A young family sat around the floor – candy all over the floor. A giggle went up from a little boy with messy black hair as he popped another pieced of chocolate in his mouth.
"YUMM!" he shouts.
"That's my boy," the father crows proudly. "Those are my favorite too."
"James," says the voice of a red-haired beauty sitting on the floor trying to pick up the candy and put it back in a pumpkin basket. "Don't you think Harry has had enough candy for one night. He will never go to sleep the way it is now."
"He is just a kid –" the man the woman called James chuckled. "Some day he is going to get old and he won't be able to eat candy at all."
"Not if he is anything like Dumbledore –" the woman replied with a light chuckle of her own.
"You're right, Lily," James replied.
"MORE!" Harry shouted.
"I think that is quite enough!" said Lily. With one sweep of her wand all the candy had been swept up and thrown back into its cauldron.
"Awwww, mumm –" the little Harry pouted, starting to put on a face. "Please –"
James chuckled even louder. "You have to leave it to the boy – "
He was about to continue when a cold chill filled the night air. "My wards –" Lilly said. Then there was a scream from outside of the house.
James jumped up quickly, picked up Harry and handed him to his mother.
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him!" He shouted. "Go! Run! I'll hold him off –"
The little one year old did not understand who him was, but suddenly it was the him's fault that he didn't get any more chocolate. A dark shadow moves in front of the window. Then, a bright light and a loud BOOM fills the air.
Lily takes Harry into her arms and with one last look at James, rushes up the steps as quickly as possible. She rushes across the hall upstairs, using a wandless spell to open Harry's door, then she runs him into his crib and rudely puts Harry down inside.
Harry's eyes begin to water and his arms reach for his mother.
"MUMM!" he starts to cry.
Lily pulls out her wand and summons her ritual blade. Knowing she has little time, she cuts her palm and speaks in Ancient Egyptian.
"Sa –"
She slams her hand against the wall next to Harry's bed and suddenly Egyptian Hieroglyphics flare up in bright yellow colors. Harry stops crying as he looks at his mom and then at the comforting warm yellow symbols that he does not understand.
Then, Lily touches her bloody hand to Harry's forehead. She kisses his cheek and whispers:
"Mommy loves you, dear Harry."
Her eyes walk up and down the walls reading those Ancient symbols she had put up three months ago on his birthday. As she looked at each one she seemed to count in her head. When her head reached the symbol above Harry's head, her head screwed up in concentration.
In the frantic work of his mother, there is now no sound. But there is this silent anticipation of a dark threatening presence stalking its way quietly forward. Time drags on slowly. Suddenly, Harry hears an explosion. The house shakes.
"Get out of here – " Harry hears the voice of his father yell. Harry looks up to his mother's worried face and begins to sniffle once more.
"Avada Kedavra –" words Harry does not yet know or understand are spoken just loud enough to carry up the steps. Harry looks to his mother whose shoulders drop, she lets out a low cry, very softly,
"No, James –"
Then, a high-pitched – unholy, unnatural laughter – fills the house. Harry looks to his mother who at this moment looks so frail and sad. He starts to whimper:
"Mommy –"
He reaches out his little hands toward her. But she turns from him. She slams the door shut with her hands. Then, she runs to Harry's dresser and drags it with all her strength across the wall to jam against the door.
The house is deadly silent again as slowly the sense of impending dread approaches closer and closer. No sound can be heard.
His mother pulls out her wand and points it at the dresser blocking the drawer. She takes one deep breath and then a hiss sounds.
"Bombarda –" and the door explodes inside sending shrapnel everywhere. Harry looks up to see a tall man in dark robes stoop under the doorstep and glide right into the room. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake's but with slits for nostrils stepped into the room, his wand held before him. The image right from a nightmare looked around the room and then those awful scarlet eyes settled on Harry himself.
Then, the nightmare turns to look at his mother, a smile gracing his awful face.
"This is quite impressive rune work!"
The nightmare turns to look again at Harry. He grips his wand tightly. But then, his mother steps between Harry and the nightmare.
"No! You can't have him," she says with deadly calm. "Take me instead."
"Your death would be senseless," the nightmare answers. "I can see that you know much and have great power. Come with me. I can teach you. Join with me."
His mother tightened her grip on her wand and stepped forward.
"You will have to kill me, if you want him –" she said.
"Such foolishness, woman," The nightmare retorts – his voice sounding like the hiss of a snake. "One final time! Step aside."
His mother does not step aside. Her lips curl. She picks up her wand and she begins to mutter. Harry's eyes stay riveted on his mother.
"Avada Kedavra," he shouts and a green light of death flies out and strikes Harry's mother right between the eyes. Harry watches his mother as she falls without a sound falling dead to the nursery floor.
"Impressive charms on the carpet as well," the nightmare hisses. Then, Harry is face-to-face and alone as that nightmare steps closer and closer. Harry's green eyes stay in contact with the nightmare, terrified.
Harry saw the golden symbols on the walls of his room turn from the golden brightness to an emerald eerie glow.
But the white-faced nightmare's red eyes glare and its mouth twists in a sneer.
"Looks like the killing curse," Harry hears him hiss quietly, "What irony."
Then the nightmare lifts up his wand and points it right at Harry's head. Harry cannot look away as he hears those awful words he only knew to bring misery.
"Avada Kedavra – "
Harry sees as if in slow motion a green light comes towards him. Closer and closer it comes. His feet feel cemented to the bed of his crib. His fingers seem glued to the rungs of his nursery. A gold light comes brightly up from behind him on the wall. Then, the green light hits Harry between his eyes and the gold light hits the back of his head.
