Chapter Text
The evening had been warm and peaceful. The fire in the hearth was burning bright, and their dinner, though ordinary, had been one made of Lily's ever outstanding cooking.
Harry, now looking sleepy in James's arms, had been all smiles after he had played with his toy broom after they had finished their meal. Till this day, the small black-haired boy was still a wonder to James. The boy looked so much like him, but every time he looked into the toddler's eyes, he could only see his wife's. Despite all the wizarding world thought they knew about magic, there was still nothing more magical than looking at the face of your own child.
It was when thinking this that James's internal alarm went off, and he nearly let go of Harry while letting out a frightful gasp.
“James?” Lily's voice sounded from where she was still cleaning off the table.
Without replying, James stood up, still holding Harry, and looked out the window, even though he didn't need to see the approaching figure to know who was slowly making their way onto the lawn of their tiny house.
“Lily!” He ran to her, pushing Harry into her arms. “Lily! Take Harry and go!”
For a moment, his wife seemed frozen, an obvious realisation seeming to hit her. “James…” She started but couldn't finish.
“GO!” he repeated, and Lily didn't need to be told again as she immediately took off running toward the stairs. The last glance James got of her face was one he knew was filled with fear and grief; she already knew that he was going to die.
Just when James turned back around, wand in hand, the front door burst open with a loud explosion, sending rubble and dust everywhere. The dark figure stepping in was one James and Lily had already faced three times before, all three times making miraculous lucky escapes.
The dark figure standing there was the reason they were here in the first place, in this small house, under all the protections they could think of—this man, the man who wanted to kill their entire small family. Lord Voldemort.
“Lord Potter, how nice it is of your friend to invite me into your home,” the sizzling voice from Voldemort sounded from under the black hood covering his snake-like face.
The thought had already gone through James's head, of course, but it being confirmed like this made him feel utterly betrayed. Peter… Peter… he had sold them out. It was an impossible thought, one James did not have time to linger on in the present moment.
“Stupefy!” James shouted before sending two more wordless curses toward the cloaked figure who had remained in the same spot.
It was no surprise to James when all the spells were easily deflected by the Dark Lord, but it filled him with dread nonetheless. Amongst others, James might be a very powerful wizard, stronger and more skilled than almost everyone else in the Order, but against the likes of Voldemort, he was still almost nothing.
Getting more creative as the Dark Lord slowly started to approach him, James configured the lamp above Voldemort's head into a vengeful eagle that began to attack without remorse. It was a surprise to even James when this actually helped to slow the figure down as he fired more curses his way.
Voldemort, now seeming to get frustrated, let out a growl as he finally managed to obliterate the eagle with a simple fire spell. “You know, Potter. If you had taken the chance to accept my offer, you and your spouse might never have had to suffer.”
James let out a huff as he sent all the books stacked neatly in their closet flying toward Voldemort. “Why you would ever think Lily or I would join you is a mystery to me. We would never fall to your depths.”
With another quick flick of his wand, Voldemort burned up the books before they could even get close to him. “Your power could have been great, Potter. So much lost potential. Even your Mudblood wife I would have taken into my ranks. It is only the pair of you that could have ever been the fire behind this wrecking prophecy, and now I have come to put an end to it.”
In a last attempt to defend himself, James took power from the burning fire that had kept their small family warm not long ago. Letting the flames go wild, they soon whirled around the room, spinning around James and attacking Voldemort with their hot tendrils. The magic was a last resort to slow the Dark wizard down; the energy it took from him to keep this spell going was all-consuming.
Voldemort shrieked in anger as the flames hit him, but with the conjuring of water, he soon started to break through James's flame storm. James couldn't tell how much time he had already managed to slow the Dark wizard, but he could only hope it had been enough. Lily would hopefully escape using the Portkey they had set up for this—hopefully...
It was when the flames had almost burned out that James stumbled. Whether it was from exhaustion or simple distraction, he couldn't tell, but he ended up falling hard to the ground.
“And there falls the great Lord Potter,” Voldemort spoke in a victorious tone, a grin clearly visible on the man's distorted face.
As Voldemort pointed his wand down at James, the fallen man only had a fraction of a second to mentally prepare before—“CRUCIO!” the snake-like voice called out.
An all-consuming pain overtook James, and all he could do was writhe and scream as he desperately tried to move away.
