31st October 1981
James Potter was lying awake. Unable to sleep with worry. He knew the dark lord was out there baying for his blood. Well not exactly his blood, but his son’s. James knew he would let nothing harm Harry. He would protect him with his life. And Lily. James would let nothing hurt this family he had worked so hard to build. James grinned as he remember the constant pining over Lily Evans from their school years, and sometimes he still couldn’t believe his luck when he remembered that they were married and had a child. He was living a blessed life. And he would not let anyone ruin that. Especially not the darkest wizard since Gellert Grindelwald.
His thoughts were interrupted by his wife ‘James, what will we do if He Who Must Not Be Named finds us?’
‘Don’t worry Lily’ James responded, though admittedly he had been thinking exactly the same thing ‘He won’t. Peter would never let slip out location.’
‘Are you sure it was a wise decision to switch the secret keeper?’ Lily questioned as she was still in the fence about the whole plan.
‘I hope so. Sirius believed it would be for the best if Moony didn’t know who it was, and I trust his judgement.’
‘I just can’t believe that Remus would be a spy for Him. It must be someone else.’
‘I don’t know who else it could be, but I do hope you’re right. He’s been my best friend since we all met on the Hogwarts express in first year. I can’t possibly imagine him…’ James’s sentence was cut short by the loud crash of a door being knocked down.
James shot his wife a worried expression before whispering to her ‘Lily, keep Harry safe and remember I love you.’ With that he hurried downstairs to face whoever had broken into his home. As he reached the corridor he spotted a cloaked figure hiding amongst the shadows. Although James couldn’t see his face, it was obvious who this man was.
Voldemort.
James went to reach into his pocket for his wand but was struck down by a flash of green light. Suddenly everything went black as he lost consciousness.
———————————————————
As James woke up, he knew something felt off. He didn’t know what exactly until he started to remember what had happened. His memory was still slightly fuzzy and his head was groggy, but he tried hard to think back to what had happened just moments before. And that was when he remembered the flash of light and the yelling of the words ‘Avada Kedavra’. The killing curse. In that moment the realisation hit him like a pound of bricks.
He was dead.
He had always assumed that when you died you would meet death himself. A cloaked figure who would sweep you away to the underworld. At least that was what happened in the tale of the three brothers. But, he supposed this wasn’t a children’s tale, this was real life. And the only cloaked figure he had met had been The Dark Lord. It was in that moment he heard a bloodcurdling scream. ‘Lily.’ he whispered to himself.
He got to his feet and ran to find his wife, even though his limbs felt like lead. As he reached the nursery he saw his wife’s lifeless corpse lying next to the cot. But his son was still inside, alive. A shadowy figure stood above his wife’s body, wand in hand pointing towards Harry. Voldemort didn’t seem to notice James, he supposed he was ghost now and couldn’t be seen by the living.
The next few seconds seemed to play in slow motion. Voldemort tried to kill Harry and for a split second James thought his son was dead. But then a bolt of light shone from Harry forehead and The Dark Lord vanished into a puff of smoke. The curse had rebounded off of Harry and killed Voldemort instead.
James then heard the voice of his wife call out to him ‘James, what happened?’
James was surprised to hear his wife. In the midst of all the drama with Harry, he had forgotten she had been killed too. Did this mean Harry was now an orphan. No. Sirius was Harry’s godfather, he would look after him.
James then realised, something terrible must’ve happened to Peter. How else would The Dark Lord have known his whereabouts.
‘We’re dead Lily.’ The phrase come as a shock to both him and Lily. He had not fully registered the fact of the matter until now. He and his wife were dead. ‘And we have to find Peter, to make sure he’s okay. He may have been tortured of even killed by The Dark Lord, to find our location.’ Of course there was one more possibility that James didn’t want to think of. Peter could have told Voldemort willingly. But James knew Peter, or at least he thought he did.
It was in that moment he head a knock on the door. James and Lily hurried downstairs to check who it was. He was horrified when he hear the voice of his schoolboy enemy, Severus Snape.
‘Ugh, what’s Severus doing here?’ Lily said with revolution. They had been best friends once upon a time but now he was disgusted by the sight of him.
