The Last Potter

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"

Her body shielding her child, Lily Potter stared wildly up at the creature, who had once been a man. His wand was directed at her chest, the moonlight slashing into the darkened room and cutting across the bone-white face of the one they believed they had escaped.

Her blood felt like ice water in her veins as he grinned down at her, forcing her to acknowledge the fact that she could not fight back. She was wandless and no allies were going to come to her aid.

Peter...

Peter had betrayed them and led Him here.

Lily was shaking, sobbing, her throat burning. Had she the energy, she knew she would have screamed until she had no breath nor life left. He was dead! James was dead. Her beloved James. He was dead. Dead. Gone. Murdered. Killed by the bastard in front of her!

And now, he wanted to take her son from her, just as he had taken her husband from her, only moments before.

"Stand aside, you silly girl," he hissed, gliding towards her, his wand raised. "Stand aside now."

Shaking her head, tears licking down her face, burning her skin, she reached behind her, holding the whimpering Harry against her back. She knew why he wanted her baby, but she wouldn´t let him have Harry. He was just a baby! He was only a helpless child! She wasn´t going to let this monster harm her child!

She could feel his small hands, still sticky with his dinner, gripping her jumper, as if he could sense the danger.

"Not Harry," she whispered, raising her other hand towards him imploringly. "Please no..." He ignored her words, continued to move inexorably closer, his scarlet eyes never leaving hers. A wild sob tore from her throat, desperation forcing useless pleas from her lips. "Take me! Kill me instead!"

Instead.

That was not a word the monster would accept.

It would be both of them, she knew.

He would kill her and turn the wand on her defenceless child.

Voldemort laughed, his narrow slash of a mouth a dark maw in his cold face, eyes shimmering with demonic mirth.

Sobbing, she pulled Harry to her, backing across the room. Harry´s hands were in her hair, gripping tight, but the pain didn´t matter. Still, the dark one advanced on her, his wand in one hand, the other hand outstretched towards her.

"No..." she whispered over and over to herself. "No, no, no, no, no..."

Harry was wailing, a wild keening sound.

He knew that this was wrong.

The low, narrow ledge of the window bumped against the back of her thigh and Lily cried out in despair. There was nowhere to run, the door blocked by their enemy and the window at their back.

Harry´s wail had grown to shrieking screams, the kind of throat-tearing screams that makes every mother weep in sympathy, the kind of screams that spoke of undiluted terror, the kind of screams she had never imagined her child making.

Shaking her head, she pulled Harry in front of him, clutching him to her chest, her arms shielding his little body from the wand of the dark one, who was laughing all the more loudly, the hideous cacophony of his mirth mingling in a nightmarish chorus with her son´s desperate cries.

Flashing a hopeless look over her shoulder, she wondered if she and Harry would survive if she threw herself through the window. They were on the upper floor. One of them would surely be harmed.

Harry´s tears were soaking through her jumper, but his sobs had quieted.

Or maybe they hadn´t.

Everything seemed to have gone frighteningly silent, the wind outside soundless. All she could hear was the deafening thump-thump-thump of her blood pounding rapidly in her ears.

The silhouettes of the trees in the moonlight outside cast dark, groping fingers over Voldemort´s face as he drew closer to her, his thin lips drawing back from his teeth in a snake-like grin.

Shaking her head, her mouth bone-dry, she clung to Harry, her eyes locked with the Dark One´s.

She couldn´t look away. She tried, mentally screamed at herself to look away from the frightening, mesmerising eyes, but her body and mind were two separate entities until the moment his hand connected with her face and sent her sprawling, Harry tumbling from her arms onto the floor.

Harry was screaming again.

Blood had filled Lily´s mouth and her head connected with the radiator against the wall with a painful thump, but she struggled back onto her knees, a sob escaping her as she saw the dark one bend over her child, where he had fallen from her arms.

Spidery fingers lifted the terrified infant level with the Dark Lord´s face, green eyes staring at the dark one´s distorted features in childish terror. With a snarl of disgust, the child was thrown back to the floor and the dark one´s wand was directed at him.

"Not Harry!" Lily shrieked. Her vision was blurring into black, but she scrambled across the floor towards him, grasping at the back of his robes. "Please! Have mercy! Have mercy!"

"Ma!" Harry cried out, little hands reaching towards her. "Ma!"