“Will you beg, Potter? Will you beg?” Voldemort growled at his squirming figure before letting out a hysterical laugh.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, James also picked up another voice calling out to him. A voice that sent him into an even deeper spiral; Lily was screaming his name from up the stairs. “JAMES!” Her voice sounded desperately hysterical to him.
Listening to it, however, James could only think, why hasn't she gotten away? They had to get away! Voldemort would kill her! Kill her and Harry!
Voldemort's laugh kept cackling throughout the small cottage as the Dark wizard stepped closer to James, leaning down and putting more power behind the torture curse.
The increased levels of pain made James start to spiral into unknown depths of his consciousness. The small bit of logic that remained in his mind told James that if this went on, he would go crazy or simply die from the sheer pain of the torture. It was only the thought of Lily and Harry still upstairs that made him hold on to the awareness of his surroundings.
Voldemort's smile was close to James's face now as the Dark wizard grabbed him by the chin to look him straight in the eyes while he kept screaming and squirming on the ground below. “Oh, how I enjoy this, Potter. Finally getting what you deserve,” Voldemort spoke in a low tone, his breath brushing across James's face.
James, unable to even manage a reaction as the pain coursed through him, could only look at the Dark wizard as he moved to stand back up.
“CRUCIO!” Voldemort spoke the torture curse again, sending James into another spiral of pain.
This time, however, James wasn't able to hold on to his sanity and lost any real conscious thought, not even aware of Voldemort finally moving away from him.
–
Lily kept pulling on the window frame even after she had sent all the curses toward it she could think of, but it still wouldn't open. James's screams from downstairs still hadn't stopped, and Lily was now in true hysterical panic as tears kept rolling down her cheeks while she listened to her husband being tortured.
James had sacrificed himself without a thought, and she couldn't even get their son to safety. Their plan of escape had failed; somehow Voldemort had managed to block their escape by Portkey, and even the windows wouldn't open anymore. She couldn't think of what to do as the Dark wizard downstairs would soon come to kill their son.
Harry himself, reacting to his mother's distress and father's screams, was crying incessantly. The sobs made by the small boy were unlike anything Lily had ever heard their son make. Young as he was, he may not realise what was happening, but he was definitely picking up on both his parents' great distress.
Once more, James's scream reached an even more hysterical height, and Lily dropped to the floor next to Harry's crib, tears streaming down her face without stopping. Doing the only thing left she could think of, she put up multiple extra shield charms on the door to the nursery, but in her head, she knew this was useless. All the charms would do was slow Voldemort down, but with no escape for her or Harry…
It was less than a minute before the door to the nursery blew off its hinges, and the sound of James's screams—which had been muffled by the closed door—became even louder in Lily's ears. Voldemort, in his dark cloak, now stood before her, and without hesitation, Lily quickly got back on her feet, positioning herself between the Dark wizard and her son.
“Take me instead,” she spoke, her voice sounding far stronger and steadier than she felt.
All Voldemort gave in reply was another cackling laugh as he stepped further into the small nursery.
Lily fired off multiple curses and jinxes, but they were easily deflected by the Dark wizard, and in their close proximity, Lily couldn’t try much else without also putting Harry in danger.
“Please… Please…” Lily started begging. “Please don’t hurt Harry. Don’t hurt our son.”
Voldemort stepped even closer. “Step aside, woman. If you do, I might even let you and your husband live. Although…” He paused, moving his snake head to the side, indicating to listen to James's still insistent screaming. “You might have to scrape him off the ground.”
Lily started to tremble all over, her tears falling again while sending more spells the Dark wizard’s way with the same result. “Please…” she tried again in a whisper.
But it was then that Voldemort's hysterical smile grew irritated. “MOVE ASIDE!”
“NO!” Lily screamed back with all the power she had in her body. So much power, in fact, that she almost felt like she enacted a spell somehow. “WE WON'T LET YOU HAVE HIM!” she screamed again, thinking of their small family. Thinking of her suffering husband downstairs. Thinking of Harry still crying loudly behind her. And with the screaming of the words, more was drained from her magic energy.
Voldemort let out a loud growl as he lifted his wand in anger. “AVADA KEDAVRA!”
A green light flashed across the room and hit Lily straight in the chest. She felt the life being sucked out of her, but accompanied by that was something else…
She felt a light touch in her consciousness that she could only describe as being James. The touch was soft and weak, but it was there somehow. Then for a while… there was nothing…