Disclaimer: Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I don't own Harry Potter,

And neither do you!

Author's Note: Hello, everyone. It has been a very, very long time since I've written anything at all. The last few years have been extremely hard on my stress level. I did have plenty of good days, but I feel like the anxiety of the pandemic sapped my ability to write for all this time. I had several stories I was working on, but unfortunately, I truly lost inspiration for them. I won't say I'll never get it back, but they are definitely on hiatus for now.

However, this universe I'm going to write about truly excites me. This author wrote a fic that instantly turned my muse back on - I literally went from zero to one hundred in the span of just reading the story. I don't think I've ever been so enthralled by any AU universe before, and believe me, I've read a TON of amazing AU fanfics. I've been reading HP fic for at least twenty years, and yet ... I've never found anything remotely like this before. I've never wanted to write something so much, either, not even the ideas I've come up with over the years for my other fics.

This story takes place in the universe of the amazing one-shot, Becoming What You Pretend to Be, written by MaeglinYedi. They deserve for their story to be read and reviewed a TRILLION times over. You may feel like you need to read that story to truly understand this, but even if you didn't, I'd tell you to read it anyway. It's absolutely riveting and a concept I'd never have thought of in my wildest dreams. You can find it on my favorite stories list, or, of course, you can just search for it using that feature on this site. If the author doesn't want me to write a story based on their work, please let me know and I will stop immediately, but I honestly hope this is okay with you, and I really hope you enjoy what I do with it. I am extremely grateful to them for giving me this opportunity.

I'm going to be working on two stories concerning this universe, and I'm going to work on them concurrently. This one will focus on what happens BEFORE the final scene of the one-shot, while the other story will focus on the events AFTER. If you read the one-shot and decide to read both stories, you'll be able to hopefully follow both of them. Of course, if you're only interested in one of them, that's perfectly fine by me. Or maybe none of this will be to your taste, which I will certainly understand as well. But if you would like to go on this ride with me, just sit back, relax, and I hope I can suck you into this fascinating, mind-boggling universe with a whole new wealth of possibilities.

Please let me know what you think!

He Who Fights Monsters

By: ChoCedric

Prologue

Darkness had fallen upon Godric's Hollow. The sky was speckled with stars, and a full moon brought a picturesque beauty to the scene. The weather was very cold, but that only appeared to add to the feeling of it. It was a glorious evening, one of those nights that poets write about and musicians compose melodies that are filled with romantic lyrics.

But as Lily lay in the Potters' bed with James holding her in his arms as she wept, she couldn't help but feel that the sky outside was nothing but deceitful. The world was ending - at least, her world was, and from the expression on James's face, she knew he felt the same. How could it be such a beautiful evening when, inside the hearts of the young couple, there was an endless amount of fear, horror, and confusion?

Only minutes ago, they had returned from the office of Albus Dumbledore, the current Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But to Lily and James, remembering him as the Headmaster was now nothing more than a fading memory, even though he still bore that title. To them, he was thought of as a war general, the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, a group who gave their all to fight the terrible forces of Lord Voldemort and his vile group of supporters, who called themselves Death Eaters. They indeed brought death and destruction to wherever they roamed. The Dark Mark had become a symbol of terror; anyone that saw it outside their home knew what it meant. Whoever ventured inside would find the dead bodies of their loved ones, often with open eyes and stricken, fearful looks on their faces. Anyone who didn't subscribe to the disgusting pureblood bigotry the Death Eaters spouted were fair game; they were being exterminated, wiped off the face of the earth. Unfortunately, Lily and James had fought in several battles, and the sick satisfaction they saw in many of the Death Eaters' eyes as innocent victims fell around them made bile rise up Lily's throat. The masks might be covering their faces, displaying their cowardice for the entire world to see, but their eyes gave it away. The illness of Lord Voldemort's ideology was tainting everything good about the world James had grown up in all his life, and the world Lily had experienced since she was eleven.

The war had ripped apart any semblance of innocence the couple had left. James was no longer the idiotic schoolboy who hexed Slytherins in the corridors and recited cheesy pick-up lines, telling Lily he'd stop bullying her best friend if she went on a date with him. Lily was no longer the naive schoolgirl who missed hanging out with her big sister, Tuney, on the playground in Cokeworth. All the bloodshed they had seen in their young lives, the fact that they were fighting in a war that only seemed to be getting worse as the casualties piled up, filled Lily with both a gut-wrenching sadness and a burning, all-consuming, boiling rage. How could one megolomaniac do this to the world? She'd heard the stories of World War II, of how Hitler and the Nazis had slaughtered millions of people, and shuddered at the memory. The wizarding world was going up in flames just as the Muggle world had in the 1940's. It wasn't fair, and she could literally taste the bitterness of it all on her tongue.

As recollections of what had happened that evening bombarded her, she realized the world could become even crueler than she ever thought possible. Her mother's words ran through her head; she'd been alive during Hitler's reign. "When times seem impossible and all you see around you is death, fight it with life," she had whispered. "Fight it with life."

