Disclaimer: I own nothing from Harry Potter, everything you recognize belongs to the wonderful J.K. Rowling.

I don't know how to write how Hagrid speaks, and I don't want to butcher it while attempting, so I am just going to write it normally. Please don't be too angry with me.

"talking"

'thoughts'

'written words'

Chapter 2: The Killing Curse

James didn't have to wait long. Not long after he stopped hearing Lily's footsteps, the front door crashed open and slammed into the opposite wall. James tensed and subconsciously dropped into his usual duelling position. He knew this wouldn't be a duel, this would be him holding off Voldemort for as long as he could so that his family could escape.

Voldemort, in his white-skinned black robbed glory, stepped through the large gaping hole where there door used to be. James summoned up his legendary Gryffindor courage and looked Voldemort straight in the eye and said, "you're just as ugly as I remember you to be."

Blood red eyes widened in fury before Voldemort laughed, a high-pitched, spiny-chilling laugh that was not in any way filled with mirth. No, he laughed because he knew that James didn't have a chance, he was a pesky fly to be swatted. His pathetic attempts amused him, in the same way a spider is amused by a fly trying to escape its net once caught.

He stopped laughing when James threw a heart-crushing curse, which he deflected easily. "Well, well, well," Voldemort smirked, "seems likes golden-boy Potter isn't as light as everyone thinks. Are you sure you don't want to join my ranks? Your talents would be valuable and I would even spare your family, being the generous master that I am."

Voldemort was lying of course, he had every intention of killing the Potter boy, no matter what he said that's what would happen. Yes, he would spare the others, maybe, but the boy would die regardless.

James knew that Voldemort was lying, but for a split second, he considered it. 'If my family could survive…' He immediately felt sick for having even considered it. He knew that Voldemort was lying, yet he still almost fell for it! What kind of man does that? 'A man who's desperate,' his mind supplied. He knew that to be true, he was desperate, but he would never join Voldemort, ever.

James narrowed his eyes, "go to hell," he snarled.

Voldemort chuckled, "that is really too bad, the Death Eaters would have loved to have had your Mudblood, Lily was it? Yes they would have loved to have had Lily around, she really is quite fetching for a –"

He was cut off when James started sending a barrage of spells his way, and he actually had to concentrate enough that he couldn't hold a conversation any longer. 'Well,' he thought, 'if Potter wants to die, who am I to deny him?'

They duelled for several minutes, destroying large portions of the living room-kitchen area. James took the worse of it, holding a broken arm and a bleeding shoulder, but he held his ground.

Voldemort was infuriated, they'd been duelling for over ten minutes, and he'd yet to kill Potter. Just as he was about to start sending only Killing Curses, Potter landed a grazing spell on his arm. It wasn't anything huge by any means, just a small superficial cut, but Voldemort could see his own blood slowly seeping out of the cut.

Fury coursed through the Dark Lord, 'how dare he?' Never in all the times he had come out to the world as Lord Voldemort had he been injured in a duel, yet the upstart blood-traitor had the gall to make him bleed his own blood. Infuriated, Voldemort cast a blasting curse at the ground in front of Potter's feet.

James world exploded in front of him as he was thrown back from the force of the curse. He hit the living room wall with a sickening crunch and fell to the ground in a heap. Feeling slightly disoriented from his unexpected flight, James shakily tried to stand but quickly fell back down when he tried to put any weight on his left leg. Stars swam before his eyes and James almost passed out from the excruciating pain. Looking down at his leg James felt his stomach drop at the sight. Halfway between his knee and his ankle, James' leg was snapped cleanly in two with the bottom half hanging uselessly.

Dread filled James like a shroud. His heart was pounding in his ear, and with each beat he could feel his hopelessness grow. James looked at Voldemort expecting to see a curse flying his way, but to his surprise he just stood there with a small smirk on his face.

"How does it feel James," Voldemort asked maliciously, "to be totally helpless in front of the greatest wizard of all time?"

Fury quickly replaced the hopelessness that was inside of James. 'If I am going to die,' he thought, 'I will not lie here like a coward… I will face him like a man…like a Potter.' With that James forced himself to stand, carefully keeping his weight off his left leg, and drew himself up to his full height with pride.