Harry's green eyes go into the back of his head and he feels pain. He can see nothing as his head seems to open up from front and back. Then, he hears a high-pitched cry of pain and suddenly he feels something thick and oily enter into his head. He tries to scream. He tries to cry, but nothing comes out. The pain from behind pushes through his skull evaporating any further pain from the front of his head and he feels as if he is spinning and then he is falling. He reaches up but there is no one there. He reaches down and there is nothing there.
Quiet settles on the house in Godric's Hollow for what is only ten minutes, but if one were waiting for help to come it still felt forever. Finally, a thunderous noise ripped through the night from the sky as it came closer and closer. A large motorbike appeared from the dark sky above and landed just outside the ruined house.
"James –"
"Lily –"
"Harry –"
The voice of a cracked and broken man shouts. He flies through the broken door and into the House's entry room. He bends down to a man who lies on the floor unmoving.
"No James!" He cries.
But there was no time to grieve. He rushes up the steps and down the hall and through the ruined door. He rushes to the floor. His hand reaches to the neck of the woman on the floor. He cries out,
"Lily, not you too!"
More sound fills the air as it appears others dare to make their approach on the ruined cottage. The man looks up to the crib.
"Harry?"
He asks, but he sees no one. He doesn't see the Dark Lord, and he doesn't see one-year old Harry.
Large steps make their way into the house downstairs.
"Oh James –" a sad childlike voice speaks.
"Hagrid," the first man who entered says. "Up here!"
Giant footsteps make their way up each step, slow and somber. Finally a giant droops his head to make his way in. "Not Lily ter," he sniffles. "But what abo' Harre?" He asks.
"I don't know" is the quick reply. "Where's Dumbledore?"
Hagrid shakes his head. "He sent me first to make sure Harry was okay. Said he was on his way."
Miles away from Godric Hollow an old wizened grandfatherly kind man sat at his desk with his head in his hand. Around him in his office were gizmos. They were such beautiful designs of his creation, all keyed to the blood of Harry Potter. One flashed for each breath. Another ticked at the speed of Harry's heart. A third had an arrow that pointed – it had always pointed in the direction of Godric Hollow. But each one of those instruments were dead – not moving. They could not pick up the lifeblood of said Harry Potter.
There was one consolation as he looked to one other instrument he had made many years before that. One single instrument that hissed quietly the life of another soul. That machine too had stopped. He had failed the Potters, especially young Harry.
He sat there with little joy or hope. He was needed in Godric's Hollow. He knew, but he felt glued to his chair. He needed to get in front of this and make sure that people knew the truth – as he wanted them to know it, of course. But he felt as if he had taken a banishing charm to the stomach. He had no desire to move, to plot or do anything. He had hoped the last instrument would die – he had counted on it, when he convinced poor James and Lily to use the Fidelius with Peter Pettigrew as the secret keeper. It was dead – for now. But he knew that this instrument would light up again.
He looked again at the other instruments. Might those instruments light up again as well? Slowly, he stood up. If they didn't, he could at least create a story where they might.
The sleepless half naked guards of the Temple of Sekhmet stood at attention against the assaults of its enemies. No one must be allowed entrance into their holy place – not to the priests of Bastet, not even to Horus or Ra themselves. Nor would they allow the servants of Pharaoh entry without the permission of the High Priestess.
The silent guardians stood looking out into the night sky on that night when Horus, the God of the Dead was at his strongest. If he tried anything, it would be tonight. Suddenly, there was light as if from the sky above coming down like a star. It was their job to guard the Temple, but not from the supernatural. That was the priestess' job. Sekhmet was powerful enough to protect her own honor in her temple. The one guardian turns to look at the falling star and sees on the top of the dais where the High Priestess would greet the worshipers in the morning, a golden star that gets brighter and brighter until it explodes.
He looks away, preserving his sight – apparently others are not as lucky as moans and groans are heard all around him. Slowly, as if he has no control over his own actions he walks toward the place where the light had just gone. There on the Dais was a pale baby girl. He points his spear at the baby – irrationally.
"Quick, Net –" he shouts.
"To the Great Ra, Seth – " his companion named Net curses at him. "I can hardly see."
"There is no time for that now!" Seth explains. "You have to run to the High Priestess!"
"Why would I want to wake her?" Net replies.
"She will want to know that something has happened," Seth grouches back. "Go before she curses you before the Goddess."
Net grumbles but starts to run down the steps to find the High Priestess. Seth keeps his spear pointed at the baby girl. Slowly he approaches. He can barely see hair messy but still developing and dark as Nefertiti's hair itself. He looks closer and sees – she is still breathing, quietly and still.
"She must be sleeping," he whispers.
He holds his spear at the girl for the long minutes it takes for Net to return. He barely hears her as she approaches.
"Put that thing down, Seth" is the voice of the High Priestess. "I hardly think this child can hurt you or anyone else for that matter."
The High Priestess smoothly walks the sandstone steps passed him. He wasn't supposed to, but his eyes were drawn to her dark arms, her painted face, her perfect hair, and the silver snake armlet around her arm. He quickly focused on the baby again. The High Priestess gently swooped down and scooped the baby girl into her arms.
"She is a gift from Sekhmet," she intoned. She lifted the girl high in the air, seeming to listen to the sounds of the supernatural world around her.
"Very well," she said in that same solemn chanting voice.
"I name you," she said very dramatically –
"Ank-su-namum," she declared as the golden glow surrounded the girl again. "You are a gift of golden light from Ammon."
The High Priestess took the child and walked back past the dais and away from Seth. She nodded to Net as he walked back into position but spoke no further words to any of her guards. Then, she and the child were gone.