Chapter Text
No untroubled day has ever dawned for me
Seneca
Godric's Hallow
31st, October, 1981
Day 1
Severus Snape was the first one to arrive at Godrics hollow on that cold Halloween night.
No more than twenty minutes before, there had been four living people within the house that he silently stood before now.
Voldemort's looming presence had been a dark shadow over the Potters for years.
And as sick as the though made him, he had known for sometime that they had been living on borrowed time.
Severus stood at the bottom step, every muscle yelling at him not to go in, and unable to. For he knew that it had all ended tonight.
He didn't need to tilt his head up into the night sky to know what symbol hung over their home.
It was the same symbol he had once held admiration for. Had worshiped and lived for.
But now that it hung over this house, over her house, it meant something different. It had never seemed so vulgar to him till that very moment.
Severus gathered his will, and let himself in. For he knew there would be no one on the other side to stop him.
Though he had been bracing for the slaughter he knew would lay within, his stomach still lurched as he came across the first body.
Like missing a step going downstairs, his stomach sank. The dark sprawling mass of James Potter's body lay at his feet on the floor.
He and James were the same age.
James would have just turned twenty-one years old.
The way that his lifeless form lay across the floor let Snape know that whatever spell had killed him,
he had taken it straight to the chest as he guarded the staircase. Using his body like a shield.
His gold rimmed glasses lay several inches away from his face. The force of impact must have knocked them off.
In an act of sympathy, and the only kind thing he had ever done for James Potter,
Severus Snape picked them up and gingerly placed them back onto James' face.
As if he'd miss them. As if at any moment he would be waking and be needing them once again.
It was a final gesture that in the moment, felt larger than its' size.
But even this did nothing to assuage the mounting horror he felt deep in his bones.
His whole body had gone rigid and white.
The dark haired man felt the stinging at the corners of his eyes but tamped down the overwhelming desire to cry.
He stepped past the lifeless form and continued on up the wooden staircase.
Past the moving photos that hung on the wall of the happy laughing family.
He felt the urge to avert his eyes. It felt like a violation of their privacy.
After all, He was still a stranger in this home. A trespasser.
He reached the top of the stairs and from the crack in the door, he saw her.
He had not braced himself properly, and before he could stop, A wave of nausea rushed over him and bile rose up in his clenched throat.
He threw up next to the banister and after a moment wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his robe before stumbling forward into the nursery.
It was painted pale yellow. Lily’s favorite color. The waves of red hair were splayed over her face.
Snape dropped to his knees in front of her and as gently as if she were still alive he pulled her into his arms,
he leaned her head against his chest and the tears he had held back before James fell forth.
He filled the dark house with wails of agony so painful and wordless that it surly filled even the dead with heartache.
Though, if she were to have spoken to him then, he felt sure she would have told him strictly to dry his eyes
and remember why he came in the first place.
He could hear her voice so clearly in his mind,
“ There is one more body to check for ” like a ghostly whisper reaching out from beyond the vail
His guttural sobs faded into gasps for air, trying hard to gain some semblance of composure once again.
He had to be quick. There would be time to mourn later, when he was sure of the survival of one last Potter.
He laid the body of Lily Potter to the ground so gingerly, you would have thought she was only sleeping.
He saw in a moment of cold horror that her eyes were open.
She had looked death in the face, and just like James, in the ultimate act of sacrificial love, had been unafraid.
He closed her eyelids and watched as the pools of emerald green closed for their final time.
He came slowly to his feet, his legs numb and arms weak, his eyes moved from one body to the next. To that of Lily and James' fifteen month old baby.
His assignment had been to see if any of the Potters had survived the attack. A wholly pointless task, for how could anyone have survived?
His eyes glanced grimly down into the pram. Bracing for the enviability of a final smallest corpse and locked immediately onto them.
There, looking up from within the delicate white pram were Lily Potter’s eyes.
Only now they were much smaller and filled with life. They were the bright open eyes of her infant son.
He sat still and silent, his cheeks, pink and glistened with tears. His little mouth was agape as he stared back at the hook nosed man dressed in black.
Without a noise he lifted his little arms up towards Snape and made a grasping motion with two chubby rosie fists.
Severus stared, equally mouth agape, stunned as if by magic at the sight before him.
This wasn’t possible, the child had been the aim, the only one Voldemort came to kill, Lily and James had just been the collateral damage.
Yet this child lives. How could it have been that a defenseless baby was the soul survivor?
Had Voldemort's plan changed course so drastically? Had the child been spared on purpose. It seemed as unlikely as the child surviving by means of a miracle.
And where had the dark lord gone? He was supposed to be in contact with Severus tonight, but a summons had never come.
Voldemort's plans had gone wrong, something had happened here that Snape could not understand, and a new sense of urgency began to grip him.
He moved toward the pram as a man possessed. He suddenly knew what he had to do.
