocked out. He couldn't afford such a mistake again.

He crept to the hall, the intruders footsteps heavy and loud. That was unlike Voldemort, whose footsteps were like death on silent wings, so like the curse he favored. So, that could not be the wizard, but still he raised his wand as the footsteps became nearer and nearer, pointing it at the silhouette of the person. "Who are you?" he asked, glad to hear that his voice was not shaking.

But his answer came in form of a hairy face, a face that he had seen so many times and black eyes. He stepped closer and light fell upon his figure, revealing a huge man, dressed in old time-y clothes. A comrade. A friend. "Hagrid!" he yelled and moved to embrace the man, but only coming up to his lower stomach. There was some technical term for it, but he'd forgotten.

"'ames!" whispered the half-giant, but his whisper was akin to normal talking. "Yer alive?"

He looked as shocked as James had felt when he first woke up. "Of course," he said, like it was obvious. "You know that I'm very hard to kill."

"An' Lily?"

He winced, her death fresh in his mind. "She didn't make it," he still said, his voice now a low monotone.

Hagrid froze, and then looked very sad. "'m sorry." A small, uncomfortable pause in which they both stood in the hallway, one ridiculously smaller than the other, both mourning the loss of a wonderful woman and witch.

"An' Harry?"

"Harry's alive," he said, his voice turning a little hopeful. Then, one question came to the forefront of his mind. "Why are you here, Hagrid?" Not how, why, because surely the magical explosion would have destroyed the Fidelius. But it had been destroyed long before that. Only the Secret-Keeper could relay the secret, Peter! "I need to see Dumbledore," he exclaimed before Hagrid could answer his previous question, bounding up the stairs one or two at a time. "Talk to you later, Hagrid!"

The nursery was still demolished, picture frames broken and Lily lying on the floor, but he ignored that. He would take care of them later. He quickly picked up the still unconscious baby, careful not to wake him up because he would start crying. He then went down the stairs and saw Hagrid was still there.

"'ames," the friendly giant stopped him. "Professo' Dumbledore told me to take Harry to Privet Drive. Said that he, he'd meet me there."

Dumbledore asked what? "Privet Drive? Isn't that where Lily's sister lives?" he asked.

"I dunno," said Hagrid. "He must be there by now. I'll take Harry, you apparate over there."

James nodded, and handed the bundle of cuteness to Hagrid and then thought about Privet Drive, concentrating on how it looked the last time he had gone there, to meet Petunia. And with a crack he disappeared.

Privet Drive looked as boring as the last time he had seen it. He appeared in front of the post box, shocking Minnie, his old head of house and Transfiguration professor. But Dumbledore, ever unscarable, wasn't shocked.

"James," he greeted him. "I see that you survived the attack. Will you care to inform us on how you achieved this miracle?"

Same old Dumbledore. He took a seat next to them on the wall they were sitting on and told them everything. Without leaving anything out.

"And then I came here," he finished. Then, a thought struck him. "Where's Sirius? And Remus? We better warn them about Peter, he was the secret keeper."

"I thought Mr. Black was the Secret Keeper," said Minnie.

"No," he told her. "He was the decoy. Where's Sirius?"

Dumbledore was tugging his beard, muttering something about how this changed everything. Then, he fixed his gaze upon him, no sign of a twinkle in his blue eyes. And that was usually bad. "James, where's Harry?" he asked, and he could practically see the urgency in his tone.

"Hagrid's bringing him," he assured his old headmaster and his professor. "They should be here soon. They're taking Sirius's motorbike." And right on cue, a low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky — and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.

If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild — long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.

"Harry," he breathed, and ran to take the two-year-old infant from the half-giant's arms as he greeted the two senior citizens observing this whole thing from a few meters away.

Dumbledore stood up, his face the embodiment of serious. "This changes everything," he said solemnly, the moonlight bouncing off his half-moon glasses. "James, I trust that you will take care of Harry."

"Of course," he nodded. "I'll never let him go," he added, looking into the sleeping boy's face.

Dumbledore smiled but then turned sober again. "You will have to protect him. After his vanquishing of their master, the Death Eaters shall be out for blood."

"Why?" he asked, his eyes still fixated on the angelic face of his, no, his and Lily's son.

"He is the only one to survive the Killing Curse," Dumbledore whispered. "The Boy-Who-Lived."

"To me, he's Harry," he said. "Always shall be."

That was a moment of great hope for the future, friendship and love, but he decided to ruin it by saying to Hagrid who had began to quietly cry, "You might want to check out the silent feature on the bike."

As he apparated to his parent's old home, a big house in Dorchester, he said to Harry, "I'll never let you go."

Emerald green eyes opened as a baby laughed.

I know, I'm late. And I'm so, so sorry. I'll try to keep my promises to you, so I swear that I'll update sometimes between 27th December to New Year's, or before the 16th. I swear. Review, if you can.