Harry Potter and the Unbreakable Vow

Harry Potter and the Unbreakable Vow
Potter47 Chapter One
The Faceless Threat

The day began like any other would--Lily Potter's eyes opened to the sound of her baby's crying. Sighing, she blinked a few times, and pushed herself up in bed, into a sitting position. She looked at her husband next to her for a moment, wondering if perhaps she should wake him, have him deal with Harry... but as she was already awake, she doubted she would be falling back into sleep once more, and even if she could, she was not sure she would want to.

Lily had been having terrible dreams, ever since the three of them had gone into hiding. Terrible, terrible dreams, most of which would end--or, sometimes, begin--with her baby dying in a flash of light. Letting out a breath, she stood and walked to Harry's crib, trying to clear her mind so that her baby wouldn't have such thoughts around him.

"What is it this time, Harry?" she said, leaning on the edge of the crib with a well-worn look on her face. "New nappy?"

Harry stopped crying a moment, as though he were going to try to say something, but then decided against it and began crying again.

"New nappy then," said Lily to herself, yawning. Her eyes felt very heavy, and she had to steady herself as she got a fresh nappy from beside the crib, and she seriously considered using magic this time--she hated the thought of it, but she was just so tired....

She resigned herself to doing it the Muggle way, the 'normal' way as she still thought of it, and Harry settled down a bit afterwards.

"You all right now, Harry?" Lily asked, and she yawned again while she said it, and Harry giggled at her. "Oh, you think it's funny that I'm tired, do you?" she said, mock-angrily. "Well then, I'll get more sleep from now on, just to be mean...."

Harry giggled again, and said in a very loud voice, "Wuv oo."

Lily smiled a very tired smile at him. "I love you too, Harry." She watched him a minute as his eyes closed again, and another minute even after he was asleep, and then she very thankfully let herself fall back onto her bed, curling up in the blanket in very much the same way that Harry was doing in his crib. Everyone had said she'd be getting more sleep eventually... she couldn't wait until 'eventually' actually arrived....

Miraculously, Harry stayed asleep for the rest of the night, or else Lily slept through his cries and James woke up instead... she didn't reckon the latter was very possible, though, because all James did was tickle Harry and try to get him to say 'Quidditch.' Those sorts of things were fine for daytime, but in the middle of the night they did nothing to put the boy back to sleep.

Lily glanced over through the bars of Harry's crib to see if he were still asleep now, but Harry was not there--James must have taken him out before Lily awoke. Groaning with the knowledge that she couldn't leave them alone together for too long, Lily tried futilely to fall back into slumber once again, but the sun was streaming in brightly through the windows even with the curtains pulled across them. And so, for as long as she could possibly manage, Lily just lay there with her eyes closed and tried to relax her mind.

"Lils!" came a very loud voice from the doorway much sooner than she would have liked. "Lils, Harry said it!"

Blinking rather difficultly with her face pressed against her pillow, Lily said, "What?" but it was muffled as well, so she rolled over and said it again.

"Harry said 'Quidditch'!" James cried, and then Lily looked at him and could see that he was out of breath from running up the stairs to her.

"Where is he?" she said urgently. "You left him downstairs, you prat?"

And, with surprising ability, she leaped from the bed and dashed past her husband through the doorway to find Harry balanced rather precariously on the bottom step, holding on to the railing with every fibre of his strength. He had a terrified look on his face, and his eyes were closed. Hesitantly, he raised his foot....

"Harry!" said Lily, and the little boy opened his eyes wide, looked up at her as she came rushing down the stairs, and--Lily could have sworn it--looked undoubtedly relieved.

She scooped him up into her arms, patting him on the back and rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. "It's all right, baby, it's all right...."

She glared over Harry's shoulder at James, who looked very guilty and was still at the top of the stairs. "James Potter," she hissed while taking care to nonchalantly cover Harry's little ears, "you have some explaining to do."

James shrugged, not looking her in the eye. "Well... he did say 'Quidditch.' I thought you'd be excited." Lily narrowed her eyes at him, and looked down at Harry.

