Lily Evans ruins the best laid plans
It is hard to isolate just where things started to go awry for Dumbledore's plans for the Boy Who Lived. Maybe it was after he dropped the boy off, but later when asked, Harry would always say that he likes to think it was the very same moment that fate decreed that the Son of Lily Evans would be the chosen one.
Lilly Potter née Evans, was a fierce witch with wit and a wand as fierce as her fiery hair, something James Potter could surely attest to. However, when she had learnt that her child, her future son, was to be the one to defeat ‘the dark lord’, that he was the one prophesied to bring about the downfall of the dark miasma that had overtaken Great Britain, well she turned the breadth of her mind and ferocity to planning.
While James Potter planned the greatest prank that he could, calling on the Peverell family magic in an attempt to protect their future son, to turn back the gaze of death as the three brothers had done once before, Lily realised that there was so much more to this. She realised that in all things, sacrifice was needed. She realised the blood magic that James was prepared to cast would require sacrifice, their sacrifice, their Willing Sacrifice. Never let it be said that Lily Potter had any recrimination over potentially sacrificing her life for her child’s, but she found as she considered the idea, she determines she could not willingly sacrifice her life, not until she knew her son would be safe even when they were gone.
She would gladly give her life to see her child safe in this world, but Lily Potter knew that her child would face the same world that had tried it’s best to kill her, the same world that Lily Evans had watched lose it’s lustre as time passed. She would not leave her child unprotected in a world that would gladly use him or tear him to pieces. She would not allow her child to be a pawn in someone else’s games for power or profit and so she set to work.
The largest problem as she saw it was was more and more she was coming to doubt the Order, and more over she was doubting Dumbledore. She trusted Sirius with her son's life, knowing that the man was to be as much Harry’s kin as either she or James, that the man would literally throw himself into fiendfyre if it meant keeping his future godchild, son and heir safe or even putting a smile on their child’s face. She however was under no such illusions regrading Remus, Peter, or Albus.
Remus had always been a coward, which she knew to be the truth as much as she hated acknowledging it. Unable to look past his own trauma and too deeply entrenched in his self victimisation to ever be trustworthy. As for Peter, she had never truly trusted the man as she knew that Peter was easily swayed and undependable. This had caused her arguments with James over the years but ultimately she could never convince the man that one of his oldest friends was untrustworthy. Hell if it werent for Albus literally forcing their hand during the casting of the fidelius she would never have agreed to Peter being their secret keeper, but alas she hadn't had the chance to change it, not when Albus had been the one to cast the charm.
Then there was Albus himself and as much as she respected the man who had defeated Grindelwald, she no longer believed he was the same man. Rather she believes that Albus had allowed his years of control to blind him. that the man had become used to being unchallenged and secure in his power, that worst of all he had even come to like it. Unfortunately her fears were reinforced when following the shock of Tom Marvolo Riddle’s emergence as Lord Voldemort the man had turned further inward, refusing to share the knowledge beyond the few that knew. This had resulted in Dumbledore distancing himself from those who knew, listening less to the Potters, Longbottoms or Sirius, turning him even further down the path of trusting none but his own opinion.
It was this that lead Lilly Potter to delve into the secret magics of her own Bloodline, a bloodline that only three people knew.
You see the concept of Muggle born students had always interested Lilly Evans as it seemed honestly stupid to her, that magic could conceivably just disappear from bloodlines and then pop up in completely unrelated lines and it was this that lead her and her best friend, and Sirius’ cousin Andromeda to start looking deeper. What they had found had quickly been buried by their bosses within the unspeakable corps, for they believed that the evidence would destabilise their entire way of life.
The truth as it turns out is that there was no true thing as Muggle Born wixen, in news that had shocked them both they had learnt some of the most closely guarded secrets of Family Magics, and they had learnt that the original witches and wizards, like Myrrdin, or The Morrigan were not humans who has been granted magic by divine beings, but rather beings that shared an ancestry with one of the greater magical lineages, Myrdin for example sharing his with those of the Elder Dragons blood.
This discovery had emerged following their investigation into muggleborn emergence through the new lens of genetics. What they saw was the once considered random emergence of Mugggle Borns when considered genetically could be linked back to the current wixen families, suggesting that they were born of lines that had once been considered to be 'squibbed out'.
This discover had lead them to ask why they were reemerging now in these muggle borns, but it was then that they noticed a pattern, a pattern that only became obvious after one of Sirius' frequent escapades within the muggle world which they had gone to rescue him from and found something unexpected.
What they had found that evening was a Veela, not a full-blooded Veela, nor even someone with enough Veela blood to register high enough on the Myrdinian Power index as a Hogwarts attending wixen, but someone with enough magic in who they were to affect the world around them in more subtle ways and when they had explored further they had realised what was happening.