"Harry!"

Another blow connected with the back of her skull and she slumped down. Her son´s little face was staring at her, wet and shining with tears. She could feel sticky blood streaming down her cheek, tried to rise, but her body felt numb.

Unconsciousness was calling her, already embracing her body, ignoring her futile struggles to resist and she knew it would only be a matter of time before she was drawn in by its soporific kiss.

A bony white hand lifted her face up.

"Watch, little girl," a hissing voice breathed in her ear. "Watch him scream before he dies."

"No..." she whispered, tears blurring her vision.

"Yes," the dark one said, his high voice and cold laugh making her shudder, as he thrust his wand against her infant son´s little body. "Watch..." he repeated, then spoke one word. "Cruciatus!"

And the screams began anew.

***

"James! Lily!"

The door of the small cottage in Godric´s Hollow was hanging open, which filled Sirius with a sense of deep unease.

This was wrong! It was all wrong!

Peter had vanished and now...

Pushing the door open carefully, he peered around, but could see nothing. Stepping into the hall, he tripped over something lying on the floor and pulled his wand out, whispering, "Lumos."

A leg...

No...

His throat constricted as he forced himself to move up the inert body, sprawled face-down on the carpet of the hall. His vision blurred as he recognised the tousled matt of black hair, drawing several shaking breaths before he could find the nerve to turn over the body.

His hand was trembling as he grasped the body´s shoulder. He tugged quickly, lest he change his mind and flee from the house, and the figure rolled onto its back, into his arms, the light of the wand dashing across the pale face before him.

"No...God...no..."

James Potter´s glassy blue eyes stared back at him through the cracked lenses of his glasses, his lips parted, his face contorted in desperation and despair.

"Prongs..." Sirius whispered. His shaking fingers touched his friend´s cold cheek. It wasn´t right, this. It was all pretend. It had to just be a grand joke and any moment now, Prongs would yell `Boo!´ and then laugh at how funny he was.

Prong was very funny, you see. Very funny indeed.

He could make everyone and anyone laugh, just as long as it was someone.

Prongs was always laughing, all the time, be it rain or shine, night or day. Prongs was alive with life and laughter. Prongs was life incarnate, laughing, joking, talking, playing. He didn´t lie still like this. Not like this at all. Not stiff and cold with fear in his eyes and a chill on his lips.

"C´mon, Prongs..."

It had to be pretend.

"Prongs..."

All a grand joke.

"Come on..."

Sirius shook him.

"This isn´t funny, mate..."

Tears were already spilling down his face, but he shook him again.

It couldn´t be real.

It couldn´t.

He wouldn´t let it be.

"Prongs," he whispered. Hot tears were raining softly onto James Potter´s motionless face like a gentle summer shower in the deepest darkest winter. "Prongs, don´t do this to me... to us... please...please..." Barely even a whisper, Sirius´ voice was that of the broken man. "I´m sorry...I´m so sorry..."

Embracing his friend´s body, Sirius wept as he pressed a hand over James´ heart, but there was no response.

Nothing.

Tears were burning down his cheeks as he laid Prongs down on the floor, a shaking hand reverently closing the blue eyes that would never again dance with the laughter Sirius was so familiar with.

Prongs. Prongs, his best and most loved friend, had been cut down by the dark one, the hunter, they had evaded for so long. Prongs would never laugh or joke or tease or play again. Prongs was gone, dead, never to return.

Closing his eyes, Sirius buried his face in his hands.

"It's my fault...my fault..."

A sound from upstairs made him turn sharply.

"Nox!"

In the darkness, he crept up the stairs, forcing down his grief in the vague hopes that he may yet get his revenge for his friend´s death.

On the landing, he heard a soft sob, a female sob.

Lily!

Uncaring of any danger, he ran, ran along the landing, ran into the bedroom he knew that the couple shared, the sight that greeted him one he knew would never leave him, in all its heart-breaking intensity.

"Lily..."

Cradling the limp body of her son, Lily Potter, clad in a bloodied nightshirt, raised tear-filled eyes to him. Her pale face was streaked with red, the moonlight through the window washing across her and little Harry´s still face.

"Harry..." she whispered, her voice cracking. "My little boy..."

"Oh, Lily..."

"He...he hurt my baby..." she whispered. "Look...my baby...my little one..."

Harry...

Oh God...