"Say 'Quidditch,' Harry," she said, and he didn't answer at first, but then he reached out for his foot and said, "Itch."

"See!" said James smugly--

"You idiot, he's saying his foot's itchy...." Lily turned Harry round slightly and removed his sock, inspecting the offending foot. "It doesn't look like a rash...." She scratched it lightly, and a look of bliss passed over the one-year-old's face. "There," she said. "That better?"

Harry said nothing, but he looked very satisfied. Lily carried him over to the living room and placed him down carefully on the floor with his toys. Then she rounded on James, who was standing in the doorway now.

"In the hallway a moment, please," she hissed, and he backed up as she walked towards him, making sure to keep an eye on Harry as she stepped through the archway into the hall.

When they were out of Harry's sight, Lily said, "What were you thinking?"

"I already said...I thought you would be excited."

"I couldn't care less about Quidditch, James Potter, you know that. But you know how Harry's been trying to climb the stairs!"

"I forgot--"

"You can't forget!" Lily closed her eyes a minute, and put her hand to her forehead. She spoke again in a calmer voice: "James, you just can't forget. What if something happens to Harry? What if he gets hurt?"

James swallowed visibly, and he looked down the hall towards the front door without even meaning to. Lily saw his glance, and tears began to form in her eyes.

"He has more than enough danger in his life already," she said, and she was too tired to stand on her own then, and she leaned in against her husband's chest. "You have to be more careful...."

"I will be, Lils," said James, tucking her head under his chin and holding her while he tried desperately not to look at the door and the outside world. "Nothing's going to happen to Harry. Well, except potty training. You know how much I hate changing nappies..."

Lily chuckled into his shirt, and he smiled. "Everything's going to turn out all right, isn't it, James?" she said.

"Of course it is," he assured her. "We've got nothing to worry about. They'll never suspect Wormtail, not in a thousand years--"

"Shh," said Lily, as though even now the Dark Lord was listening. "Just don't mention it."

"Right," said James, nodding.

They stood leaning on each other for a while, a very long time, and Harry was quiet in the next room, a good quiet, a quiet that Lily somehow could tell meant that he was behaving and not doing something he wasn't supposed to.

"Hey, Lils," said James then into her ear. "You know what this reminds me of?"

"Do I want to? It's going to be something stupid, isn't it?"

"No, no," said James. "It reminds me of our wedding. Just the way we're standing like this. If we were...moving a bit." And he took a step backwards, slowly, taking her with him. "And there was music--" He started to hum a slow tune, and started walking her round the hallway, into the kitchen, back out and into the living room, like a slow dance, but soon there he stopped humming and she started moving by herself, and they were dancing very slowly to the silence of the house.

And then Harry laughed because they were dancing with no music all round him, and it was funny. And then Lily laughed, and James, because it was sort of funny, if you thought about it, and then they were laughing harder and harder and James sidled--purposefully, in Lily's mind--to the couch so that he toppled backwards onto it with her atop him.

"I liked that wedding," he said then, grinning. "Best one I ever had."

"Me too," she said, and she kissed him, and Harry giggled again and so did they.

"Love is a funny thing, isn't it?" said James then, and he almost sounded pensive for a moment. "Sometimes we even get the joke."

Lily nodded on his chest, and then she nodded off.

It was very dark in the room then. Lily couldn't see. And... and James wasn't there. Hadn't she been lying on him? But now she wasn't, she was on the couch alone, and it was dark, and Harry wasn't giggling any more, and she couldn't feel him at all.

She stood, and she didn't feel tired anymore. But it was so dark that she couldn't see, even with her eyes open, so it almost felt as though she were so tired that she had stuffed her face in a pillow. That was odd.

And then she saw a light, and it was coming from the hallway. The archway from the living room was lit by a bright white light, and she walked towards it--

"Harry!" she cried when she saw him. He was dangling from the railing, halfway up the endless flight of stairs, and at the top was a man that at first glance would have been James, but then it wasn't because James was next to Lily now, just as panicked as she was.

