At the edge of life and death, the hallucinations in Harry's eyes overlapped with reality. Wormtail's cruel, ugly face gradually blurred together with a pale, noseless face, smooth as snake scales.
The woman's scream was still echoing beside his ears. It sounded terribly distant, like sobbing from the far end of a cold valley, and also as if it came from thirteen long years away. Right then, Harry's scar erupted with pain, as if a red-hot branding iron had been pressed into his bones.
"Ah!" he screamed in agony. All the strength drained from his body, and his soul seemed to fall into the freezing water of a winter river.
Harry could no longer see the real scene clearly. His soul's connection to Voldemort was too deep, so deep that a memory that did not belong to him, but to the Dark Lord, surfaced at that moment.
"Voldemort" walked through the dim night streets of Godric's Hollow and stood outside the fence of a warm little house. Through the bright window, he watched the scene in the living room from afar.
He saw a black-haired man wearing glasses performing magic tricks for a little boy in blue pajamas. That was James Potter and his son. Father and child were both very happy, their faces full of smiles and free of worry.
A red-haired woman entered the living room and spoke easily with her husband. James lifted his son and handed him to his wife, asking her to take the child upstairs to the bedroom. Then he lazily leaned back on the sofa and yawned.
Voldemort looked at the completely unguarded Potter family and nearly could not hold back his laughter. Wormtail had already revealed the secret to him, so the Fidelius Charm had naturally failed. Yet the Potters did not know that. They still believed they could rest easy.
He walked straight into the yard, drew his wand, opened the front door, and strode openly into the hall.
James heard the noise and ran over. He did not even have his wand in his hand. The instant he saw Voldemort, all he had time to do was shout, "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"
"Avada Kedavra!"
A blinding green light lit every corner of the living room. James's soul vanished from his body along with that cruel magical light, and he dropped suddenly to the ground like a wound-up machine whose power had run out.
The husband was dead. His wife's scream came from upstairs. Lily did not have her wand either. She could only desperately use chairs and boxes to block the way. Voldemort followed at an unhurried pace, flicked his wand, and every obstacle was thrown aside by an invisible force.
He entered the bedroom.
Lily had placed her son in the crib behind her. She spread her arms wide, her young, beautiful face twisted by fear. Large tears spilled from her emerald-green eyes. Her dark red hair hung messily over her face, damp with the sweat seeping from her forehead until it looked like a fresh pool of blood.
"Don't kill Harry! Don't kill Harry! Please, don't kill Harry! Please, kill me instead, kill me..."
Lily begged hoarsely, blocking Voldemort's path. She had no power to resist. When the Dark Lord approached, she could only kneel with the desperate helplessness of a mother, reaching out to grab his robe and clutch his leg.
Voldemort had not intended to kill her. As long as Lily handed over her son and allowed Voldemort to erase the child of prophecy, he could magnanimously spare this woman who had lost everything. Not because he was truly so generous, but because he was answering the plea of his loyal and capable subordinate, Severus Snape.
Snape had once groveled and begged Voldemort to spare Lily Potter's life. Voldemort had not given him a clear answer. Originally, he truly could have let Lily go, but her desperate entanglement made the Dark Lord grow bored.
"Stand aside, foolish woman... this is my final warning..."
"Have mercy... have mercy... kill me instead!"
Voldemort looked at Lily's face one last time. In that instant, both of them fell silent. It was only a brief gap of less than half a second, but Lily seemed to truly believe that Voldemort might spare Harry. Suspicion, fear, and desperate hope flickered vividly in her eyes.
A green light flew from the tip of the wand, and Lily fell as well. Her soul left her body, and her emerald eyes grew dim.
Her dying gaze and expression were like an oil painting hanging above a bed in the depths of night, transformed by a sudden flash of lightning outside the window into a burning mark etched onto Harry's retinas.
The morning wind of Albania blew through the woods with a low, mournful sound.
Thirteen years later, the Dark Lord possessing Wormtail cast the Killing Curse at Harry once again.
The child of prophecy had lost the ability to resist under the intense pain. He could only slump against a young fir tree.
"Don't touch Harry!" A woman's voice tore through the wind like a roaring lioness. She shouted, "[Expelliarmus]!"
Before Voldemort's Killing Curse could erupt, Lily's Disarming Charm struck him. The wand flew from his hand, and the spell was naturally broken.
"What?! Another wizard?"
"Wormtail" turned his head in shock. Then an enraged Stunning Spell hit him and sent him flying far away. He collapsed into a pile of fallen leaves, unconscious.