James looked directly into Voldemort's unimpressed face and said, "Greatest? Don't make me laugh. You are not the greatest wizard of all time, not even of our time. The greatest wizard of our time is Albus Dumbledore."

Voldemort looked furious, but James didn't allow him to get in any words before he continued, "And really Moldyshorts, how can you be great if you are afraid of a baby who is barely even a year old? That's really pathetic you know. What are you afraid he'll throw a teddy bear at you or something? Or are you afraid that everyone will realize that my one-year-old son is eight times the man you'll ever-"

Voldemort screamed incoherently in rage before shouting, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

James watched as the glowing green light of the Killing Curse sped towards him, but he did not feel fear even though he knew he could not move fast enough to dodge it. James thought of his friends, of Sirius and Remus, and hoped that they would enjoy runs on the full moon without him since he would never be able to join them again as he promised he would. He thought of his wife and two children up the stairs and was filled with love. His last thought before he died was, 'Harry better get a good prank in on Moldyshorts before he kicks his arse…'

Lily's heart thundered in her ears as she ran up the stairs. As she reached the top she heard a crash in the living room and she hesitated, wanting to turn back and help her husband. Lily knew that she couldn't so she turned around and raced to the twins' nursery.

Unsurprisingly, both children were awake. Surprisingly, neither of them were crying. Both children stared at Lily with their brilliant green eyes with startling clarity and understanding. Deciding not to dwell on it now, Lily took the rune-carving knife she had taken to carrying around just in case out of her pocket, and started to draw a series of runes onto her left hand. When she was finished, Lily poured some of her magic into the runes that were now bleeding slightly, and they started to glow.

Lily walked over to Harry who was closest, and gently grabbed his right hand. As lightly as she could, she began to draw runes onto the back of his hand.

When she was finished she looked back up into Harry's eyes. Strangely enough, Harry didn't cry even though his hand was bleeding slightly. Instead, Harry stared into her eyes and for a moment Lily thought he understood what was happening. 'Don't be ridiculous,' she thought. Hugging Harry to her, she whispered to him, "Mummy and Daddy love you Harry. Watch over your sister. One day you'll be a strong wizard and we'll be watching over you every step of the way."

Lily turned to Journey who was looking at Harry's hand with curiosity. She didn't even react when Lily grabbed her hand and repeated the process. When she finished, Lily threw the knife away and hugged her daughter. "Daddy and I love you Journey. Help your brother with his destiny. I know you'll be a great witch when you're older."

Lily slowly released her daughter and grabbed both of their hands and held them in her own and started to chant. As she chanted, Lily poured her magic into the protection runes she had carved into their hands. They began to glow from the magic. At first it was just a faint glow like her own, but it quickly turned into a blinding light as she reached the end of her chant. When she finished chanting, she slowly released their hands feeling very drained. As she watched, the runes closed up on all of their hands and began to fade. In moments, you could never tell that there had ever been any marks on their hands if it weren't for the small amounts of blood on their hands.

'I did it,' Lily thought tiredly. She grabbed both of her children in a fierce hug and said, "Daddy and I love you both so much. We will always be with you even if you can't see us. I know you will make us proud and become a wonderful witch and wizard." Tears began to fall down her face as she heard footsteps on the stairs and she whispered, "I love you."

The footsteps stopped and Lily released the twins to face the door. She didn't even draw her wand, since in order for the spell to work she could not defend herself.

The door slowly creaked open and Voldemort stepped through. Lily's eyes widened when she saw the cut on his arms, 'James,' she thought, barely suppressing a sob at the thought of her husband. Gathering up her Gryffindor courage, Lily spoke, "take me instead."

Shock appeared on Voldemort's face, before he went back to his emotionless mask and said, "stand aside you silly girl, it is not you I want."

Lily stood her ground, she refused to give up the life of her children for the sake of her own. She stood protectively in front of the crib and cried, "Not my babies!"

Voldemort looked annoyed, "I said stand aside!"

He tried to push her out of the way with one arm, but Lily refused to move. "NO!" she shouted, "MY BABIES!"

Infuriated, Voldemort stepped back so he could point his wand on her and shouted, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Lily didn't even try to move, except to turn her head to look at her children one last time. Her last thought as she looked at the wide-eyed faces of her children were, 'I will always watch over you my loves.'

