Prologue
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The evening of October 31st 1981:
Seated in his manor, Lord Voldemort looked down on his most pathetic and spineless follower.
"Master" he whimpered "I've good news"
Red eyes fixed on the small man, reducing him to nothing more than shuddering mess.
"The Potters... The Potters master. They are within our reach."
The dark lord stood, looming above his follower as the mousy man before him fell to his knees.
"They are within our reach?"
"Yes my lord"
"Oh, Wormtail" The lord lamented, crouching to meet his follower's eyes. "When will you learn"
A long finger made it's way down Wormtail's cheek, tracing imaginary runes and patterns across his clammy skin.
"There is no us, There will never be us. We are not a team Peter. I am your master. Your victories are my victories but the opposite does not hold true."
He flicked his wand out of his sleeve.
"You'd do best to remember that... Crucio"
Peter Pettigrew's pathetic screams graced his ears. How he loved it when his followers screamed for him. Their cries were songs, regaling him with tales of their woes.
He held Pettigrew under for only a few moments before straightening.
"Tell me Wormtail, where are the Potters?"
The man in question lay, spazzing on the ground. He tried to push himself up to no avail.
"Wormtail." His lord demanded.
Wormtail struggled to sit up so that he may tell his lord where the Potters were. His arms, after several more failed attempts, managed to manoeuvre the rest of his body into an upright position.
"Wormtail, I will not ask again."
"Godrick's Hollow my lord" Wormtail struggled. He had never had the greatest pain tolerance so even the smallest exposure to the cruciatus left him with a raw throat and shivering limbs.
"Take me."
Voldemort strode over to Wormtail and placed a pale hand on his shoulder.
After a few more shivers, Peter Pettigrew collected enough magic to apparate away. they appeared in the outskirts of the small wizarding village. Wormtail then collapsed, shaking.
"You've done well Wormtail. Now, tell me their address" he lowered his ear to his servant, knowing that he was too afraid and too weak to try anything traitorous.
Wormtail shuddered and whispered his friends' address into his master's ear. Voldemort grinned, excitement starting to creep up on him.
"Very good Pettigrew. You will wait here while I slay the child"
Peter nodded frantically as his lord turned his back on him and walked away into the village.
It was a short walk to the Potters' cottage which stood in outermost ends of the village where there were a few kilometres in between houses. In his excitement, he failed to notice a spectator.
The onlooker, perched in a nearby tree, watching closely. His silhouette looked like that of a superhero with his dark cloak flapping in the air and his hood drawn low over his head. Like the dark lord, he was also struggling to hold in his glee at the inevitable downfall of James and Lily Potter. For different reasons of course but the enemy of your enemy is your friend as they say. The onlooker didn't even need to dirty his hands. The only reason for his presence there in the first place was to watch Lily Potter and her son get blasted into oblivion.
Voldemort elegantly made his way to the doorstep. He could not be bothered to unlock the Potters' front door and instead, it was just blown it off its hinges. He made his way into the house as though he owned the place, quickly coming face to face with a wandless James Potter.
The onlooker shifted, jumping with a grace that should have been impossible for a man as bulky as he was. He landed lightly on the ground and sat on top of a trash can near the window, providing him with a perfect view of Lily Potter cowering near her son's crib.
Lord Voldemort made quick work of James Potter, swiftly advancing up the small staircase that led to the nursery. From his spot outside, the onlooker could see Lily flinch at every step the man took towards the nursery. His expression lit up like a child on Christmas when he saw the pale-skinned, dark-haired lord burst through the doorway, levelling his wand at the crib in the middle of the room.
Grey eyes betrayed nothing more when Lily threw herself in front of the dark lord but a bushy eyebrow lifted marginally when a green curse did not immediately hit the woman. Instead, Voldemort stood in front of the woman as she pleaded with him, looking more aggravated by the second but seemingly talking to Lily. Eventually, the man lost his patience. Lily was thrown backwards and Avada Kedavra was fired into her chest. Her limp body fell to the floor of the nursery.
