Chapter Text
The cottage wards shattered like glass under Voldemort's hand, fracturing into a thousand invisible shards that dissipated into the cold October night air. The protective enchantments that Lily Potter had so carefully woven, layer upon layer of ancient magic meant to keep her family safe, simply ceased to exist the moment his pale fingers made contact with the invisible barrier.
He walked through the front door as it swung open with a soft creak, his footsteps deliberate and unhurried on the hardwood floor. The house was warm, cozy—decorated for a Muggle holiday called Halloween with carved pumpkins and paper decorations. Children's toys littered the floor. A family lived here. A family that would soon be broken. Somewhere upstairs, he heard movement—hurried, panicked, the sound of feet scrambling across floorboards. They knew he was here. Perhaps they'd felt the wards collapse, or perhaps they'd simply sensed the presence of death entering their home.
Good. Let them know. Let them feel the terror.
James Potter appeared at the top of the stairs, his black hair disheveled and his hazel eyes wide with fear and desperate courage. His face was pale but determined, set with grim resolution—the face of a man who knew with absolute certainty that he was about to die but would buy his family precious seconds anyway. Every second counted. Every heartbeat mattered when it was all you had left to give.
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off—"
The words died on James's lips as he realized, with dawning horror, that his wand wasn't in his hand. His fingers grasped at empty air. Voldemort followed his gaze with cold amusement to the sofa in the living room, where the polished wood of the wand lay innocently on a cushion, catching the lamplight. The fool had been playing with his son, making lights dance and toys zoom through the air, and had set it down when he heard his wife call him for dinner. He'd left it behind. A father's fatal mistake.
"Avada Kedavra."
Green light filled the stairwell, bright and terrible, casting grotesque shadows on the wallpapered walls. James Potter crumpled without a sound, his body tumbling down the stairs in a graceless cascade to land in a broken heap at the bottom. His glasses had fallen off halfway down. His eyes stared at nothing, glazed and empty, his hand still outstretched toward the living room, toward the wand he would never reach, toward the family he could no longer protect.
Voldemort stepped over the body without pause, without even a glance down at the man who had once defied him three times and lived to tell the tale. James Potter was nothing now. Just an obstacle removed. Just another corpse in a long line of corpses that stretched back through the years.
Upstairs, he could hear Lily Potter's frantic movements, the desperate scrape of furniture being pushed against a door, the sound of a mother's last stand. A crib creaked. The baby was crying now, wailing in confusion and fear. As if a barricade would stop him. As if a locked door would matter. As if anything in this world or the next would stop him from fulfilling his destiny.
He climbed the stairs slowly, each step measured and unhurried, savoring the anticipation. There was no need to rush. Where could they go? The wards were down. There was no escape. The prophecy would be fulfilled tonight, one way or another. Either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives. Voldemort had no intention of dying—he had already taken measures to ensure his immortality, measures so dark that few wizards would even speak of them. Therefore, the child must die. The boy who threatened everything Voldemort had built.
Tonight, that threat would end.
Simple arithmetic.
The nursery door blew inward at a gesture, sending a chair skidding across the floor with a sharp scraping sound that echoed through the small room. Lily Potter stood in front of the crib, arms spread wide, her body a shield between the intruder and her son. Her red hair was wild, disheveled from sleep and panic, cascading over her shoulders in tangled waves. Her green eyes blazed with a mother's desperate fury, that primal ferocity that comes when a parent knows their child is in mortal danger.
"Not Harry! Please, not Harry!"
Voldemort raised his wand slowly, almost ceremonially. She was not the target.
"Stand aside, you foolish girl." His voice was cold, flat, devoid of emotion or urgency.
"Please—take me instead! Kill me! Not Harry, please, I'll do anything—" Her voice cracked, desperation bleeding through every syllable. Tears streamed down her face, but she didn't move, didn't step aside even as the tip of his wand pointed directly at her heart.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The green light filled the room, casting everything in an eerie emerald glow for just a fraction of a second. Lily crumpled to the ground lifelessly, her limbs folding beneath her in an unnatural sprawl. Her red hair spread across the floorboards like spilled wine, brilliant against the pale wood. Her green eyes remained open, fixed and glassy, staring at nothing—or perhaps at everything, seeing something beyond this world now.
Voldemort strode over to the crib with measured steps, his long black robes sweeping across the floor. He stepped over her body without looking down, as if she were merely an obstacle, a fallen piece of furniture in his path.
The nursery was absurdly cheerful, a jarring contrast to the darkness he had brought with him. Yellow wallpaper with dancing Snitches covered the walls, their golden wings frozen mid-flutter in the repeating pattern. A mobile of toy broomsticks rotated lazily above the crib, suspended by nearly invisible string, turning in the faint breeze from the shattered door. Someone—probably the father—had painted a mural of a sunny sky on the ceiling, complete with fluffy white clouds and a smiling sun in the corner, as if this child would have any use for such mundane comfort. As if happy wallpaper and painted skies could protect against the darkest of magic.
