A Layered Defense
Written by,
William R. Woods
"Deathzealot," or
"deathzealotzero"
Foreword
I had written this little piece years ago on a whim for the CaerAzkaban Yahoo Group, and I only recently found it once more when I was reminded of it reading a thread over at Spacebattles. I then decided to post onto my Garden Short Story Archive. I have given this short a Grammarly Check and put it through a Word Grammar/Spelling Check as well. Hopefully, it reads better than when I wrote it years ago. Anyways that is about it. Enjoy!
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Potter's Cottage
Godric'sHollow, England
October 29, 1980AD
"... I'm telling you, James. I can't be the Secret-Keeper for it would be too obvious for you choose me. Therefore, it would be better if Peter is the Secret-Keeper," a loud voice said inside the modest yet significant cottage located in the small community of Godric's Hallow. In the living room of the cottage, a pair of men stared at one another each one red-faced from arguing about something. The first man had messy black hair, and hazel eyes were hidden behind a pair of glasses, while the second also had black hair, though he was more straight and shorter, and light gray eyes. A third person a young red-haired woman sat on the couch with a hand rubbing her forehead and shaking her head at the two men.
"I don't care about that Sirius..." the messy haired man started to say but was interrupted when the young woman stood up from the couch with blazing eyes piercing both men with a murderous look on her face that made both men gulp in fear.
"That's enough both of you! I just managed to get Harry to fall asleep, and if you two keep this up, you will wake him up. If you do I will not be happy," the woman one Lily Evans-Potter mentioned with a quiet snarl making both her husband James Potter, and his brother in all but blood Sirius Black snap their mouths close. Before the two men looked up towards the roof knowing that the young almost three-month old baby sleeping above their heads. The two men gulped before turning to look over at Lily with fear in their eyes knowing she would indeed do something to them if she were angry enough with them.
"Good. Now lets all sit-down and discuss this like civilized people that we are," Lily said waving towards the two couches that stood in the living room of the cottage. The two men sighed in relief before sitting down on the couches like she instructed looking over at her waiting for her to speak.
"Alright first both of you have good points, but I really don't think either idea is a good one. However, I have been thinking about this for a while, and I have come up with a few ideas about this. The Muggles have an idea called a Layered Defense, mainly a defense that has several layers making all that harder to break through a defense. Now that is what we are going to do here," Lily explained with a small smile on her face looking at the two men sitting in front of her. She saw that James was looking at her in surprise while Sirius was looking a bit confused. With a fond shake of her head, Lily continued.
"First James the Guest House, is it in livable condition?" she asked mentioning the tiny two-bedroom guest house that backed against the property almost hidden by the woods that took up part of the property. James blinked in surprise before looking it the direction it was located and nodding his head.
"As far as I know it is Lily, the last person to stay there was my Uncle Alexander before he moved to the United States. So, it should be livable," James replied with a small smile at the memory of his Uncle. Lily nodded before looking over at Sirius who still looked kind of confused at this.
"Good. Then here is what we are going to do. This house and the surrounding property will be covered by the Fidelius with Peter as the Secret-Keeper. However, we won't be living here. Instead, we shall move into the Guest House, and it will be covered by a second Fidelius with Sirius as the Secret-Keeper. As a further precaution, we shall buy one of those trunks that Auror Moody has and put it under a third Fidelius with either myself or James as Secret-Keeper. This trunk shall be basically our Air-Raid Shelter and will be used if the first two layers of our defense have been breached," Lily explained with a small evil smile on her face one that the two men were aware of, though it was usually used by them during one of their pranks. The two blinked in surprise before smiling themselves at this idea. James suddenly looked thoughtful before turning to look at his friend sitting beside him.
"Another layer would be Sirius here moving into the Padd, and another Fidelius thrown over it with Lily as the Secret-Keeper. While I will be the Secret-Keeper for the Trunk Shelter," James mentioned with a similar small smile making Sirius look over at him in surprise before the small smile appeared on his face before looking thoughtful himself. Lily meanwhile looked over at her husband with a large smile proud that he managed to come up with that. The Padd was a flat that James and his three friends stayed in after they graduated from Hogwarts before James married Lily.
"What about Peter then? Should he have a similar hideaway?" Sirius asked with a frown looking over at the two others. Both James and Lily frowned at this as well before Lily reluctantly nodded at this.
"Yes, he should, but we are not going to tell him about this conversation and that we are layering our defenses. For James is right about Peter, if captured I don't think he will last long under torture," Lily mentioned with a sigh that was copied by the other two.
"Besides it adds another smaller layer to our defenses," Lily continued with a nod of her head before looking at the two men with a smile and started to say something else when a baby's cry was began to be heard from the cottage's second floor. All three looked up and sighed almost as one.
"Alright Harry, Mommy's is on her way," Lily yelled out before getting up and leaving the two men alone in the room.
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Author Notes:
Well there we go I hope you all enjoyed this little piece from me. Like I mentioned I wrote this years ago therefore, there may be plenty of errors and such. Not to mention, small mistakes with canon and stuff but I think it still works. Thank you for reading.