Her son, the one-year-old Harry Potter, was being uncharacteristically quiet. Green eyes followed his mother's body fall to the ground and flicked back up to her murderer. His eyes conveyed no emotion, and if it were possible for a baby to do so, one would think he was analyzing Voldemort.
The dark lord advanced on the infant, stepping over his fallen mother. Red eyes flashed with contempt as he looked down on the defenceless child.
"And you're supposed to be my equal?" he scoffed "That just won't do"
A wave of his wand sent a beam of light towards the infant. It hit the child and the boy pulsed with a soft green light before a mini-explosion lit up the room. Voldemort was thrown backwards and hit the wall behind him. His body slumped against the wall before dissolving in an ethereal white light that did not suit the man at all.
The spectator stared wide-eyed at the scene in front of him. The youngest Potter continued to stare at the corner where Voldemort had been thrown, blood now dripping down his forehead. It was now sporting a nasty, jagged cut on his forehead.
Then the child's gaze turned onto him. Steel met Emerald as they stared at each other. the onlooker felt an irrational panic rising in him. The child would not remember this day. It would fade from his memory as he grew and cultivated new ones. Still, he felt that those eyes saw too much. The eyes were a window to the soul after all and Harry Potter had just shattered his panes. Uncomfortable and unsettled, he averted his gaze and analyzed the aftermath of the Dark Lord's visit to the Potters'.
Paintings that had once been hung neatly on the walls found themselves torn and askew. The carpet was covered in a fine layer of dust and rock. A crack that would've been alarming to anyone who actually cared could be found on one of the legs of baby Potter's crib and shrapnel was everywhere. A piece of wood that was reminiscent of a stake had impaled the infant's hand.
As he was staring at the wreckage, the telltale crack of apparation rang through the air. The observer cast a stronger disillusionment spell on himself and stayed where he was. Sirius Black and Rubeus Hagrid strolled in, chatting animatedly about an escaped hippogriff case in the ministry. They both stopped in their tracks when they saw the unhinged door of the cottage. Sirius rushed in, wand out only to find the corpse of his best friend laying discarded on the ground.
"Lily?" Hagrid called in his booming voice as Sirius looked up from James' body.
"That backstabbing little rat," he snarled "I'll kill him,"
Sirius glanced back at Hagrid.
"Check on Lily and Harry, I've got a rat to hunt down,"
He then morphed into a black retriever and took off running out the front door.
Hagrid stared at the doorway, confused. The eerie silence to house snapped him back to reality and he climbed the stairs, causing them to scream under his weight. He reached the landing, growing more concerned when he saw the nursery door open as well, he walked into the room where Lily Potter's corpse lay in front of her son's crib. He let out a small gasp and rushed over to pick up and cradle the infant. He carefully extracted the wood from the poor infant's hand before bringing him down to the living room where green eyes locked on their lifeless sire, sprawled on the ground. Harry was set down on the couch so Hagrid could kneel at the hearth and fire call Albus Dumbledore.
The moment Hagrid stepped away from the fire, two more cracks could be heard outside the door and Albus Dumbledore rushed in with his right hand, Minerva McGonagall.
Albus was an elderly man. Though not frail, he has been grey for longer than many have been alive. His long beard and hair have probably been growing out since before Hagrid's birth.
"Professor Dumbledore!" Hagrid exclaimed. "It's awful."
The old bespectacled man simply nodded and wandered over to where baby Harry had been sat on the couch. Their eyes locked and they stayed like that, staring at each other for several minutes.
"Er Albus," Minerva asked after he had been staring at Harry for an extensive amount of time.
"Right, sorry Minerva," He stood and brushed imaginary dust from his robes. "It seems that Lord Voldemort was here in the flesh,"
His statement earned a gasp from the two other adults.
