"Lily," James yelled from the living room, his voice taking on a panicked but determined tone, "take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off—"

Lily heard a high voice say the Killing Curse and heard James's body thump lifelessly onto the floor. She had raced up the stairs with their son in her arms when she'd first heard his panicked voice and the pain in her chest at hearing her husband fall caused her to scream. She couldn't contain the agony that simple sound caused. She slammed the door to the nursery shut and only then realised that she didn't have her wand. She fiddled with the door knob, swearing to herself when she realised it didn't even have a lock. In her frenzy, she had only scooped up Harry from where she had him sitting on the kitchen table-she hadn't picked up her wand from next to him.

She could have cried if she had thought it would have done any good. She had just set Harry down in his crib when the door swung open and a red-eyed monster of a man stood before her. She wanted to scream in fear but all that came out was begging. She begged for her son's life.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" she tasted salt on her lips.

Remarkably, Lord Voldemort did not immediately cast the Killing Curse on her as he'd done on her husband. Instead, he commanded, "Stand aside, you silly girl..." When she did not move away but instead stepped more in front of the crib, trying to block her son from the cruel man's view, he said again, irritation leaking into his voice, "Stand aside, now..."

"Not Harry," she pleaded again, "Please no, take me, kill me instead—"

"This is my last warning—" he threatened.

She held her hands up in supplication, "Not Harry! Please, have mercy!" She could feel her tears dripping from her chin in her despair, "have mercy; not my son! Please, I'll do anyth—"

A flash of red spellfire flew from his white wand and knocked the breath from her. She collapsed in front of the crib like a ragdoll. Lord Voldemort frowned and shook his head at the pitiful excuse for a witch.

He dismissed her out of mind and looked at the crying child sitting in the crib. The babe held the white wooden dowels in front of him as his face scrunched, red and wrinkled from bawling and seeing his mother fall. Voldemort doubted the child was old enough to understand the concept of Death. He pointed his wand at the child's forehead, pale and visible under a messy down of black hair. He felt his hatred and anger wrap around him in its familiar way and let it pour through him and his wand, "Avada Kedavra!"

The explosion was instantaneous. The spell ricocheted, bouncing from the infant's little head, protected from death by his father's sacrifice, to the vile man draped in black robes. The blowback from the spell obliterated the ceiling and the far wall, raining chunks of wood and drywall and insulation down around the crib, the fallen woman, and the robes of the Lord—the man—that was.

As the dust and debris settled and silence returned to the little street in the quiet village of Godric's Hollow, the babe's wailing and sobs continued.

* . * . *

Soon another cry could be heard in the demolished house. A grown but young man howled in grief and dropped to his knees next to his best friend's body. He touched the man's skin and felt the absence of Prongs's magic. Through his tears, he could see the tightness of the skin on James's face; could see how his eyes had sunken into his skull.

He tried to stand—to move—but stumbled on a piece of debris that had fallen down the stairs from the explosion. He couldn't be bothered to pick it up or push it away, so instead, he crawled up the steps, still sobbing, blinded by his tears. What had he done? How had this happened?

He struggled up the stairs, ignoring the splinters in his palms until he was at the upstairs landing. He could see through the door frame, through the room, out at the cloudy sky above. He saw Harry, dressed in his softest blue sleeper, standing in his crib. His face was red from his crying and the trickle of blood across his forehead. The child had smeared it up into his hair and the reddish brown of dried blood was streaked across his hands and down his cheeks.

"Harry," Sirius sobbed a heavy breath of relief. How could a child survive anything in this space? The entire room was destroyed. He stood and stepped, tripping on black robes. When he was close enough, he grabbed the child and hoisted him into his arms. Sirius squeezed the boy tight, trying to calm his own weeping to calm the baby. He sank down onto his knees next to the crib and stared at the limp body of Lily, lying broken. It took Sirius longer than he cared to admit to breathe without hiccoughing and when he shifted, his hand brushed Lily's. Her skin wasn't tight like James's had been and he could still feel a pulse of life; her magic still flowed through her veins. Sirius held his breath, not caring that doing so would start the gasping again, and pressed his hand to Lily's chest. When he felt the slightest movement he almost choked on nothing.

Renewed tears slipped down his stubbly cheeks as he dug his wand from his pocket and cast the Reviving Spell. At first, she didn't stir but then her eyes opened and she blinked. She reached for Harry in his arms but stopped to look at her hands and arms. She had bits of wood sticking out at odd angles, debris from the room embedded into her skin.

"James," she murmured, a moment before whimpering. "Siri-hus," she gasped and cried at the same time, "He—" she hiccoughed a wet sob, still reaching for her son, "He killed my James," she cried.

She wrapped her arms around the baby and Sirius leaned towards her, letting her hold the child without letting go himself. "I know, Lily, I know. You need a healer; Harry needs a healer," he said, trying to reassure himself that two of the three people he loved that had lived in this house had survived. "Hogwarts, we'll go to Hogwarts..."

Later, Sirius wouldn't be able to say where he found the strength to stand or the deliberation to Apparate, but somehow he found himself at the gate guarded by winged boars staring up at the torch-lit castle. He screamed into the night, clinging to Lily and Harry, desperate to make their arrival noticed and to release some of the anguish filling up his chest.