Not just Prongs. Little Harry too.

Sirius was kneeling by her side in an instant. He raised an arm to embrace her, but it fell. What was he meant to do? Was he meant to hug her and the child? Did he take the child from her? What did he do?

Prongs was always the one who knew these things.

Not him, not Sirius.

Prongs was the sensible one, the one who had been brought up properly with all the right manners for all the right occasions.

"What do I do, Prongs?" Sirius whispered hopelessly. "I was never any good at this... what the hell am I meant to do without you?"

It was wrong, it was just wrong.

"He was screaming..." Lily whispered, forcing him to look at her, tears spilling down her cheeks. Tinged pink, they splashed onto Harry´s face. She touched his cheeks, his smooth forehead, his pink rosebud lips, closed his sightless green eyes with shaking, bloody fingertips. "He was screaming... and I-I-I couldn´t do anything... my baby...my Harry...he was screaming, Sirius...he was screaming..."

He had to hold her, he had to let her cry with him, he had to give her someone. She sank against him, her child still cradled in her arms, her eyes never leaving his face, as she touched his small hands, touched every tiny finger.

Sirius could remember when those tiny little fingers had curled around one of his, gripping it and bringing it to that gummy little mouth. He remembered the newly-cut teeth biting on the tip and catching him by surprise once. He remembered the first time Harry had called him "Pafoo", a childish approximation of his nickname.

He would never do or say any of those things again. Not now nor ever.

"He was screaming... he was screaming, Sirius..." Lily whispered over and over and over again. "He was screaming... screaming... my baby was screaming..."

Sirius pressed his cheek against her hair, unable to force any words of false comfort from his lips. How could he say it was all right? Prongs was gone. The little one was gone. Lily...

Squeezing his blue eyes shut, he felt the tears creep slowly down his cheeks, like streams of molten metal on his skin, burning and agonising, a bitter and painful salute to father and son.

That was how they were found.

It might have been seconds later or it may have been days.

The Ministry arrived quickly, but Remus arrived first and then, Dumbledore, but none of them could make things better, none of them could bring Prongs or mini-Prongs back to them.

Where the dark one was, they couldn´t say. Or wouldn´t.

Sirius couldn´t be certain.

Nothing seemed to matter now.

His best friend was gone, the one he had known since they had collided on their first day at Hogwarts, ten years before. And his friend´s child, Harry, the adorable, perfect baby Sirius had worshipped like a God, the child he was meant to protect if anything happened to Prongs.

He had failed them both.

"Sirius," Albus Dumbledore had finally convinced him to let Lily go and to allow the medi-witch near her. He was the one who spoke to Sirius first. "Do you want to tell me what happened here?"

"He betrayed us," Sirius whispered.

He didn´t want it to be true.

It couldn´t be.

Peter, their close friend, closer even than Remus had been, the one they had shared so many adventures with, the one they had become animagi with...

"Who did, Sirius?"

Blue eyes, itching with pain and drained dry of tears, stared hopelessly up at his former Head Master.

"Peter," he replied, his voice rough and hoarse, although the thoughts surrounding that name feel wrong. The thought that Peter betrayed them. How could he do it? To his friends? How? "He...we changed... switched... he took my place...we thought... this... it wasn´t meant to happen...not like this... not now...not Prongs...or Harry..."

"Peter was James´ secret keeper?"

Sirius nodded, tears burning into his vision again. "I told him to change," he tried to say. "I told him...this is my fault...this is all my fault..." Dizziness and grief were swarming around him on all sides and he buried his head in his hands with a choking sob. "It wasn´t meant to happen..."

Dumbledore silently squeezed his shoulder, his own eyes filled with deep grief.

"Wh-where´s Moony? He...he needs to know..."

The old wizard paused for a long moment before replying, "He already knows, Sirius. He left a short time ago."

Sirius bowed his head and let the tears fall, for Prongs and for Harry...and a single tear for Wormtail, the one he had believed to be a friend. Even though it had not been said aloud, he knew that there would be one rat less in the world by dawn.

***

She could still hear him screaming.

It went on and on and no matter how she tried to block it out, it rang in her ears. The sight of his fragile body thrashing under the curse of the dark one was burned into her mind and she tried to force it away.

They had taken her child from her arms, from her sight, when Dumbledore had first arrived and he had gathered her gently in his arms and let her weep, as they reverently wrapped her lost infant in a soft blanket.

