Chapter 4
'Lily,' Harry thought to himself as he admired his mother's appearance, 'she's beautiful.'
Lily's hologram didn't hear her, she spoke in a sad, solemn manner, "Sweetheart, your father and I arranged to have these messages and these memories given to you by the goblins after we were outed as Death Eaters. The goblins were told to give them to you as soon you met with Senior Account Manager, Bloodbringer."
Lily's hologram licked her lips and she looked down, "You've probably heard about what we've done, how we betrayed the Longbottoms to the Dark Lord. It's a lie, Harry; we had nothing to do with that part, but it doesn't and wouldn't matter to the wizarding world; as they know, we're Death Eaters and that means we're filth to them. They won't listen to us."
"Why did you do it, Mum?" Harry whispered.
"It began during the war; a year before your birth, Professor Dumbledore, our former Headmaster and the so-called Leader for the Light," Lily's holographic face contorted into a sneer of contempt as she described the wizard, "heard a prophecy being told of a child, born as the seventh month died - the end of July - who would be born to parents who defeated or escaped from the Dark Lord three times, who would have the power the Dark Lord knew not, but would be attacked by him.
"Two families fit the bill, Harry; us, the Potters, and the Longbottoms. The pair of us would have defied the Dark Lord three times, and our children were born at the end of July. We both went into hiding after we defied him twice, but James and I were going crazy and uneasy. In the end, we realised we had a way out. We were trapped in a single house and the isolation was getting to us; we debated on it several times, but after a while, we realised we couldn't go along with it forever, and that was when it struck us; we would join the Dark Lord in exchange for your safety, and at the same time it was becoming increasingly obvious he was going to win. After all, we only learnt of the prophecy after defying him twice, so if we joined him to save you after twice defying him we'd be safe," Lily lifted her head proudly, "you're our child, Harry, and I hope you aren't blaming yourself for our exile from Britain. You're our son. We gave everything to you. We were just fortunate the Dark Lord, while interested in negating the threat of the prophecy, didn't believe in it. He is an intelligent man, after all," there was a tone of near fanatical worship in Lily's holographic voice, and Harry wondered what it was that made Lily so dedicated to him.
"He agreed with our terms, and I made him swear a magically binding vow - it's an oath that's sworn into a person's magic, if they break the oath then they will lose their magic - not to harm you or us. And not long after that, we both left the Order of the Phoenix, we disappeared and told our friends we were leaving for somewhere else. Going deeper into hiding. I don't know for sure if anyone connected the dots and realised something bigger was happening, but shortly after we both became Death Eaters."
Lily slowly rolled up the sleeve of her left arm, exposing a strange but vivid tattoo. It was a skull with a snake coming out of its mouth, wrapped around the skull. It was both the most hideous and yet the most beautiful thing Harry had ever seen. "My Dark Mark," she said proudly, "Before our initiation, James and I were uncertain, but when we both became members of the Inner Circle, it was one of the proudest moments of our lives. We swore to follow the Dark Lord, always, and we discovered everything we had thought we had known about him was a lie. The Dark Lord wants to change the magical world, Harry, but he wants to improve our quality of life. There are children, for instance, magical children, who have grown up abused and neglected. They don't respect our traditions. They are never helped. But the Dark Lord can change all of that. Do some people have to die? Yes, but only when necessary."
Harry blinked as he looked into his mother's suddenly resolute and cold gaze, and he glanced at Petunia. He was not surprised to see the noticeable fear on her face. He was a bit afraid himself.
Had his mother always been this fanatical?
But at the same time, he was intrigued by the notion of magical children; if he was being abused, then surely others were too. He couldn't be unique. And besides, Harry had always hated the residents of Little Whinging, for the way he'd been treated by them.
He could not be unique.
There had to be hundreds of other children out there, magical children, who could use powers. How many of them lived in fear of their so-called families, the ones who'd raised them and hated them for what they could do? How many of them snarled at them, called them 'freak' and whatever kinds of unpleasant names?
Was….was what his parents done, what this Dark Lord and his organisation, was it justified? Harry was a criminal, but he had taught himself right from wrong, not out of a sense of lawfulness, but to spite the Dursleys. But deep down he didn't have any qualms about hurting people if it was deserved.
Some of them might have loving parents, if what his general impression of Lily had been, and she'd passed that same love off to him. Harry could see it, and he felt tears prickle in his eyes as he realised despite everything she had done, Lily loved him.
Lily loved him.
James loved him.
They had sold their souls to the devil, just to protect him. And that made the last few years of his life, where he had assumed they had just died in a car crash, uncaring about him, so wasted.
Harry began to cry slowly.
"You always were a freak, Lily, a dangerous one," Petunia mumbled, terrified in case her evil sister heard her. She recoiled when she saw the sudden anger on Harry's face, his face twisted with sudden rage. "Shut up," Harry snapped before he turned his attention back to Lily's hologram.
"Harry," Lily lowered her Dark Mark branded arm, her voice becoming sad all of a sudden, "James and I had to flee without you because you were yanked from my arms when we heard from our contacts one of the Dark Lord's inner circle had betrayed us to the aurors," she started to cry, and Harry realised she could not be faking that.
"We didn't want to lose you. We tried to get you back, 8 times, but we were nearly captured. We had to try to escape, but we were attacked, just as we were about to flee, and you were snatched out of my arms. If there's one thing being a Death Eater did for your father and me, it was to expand our brain power. When you were taken, we tried to get you back, but we couldn't find you. Right now your father and I are in hiding in Britain, and we're recording these memories and will give them to the goblins, so in the future, they will give them to you, so they'll know why we both joined the Dark Order. We did it for you, sweetie, and for any kid. One of the things implied by the prophecy is you will be marked as the equal of the Dark Lord, but if he did that, then he would have to come and kill me and your father. And we would never go down without a fight, a bad one. We couldn't let you live alone, button a cruel twist of fate and irony, that's what's happened, and we had hoped to go unnoticed and undiscovered by the Order and by the Ministry of Magic. We'd hoped the time we went undiscovered, we would have had more children."
Harry bit his lip, cursing the world for yanking the chance away as well.
But Lily had more to say, "We're going to flee to the continent, Harry, maybe beyond. But we will see each other again. We've told the goblins to lock down the Potter vaults, to prevent those bastards at the Ministry of Magic from taking what's rightfully yours. And you have some properties available for yourself."
Harry and Petunia perked up, for different reasons.
"Properties?" Harry whispered before he thought it made some sense.