The child himself stood in his crib, small hands gripping the wooden rail with chubby fingers. He couldn't be more than fifteen months old, still unsteady on his feet, swaying slightly as he stood there. Large green eyes—his mother's eyes, Voldemort noted with detached interest—stared up at him with the blank curiosity of the very young. No fear flickered in those eyes. No understanding of what had just happened, of what was about to happen. The child didn't cry, didn't call for his mother lying dead just feet away.
Voldemort raised his wand again, pointing it at the baby with practiced precision.
This was necessary. The prophecy was clear, unambiguous in its warning. The child was a threat that must be eliminated before it could grow into something dangerous. Before it could become the one prophesied to defeat him, to bring about his downfall. He had not come this far, sacrificed this much, transformed himself so completely, only to be destroyed by a mere infant.
"Any…" Voldemort paused for a moment, the incantation dying on his lips. Why had he paused? What had stopped him?
The child blinked at him slowly, head tilted to one side in that peculiar way babies do when they're trying to understand something new. Waiting patiently, as if expecting something. As if Voldemort were about to perform some entertaining bit of magic, pull a rabbit from a hat perhaps, make colorful sparks shoot from his wand. The boy didn't understand that the next words from Voldemort's mouth would be the last thing he ever heard.
The absurdity almost made him laugh. This was the great threat? This drooling infant in pajamas decorated with tiny hippogriffs?
"...First words?"
The child's face brightened. He clearly recognized this as some sort of game. His tiny hands released the crib rail and he bounced on his feet, the way babies do when excited.
"Ahhhh..." the child began, clearly attempting to mimic Voldemort's words. His face scrunched with concentration. "Dabaaa..."
Voldemort's finger tightened on his wand. Just speak the words. Two words. End this.
"Da daaabaaa!" the child announced triumphantly.
Green light exploded from the child's hands.
Voldemort jerked backward, wand raised defensively, but the magic wasn't directed at him. It shot upward, crackling like lightning, hitting the mobile above the crib. The toy broomsticks burst into emerald flames before disintegrating into ash that drifted down like black snow.
The child laughed—a delighted, burbling giggle—and clapped his hands.
Voldemort stared.
The child had just performed wandless magic. Not accidental magic—all magical children had random bursts of power—but targeted magic. He'd attempted to replicate the Killing Curse. The words were gibberish, the execution flawed, but the intent...
The intent had been there.
"Remarkable," Voldemort whispered.
The child beamed at him, proud of his accomplishment, and reached up with both arms. The universal gesture: pick me up.
Voldemort looked at his wand. Looked at the child. At Lily Potter's body cooling at his feet, her hand still outstretched toward the crib she had died defending.
He should kill the child. That was the plan. That was what the prophecy demanded.
But when would he ever encounter another magical specimen like this? A child who could channel magic of this caliber before he could even speak properly? The raw power was extraordinary. Unfocused, yes. Untrained, certainly. But extraordinary.
What could such power become with proper guidance? With his guidance?
The prophecy said one must die at the hand of the other. It didn't specify when. And didn't knowledge of one's enemy constitute the greatest advantage? What better way to understand the threat than to shape it, control it, study it from infancy?
Voldemort lowered his wand.
"Very well," he said softly.
He reached into the crib and lifted the child, who immediately grabbed a fistful of Voldemort's robes and made a happy sound. The boy smelled of milk and soap and something indefinably infant. Warmth radiated from his small body.
Voldemort held him awkwardly, unsure of the mechanics. He'd never held a child before. The boy didn't seem to mind Voldemort's incompetence, just pressed his face against his shoulder and yawned.
Behind them, Lily Potter's eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling she'd painted for her son. Her red hair spread across the floorboards. Her hand was still reaching toward the crib, frozen in her final desperate attempt to protect what she loved most.
The child—Harry, they'd named him—didn't look back. Didn't understand what he was leaving behind. Didn't know his mother had died begging for his life, or that his father's body lay crumpled at the bottom of the stairs.
Didn't know the man holding him had cast both curses.
"We're leaving," Voldemort told him.
Harry yawned again and stuck his thumb in his mouth, settling against Voldemort's chest with the absolute trust of the very young.
Voldemort Disapparated.
The cottage stood empty, its wards flickering and dying. Downstairs, James Potter's body lay at the foot of the stairs. Upstairs, the mobile strings continued to drip ash onto the empty crib, and Lily Potter lay still on the cheerful yellow rug with its pattern of dancing Snitches.
Somewhere in the darkness, a prophecy hung half-fulfilled.
Either must die at the hand of the other.
But not tonight.
Tonight, the Dark Lord had chosen a different path entirely.