Sirius had been as stunned as she had.

They had barely been able to form the words to try and understand what had come to pass in the house.

In the matter of a couple of days, she had gone from being happily married and the mother of the most perfect child in the world to being a widow and childless once more, the two people she loved more than life itself gone.

Someone had sedated her, she didn´t know who, but she had been grateful for it.

It stopped the screams for a little while.

Dumbledore was waiting by her bedside when she awoke, in one of the quiet little rooms in St. Mungo´s, even though she pretended that she was still asleep, unable and unwilling to face the truth of the horrors of the night before.

It was too much, far too much.

To lose one was to have half of her heart ripped from her chest, but to lose both of them was to be hurled into the deepest and most horrific hell she could imagine.

"I know you are awake, my dear," Dumbledore finally said softly.

Green eyes that were shot with red reluctantly opened. Cold, harsh sunlight was pouring in the tall windows that lined the wall of the room, making her blink hard as she tried to focus on the face of the wizard sitting by her bedside.

"I don´t want to be, sir," she replied, staring hopelessly at him. "I want to go to sleep and never wake up. I want to be with James and Harry."

"I know, Lily, but you know you must continue, in their memory."

She looked at him, wondering if he was truly mad. "Why?" she asked. "Why do I have to do anything anymore?"

"James died to save you, Lily, and your son...Harry loved you dearly. They would not wish you to die..."

Tears were filling her eyes rapidly. "How do you know that?" she demanded, her defiant cry shrunk to a shaking whisper. "How can you know they didn´t want me to die and be with them?"

"Lily, do you remember the last thing Voldemort said to you?"

"He..." Green eyes widened. "He said the killing curse!" she gasped. "He...he tried to kill me!"

Dumbledore nodded and raised a hand to touch the bandage that was wound around her head. "Beneath this, you have a wound that will leave a scar, a mark of the love of your husband and your son. Your husband died for you and your son´s love proved a strong shield."

Closing her eyes, Lily could clearly see James´ face. It was the last time she saw him alive, standing in the doorway of the bedroom, before he had gone to see what the noise was downstairs.

"I want to see James," she said.

"Are you sure?"

Forcing herself into a sitting position, she nodded, her head throbbing. She raised a hand to her brow, wincing. "I want to say goodbye to both of them," she said, her voice trembling as she spoke. "Please."

Nodding, her former teacher and mentor called for one of the medi-witches.

It seemed like a blur in time, from the moment she was helped into a thick dressing gown then onto a floating chair and when they reached the small room where the bodies of the two people she loved most were laid.

It was a small room with pale walls and one curtained window in the wall facing the door. Gentle flames of candles flickered on the stands on the walls, the soft glow providing just enough light for the room.

"Would you like to be alone?" Dumbledore asked softly, as he directed her chair to the biers, where they lay.

Unable to speak, Lily nodded. Hot tears were spilling silently down her cheeks, her throat closing up at the sight of her husband, so lean and handsome as he always had been, and her son, so tiny and so very young.

As the door closed behind her, she unsteadily rose to her feet. The floor was cold against her soles, but she didn´t care. Hesitantly, she stretched out a hand to touch her husband´s still chest.

He was lying on his back, wearing the same clothing he had worn when he had left her in the bedroom, his arms by his sides. The smile he had worn as he left the room was no longer on his familiar lips, but he looked peaceful.

"It´s wrong," she whispered tearfully, lifting one of his hands, pressing her hot, damp cheek against the back of his hand. "You weren´t meant to leave me, James... you and I...we were meant to stay together...all of us...it wasn´t meant to happen like this..."

He made no reply, no sound of comfort.

Why did it have to be him?

Why did he have to bear the curse of being one that Voldemort would go after?

Him and their son, all because of their blood ties.

Closing her eyes, Lily clung to his hand, tears pouring down her face.

"I love you, James," she whispered. "I love you so much and now...now, you´ve gone away and left me here to do this on my own...I can´t...I can´t do this without you, James...I can´t...you were always the strong one...I need you..."

He was the only one who knew, the only one she had shared their news with.

He had been overjoyed when she had told him she was sure. Just as he had been when she had told him that she was expecting Harry. He had grabbed her, swinging her off her feet until she was almost sick with dizziness, whooping with delight.