Voldemort kicked the body of Lily Potter aside and walked up to the crib. Both children looked at him with wide eyes, not understanding what had just happened. Not wanting to waste any time, Voldemort pointed his wand at the black haired boy and said calmly, "And now to make sure the prophecy never comes to pass… Avada Kedavra," and began to laugh a cold, high laugh.

Time seemed to slow down as the sickly, green light sped towards the baby and struck him right in the forehead. Suddenly, the baby began to glow with a golden light.

Time sped back up again as the curse rebounded and struck Voldemort, who was too shocked to move. A huge magical shockwave went out which sent Voldemort flying and ripped through part of the house. Voldemort could feel his body dying as the curse reached for his soul so he quickly ripped his soul from his body with the ability he gained from a dark ritual he performed several years ago. His body turned to ash in the process but Voldemort could waste no time thinking about that. His spirit quickly fled the Potter house and headed east as he thought, 'I'll get you for this, Harry Potter!'

Back in his crib, Harry had fallen down and began to cry as blood oozed from the new lightning-shaped cut on his forehead. His sister sat down beside him and hugged him, which is how Hagrid found them several minutes later.

Sirius walked into Peter's house and shouted, "WORMY! THE SEXIEST MAN IN THE UNIVERSE HAS ARRIVED!"

Sirius smiled broadly, expecting to hear the tell-tale shuffle of Peter heading towards the living room. As time passed and he still didn't hear it, his smile began to fade. "Peter?" Sirius asked worriedly.

An undistinguishable feeling began to creep into Sirius when he didn't hear a response. Sirius rushed into the next room of the house, the kitchen, in search of his friend. The feeling grew stronger as Sirius rushed from room to room, searching for his best friend. Nothing looked out of place, no signs of a struggle, and this made Sirius even more uneasy.

When Sirius arrived in the last room of the house, Peter's bedroom, and there was still no sign of him, the feeling within Sirius filled him entirely and he recognized it for what it was, betrayal. 'Peter has betrayed us!' he thought furiously.

Just as anger began to take over, fear crashed into Sirius like a tidal wave. 'James and Lily!' he thought, 'my Prongslets!' Not sparing another second, Sirius ran out of the house and flew to Godric's Hollow on his motorcycle at top speed.

When Sirius arrived in Godric's Hollow, his heart dropped and he nearly fell off his motorcycle as he landed. The wards had fallen and tears started to fall down Sirius' face as he whispered, "no." The front door to the Potter's house was ripped open and part of the second story had been completely blasted open. Several parts of the house were on fire and all Sirius could do was stand there in shock.

The next second, someone bumped into him while trying to get a closer look at the house. This brought Sirius out of his revere and he sprinted towards the house. Right when entered he saw signs of a fight and looked over towards the far wall, and immediately wished he hadn't. "James," he whispered, and ran to the fallen body of his best friend, no his brother.

Sirius fell to his knees and hugged his friend's body to his chest. Sirius' eyes burned as he cried for the loss of his brother. Never again would he pull another prank with one of the greatest pranksters he knew (besides himself of course). Never again would they drive Lily mad by trying to sneak Harry and Journey onto a broom. Never again would Padfoot and Prongs run around on a full moon with Mooney. Never again would…

How long he sat there he didn't know but he was startled to hear movement upstairs. 'Maybe Lily and the twins survived,' he hoped. Sirius gently laid James' body down and brushed the hair out of his face. He gently closed James' still-open eyes before he softly laid a kiss upon his brow and whispered in a hoarse voice, "I will never forget you Prongs."

Sirius forced himself to turn away from his brother and walk up the stairs. When Sirius walked into the nursery he saw Lily's body at his feet, beside what looked like a large black cloak. Even more tears began to pour down his face and he almost missed the large form of Hagrid standing there holding both Journey and Harry in one arm.

Sirius looked up at Hagrid to see that he was crying too. "Lily and James," he cried hoarsely, "I can't believe it. Somehow little Harry and Journey survived the attack."

Sirius reached out, "hand them to me Hagrid, I'm Harry's godfather, and I can take Journey to Alice."

