"Run, Lily. Get Harry safe, I will hold him off!" The desperate cry from James Potter came echoing up the hall to the visage of death that had just burst through the door.

It was admirable. Well maybe not admirable exactly, because Lord Voldemort did not admire anybody, but it certainly was brave. Just like the foolish Gryffindor that James Potter was. It was a shame the young wizard would have to die, he would have made an acceptable front-line slave. But he had chosen Dumbledore's side.

His advance down the hallway was briefly hindered as a couple of small animated animals charged him, but a "Bombarda" here and "Avada Kedavra" there destroyed the objects. Leaving a prone stag and a smouldering dog in his wake the Dark Lord turned a corner only to be slammed into a wall by a flying bookcase. Snarling at his opponent he saw that the Gryffindor didn't even have his wand on him.

Swatting aside an underpowered stunning spell Voldemort responded with a curse designed to turn his enemies blood to stone, which the man was able to dart out of the way from. What he hadn't expected was the bookcase to start morphing into a wall cutting off his view of the younger wizard. Potter must have been more powerful than he had thought, to be able to wandlessly transfigure the obstacle that quickly. But it wouldn't be enough. Potter wasn't facing some second rate hack from Bauxbâtons but the greatest wizard to ever come out of Hogwarts, the heir of the greatest of the founders himself.

A wall of force burst forth out of the world's greatest living mage, sending the transfigured bookcase flying, destroying the drywall behind him, and knocking over the impertinent wizard who dared to impose him. Swatting away three hastily cast spells, only one of which he recognised, the imposing figure of the Dark Lord strode towards the downed Potter.

"You should have joined me when you had the chance, boy. I would have made you great, but now you and your line will perish and fade into Oblivion." Fitting last words for the foolish Gryffindor to hear. "Now die. Avada Kedavra!"

A hasty summoning charm produced a stainless steel platter that blocked the killing curse, and then was hurtled into Voldemort's face knocking him back and causing his nose to start bleeding. The red mist descended and the Dark Lord started flinging spell after spell at the man lying on the ground, starting with pain inducing spells before resorting to numerous castings of his favourite spell. The green light illuminating his face as laughter spilled out.

A minute later he stood panting over his dead opponent, the face of whom was frozen in death screaming out in agony. Pride surged through the victorious wizard, as did further rage at being delayed by the insignificant fly, and he stepped over the body and carried on towards his target. Up the stairs he floated, hunting down the mother and the child. His victory was at hand, the last possible shred of resistance he faced before ascending to a throne in the ruins of the Ministry of Magic from where his reach would extend around the globe.

A flicker of movement through the inch-wide gap of a hastily closed door alerted him to his target location, the room at the end of the house. Without saying a word and with the smallest of movements the door slammed open and revealed the mother imposed between him and a small bundle lying in a cot. He raised his wand before remembering the pleading of one of his slaves.

Snape was no better a potioneer than himself, but skilled help allowed him to focus his prodigious skills elsewhere. Specifically conquering and ruling the world. "Step aside woman. The child has to die but you are for another."

"Go to hell you bastard!" The insolent redhead spat at him, showing the lack of manners to be expected with her lower breeding.

One quick spell later and her body tumbled to the side, but his eyes were fixed on the child before him. Funny that one so small could be his undoing. The truth was that without the prophecy he would never have suspected the young wizard. If the child was as powerful as he must be to be able to kill the Dark Lord in the future he probably would have risen fast through the Death Eater ranks under the Unified Kingdom of Voldemort and struck him down from a trusted position. He would have to test the loyalty of his troops more regularly.

Pointing his wand at the cloth swaddled bundle in the cot he felt the rage grow inside him. How dare he threaten the greatest wizard in history? How dare he oppose Lord Voldemort, the person who had reached the closest to deathlessness in the history of magic? The anger grew and grew, the tip of his wand glowing green.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" A beam of familiar green light shot forth, appearing briefly brighter than usual. A quick though passed by, that he was evolving even more powerful than before. This was what happened when you defied prophecy and became undefeatable.

The next, and last, thought that Tom Riddle had for quite some time was one of immense pain as his soul was ripped from his body which burned up until only ashes remained. If he had been focusing on more than just the bundle when he had slain the mother he would have seen sigils around the room light up with her sacrifice. Maybe then he would have proceeded more cautiously.

However Tom had grown arrogant, single-minded, and crazy with all the experiments and Dark rituals he had undergone over the decades. He had been focused on the cot and missed the other happenings in the room; the runes carved into every available surface, the fact that he had been downstairs delayed for minutes, and the power of willing human sacrifice. The irony of a man's undoing from a willing sacrifice when he had used forced sacrifices in several rituals to grow in power would have been lost on the barely human Riddle.