The man at the top of the stairs was laughing, which was odd because he didn't have a mouth. That wasn't particularly odd, though, because he didn't have a face at all, so why should he have a mouth?

This faceless man was laughing, and laughing, and then he was calling for Harry, calling for him to join him at the top of the stairs.

But then Harry fell, not down the stairs, but through the stairs, and he was trapped under the stairs and Lily and James were running after him, running up the stairs to where he had fallen, but they could not reach him, the stairs just kept going and going and going and going and the could never reach the hole...

And they never would, because the faceless man was cursing them now.

"AVADA KEDAVRA! AVADA KEDAVRA!"

And James was dead, he was dead, he was dead, but Lily was still alive, she had to get to Harry, she had to, she just had to--

Jets of light followed Lily as she ran back down the stairs the way she came. It was much shorter to the bottom than she would have thought. And then she ran around the staircase to the little door on the side to the closet that James kept his broomstick in and she kept her Hoover, and she threw open the door, and there was Harry, laying on the floor.

"HARRY!"

Was he dead, or just asleep? Lily couldn't tell, and she would never know because the man, the faceless man fell through the hole in the stairs and blocked her way to her son, and he shouted the Killing Curse again and it hit her in the chest and she screamed and she woke up and she screamed again, for real this time.

"Lily, what's wrong?" said James urgently from his place above (below?) her on the couch. "Did you have a nightmare? Were you...asleep? I hadn't noticed--"

"Nothing," said Lily, shaking her head. "Just...yeah, a nightmare. Nothing more."

She turned her head round and looked at Harry on the floor. He wasn't playing with any of the toys in front of him, he was looking at her in this strange, indescribable way... as though he understood what she had seen, as though he had seen it too....

But that was nonsense. Harry was only a year old.

"God, I'm overtired," said Lily, shaking her head. "I--I have to go to bed. Don't let Harry near the stairs."

And the words had such a meaning to her that she hadn't meant to mean... they had slipped off her tongue from reflex, telling James not to do something stupid he'd done before, just what she always said, but... but this was so very different in her mind that she could barely stand. Or perhaps that was because James was holding her so tightly.

"I won't," he said, but he was looking at her peculiarly. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"No, I said, I'm overtired. I've got to go to bed. Wake me up if you need something--"

"Don't worry, I won't," said James. Lily blinked and realised that that hadn't been what she said, that had been what she wanted to say, and he had heard it anyway.

And then she stood, but she before she could leave, she said to him, "I love you, James. You know that, right?"

James laughed. "Oh, and here I was thinking you'd married me for my Quidditch skills--"

"You know that, right?" said Lily again, forcibly, and James was taken aback.

"Yeah, Lils. Of course I know that. I love you too."

"Wuv oo," said Harry in a very grave, sincere little voice.

"I love you too, Harry," said Lily, and she blew him a kiss. "Mummy's going to bed. She'll see you in a bit."

And with that she left. She walked out into the hall, and (carefully and hesitantly) put her foot on the bottom stair--she made a point to feel every step fully before stepping on it, the whole way up. When she lay in her bed, she fell asleep instantly, and her sleep was mercifully dreamless.

"Lily, wake up!" said James urgently, and Lily blinked awake. How long had she been asleep, she wondered? But it didn't matter, not anymore, not with the look on James's face.

"What happened?" she said, sitting up in bed. "Where's Harry?"

"He's right here, he's right here," said James, and his hand was shaking--the hand with his wand in it, she noticed, because she noticed he had his wand out. Harry was crying silently next to Lily on the bed.

"Careful--" she said, "it's sparking--"

And James lifted the wand vertical so as to not spark onto the bedspread, but he didn't really seem to hear her anyway.

"He's here, Lily. Voldemort's here. Take Harry and go! I'll try to keep him from the back, from the back door, get to my broom under the stairs. Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run!"

"You said that already..." said Lily, standing up as best she could, trying to steady herself.

