Chapter Text
PROLOGUE: The Girl Who Disappeared
The night was clear under the starry sky; not a single cloud obscured the heavens when Dumbledore apparated at Godric’s Hollow.
The old wizard's first move was to take out his Deluminator, only to realize that all the street lights—indeed, those of the entire town—were already out. When he saw Hagrid rushing toward him, muttering in a panic that he could no longer see the house where the Potters had been hiding for the past few months, Dumbledore raised an eyebrow.
He knew he had apparated exactly in front of the house in question; after all, he had cast the Fidelius Charm himself. But when he turned his gaze to where the garden gate should have been, he realized he could only focus on the neighboring houses, his eyes never settling on the space that should have been between them.
With a cautious, slow movement, he drew his wand to cast a variation of Revelio that he himself had created in his youth. He immediately realized it had hit the boundary of a ward, likely cast by James and Lily in addition to his Fidelius. It was a powerful disillusionment charm, created with the intent of forcing ill-intentioned people to steer clear, designed to alert the residents if anyone with hostile intent came too close to the protections.
Most likely a project of Lily's, later cast together with James and perhaps Sirius, if the magical signature doesn't deceive me, the old wizard thought.
He knew he had little time before the renegade son of the Blacks arrived. He had already realized he needed to hurry when Hagrid called him about being unable to find the cottage. Now, however, he understood that as good as the half-giant's intentions were, his desire to enter and take the baby girl away had been interpreted by the wards as malevolent. As a result, he was being actively kept out.
Instead of unravelling the complicated ward, Dumbledore decided to save time by overpowering and destroying it. Pointing his wand at the spot where he knew the ward to be, he began to channel his magic into it. The moment he reached the root of the spell, he shattered it within seconds, causing the protections to collapse.
"Stay here, Hagrid. If anyone comes—whoever it may be—do not let them pass unless I tell you to."
After receiving a nod of agreement from the half-giant, Dumbledore walked quickly toward the wide-open front door. The interior was a battlefield. Even from the outside, he had seen that part of the roof had been destroyed, but the duel that had taken place on the ground floor must have been terrible.
As was its conclusion.
Dumbledore’s eyes fell upon the motionless body of James Potter lying on the first flight of stairs, and a sorrowful sigh escaped his lips.
"Oh James, you were always one of the Order's most loyal members. I had planned to have you by my side as my primary spokesperson and future successor. If only the prophecy hadn't chosen your daughter to end the dark times..."
Dumbledore knelt over the man's body and, with a gentle touch, closed his still-open eyes. Then, with quick but muffled steps, the wizard bypassed the body and climbed the stairs.
It seemed the invader had met no further resistance, at least not until the baby's room. Inside the nursery, everything was destroyed except for the crib. There stood a baby girl with black hair and the brilliant green eyes she shared with her mother, leaning against the edge with an expression twisted in pain and confusion toward something to her left.
Albus followed her gaze, finding poor Lily Potter lying helpless on the floor, where she had likely fallen after being thrown against the wall.
"Oh Lily, a witch as powerful and intelligent as you is rare to find. Perhaps too fiery, as Minerva likes to say, to stand by James in the role I had envisioned for him. Rest in pea—"
As Dumbledore was about to look back at the child, already finishing his brief eulogy, he saw Lily's chest weakly rise and fall. The old wizard quickly closed the distance to the woman in two swift strides and began casting various diagnostic charms.
"Alive! The Dark Lord truly granted Severus his wish... perhaps the boy could be more useful than I thought..." he murmured thoughtfully. Just as he was raising his wand toward the woman again, the roar of a motorcycle—the unmistakable vehicle of the only man arrogant enough to arrive later than him to meetings—echoed from the street in front of the house.
"Let me pass, Hagrid!"
Dumbledore peered through the windows to see his faithful gamekeeper trying to stop a highly agitated Sirius Black from entering.
He had no time.
He turned toward the baby and approached. An infernal heat spread around Dumbledore's body; the man tried to use his own magic to soothe the sensation, but it was consumed by the pure power radiating from the child, and a vision of unstoppable flames burning the entire world flashed through his mind.
It happened every time he was near the little girl and she was particularly distressed. Those who were not grandmasters of Occlumency and Legilimency like him felt nothing more than a suffocating pressure and a burning heat on their skin if the child was sufficiently upset.
The little girl's birth had unleashed chaos and panic throughout St. Mungo's. That was the first time Dumbledore had witnessed it: an almost infinite power, one he doubted even the Elder Wand could subdue if allowed to grow. When he had tried to scratch the surface of the child's mind, it had nearly cost him his sanity, if not his life.
An unstoppable sea of flames that desired to burn and destroy everything in its path. At that moment, Dumbledore understood that such power would have to be harnessed and brought under his control. It would have been simpler if he could tap into that power without the little girl in the way, but that cursed prophecy meant it had to be the child who faced Tom, and that was a problem.
Hearing the shouts outside the house grow louder, Dumbledore knew he had to act fast. From his thick beard, he pulled a small pair of white tweezers, prepared in advance for just such a situation, and placed them in the baby's hand. The emergency portkey activated the moment he spoke the password, and the little girl vanished into thin air. Only he knew where she had been taken, and it would remain that way for as long as possible.
"For the Greater Good," he said to the quiet room.