Like humans the other magical individuals of their world were biased against their kin who differed from them significantly; a goblin may accept a half or even quarter goblin kinsman into their society, but beyond that they lost track, and it was these people who were reinjecting the magic of their lineage into the dormant human blood lines, ironically meaning in a way it was those of the pure lineages who were becoming weaker over time while those who intermixed their blood with their 'non-magic' cousins amongst the muggle population were becoming stronger. It was this knowledge that lead Lilly and Andromeda to the Gringotts bank one late April night and into the inheritance testing suite where the information Lily received changed everything for them.
As it would turn out Lilly like her husband carried the blood of one of the founders, except where he carried the blood of the Griffindor, through his Peverell and Potter Lineage, she carried the blood of Rowena Ravenclaw, alongside the blood of the Elder Draconic Lineage, together these represented the Myrdinean and Morriganian bloodlines both of which commingled in her veins reinforced by generations of mixing between the different peoples bloods, until merging in just the right way to reemerge in her.
It was the power of the family magics and and hidden resources of these two ancient bloodlines that enabled Lilly to make the preparations necessary to keep Harry safe and allow her to sacrifice herself safe in the knowledge that Harry would not fall victim to the machinations of the world around them.
It was Lily’s link to the Morriganian blood line that allowed her to magically adopt Andromeda through her now broken connection to the Blood of the Blacks, as the last publicly claimed descendants of the primogenitor line of Clan Morrigan. With Andromeda claimed beneath the arbour of the Morrigan Clan Line she was able to bind a sliver of her magical core and soul to Andromeda, and through that sliver bind Andromeda to Harry.
The magic she performed that night would to many be considered dark magic and the truth was that this assessment would be correct, for the line of the Morrigan and their cadet lineages were the original Dark Witches and Wizards of Britain, alongside the Peverell family. But while the line of the Morrigan had forever been cursed by insanity, a curse that had eventually passed down to their cadet line within the Blacks, Lilly Evans had found a balancing aspect in the lineage of the Elder Dragon.
The Myrdinian lineage that she carried was born of Merlin himself, and while capable of arts just as dark as Peverell or Morrigan, and even enhanced by their linkage to the serpent mouths of house Slytherin, the blood of an Elder Dragon flowed through the veins of each member of the house, stabilising them. It is this same blood that she gives freely to her sister in Magic, allowing the stabilising effects of the blood to perfuse Andromeda and be enhanced by the soul shard she had gifted her.
Naturally when James learns the truth, he is shocked and horrified by the magic she has done, afterall he was raised a Potter, a scion and future lord of a family of Light wizards. He had never considered such rule dark magic, nor the cost in blood and soul that it would impart. For several days he didn't even talk to her, that is until the night that Potter Manor finally fell, and they with the newly born Harry fled to the cottage.
They had been visiting Charlus and Dorea, allowing them the chance to spend time with the newborn Harry when the wards fell under assault. They had been discussing the magic Lilly and James had performed with Dorea and Charlus as their far more utilitarian approach to magic allowed them to explain to their son just what Lilly had done and why it was so important.
James had barely agreed to forgive them when the wards fell, and in the moments after their emergency portkeys had activated whisking them to safety at Potter Cottage, but unable to do so for Charlus and Dorea since Albus had been unwilling or unable to to make more portkeys for them, nor find time to relay the secret.
Together they had rallied the order and leaving Harry with Andromeda and her young daughter Nymphadora, had returned to the manor, but by the time they returned it was too late and all that remained were smoking remains of their once family manor and the dark mark in the sky above.
It was that night that James decided to forgive Lilly her magics, and actions, and that night that they decided to do anything to see their son survive this war, even if it destroyed their souls to see it done.
It was just unfortunate that the night of the final assault on the Potters happened so close to Samhain that year, as they were ultimately just days away from the protections being at full strength, and in the end Voldemort still managed to destroy their mortal forms. In the aftermath without those few days of extra power the final ritual borne of his mother’s blood laid dormant for poor Harry Potter, and it was this that allowed Albus Dumbledore to confound Sirius to go after Peter while leaving Harry with Hagrid'.
It was these few days that allowed Albus to imprison the Boy Who Lived with his muggle relatives, , to ward their house in the most heinous vampiric manner, attempting to pervert the sacrifice of his kin to keep the boy under his thumb.
These few days that allowed Albus to twist the minds of Harry's Kin into hatred and suffering for the young boy eager to recreate his greatest mistake with Tom Riddle, and have the opportunity to use his newest weapon against the boy who defied his control