One of her hands strayed down to her stomach that was only now beginning to show the promise of the new life growing within her.

Their second child.

Her and James´ second child.

A little brother or sister for Harry.

"You said you´d be with me every step of the way," she said, shaking her head. "I-I believed you...and now...oh, God..." Her legs gave way and she landed heavily on her knees, burying her face in her hands. "Make it a bad dream," she pleaded to anyone who would listen. "Make it all go away...make it not real...please don´t let him be dead... please..."

Her sobs echoed off the bare walls of the small room, her shoulders shaking with the violence of her grief.

It felt like her tears fell for an eternity, her eyes burning, as she forced herself back to her feet, embracing her husband´s body one last time, her cheek pressing against his chest as she clung to him.

It was wrong.

Without the steady thump of his heart, it just...wasn´t James, but still she held him.

"I love you..." she whispered over and over, as if they were the secret magic words to bring him back to her. "I love you..."

Reluctantly laying him back down, she bent over him, touching her forehead to his, her eyes closed. Her silent tears continued to fall, trickling down her cheeks and onto the marble-white skin of her husband´s face.

Kissing his forehead, his peacefully closed eyes and his still lips, she tried to force down another wave of tears as she reverently crossed his hands over his chest.

"Look after Harry until I get there, love," she whispered to him softly, stroking his hair once more. "Don´t let him get in with a bad crowd."

She could almost hear him laughing in her mind and almost smiled at the thought of him rolling his eyes and shaking his head at her: "A bad crowd? You think the rest of the Marauders are here already?"

Turning to her son, she swallowed hard as she approached the other bier.

He was so tiny, so very tiny.

Sitting on the edge of the low bier, she lifted her son´s body into her lap, cradling him in her arms. He had always been so light, barely a year and a half old, perfect in every single way. He had been beautiful.

Was still beautiful.

Her little treasure, her angel.

With his daddy´s unruly black hair that would never do what she wanted, no matter what she tried, and her own green eyes, he had naturally been able to charm the socks off anyone who met him.

"Mummy´s here, sweetheart," she whispered, her left hand running over his shock of hair, as she slowly rocked from side to side, pressing kisses to his downy mass of dark hair. "Mummy´s here...mummy misses you...mummy misses you so much..."

He had always fitted so neatly into the cradle of her arms. With one arm beneath him, the other balancing him, his little head resting against her chest, she had always felt so comfortable with him.

Closing her eyes, she inhaled his scent, that still lingered on his hair.

He had always smelled of talcum powder and grass, a combination of her bathing him and his father taking him out on nature expeditions with his uncle Padfoot, which had usually involved crawling around in the back garden with a massive dog and a stag for company.

He couldn´t be dead, not really.

He still looked, smelt and felt so...so much like little Harry.

His skin was still soft. His face was still as beautiful as it had always been. His hair was still unruly and she tried to flatten the tuft at the back, which had always stuck in all directions.

A sob escaped her.

"Your daddy better take care of you, darling," she wept, holding him to her. "He better look after you and make sure you don´t forget your mummy...I love you, Harry. I love you so much. I wanted to see you grow up and become a man, just like your daddy, but now, I won´t and I...I miss you already, my little angel..."

Her cheek resting against the top of her son´s downy head, she continued to rock him in her arms, weeping softly, until there was a quiet tap at the door and Professor Dumbledore entered.

"They´ve gone, Professor," Lily choked on the words. "They´ve left me behind...I love them both and they still left me...me and the little one..." A startled look crossed Dumbledore´s face. "It needs a daddy...I can´t do this on my own...I can´t..."

"Lily, dear child, what do you mean?" he asked gently, crossing the room and laying a hand on her shoulder.

Tear-filled emerald green eyes rose to him, the sorrow in them almost breaking his heart. "James and I...we were trying for another baby," she replied sadly. "We wanted a brother or sister for Harry...and now..." She looked down at her son. "I´m pregnant again, Professor. I´m carrying James´ baby."

"You are sure?"

Lily nodded wearily, stroking Harry´s cheek as she laid him tenderly back down on the bier. Her hand lingered on his chest. "Lord Voldemort thought he had succeeded in doing what he intended by killing James and Harry," she replied quietly, bending to kiss her son´s forehead. "But he didn´t know about the little one. No one else knows that, in four or five months, there´s going to be another Potter."