A crash was heard, and a cackle of laughter. "Run!" said James once again, and he ran out the door, wand in hand, turned on his heel at the foot of the stairs, and ran for the front of the house.

Lily took Harry in her arms and ran herself, ran towards the stairs, but she had to steady herself once again and take a breath. She didn't want to fall....

Somehow, holding onto Harry the whole way down helped her reach the bottom, helped her turn, helped her fling open the cupboard with the broom--"

But before she could grab it, there he was, there He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was, there Voldemort was, cackling madly, and the horror hit her that James had to be dead, because Voldemort was advancing on her. And she could see his face now, and it looked...terrible, much worse than a head with no face at all...

She turned tail and ran back up the stairs, not knowing what she planned to do, how she planned to escape from up there, but knowing that she had to run. That was the last thing James had told her to do, to run, and she would do it even if, as it certainly seemed, it would be the last thing she ever did.

And she stumbled a bit as she reached the middle of the stairs--for a minute she thought she was falling through--and Voldemort was right there.

"Avada Kedavra!" he shouted, but he missed--almost as though he hadn't even meant to hit her yet... the jet of light went over her shoulder and hit the wall, which caught flame instantly.

Lily kept running, kept running, kept running all the way to their bedroom, and she slammed the door behind her. She held Harry in her arms, kissed the top of his head, murmured frenzied ramblings about how everything would be all right, and somehow, he did not cry.

The door burst open behind then in a great flash of light. Lily could hear the crackle of flames from out in the hall, overtaking the carpet and wall hangings. She couldn't bare to look, and she knew that Harry shouldn't either. She put him down in his crib, which she had been just in front of, and the most random thought in the world wandered into her mind at that moment, when Lord Voldemort was standing behind her, cackling along with the flames: How long's he had this nappy on for? He'll need a new one soon--

She spun round to face Voldemort.

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

"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now!"

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead--"

More laughing; more cackling.

"Not Harry! Please... have mercy... have mercy--"

Lord Voldemort laughed and cursed, Lily screamed and fell, and Harry Potter sat in his crib, staring as a bright green light shone through the thin material blocking him from the outside world.

He heard a noise as his mother fell to the ground, but he didn't know what it was. It sounded like his daddy had pulled his mummy onto the couch and onto him, and that was the thud, but Harry knew that that couldn't be it....

A tall, robed figure shadowed over young Harry in his crib, and Harry looked up at him, looked at his wand, which was right in Harry's face. Harry wasn't used to seeing wands in his face, because his mummy and daddy always kept their wands away from him, just to be on the safe side.

And then the figure said something that didn't sound very good, and a bright light shone right in Harry's eyes and then it seemed to turn right round and hit the robed figure who had cast it. A very loud scream issued partly from the figure's mouth, partly from the air around him, and Harry felt a prickling on his forehead.

It hurt. Harry began to cry.

The figure was gone, and a strange sound was getting louder and louder, the sound of the flames outside in the doorway. They didn't come anywhere near Harry though, nowhere near his crib, so he didn't even feel the sudden heat in the room.

A long while later, after he had nearly cried himself out and really, really wanted his mummy to pick him up to change his nappy, a giant man entered the room, and the fire was gone but so was the whole house, except for Harry and his crib. They had been on the second floor, and somehow now they found themselves on the first.

The giant took Harry out of his crib and held him very gently which Harry didn't know if he expected. They hurried away from the house and there was a man that Harry couldn't see, because he was so wrapped up in the giant's arms.

The man sounded familiar to Harry, but he couldn't hear very well. Something about "Let me take him," and "Dumbledore," and "Motorbike," but Harry didn't know what any of these things meant.

Then the strangest thing happened--Harry rose up into the air in the giant's arms, and they were flying, flying, flying, up in the air. And then after a long, long time flying--they were flying very slow, it seemed--Harry fell asleep.

When he woke up, he couldn't remember what had happened, and he was somewhere he had never seen before, and he didn't feel very good because he still needed a new nappy.

And he missed his mummy and daddy, because they weren't there.

To Be Continued... Please Review