All Hallows Eve

Halloween 1981

Steady eyes looked upon the sightless eyes of James Potter and steady fingers softly closed them. Pale, long fingered hands slid a broken wand into an unfeeling hand and clenched it over a still heart. The frosty breath of the living man scrawled a misty epitaph in the air, swirling about the dead man as his head was laid upon the stone.

But for the stifled moans of wooden beams and the solitary heartbeat of this single being the house was eerily silent.

The man took his misty breath with him leaving James where he lay. He trod through the ruined hallway and climbed a ragged stair, his sure pace faltering, betraying his exigency. Heedless of the ominous groans and treacherous debris beneath his feet he flung himself along the hall bursting open each door. A wildness grew in his eyes with each uninhabited room.

The last doorway was open. It sagged forlornly on its battered hinges. The man's hands shook as he stopped at the threshold, his urgency draining away like sand from a shattered hourglass.

He stumbled forward, as if every step were driving shards of glass into his feet. He sank to his knees and gently lifted the head of a woman into his lap. A gaping hole was rent in the roof above them and the stars hung distant and unmoved as ever, watching the warmth slowly ebb from her body. Tiny prisms of starlight descended in his tears as they fell upon her lifeless face, to roll down her cheeks. He shuddered quietly with each reluctant breath and his fingers trembled as they stroked her fiery hair.

Some dust and rubble moved restlessly next to Lily Potter's body and soft cries joined the vigil of the kneeling man. The man reached across her and drew a tiny body into his arms. One hand cradled the small boy against him and the other tugged a dusty blanket from the floor. Harry Potter's crying grew fainter as he was swaddled tenderly until he gazed up in silence at the man whose quiet tears now dripped onto his own face rather than his mother's.

The man now spoke for the first time since entering the house, his voice was barely louder than a whisper but it seemed to echo faintly in the ruins. Thick with grief and promise.

"To Lily Evans' son, to Harry James Potter I give my life. I will protect you from any enemy."

A pure light began to glow from the skin of the living people, as if they were casting starlight themselves. Neither seemed to even notice it.

"For you I sacrifice my soul, may it shield you from all harm."

A pale palm gently pressed over the baby's forehead, as if soothing the livid scar etched there. The man drew his hand away, the bloody impression of lightning bolt traced on his skin too.

"I would offer you my heart but it is broken, so I lay the pieces at your feet."

The light seemed not to fade but to be drawn inside the man and the baby, seeping into their skin.

When the man had finished speaking, he pressed his lips to the baby's forehead and then to the child's mother's. Only then did he close her eyes, green, still reflecting the last light they had ever seen.

The man carefully settled the bundle in his arms on the ground beside Lily Potter and rested her hand across her heart. Slipping a wand into his pocket, he stood slowly, as though he would rather have lain down forever beside Lily.

A rumbling sound reached the house as a flying motor bike approached. The unmistakable profile of a gigantic man blotted the stars.

Unseen by the rider, Severus Snape paused for a moment before he Apparated and whispered, "Always."