"Yes, it is shocking but I'm afraid it is the truth. Luckily for us, young Mr Potter here seems to have fought him off,"
"Surely an infant could not combat the most fearsome dark lord in centuries, Albus,"
"Alas, this one did and he came out on top. Voldemort will not be a bother for a great many more years,"
Minerva sighed softly.
"He will be a hero. Worshipped by those the Dark Lord terrorized and by the generations to come," She realized "He will have to grow up with this fame he didn't ask for,"
Albus looked at her, blue eyes twinkling with hidden knowledge.
"Perhaps not," He mused and Minerva's eyes widened exponentially.
"Albus, you cannot-"She started
"I have to Minerva. If he has any hope to live a regular childhood, he must live with his muggle relatives."
"You've had me scouting them for months..." She trailed off "You planned for this! You expected this to happen. Albus Percival Wilfric Brian Dumbledore, you expected James and Lily's death?"
Dumbledore refused to meet her gaze.
"Of course I didn't want it to happen but it was a very possible scenario,"
Minerva's glare softened slightly.
"We put so many protections in place and yet, he still found them. We cannot take such risks with Harry,"
The slight incline of his companions' heads was his only indication that they understood his reasoning.
He picked the baby up and bounced him gently in his arms.
"I suppose we should be getting harry here to his new home," Dumbledore said as he handed the baby to Hagrid.
"Apparating with a child is not without risks and I'm not too keen on taking any with Harry," He told him, "Would you get him to privet drive?"
"O' course Headmaster," Hagrid responded, taking the baby.
Dumbledore and Minerva nodded and disapparated as Hagrid brought Harry to Sirius' flying motorcycle which was conveniently parked outside. A turn of the key in the ignition had them flying off into the sky.
The spectator, ignorant of their previous conversation, discreetly hopped onto his broom and chased after the duo. He was intent on finding out where they were going to hide ickle Harry Potter.
The flight was a long one. The weather was miserable, perhaps the sky was reflecting the tragedy it had just witnessed. The cold wind stung at any exposed skin it could get to and the rain made him damp. He cursed his lack of forethought. If he had cast an impervious charm on his cloak before leaving, he would be vastly more comfortable right now. Luckily when the onlooker was beginning to evaluate the dangers of falling off one's broom several hundred feet in the air just so that they could be dry, Hagrid's borrowed motorbike started to lower.
The cloaked figure glanced down at the view and was surprised to find himself in Surrey. He thanked the stars that the Potter spawn would be living near his home so that he may get there quicker than he predicted and dry himself off.
He followed Hagrid down, landing on the top of his house. He sat on top of the roof, fat legs swinging over the side and observed the scene below him. Dumbledore and McGonagall rushed immediately over to Hagrid when he landed, taking the child and placing him into a wicker basket.
The cloaked figure resisted the urge to snicker. The boy looked like a picnic for a family of cannibalistic muggles. Not to mention the checkered blanket they had wrapped him in.
Dumbledore wrote out a small message and placed it on the child before moving closer to his house. For the third time that night, The onlooker's eyes widened. And then he laughed. A great, hearty laugh. that would've awoken his whole neighbourhood had he not cast a silencing charm on his cloak.
He clutched his stomach as Albus Dumbledore placed the saviour of the wizarding world on his doorstep. The hilarity of the situation was making it hard for him not to fall off the roof. Soon enough, the trio of Hogwarts employees dissaparated with varying degrees of sorrow staining their faces. He then let himself fall off of the roof, landing gracefully on his porch.
waving his wand in a complicated motion, he reapplied the glamour he wore during his daily life. He then picked up the child that had been left on his doorstep.
"They've done you wrong young heir," He whispered "Their slight against you will be to my advantage. Enjoy your pain little one, you will never escape it now,"
He stepped towards the door and pushed his key into the lock, turning it and pushing the door open.
"Petunia dear, I'm home!" He rumbled, stepping into the house.
His wife of four years came rushing to meet him.
"Vernon!" She exclaimed happily before noticing the child in his arms. "Why are you holding my freak of a sister's son?"
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