The child, wether spared on purpose or by accident wouldn't be safe for much longer if the dark lord happened to make his way back.
He would be risking everything to do so. A risk which Included revealing himself once and for all as a double agent, were he to be spotted.
It was strange how none of that seemed to matter now. The war, or being found out, or the dark lord and his servants. Only one thing mattered now.
The black hair, green eyed baby motioned again with his hands to be held.
Severus reached down and as if he was holding a blast-endded skrewt, holding him at arms length away from his body.
The baby wiggled in his grasp and his soft features grew red, he let out a cough and then a cry as his head fell backwards.
“Quiet little one,” Snape spoke in a hushed whisper, pulling the child against himself and holding him clumsily in his arms. He turned towards the door to leave.
The baby squirmed in his arms but as he passed over Lily, Snapes' grip on him tightened and he covered the babies' little eyes partially with his cloak.
It seemed strange to want to protect him from the gruesome scene.
He knew logically that the child wouldn’t remember or could even comprehend what it was he was seeing.
Nonetheless, he shielded him under a black wing and carried him hurriedly out of the Potter home for what would likely be the last time.
Snape stepped out the front door past James and as soon as his foot hit the brick of the front step he vanished into thin air with a *crack*.
Leaving behind Godrics' hollow in a cold and heavy stillness that seemed to swallow up the night.
With another sharp *crack* of air, the silence outside of the tall iron gates of Hogwarts castle was broken.
Severus Snape walked brusquely forward and with a flick of his wand the ancient gates swung open.
He paused for only a moment in the chill October air to remove his own cloak, which he wrapped around the sleeping baby.
The boys sleeping was of no paternal skill of Snape's own, but in thanks to a simple calming charm.
In fact, it was one that he and Lily had used back in their school days before taking any of the more daunting exams.
The thought was more painful then he'd expected and it nearly stopped him in his tracks entirely.
He steeled his mind quickly with occlumency and push on towards the dark silhouette of Hogwarts,
following the dirt path dimly lit by the occasional floating lantern.
Severus reached the castle in only a couple minutes, out of breath and holding securely to the bundle of cloth cradled against his chest.
He moved through the old stone castle as a ghost, careful to not call attention to himself, navigating the old winding passage ways faithfully
until he reached the stone griffin staircase.
“Chocolate Beetles” He whispered breathlessly at the statue. He reached the top of the stairs and burst forth into the headmasters office.
Albus Dumbledores' head snapped abruptly around towards the door, he'd been standing near the window reading something
“Severus,” the tall graying wizard glided towards him now. His face solemn and arms out-stretched.
“I had begun to worry. Were they found? Are Lily and James alright?”
He wrapped Severus in a hug but at feeling the little mass between them he took a step back to examine the mass tuck within Severus' arms.
“They’re dead,” Snape's voice was barley broke above a whisper, low and strangled in his throat.
“He got to them before I could. You promised you would. Keep .Them. Safe.”
He said, stressing every word of it. Anger rose up in him, seared under his skin and filled up his chest.
Anger that the person he had loved most in the world had been murdered because Albus Dumbledore couldn’t keep his promises.
“You knew the risk Severus, as well as I did. I told you there was only so much I could do.”
Albus’ voice was even tempered, but something in the calm of his tone broke when he spoke of his own duty.
“What was the point then, of any of this ? Becoming your spy, risking my own life for her safety and now she’s gone!”
His cold whisper had gone and a yell erupted, unable to keep a firm grasp on his emotions, any thread of occlumency immediately torn down in an instant.
The misery came pouring out of him in waves of tears and spit fire rage
“She's all- she was all I ever... and I let him take her!”
He clung to the sleeping baby in his arms the same way one beginning to drown would cling to a life preserver.
“And now, he's is all that’s left of her Albus and I..I..”
The words came out uncharacteristically uncivilized. They were muddled between sharp irratice intakes of air.
He was a man on the edge of destruction. “I failed her.. Dumbledore,”
The mans name slipped out sounding more like a plea for help than anything else.
Snape looked up, unaware that he’d been avoiding the gaze of the man in front of him.
Albus Dumbeldore wore an expression that would have brought any composed person to tears.
It was clear that Dumbledore was as utterly heart-broken as himself, his eyes glistened with unspilt tears.
He was quiet for a long moment before he spoke. Perhaps he was simply allowing for Snape’s words to have the space they deserved.
Letting them linger in the air between them, because they meant something.
After a long time it was Albus who broke the silence.
“There is only one thing we can do now."
His words coming out sounding equal parts comforting and dismayed
" We must make her proud," He said nobly " Raising her son to be as kind and courageous as she was.”
Albus Dumbledore rested a weathered but warm hand on Snape’s shoulder and let his own blue eyes follow where Snape’s were.
To the sleeping child in his arms, watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest.
Blissfully unaware that his life had permanently and irreversibly been change forever.