Perhaps he would have noticed the most obvious thing about the whole situation. The bundle in front of him had not moved or made noise since Voldemort had entered the room. In fact if he looked at it with anything other than disdain and deathly intent he would have noticed that all he could see was cloth. There was no baby in the cot.

Being hunted by a madman had changed the Potter's and their goals. The little bundle of joy that had become the centre of their world was all that mattered, and having Voldemort around was a threat to Harry. And so a plan was born. A plan to destroy the threat of Voldemort once and for all. A plan to give Harry a good life.

Voldemort was bending all his considerable resources to finding them and it was only a matter of time until he did, and when that happened they doubted they would be able to overcome him and the waves of Death Eaters he might bring along. If they fell it would mean certain death for young Harry and that was unacceptable.

So they studied. And researched. And read. Until they exhausted every available resource and had to reach out to the one person they could trust, Sirius Black. Best friends with James for a decade, brothers in all but blood, and the Godfather of little Harry, Sirius was willing to throw himself into the work as well. This would have surprised anybody who had only been casually familiar with him through his teenage years, seeing the immature man nose deep in ancient tomes, but like the rest of the Marauders he knew how to research for a prank. He also brought with him access to the Black Library, when his mother wasn't at home, a trove of rare and ancient knowledge.

Eventually a plan formed around an obscure and probably forgotten ritual. It was a simple plan, made harder by the sheer complexity of the magic involved. All they had to do was lead the crazed wizard to the room where the ritual was happening and get him to cast his favourite spell, and watch as he tore himself apart. If only it was that simple.

Rituals can be charged by magic or death, the more magic in the sacrifice the better, and can have amazingly powerful results. In this case it can even turn the "unstoppable" killing curse on its caster, under the right circumstances. The sacrifice needed to charge the ritual is roughly the same amount of magic as you would find in a witch or wizard, which was high on the scale of ritual costs and was risky to acquire. Also, like many rituals, the magic started to bleed away quickly and within a few short minutes the ritual would not be able to stop the spell. Too many things had to line up perfectly which is why the ritual fell into obscurity.

Two skilled magic users however would be able to charge the ritual by pumping about half of their magic pool into the ritual and by keeping concentration upon the ritual would be able to keep it charged for hours which was the idea. The Potter's would be alerted as the Death Eaters charged against the wards of the house and would rush to Harry's nursery to start powering up the ritual, and therefore would be ready for Voldemort when he walked over the exhausted and potentially dead Death Eaters to personally kill the boy.

What they hadn't expected was Voldemort to come alone and use his power and knowledge of magic to single-handedly slip through almost all the wards and then overpower the door sealant and not give them the 5 minutes they needed to charge the ritual safely. And so James had stepped forward to delay the bastard for hopefully long enough for his brilliant wife to come up with something, fully knowing it would mean his death. If it saved his wife and son it was worth it.

Lily no longer had time and couldn't simply charge the ritual safely. Her Plan B was riskier than anything she had ever tried before, so much so that she believed that she had a 50:50 chance of losing her magic forever, if she even survived, but she needed to destroy Voldemort otherwise Harry would never be safe. As soon as she was in the room she started pouring her magic into the glyphs carved into the room, hoping that dear, brave, funny James would give her enough time to charge the ritual. 90 seconds. That was how close Harry Potter came to growing up with a mother. If Lily had only had 90 more seconds she would have charged the ritual, but instead she had to use herself as a sacrifice in a last ditch effort to provide the cost needed.

The smartest part of the plan however, the one that was hopefully guaranteed to ensure the survival of the youngest Potter, was that for the last few months since his first birthday Harry had not been living with his parents. It was the hardest thing either of his parents had ever done, but temporarily giving the baby away secretly meant that he wasn't going to be in the house when Voldemort came calling. Instead Sirius and the Potter elf Flake had been caring for young Harry.

~/~

Sirius was finding this arguably the most boring Halloween night he had had in years. Usually there would be parties, especially when one was willing to go into the muggle world where a lot more skin was on show, and instead he was stuck at home in case a baby started crying. And it wasn't even his baby. Getting off the couch he grabbed a fresh bottle of butterbeer and returned to the couch-indent he had made through repeated laziness.

A sudden flash and loud noise had him dropping the bottle in surprise and he stared at an orb on his mantleplace, mouth gaping. Panicking he ran over to the fireplace and thrust his head into the unlit fire, getting a nose full of ash for his troubles. Coughing and spluttering he reeled back, falling onto his butt in the wet patch of spilt butterbeer. Collecting himself he remembered to grab floo powder and use it on his second attempt.