Hagrid shook his head, "I can't. Dumbledore told me to get them and bring them straight to him."

Sirius persisted, he had promised James. "Please Hagrid," he begged.

"I'm sorry," Hagrid said sincerely, "but I can't."

Sirius sighed, he knew that Hagrid was deeply devoted to Dumbledore and that nothing he could do would make him change his mind. With that in mind he began to think about the one thing he could do, avenge their deaths. With that thought in mind he looked to Hagrid and said, "take my bike then," then added on bitterly, "I won't be needing it anymore."

Hagrid looked surprised, "why thank yeh," he said, before heading out of the room.

Sirius stood there long after Hagrid had gone, staring blankly into space, thinking about all the times he had spent with James, and later Lily. The more he thought about them, the more his anger grew towards Peter. He couldn't believe that he had gone and betrayed one of his best friends like that.

Fury filled Sirius as he apparated away and thought, 'Peter you better start running…'

Minerva McGonagall was sitting in the Three Broomsticks chatting with her old friend Rosmerta when several witches and wizards burst through the front shouting, "YOU-KNOW-WHO IS GONE!"

The few patrons at the bar began to whisper, but Minerva just sat there in disbelief.

"How?" asked a blonde witch sitting near the window. Everyone else looked just as eager to know the answer.

"Well," a blue-robed wizard with a long brown beard said, "last night You-Know-Who went to the Potters. Lily and James were both found dead this morning, but both the twins survived! They say that little Harry deflected a Killing Curse back at Voldemort, and he vanished!"

Cheers went up among the crowd, and Rosmerta busied herself with supplying drinks to everyone. People started crying and hugging each other, even if they didn't know who it was they were embracing. Several patrons hurried out of the bar so they could apparate back to their families and spread the good news.

Through all of this Minerva could only sit there. 'Lily and James?' A tear slid down her cheek as she thought of her two favourite students. She thought of the second part of the sentence and frowned, 'how could a baby have deflected a Killing Curse? There is no defense for that curse so how could he have done it? They must be mistaken… I'll go ask Albus, he will know what's going on. Where would he be though….didn't Hagrid say something about meeting Albus at Lily's sister's place on Private Drive this morning? I'll go and wait for him there.'

With that thought in mind Minerva calmly walked out of the bar and apparated to Surrey.

Minerva arrived several streets over from Privet Drive in a small alleyway. She quickly transformed into her animagus form, a tabby cat, and walked out of the alley. She walked down several streets, before she stopped. Concentrating, she conjured up a map. Minerva had worked really hard on wandless magic for several years, but was only ever able to accomplish several transfiguration spells, one of them being conjuring small objects. Performing wandless magic while in her animagus form was even more difficult, but not impossible like most people thought.

A car drove by as Minerva checked where she was, when she realized that right where she needed to be. Concentrating once more, Minerva banished the map and looked for a street sign. She found one to her left and read 'Privet Drive'. She nodded to herself, and started looking for number 4. Finding it easily, she leaped onto the wall in front of the property and waited for Albus to arrive.

As she waited, Minerva observed the residents of number 4, and was quiet disgusted with what she saw. Petunia had several neighbours come to her house, and the whole time they gossiped about the other neighbours. And when Petunia brought her son to visit another neighbour, he cried the whole way there, and the whole way back he screamed for treats and kicked his mother. When Vernon came home, he tried to shoo her away, 'as if that would work you buffoon,' before heading inside and watching TV while his wife made him dinner.

Minerva stared at the end of Privet Drive, knowing that's where Albus would show up. And sure enough he showed up in his purple-robed glory several hours after the sun had gone down and her joints had gotten stiff from sitting on the brick wall all day.

After pulling out his Put-Outer and making all the lights in the street go out, Albus approached her and said, "Fancy seeing you here Professor McGonagall."*

She transformed back into her human body and tried to smooth her ruffled robes, "How did you know it was me?"

"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."