And wasn't that what Lily had tried to reassure herself with over and over again as she had laid in bed on that night a few months ago, trying to pluck up the courage to tell James she was pregnant? God, they'd both been so stupid, so foolish. When they'd come back from that battle on Halloween, they'd both been covered in blood - not their own, but those they weren't able to save. They'd stumbled into their home, and James had proceeded to lock himself in the bathroom and sob his heart out. Lily hadn't known what to do - she wanted to comfort him, but she stank of blood and death and needed to get it all off her. No matter how many times she cast the Scourgify spell, the smell of it refused to leave her nostrils. Voldemort and the Death Eaters had attacked a Muggle village, and the Order had shown up to fight them. They'd saved some lives - but not enough. Not enough. Many had already been murdered in cold blood by the time they arrived - men, women, and children. Innocent Muggles, cut down just because a madman and the scum who supported him didn't think they deserved to live.

Lily had finally snapped out of her haze when she'd heard the sound of James being violently ill in the bathroom. She'd raised her wand and shouted, "Alohamora!" at the bathroom door. Due to the state she was in, her spell was so forceful it had blasted the door off its hinges, but she couldn't have cared less. As she'd run into the room, she'd found James's bloody clothes all over the floor, some of them ripped and torn. Lily instantly knew that James had been so desperate to get them off - the end result of what he considered to be his failures. In every battle they fought, James took every death he wasn't able to prevent personally. As she saw him bending over the toilet, she felt what was left of her heart tear into pieces. The man she loved was falling apart, and she wasn't doing any better. She stroked his hair until only dry heaves were left. Even then, it seemed to take an age for his stomach to stop rebelling against him.

"Lily," James had croaked when it was finally over. He was still in tears as he put his arms around her. She held him close, knowing they both needed each other in this terrible moment. As the seconds lengthened, his hold on her grew more desperate and needy, but she didn't care - she felt just as heartsick and devastated.

And then, suddenly, he was kissing her, with a wildness she'd never seen from him before. The kiss was almost animalistic in its intensity, but Lily wasn't about to stop him. Instead, she kissed back, uncaring that he hadn't even washed his face or rinsed his mouth out. His breath tasted like vomit but it didn't phase her at all; all she wanted to do was forget, to lose herself in the feeling of lips on hers, of hands on her body. She didn't remember the exact moment when James picked her up and carried her into their bedroom; all she knew was that somehow, her clothes had come off too, and they were exploring each other everywhere, skin on skin, lips on lips. She needed him inside her - she needed life, not death.

And seven weeks later, the ramifications of that wild desperation had manifested themselves in two unforgettable words.

"I'm pregnant."

She'd always wanted to be a mother, but not like this. As a little girl, she'd played house with Petunia, and she'd always insisted on her big sister being the daughter. But real motherhood wasn't supposed to happen like this. She wasn't supposed to be sobbing with fear when she told her husband they were going to have a baby. James wasn't supposed to be looking terrified but trying to reassure her that everything would be okay. Lily wasn't supposed to be remembering her mother's words, "Fight death with life." They had repeated in her head like a mantra that night. The pregnancy was supposed to have come about because she and James had agreed to try for a baby. It wasn't supposed to have happened because they were scared and desperate and sick from the battle they'd just fought, and neither of them had been able to control their primal urges. They weren't meant to have forgotten to cast the charm that would prevent pregnancy from occurring.

But none of that mattered, did it? It had happened, and now Lily and James had to face the consequences. They were going to be parents in a war-torn world, and neither one of them knew what to do.

And now, Lily knew for certain that fate was punishing them for their foolhardy actions. Dumbledore had broken the news in an incredibly somber tone that their baby was one of two children that could be the subject of a prophecy between them and Voldemort. Worse still, Voldemort had found out the first half of the prophecy. And he wasn't going to stop hunting down their baby until either one of them was dead.

The other candidate for the prophecy was the baby of her best friend, Alice Longbottom, and her husband, Frank. She remembered with crystal clarity the glazed, horror-stricken look on both of their faces - they had been in Dumbledore's office as well. Alice and Frank were both Aurors, as well as being members of the Order. Alice and Lily had been best friends since their first year of Hogwarts, from practically their first day in the girls' dorm. But at that moment, Lily had a thought so terribly selfish, a thought she never would have imagined would come from her mind.

Let it be Alice and Frank instead. I don't want my baby part of any prophecy.

A flood of shame welled up in her, but it only lasted a moment. She felt as though the war had stripped her of any emotions like that. And after all, wouldn't Alice be thinking the same thing? Wouldn't she be wishing it was Lily's baby that would be targeted and murdered, best friend or no?

Something terrifyingly hard and fierce entered Lily's body then. As James continued to hold her, she knew for certain that there wasn't anything she wouldn't do to protect the life growing inside her. No, she and James had never meant to start a family now, but they had indeed done so and there was no turning back.

"James," she whispered through her sobs, her head pounding from all the crying. "What are we going to do? Our little boy is never going to be safe. Voldemort isn't going to stop hunting him."

James looked her in the eyes, and she saw her own emotions, her own fears, reflected back at her. When he spoke, his voice was flinty, hard, and full of steel. "We do whatever it takes. We're not going to let anything happen to him, Lils."

Lily took a few deep, shuddering breaths and was finally able to stop crying. She never lost eye contact with James, and her determination and resolve grew even stronger. "No," she agreed, her emerald eyes flashing. "Our son will grow up, and he'll grow up in peace. We'll make sure of it."