"James and Lily are under attack! Get support over there now." Pulling his head back from the fire he turned to assess the empty room. There was nothing he wanted more than being there to help but Lily would kill him if he left Harry now so close to their victory.

"Flake." Calling out he waited for the pop as the house-elf joined him. "James and Lily will be here soon, get the spare room ready for them. Oh and can you clean the mess I made."

Sitting back on the couch as Flake disappeared the mess, Sirius let a small smile spread across his face. Finally this was over and they could return to normal. Harry would go back with his parents, Sirius could enter the dating game again, and the Wizarding world would be done living in fear of a madman.

He picked up a magazine and after looking at it for a whole 10 seconds put it back down, unable to focus. Leaving the couch once more he began to pace. Sirius was a man of action, sitting around doing nothing? That was what his family called being a Slytherin.

His musings were interrupted by a much more harsh sounding rattling on the mantle and a rapidly blinking red light. This was wrong, it was much too soon to have the alert that the ritual had happened. He had only just gotten the alert to somebody activating the wards there shouldn't have been anybody in the nursery for minutes, maybe even an hour. Something was wrong!

Drawing his wand he turned on the spot with a *pop!* appearing a moment later in Godric's Hollow. The sickening sight of the Dark Mark floating above his destination just up the street caused Sirius' heart to miss a beat. This may have been part of the plan but it still felt so wrong to see that symbol above the house of his loved ones. Sirius hoped he would never see the abomination again.

Running up to the gate the wizard felt something was off but couldn't put his finger on it. It was when he was approaching the blasted door that it struck him; where were the Death Eaters? Where was the army of minions they had expected? As he let his eyes wander to make sure he wasn't surrounded his brain fully clicked into gear.

Where he was should have been far inside the wards of the place and yet he hadn't felt anything when he crossed the line, and now he couldn't feel any nearby. The next sign of worry was when his eyes reached the far corner of the top floor where a massive hole had been blown in the building. Having been to the house multiple times he knew that that was the nursery, and he also knew that the ritual should not have caused an explosion. Lastly as his eyes continued to scan the area he concluded that there were no Death Eaters around.

Charging forward he ran over the remains of the door and around a corner in the hall only to come to a stop as he saw the sight he was dreading. Lying crumpled on the floor was James Potter, his brother in all but blood, lifeless eyes staring up and face grotesquely twisted in pain. Letting a tear fall he bravely continued on, needing to check on Lily and find out what had happened. He would grieve later, now he needed to be strong.

Running up the stairs and over to the nursery he found another disturbing scene with the body of his friend and a large pile of ash. It didn't make any sense to him how it had all gone wrong but he had to act quickly. Harry needed to be protected, above all else that was his priority from now till death. When the boy was old enough and strong enough they would raise hell to get revenge on the bastards who had caused this, but for now they needed to find a place of safety.

"Goodbye Lily." He whispered as the telltale sound of magicals arriving by apparition told him time was up.

Using magic to jump back to his flat he ran around in a flurry of motion. "Flake I need you. Quickly now."

The elf appeared slower than usual, shaking and looking disturbed. "I is sorry Master Black. Flake not feel good."

Unfortunately for the elf Sirius did not have time to be diplomatic or empathetic. "James and Lily are dead. Harry is your Master now, and to keep your Master safe we have to leave in 2 minutes. Pack everything we might need but we are travelling light so only the essentials."

When some angry Death Eaters burst through the door an hour later they found an abandoned flat with scattered clothes and furniture. After searching for people, and valuables, and not finding anything one of them angrily cast the Fiendfyre spell to burn the place down. Unfortunately for him he wasn't anywhere near powerful or skilled enough to control the curse fire and caught himself and one of his friends in the flames.

As London was illuminated with fire, those nearby swore they could hear screams of pain coming from within the abandoned flat that was the center of the flames. With that Sirius and Harry struck their first blow of revenge without even having to raise wands of their own. The rest would need to be on their guard because when they returned it would be with fire and vengeance.

A/N: This chapter was a bit of a mess, but it's quite fitting given how everything is going worldwide at the moment. I wanted to throw together everything that sets up the story and the major areas it diverges from Rowling's work. I think I captured the arrogance and insanity of Voldemort quite well in the first half of the year. Big thank you to all those who responded to my post a few weeks back, while this idea wasn't from any single one of you if was a melding of a bunch of the responses. Essentially what happened is I let my imagination run as I read what you all said and quite a few of the responses sparked different ideas that twisted and formed a new idea all on its own. While I can't say that I will never return to my other works, particularly Unexpected Lordship, when I lost all my notes for the stories I lost my heart for writing in general so it might take some time. Stay safe during the craziness that is going on.

Apprentice.