A Hope

A Hope

Lily sat in the rocking chair with Harry, semi-delirious, singing any song that came into her head. "Ashes to ashes, funk to funky, you know Major Tom's a junkie..."

Downstairs, James was fiddling away at something. Probably waxing his damned broom. Cooped up as they were, he hadn't been able to go flying for months, but he still maintained it as if he were playing in the World Cup.

A nightingale outside sang gorgeous, soporific counterpoint to Lily's glam-rock lullaby.

"Mo," Harry muttered, reaching up for her mouth, fighting off sleep as if his life depended on it. Another song. I'm so happy, Lily thought, I could kill myself.

How lucky, she had joked with Alice Longbottom before they had withdrawn to their separate hiding places. How lucky we are, you and Frank and me and James, to get to spend weeks doing nothing but loving our children. Not like poor Molly Weasley, who had just had her seventh--seventh!--and was still spending much of her time handling logistics for the Order.

A girl, said the letter from Molly that Peter had brought. A beautiful girl, at last. Ginevra, which Lily thought was a beautiful name, even by wizard standards, and Lily loved all of the peculiar, obscure wizarding names. Aberforth. Andromeda. She even loved the name Bellatrix, though she didn't like the bearer of that name much, no, not at all.

Luna. The Lovegoods, too, had had a girl, so Molly had said. With Arthur's help, whatever that meant.

Lily broke off from singing Blondie's "Heart of Glass" and pinched Harry's nose. He giggled. "So there's one for you and one for your good buddy Neville."

"Mo," said Harry.

"What?" laughed Lily weakly. "Two girls isn't enough? You boys..."

"Mo."

"All right." She began to reach back to her pre-Hogwarts days for songs on the records she had listened to with Petunia: "You've Got a Friend," "Downtown," "The Boxer." If he didn't fall asleep soon, she would. James had managed the night before in no time at all. He had better not have been casting any charms.

Peter had been so odd tonight. More ratty than ever, and none of the soulful clucking that he usually bestowed on Harry. He'd seemed almost frightened.

Which stood to reason, it occurred to Lily. He was their Secret Keeper, but there was no protection for him. As soon as he stepped outside onto the Godric's Hollow high street, he was vulnerable to attack.

Poor Peter. They shouldn't have let Sirius talk them into using him. Even if there was a spy. Peter was being worn to a nub by the pressure.

Harry had finally stopped wiggling. His eyes were still pulsing open, but his breathing had started to fade into the long, blessed, deep rhythms that promised sleep for both of them.

Are you Harry-of-the-green-eyes-and-black-hair? Lily wondered. She hadn't told anyone about that strange encounter five summers back, when she thought she saw James in the tea shop and it turned out to be this very intense boy who looked just like her boyfriend, except for her own brilliant green eyes and a serpentine scar on his forehead. It was the one secret she had kept from her husband. But she had been so certain that this boy, Harry, had visited from the future, that she had convinced James that they should name their own son Harry.

"You've got the green eyes, beautiful boy, but no scar," she whispered as she transferred Harry's slack body into his crib.

Almost without thinking, she performed a charm that Dumbledore had taught her, one that would protect Harry against even the deadliest of curses, if the circumstances were just right. Prey they never are, she thought, as she tapped Harry for the third and final time just over his right eyebrow, renewing and strengthening the charm as she did daily.

Spells, she thought. The silly spells we weave around each other, and none stronger than the spell you cast on me the moment I saw those green eyes.

She stepped toward the doorway to go down to James when her husband walked into the room, grinning. He gave her a thumbs-down gesture and raised his eyebrows. Down yet?

She nodded. She was about to tell him it was time to put his energy to better use than polishing his broom, when she realized just how silent it was downstairs. No nightingale.

An explosion rocked the house. The wide oak floorboards, already bowed with age, rippled as the wards that protected the front door were tested. They held, but barely.

Peter, Lily thought, as she stood frozen by the crib. Peter, you poor sod, you ratted us out.

"DIFFINDO!" screamed a high, cold voice outside and the house rocked again.

Voldemort.

Concealment? No, he could see through James's cloak, she was sure. Floo? No, the hearth was downstairs, damn it. She and James could Apparate, but they would have to leave Harry behind... That left... No. She couldn't...

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off --" As James ran down the stairs, a third explosion burst the front door wide open.

A shiver ran through Lily. The boy with the scar had grasped her hand, his eyes feverish, and said, "There's going to be a time when you're in a very... dangerous situation. James will yell at you to get out. And you're going to try something really frightening and risky. I want you to know that what you're going to do works."

She looked down at her son, who was sitting up in his crib. Unable to master her voice, she mouthed, "Thank you, Harry." With a flick, she activated the protective charm.

There was a green flash from the stairwell, and a cackle of high-pitched laughter.

Certain, now, Lily stepped forward, blocking Harry's crib from the direct line of sight of the door.

Wand in hand, she waited.