He prepared to head out to confront Sirius, but right at that moment, he sensed something else. On the floor near the crib, a teddy bear emanated a sense of pure malice. Dumbledore's mood plummeted even further when his Revelio revealed exactly what kind of magic it was. Until that moment, he had not believed Voldemort—Tom Riddle—capable of selling his soul to that despicable branch of magic. Perhaps he should have calculated the Dark Lord's plans more carefully.
"A Horcrux..."
It was weak, poorly made, likely by mistake, and the soul fragment would soon probably dissipate on its own, but this meant Voldemort had prepared. He had intended to use James's murder to create a true Horcrux. Looking around once more, he indeed found a badly bent ritual knife in a corner of the room.
"Dumbledore? What the hell happened? James... he's..."
Sirius came charging into the room, his eyes red and swollen with tears, but when he caught the headmaster's gaze, his expression transformed into one of pure rage.
"Your Fidelius! Your fucking Fidelius! It was supposed to protect them! You said it was safer than sending them away to one of the Potter properties scattered across half of Europe! That—"
A groan from the side of the room distracted Sirius. Lily was waking up, and the man rushed to her side in an instant, casting a diagnostic spell followed by a few first-aid charms.
"Lily! Oh my god... You're alive! You're alive!"
Sirius embraced the young woman, who was slowly regaining consciousness and thrashing in his arms, trying to look around.
"Where is she? Where is my daughter? Des? Where is she?!" Lily fiercely broke free from Sirius's embrace and rushed over to the empty crib, only to freeze at the sight that awaited her. Her eyes were filling with tears when Dumbledore tried to speak.
"Lily..."
She looked at him, and for a moment, he felt the urge to step back. Despite the devastation and the tears on the woman's face, the fire in her eyes still burned with a terrifying intensity.
"I am sorry, my dear... I believe we arrived too late. I believe Voldemort, in an attempt to turn your daughter into a Horcrux—"
While Lily's face contorted in confusion, Sirius stepped in front of the girl in anger.
"A Horcrux? What the hell are you talking about? That is dark magic beyond any human limit! It's kept secret and despised even by dark families! It's—it's soul magic!"
Dumbledore did not answer; he merely took a step back to clear the way and levitated the ritual knife and the teddy bear in front of the two young adults.
"This knife is imbued with dark magic; it is typically used in rituals. As for this teddy bear, though weak and fading, a fragment of Voldemort's soul must have attached itself to it after his body was destroyed."
When Sirius seemed unable to find the words to comprehend the Dark Lord's actions, Lily stepped forward slowly.
"But what does this mean for Desdemona?"
Dumbledore had to rely on his well-practiced mask to prevent any thought from slipping through at the mention of the girl's full name. In his youth, he had read the works of Shakespeare, and while they were not inherently bad, the choice of name was absolutely something the man could not bear to read or hear.
"I fear, my dear, that when Voldemort tried to place the fragment of his soul inside your baby girl, the child's magic must have tried to defend her. Judging by the damage and the magical signatures, it must have caused your daughter to collapse into an unstable Obscurial that destroyed both herself and Voldemort."
Before him, Lily and Sirius stared at him with completely bewildered expressions.
"But that's impossible! There is absolutely no way something like that could happen! That is not how an Obscurial is created!"
Lily was gesturing wildly in the air as she spoke, her fury and grief preventing her from staying still, lest she simply break down right then and there. It was at that moment she realized she no longer held her wand and went to retrieve it, while Sirius began casting the detection spells he had been taught at the Auror Academy.
"Albus, what are you blathering about?" Sirius demanded, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper as the results of the rapid investigation came back to him. "There's no trace of an Obscurial here. It looks like... an untraceable portkey!"
At that, Lily paused for a moment, her gaze locked onto the Hogwarts headmaster.
"A portkey..." she repeated slowly, her hand rising to point her wand directly at the old wizard's face, her eyes narrowing with fury. "Where is my daughter?"
She was strangely calm for a woman with a fiery temper like hers, but Dumbledore knew that regardless of the threats posed by the two wizards before him, he would emerge victorious. Just as predicted, while Sirius was also raising his wand against him, the sound of multiple Apparitions prompted the professor to look out the window.
"It's Mad-Eye and Amelia with a squad of Aurors," he informed them calmly, ensuring Lily's attention shifted toward the window, allowing him to disarm her in an instant.
Sirius had not looked away, but it was a matter of a single second during which the young man's eyes followed Lily's flying wand for Dumbledore to disarm him in turn.
"Lily, Sirius... my children, you must understand that it is for the Greater Good."
And then, before the two could even attempt to counter, Dumbledore moved his wand in a swift succession of motions.
"Obliviate."
Their eyes went vacant for a few moments.
"Stupefy."
Immediately after, both collapsed unconscious from the second spell.
As this happened, the sounds of the Aurors entering the house reached him, and Albus let out a sigh. Tonight and the nights to come, he would have much to do dealing with the fallout of Voldemort's fall and the rise of the Potters' daughter as a heroine.
He thought "The Girl Who Lived" was a rather fitting nickname. The masses would be pleased. No one would know what happened on the night of October 31, 1981, at Godric's Hollow except for him, and so it would remain—he would see to it.
What Dumbledore didn't know at that moment, however, was that little Desdemona Potter had not liked the effect of the portkey at all—the sensation of a hook grappling her navel and dragging her away from her crib, compressing her into a centrifuge in the process.
Little Des, in fact, had given a push with her magic to distance herself from the object causing the unpleasant sensation, and had found herself catapulted into the middle of the grass, rolling and hitting the ground in a rather unpleasant way for an infant, who consequently began to cry.