‘I have no idea’ replied James as Snape raced down the corridor, momentarily pausing to look at James’s dead body lying on the floor. James had never been friends with Snape but he had saved his life once in fifth year and was slightly disappointed that he didn’t look the slightest bit sad.
When he reached the nursery, however, he started crying. It was odd, to see this man James had known all his childhood, who had usually kept at least some form of decorum, bawling his eyes out whilst repeatedly yelling ‘Lily, no!’
James was annoyed that Snape was so preoccupied with crying over his dead wife, that he hadn’t even noticed the baby boy in the cot next to her.
Snape, after having a thorough meltdown, left swiftly. Then the door was tapped once again. When James saw, his best friend, Peter at the door he was baffled. He came to a realisation but he didn’t voice it out loud. Peter walked down the corridor and noticed Jame’s body.
‘Prongs, I don’t know if you can hear me but I just hope you know that I had to do this’. Did you Pete? James thought. ‘And I’m sorry. Sorry that you were so foolish.’ That hasn’t been the apology James was expecting. Peter carried on ‘I’ve been working for Him since seventh year, right under your noses this whole time. And I even managed to make you lose your trust in one of your closest friends. I just want you to know that Padfoot is currently being sought out by some of Azkaban’s finest dementors. I pinned my crime on him. And now The Dark Lord shall rise once more. May you rest in peace James, though I don’t see how you will, all your friends and family are either dead or suffering. Goodbye James Potter, you always were too trusting.’
With that said Peter made his way to the nursery. He was shocked to find Harry alive and Voldemort nowhere to be seen. But as he heard the familiar breaking of Sirius Blacks motorbike he left the house. James hoped he was gone for good. He couldn’t believe Peter Pettigrew, his childhood best friend, had betrayed him like this.
Sirius Black entered the house next calling out ‘Prongs? Mrs Prongs? Baby Prongs? Where are you all?’ He then stopped dead in his tracks. ‘No, James wake up. Wake up right now!’ But alas, James’s body didn’t move an inch. Sirius broke down into tears. James felt this was understandable as they were like brothers. After all, when Sirius’s parents had him kicked out for being a so called ‘blood traitor’, it had been James and his parents who had taken him in. James wished he could tell Sirius that everything would be okay, but when he spoke it appeared that Sirius was unable to hear him.
Sirius then ran upstairs looking for Lily and Harry. When he saw Lily’s body, he broke down again. James had always admired their relationship, they both had siblings who hated them and so had decided to be siblings to each other. Though they fought on occasion, everyone could always tell they were never really mad at each other. As Sirius was staring at Lily’s lifeless corpse, he heard the cry of an infant.
Sirius picked up Harry and said to him ‘Hey Harry, it’s me Padfoot. I sorry about your mum and dad’ James heard Sirius’s voice crack with sadness when he said that ‘I suppose that I’ll look after you now, as I am your godfather after all.’ Sirius then swiftly picked Harry up and took him outside to his motorbike.
As James and Lily followed Sirius outside, they spotted a large figure coming towards them. They recognised him as Rubeus Hagrid, the gameskeeper of Hogwarts.
‘Sirius, is that you?’ He said with a slightly weary voice, which sounded unusual on him as he was usually so cheerful.
‘Hagrid, what are you doing here?’
‘Dumbledore sent me, he said I am to take Harry to live with his Aunt and Uncle.’
‘But I’m his godfather, I’m supposed to look after him.’ Sirius spoke with purpose.
‘Sirius, you killed and entire street of people, including one of you best friends. Now please, hand him over before I have to get the dementors involved.’
‘I promise I didn’t do anything wrong.’ Sirius spoke quietly, and it made James want to cry as he it was the truth. Still, Sirius handed Baby Harry over to the large man. ‘And take my bike as well, I suppose I won’t need it where I’m going.’ Sirius gave Harry a kiss on the forehead and waved goodbye to Hagrid then promptly left. James assumed he had gone to turn himself over to the shadowy guards of Azkaban.
James and Lily both watched as their son was taken away to live with Lily’s sister. They followed silently, still taking in the events which had taken place that evening. And they both vowed to follow and keep an eye on their son. After all they knew he had a big task ahead of him. At least that was what the prophecy had said.
———————————————————