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Lord Voldemort landed in Godric's Hollow. A powerful Disillusionment Charm ensured his privacy as he strode down the street. Children in colourful costumes were shrieking and running past, oblivious to the man in their midst. Voldemort watched the interplay with faint curiosity for a brief moment before he turned to face Potter Cottage.
Inside, the Potters would be enjoying a quiet Hallow's Eve together. The last holiday they would enjoy.
Voldemort raised his wand and approached the house. He had offered the Potters a healthy lump sum in exchange for their son—not because he had expected them to accept it, but because he found their offended refusal amusing.
The wards on the door were easily shattered. Voldemort applied his own anti-Apparition wards on the house before he entered the living room. It was empty. He continued up the stairs and found the master bedroom empty as well.
The absence of parents should have alerted him that something was wrong, but the nursery was just ahead, and he knew the boy was there. The temptation was too strong.
When Voldemort entered the room, the child did not make a sound. Quiet, for one so young. Perhaps it knew that death was coming.
Slowly, the toddler pulled itself up to lay eyes upon the dark lord who had come to kill him. Large, round eyes, green like those of the mother that Severus so adored, stared at Voldemort over the white cage of the baby crib.
Voldemort felt nothing. This child was no threat to him, not yet. The potential threat lay only in the future, a future that would never come to pass.
Voldemort leveled his wand at the boy. This boy was his to dispose of. Of the three murders that would be committed tonight, this one was the most justified, not because of any prophecy, but because Lord Voldemort—eternal, immortal—would bow to no one, not even fate.
Then, unexpectedly, the toddler raised one fat fist, little fingers clenched tight around the handle of a wand.
"Avada Kedavra."
Green light flashed, made more vibrant as the glow reflected in the boy's eyes, and then the world shattered around him, reality splitting into violent, deformed shards as his body merged with the explosion and ceased to exist.
The room went quiet once more.
In the back corner, huddled together and shielded by the Cloak of Invisibility, James and Lily Potter exhaled an enormous sigh of relief. James Potter stood and steadied his wife beside him, then approached his one-year-old son and removed the spell-o-tape holding Harry's tiny hand closed over the handle of the mahogany wand.
Lily examined the dead body on the floor. Then she kicked it and spat on it. Then she turned to her husband and asked, “Is Harry alright?”
James had picked up their little boy and was patting his unruly hair. “He seems fine.”
Harry yawned hugely, beating his fist against his father’s chest. “Vada dava vada dava vada dava!”
Both parents flinched.
“Not that I’m not ridiculously relieved that You-Know-Who is dead,” James said in a faux light tone, “but I’m not sure Imperiusing our son to murder him was the best decision after all.”
“It will go away,” Lily said hesitantly. “He’s so young. He’ll forget about it.”
“Vada dava!”
James delicately pressed a hand over Harry’s mouth to muffle the next botched murder spell. “I really hope so.”