Snape held in his arms the last of Lily Evans and James Potter, and knew that as long as he drew breath, he would do everything in his power to protect the boy.
In the small dark hours of the morning the grand old castle was filled only by one sound.
The weeping of a newly broken man and the silent promise he made in that moment.
-
Day 2
The Ministry of Magic, London.
By four AM the entirety of the wizarding world seemed to be wide awake and buzzing.
And all of whom were now clamouring to find a space in the ministry.
Thousands of eccentrically colored day robes, as well as many who were still in their sleep clothes,
slippers and night caps which were kept on in the hurry and excitement.
The high ceilings of the ministry couldn't contain the energy which filled every Witch,
Wizard and other magical being as news of Lord Voldemort's mysterious disappearance filled the air like electrical currents.
Voldemorts' looming presence had been a cold shadow over every Wizard for the better half of a decade,
but now at his peak of violence culminating in the brutal murder of a young couple in their own home he had suddenly vanished.
Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape and the baby, whos' name Snape only then realized he did not know,
traveled by the floo network into the massive marble building. Albus had arranged to meet with the Minister immediately and they wasted no time.
Snape hurried to keep up with Dumbledores' sweeping strides. He followed in silence, head down and catching only the blur of colorful robes in his peripheral.
His eyes stayed trained the back of Albus' heels.
The two men pushed their way through the thrawls of people,
every one of them moving purposefully in their own direction.
Snape held on securely to the bundle of cloak in his arms and with a final push
the two broke through to the correct corridor which led to the Ministers' office.
Though when they eventually reached it there were already thirty other frantic wizards waiting outside the door.
"Albus!" A voice called out over the crowd "She'll be expecting you,"
An older wizard with sandy blond hair and chartreuse robes piped up and ushered them briskly through the door and out of the crowd of waiting ministry workers.
The room, which overlooked the entire ministry of Magic through one massive window, was filled with heavy oak furniture and shining bobbles.
A small white haired woman sat at the desk before them with her head rested resolutely in her hands.
Millicent Bagnold was a kind witch with a good head on her shoulders and had been elected Minister mere months before
Voldemort began his reign of terror against muggles and the wizarding world.
And while many people had made it clear they thought it should have been Albus Dumbledore behind her desk,
he was an old friend and she held no ill-will against him.
"Millicent, " Albus spoke as he walked through the door.
She removed her hands from her pale blue eyes and in a moment she was up before them.
"Oh Albus, tell me you have good news." Her brows we're knit with worry as she placed a hand on Albus'. He tutted his head in reply.
" My news is only this," He said, and his tone became softer as he shifted to the side to reveal Severus and the bundle.
" I am remorse to say I can only confirm that James and Lily Potter were indeed killed in their home this very morning.
But that their only son has by some miracle survived."
Millicent's pale eyes grew large in surprise as she moved towards Severus, she stared with mouth agape at the sleeping infant.
" I don't understand?"
She glanced between the two men, searching for the next words, for answers and understanding. "How ? How could anyone survive Albus?"
Albus Dumbledore could only shake his head.
"We scarcely understand it ourselves Millie. But my inside sources have also told me that after this happened,
Voldemort vanished and in three hours has not been seen nor heard from."
She placed a hand over her mouth and began to pace the floor in concentration.
"For now," Dumbledore spoke again with the kind of control and confidence needed exactly in a moment like this, with so little direction
" Until we are able to contact the closest living relatives of the boy he'll stay with us.
I feel he will be safest at Hogwarts. And as for Tom Riddle… all we can do is wait."
Millicent Bagnold nodded her white head and her tired eyes looked up at Albus one last time.
"I can't be sure why Albus, but I feel free for the first time in a long time… do you think it's foolish to feel this way?"
He smiled at her, blue eyes shining back at hers.
"I feel the same hope you do. The child brings it without any effort, without trying."
They stayed, hidden away in Millicent's office for only a couple minutes longer, discussing in hushed whispers the best way to protect
the boy from prying eyes and nosy reporters for as long as possible.
Severus was sent back to Hogwarts with the child still safely tucked within his now exhausted arms,
leaving Albus and Bagnold to face the clamoring crowd of terrified and curious ministry officials together.
When Dumbledore was finally able to slip away, he appeared neither rumpled or tired.
Hardly creased in the slightest. It somehow seemed that even after all the sleepless nights of war,
to the now grueling hours spent in and out of briefings at the ministry, bustling from one informant to the next.
It was all light work.
The clouds were parting, and with the same sense of tentative optimisim, it seemed as if the whole of London was stepping out into the sun once more.
Up and down Diagon alley Shop keeps were taking the boards off of their windows. The children would soon be returning to Hogwarts.
The once abandoned streets were beginning to fill once more with the brightly colored robes of witches and wizards.
And for the first time in many years, the air was not filled with whispers of the Dark Lords name.
There was a new name on everyone’s lips. It was the name of a little boy, and when people spoke it,
hope filled the air.
