The Passings

The purest and truest form of courage is found not in a being's lack of fear, but in their ability to keep going even when it blocks their path.

Suddenly, James was silent.

"Lily," he whispered, grasping her wrist. His eyes were fearful, alert.

"What is it?" she asked him quietly. A faint trace of fear began to weigh down in the pit of her stomach, to pull at her chest.

Harry cooed, waving his hands where he sat on the floor between his parents.

James's eyes were on the door, his face sheet white. Lily could feel the tension building around him. His whole body was alert, waiting.

He was like an animal, a hunted deer.

Lily listened. She could barely hear the footstep, the faintest rustle of robes as someone moved outside their front door.

There was a deadly silence.

James suddenly turned to face her again. "Take Harry," he said, fear coursing in his voice. Her hands began to shake.

"James," she rasped; her throat was dry. Her husband let go of her wrist. An icy cold engulfed her. She hadn't wanted him to let go.

"Go, now," he pulled out his wand.

There was a soft tap at the door, the tap of a wand. 'He's playing with us,' Lily thought.

Harry giggled obliviously.

The smile, she could feel the smile of the man behind the door. James felt it too. "Lily," abruptly, he was standing. "Take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"

Her arms numb, she forced herself out of the nightmarish daze her body was in. She grabbed her baby and ran, stumbling, from the room.

The front door burst open.

She couldn't hear the dueling below. She climbed the steps; fear-frozen, never moving fast enough. Five steps to the landing... four... three....

A cold, high-pitched laughter hit the warm air of their home, a seizure-like horror shot through her. There was no way... yet she had to find one.

Lily tripped onto the landing. Her heart was pounding so hard that she couldn't feel anything else.

Slowly, slowly, footsteps approached from behind. He was torturing her, flaunting his victory before he gained it, showing her how sure he was that eventually, he would win. She dragged herself, still clutching Harry in a death-like grip, into Harry's room. A sob escaped her. Feeling childish and stupid, she obeyed her first instinct and pushed Harry under his crib. No matter what else, she had to save Harry. She turned to face the door.

She realized then that she had no wand.

Harry babbled.

"Stay there," Lily almost prayed the words to her child. "Please stay there for Mommy."

A man clothed in black stepped into the doorway, then into the room. He raised his wand almost lazily; she was thrown away from the crib, leaving Harry exposed. "No!" she screamed as the man raised his wand. The fear drained from her muscles; she dove to cover Harry. Not after everything, all the hopes and dreams; she would never let him kill her baby. "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"

The man smiled down at her. "Stand aside, you silly girl."

She stared into his eyes, did not move.

"Imperius," he flicked his wand. "Stand aside, now." A tiny voice in her head told her to stand aside, but she could hardly even comprehend its words over the 'never, never, never' coming from her heart.

"Not Harry," she pleaded, "please no, take me, kill me instead! Don't kill Harry. Not my baby..."

His eyes blazed for a moment.

He took a step forward, raised his wand.

"Not Harry!" she screamed, begging the figure of hatred looming over her. "Please...have mercy...have mercy...." She was pleading with a man who knew only hate to understand her love, asking a monster who had never known mercy to pity her.

He began to laugh at her, huddled there over her child, nothing to defend her. It was no use. Resolutely, she kept her arms tightly around Harry's tiny body.

She wasn't thinking about James, who she had loved so well, dead on the floor downstairs. She wasn't thinking about Sirius and Remus and Peter, who had been their secret keeper. She wasn't thinking about herself.

There was only Harry; she was a shield for Harry, and if Voldemort wanted to kill her baby, the tiny life that all her dreams were now built upon....

He would have to kill her first.

She was a shield for her baby.

"Avada Kadavera!"

The green blast ripped the soul from her chest.

Voldemort kicked the dead body off of the, now crying, toddler. He raised his wand. Triumph, finally. Nothing but a baby boy stood in his way... nothing but one insignificant child and his dead mother's love.

"Avada Kadavera,"

It backfired.

The boy lived.