Chapter Text
Mr. and Mrs. Potter were not perfectly ordinary people. They did not live on an ordinary street like you or I. They did not have a small house with a number to differentiate it from the identical houses on either side of it. They had, in fact, quite the opposite of it all.
Mr. Potter was a tall, gangly man with spectacles and an easy smile. Mrs. Potter was a tall graceful woman, with long red hair and brilliant green eyes. Her smile was as carefree and frequent as her husband’s, and her laughter was louder. The Potters had a small son called Harry and in their opinion, there was no finer boy.
The Potters had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret. Their son was in fact, prophesied to be the most dangerous threat to a very dangerous man. They were on the run, in hiding from everyone they had once loved and trusted, except for one man. A man named Peter Pettigrew.
On the gloomy Saturday our story begins, there was nothing strange or ominous about what that day would bring. Mr. and Mrs. Potter went about their day in their secret hiding place as if nothing was amiss. They believed they could trust Peter with their secret, and they were not afraid.
That night, however, turned into the most terrifying night of their lives. Their trusted friend betrayed them to the very man they had feared, and that man had come to kill their son.
But in the end, Peter Pettigrew stood between them and that dangerous man and took the killing blow for the Potters and their son. That sacrifice protected their family, and on a gray Sunday, James and Lily Potter woke up in a home turned to rubble, and a baby safe in their arms, with a lighting bolt-shaped wound embedded in his forehead: evidence that their baby had done the impossible. Their baby had survived a curse meant to kill, and fulfilled the prophecy laid on him before his birth.
Word spread rather quickly, by mouth and by owl, of a boy who lived.
When the dust had settled, the Healers had looked over their baby, and the Aurors had confirmed the destruction of that very-dangerous-man, Lily sat down at the dining room table in their old home, James’s family’s estate, and composed a letter. A letter she’d thought about very often, but had never sat down to write. She thought that perhaps now, without the threat of a madman and a prophecy hanging over her head, she could write it.
Lily began with, “Dear Sister,” but she sighed, tapped her wand against the paper, and the letters disappeared from the page. This time, she began the letter with, “Dear Petunia.”
She paused once more, tapped the feathered quill against her chin, then went back to writing.
"I am sure you have noticed a few strange things today. There are owls everywhere, lots of
fireworks, and wizards celebrating in the streets."
With another tap of her wand, the word “wizards” vanished, and she filled in the small space with a very cramped, “my sort of people.”
"The truth is, we had a bit of an accident here. I mean me and James and Harry, not just my sort of people. I’d been meaning to write to you all year, ever since Harry’s birth announcement, but a very dangerous man was on the loose. You probably didn’t hear of him. He killed a lot of Muggles—"
Lily erased the word "Muggles" and filled in "your sort of people," before continuing, "but it was very well-covered-up. And this same man was after Harry. James and I have been on the run and in hiding all year. I’m sorry we haven’t been able to write to each other more. As it is, last night, that dangerous man came to kill Harry. There’s nothing like a life-or-death situation to remind you what you value most in the world. I know Vernon and James don’t get on, but you’re my sister, and I would love to see you. I do miss you. Your son would be about Harry’s age now, wouldn’t he? We can take them out to the park. Have a stroll. Do something perfectly ordinary. I miss you terribly, and would love to see you. Please write soon."
And she signed it with, “Your dearest Lily,” then frowned. That was how she usually signed her letters to James. Her wand hovered over the paper momentarily, then she dropped it without changing a dot of ink.
It was the same problem as always: regular post or owl post. Her sister would never read a letter dropped off by an owl. That meant Muggle post. That meant a trip into town. That meant stamps. That meant Muggle money exchanges.
That was all a problem for another day. Not today, not when they were still so tired, not when they had only just returned home.
Lily left the letter lying on the table and went upstairs to the baby’s room.
Harry was in his crib, turning fitfully in his sleep. James was sprawled in a chair, head lolling to one side, glasses askew, and a bit of drool just beginning to drip from the side of his mouth.
Lily leaned over the edge of the crib and whispered quietly to soothe her baby. James stirred in his sleep, and Lily moved to give him a gentle kiss on the forehead. She gently pried the wand from his tightly clenched fist and rested it on the table next to him.
"I’m not letting it go," he’d said to her that morning. "Never again."
"You’ll have to eventually," she’d said with a genuine smile, but she knew what he meant. She, too, felt a deep panic she was not sure would ever go away. No matter what happened, no matter how much time had passed, she knew that her fear over Harry would stay lodged in her heart, like a stone that had fallen to the bottom of a lake. It might be smoothed over by time, it might be buried by sand, but it would always be there.
She tucked a heavy blanket over James — it was November, after all, and he was bound to get cold in the middle of the night.
Lily went to the master bedroom and changed into her sleeping attire. She sat down on the bed, looked around the large empty room. They had packed up so many things, and unpacking them once more seemed like a mountainous task. She looked at the large, empty bed. Sleeping alone seemed like a mountainous task all on its own.
So she grabbed as many pillows as she could carry and took them into her baby’s room. She piled the pillows up on the floor, pulled a blanket over herself, and fell asleep, wand clutched tightly in her hand.