They talked for several moments about how everyone was celebrating the defeat of Voldemort. Albus offered her a sherbet lemon, but Minerva refused. She finally asked him about what happened that night. He confirmed that Lily and James had died, but even he couldn't tell her how little Harry had survived. Eventually, Albus pulled out a rather bizarre golden watch from his pocket. Minerva couldn't understand it, but Albus never used any other clock. When he told her that Hagrid would be bringing the Potters to live here, Minerva protested vehemently, and when he told them that he had written them a letter, Minerva felt faint. 'How could he possibly believe people like this would listen to a letter?' she thought, but Albus refused to listen to reason. He explained to her that it would not be good for little Harry to grow up in a world where he would be famous, as it would give him a big ego. Minerva reluctantly agreed with him, but couldn't see how they couldn't find a family where he would be treated normally.

Minerva was astounded that Albus let Hagrid, of all people, bring the Potter twins to Privet Drive. She knew his heart was always in the right place, but he could be really…irresponsible at times.

Several minutes later her fears were proven to be only partially unfounded. Hagrid did get the Potters here, but he brought them on a flying motorcycle! A muggle could have seen or heard him flying in the air, or he could have fallen out of the sky!

Hagrid stepped off the motorcycle, and pulled out two bundles-the Potters-from his numerous pockets in his giant coat. Albus quickly grabbed a sleeping Harry while Minerva carefully grabbed Journey from Hagrid, who was also asleep.

"No problems, Professor Dumbledore, sir," Hagrid boomed, "Got 'em out of the house before people star'ed swarmin'. Harry fell asleep just as we were flying over Bristol and little Journey fell asleep right after that."

"Wherever did you get that bike from Hagrid?" Minerva asked.

"Young Sirius Black lent it to me he did," Hagrid said with pride.

Albus, Minerva noticed, was looking at Harry with a peculiar look on his face. Looking at Harry, she realized that he had a strange scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. She asked Albus if that was where the curse struck him, and he confirmed her suspicions. He didn't remove it though, saying first that he probably couldn't remove it in the first place. Secondly he said that even if he could, he wouldn't remove it because it could prove useful. 'Useful for what?' Minerva wondered, but didn't question him. Hagrid became very emotional and Minerva had to quiet him before he woke the Muggles, 'if the motorcycle hadn't already.'

They walked towards number 4, where Albus gently laid Harry on the doorstep. Minerva wanted to protest the idea of leaving babies on a doorstep in November, but knew that she couldn't change Albus' mind. Instead, she discretely placed warming and comforting charms on them after Albus had put the letter down on Harry and he and Hagrid had turned to walk away.

At the end of the street, the three of them said their goodbyes. Minerva turned into a cat again and Hagrid flew off on his flying motorcycle. Just as she reached the end of the street all the lights flickered back on and she knew Albus would soon be leaving.

Minerva couldn't help but think, 'I hope I don't regret leaving them there…' but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was making a very bad decision…

* Taken from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, page 13.

amethystdreamstar: Well there ya have it. I know I said a week, but my since it is my birthday, I thought I would do something productive and post this chapter. It's not quite as long as I wanted it to be, but it fit for what I had in mind. It was only just over 4000 words, which isn't too bad I guess. The next chapter will cover most, if not all, of the Potter's life at the Dursleys. They will be 10 in the chapter, so any part of their life before then will be mentioned as part of their past rather than going through each year individually.

Here's some of the stuff I was going to say in the last chapter, but didn't get around to:

In this fic, Harry and his sister will be smart. Not Hermione know-it-all smart, but smarter than how I found Harry to be in canon. They will also be slightly more powerful. I will not make this a super-Harry (or at least I will try not to) so both Harry and Journey will have strong subjects and weak subjects.

That being said, Harry and Journey will both have gifts, whether or not they will have more than one I'm not sure. These gifts do not include Harry's parseltongue (which ONLY Harry will have) but are a special gifts that relate to the mind. The gifts will be different for Harry and Journey and I already have their first (and maybe only) gifts decided. They will not be all powerful because of their gifts, and they will have to work on developing them, so it will not be a walk in the park, for their gifts or any other aspect of their lives.

I'm having issues with uploading the chapters, every time I put them up, all of the idents for new paragraphs are gone and I have to manually go through and fix all of them, which didn't even work. If anyone knows of an easier way I'd be really greatful.

I would deeply appreciate some reviews if you guys (and girls) could spare some, especially since I got none for the last chapter :)