Sunrise, 31 October
James felt a pulse of magic from the nursery and ran up the stairs, cursing himself for his wilful ignorance. Lily had been getting more and more desperate since Harry had started talking with no more hissing than what could be attributed to a mild lisp. He'd ignored the ever growing piles of rune and rune sequence research, choosing to attribute it to working towards mastery research instead of whatever magic she was using to try to protect their son now.
He froze in the doorway, the sight of his wife and child in the middle of a glowing blood rune circle sending chills down his spine. She was drawing on Harry's forehead with a bloody thumb and he could just barely make out what looked like a combination of Algiz and Algiz reversed. She pressed a gentle kiss to the bloody rune, and with a flash all the evidence disappeared.
"What was that?" It was all he could do to keep his voice relatively calm, not wanting to upset his son. He loved his wife, but he was worried she was slipping from borderline to Dark magic.
“I've just got a bad feeling about today, and we don't know if Harry has parseltongue. Albus won't let us go to Gringotts for no reason and I don't want him to know why we need to go.” Lily looked up at her husband, just as determined as she had been last time she used questionable magic to give their son protection. She stood with Harry in her arms, expression softening as he tugged on her hair.