Harry panted heavily, his vision blurred. A witch slowly approached him, as if she had walked through thirteen years of time and the gray veil of death. Only that deep red hair remained as bright as blood.
"Oh, Harry, are you all right?" Lily's voice was urgent, and panic made her stumble over her words.
"M-Mom..." the boy murmured. "Is it you?"
Lily pulled Harry into her arms and gently stroked his cheek. The boy was almost bloodless, and his skin felt cold to the touch.
She desperately wanted to say, "Mom is here."
But her agreement with Skyl surfaced in her heart again. Before completing her teaching assistant mission, she could not reveal her identity on her own.
Skyl had never explained the price of breaking the agreement, but his eyes had been meaningful.
Everyone in the wizarding world knew that those who toyed with the dead were doomed to be hunted by Death. In the story of the three brothers, only the youngest brother, who had asked for the Invisibility Cloak, lived to the end of his natural life, because he had spent his whole life avoiding Death's gaze.
Lily believed that Skyl had made her hide her name, conceal her identity, and change her face perhaps to keep Death from discovering her.
Then if she admitted it with her own mouth, would that mean Death would notice her and ferry her back to the land of the dead?
Because of this, Lily's expression struggled, but she did not dare answer.
By now, Harry's consciousness was already blurred. His eyelids drooped, and he only repeated, "Mom... Mom... I miss you so much... I'll definitely... take you back from Death..."
Lily could no longer hold back the tears that spilled from her eyes. She gently embraced the boy and pressed her cheek against his, whispering beside his ear, "There, there, my baby Harry. Mom is here. No one can hurt you now."
The wind blowing through the forest seemed to turn terrifying, as if it had come from the cold River Styx. Her heart pounded wildly as she waited for the disaster she imagined to descend.
A long time passed. Lily still remained where she was, and no Death came for her. At last, the heart caught in her throat could settle.
In her arms, Harry let out the soft sound of sleep. A clean, easy smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, like a wanderer who had returned to his mother's side.
"Wait just a little longer, Harry. Just a little longer... Mom will be able to take you home soon."
Lily used magic to clear a patch of dry ground and carefully laid Harry down. She looked back at the boy with lingering reluctance, but still turned and left.
Beside the swamp, Sirius shoved Lupin off him.
He cursed loudly, "What the hell? Moony, could you be useful for once?"
Lupin clutched the back of his head, which was throbbing with pain. Stars swam before his eyes. That Disarming Charm had nearly cracked his skull open.
"Harry, Harry... how is he?"
Sirius anxiously turned his head, looking around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a huge snake winding out from the woods.
"Hiss, hiss."
Nagini flicked her tongue as she approached.
Sirius shouted "[Confringo]!" A fiery-red beam shot from the tip of his wand toward the giant snake. Nagini dodged with great agility, almost as lightly as if she were swimming through the air. Then she suddenly darted to the right, and a curse shot out from the empty space on the left. It was Ron.
"No good! It's too agile!" Ron, now visible, immediately shouted a warning when he saw the situation was bad.
Sirius, Lupin, Hermione, and Neville all cast spells one after another, and brilliant magical light lit the woods. The giant snake Nagini used the trees as cover, weaving and dodging. Occasionally, a spell struck her body, but her scales absorbed part of the power, preventing any serious injury.
From the distant woods came Lily's roar, "Let go of Harry!"
Hermione's heart jolted. She acted instantly and pulled a scroll from her robes, then tore it open.
"Watch out for my Ice Storm!" she shouted. The magical energy in the scroll transformed into icy elemental power, forming a short, frost-white vortex five feet in diameter under the constraints of the spell structure. It swept up more than ten feet of cold wind and rushed straight at Nagini.
Ron and Neville hurriedly dodged to avoid being caught in it. They Apparated away from where they stood, then also pulled magical scrolls from their robes.
"Neville! Leave this for now. Go see how Harry is!" Hermione shouted sharply.
The giant snake struggled to move and dodged one Ice Storm, but a thin layer of frost formed over her black-green scales, and her speed abruptly dropped. Ron tore open the scroll in his hand, and a mass of purple lightning appeared in his palm.
"Monster, eat my Lightning Bolt!" the red-haired boy shouted strangely, and lightning burst from his hand, striking Nagini hard.
The giant snake was shocked so fiercely that even her bones lit up. She lifted her head and hissed, then collapsed limply to the ground.
At this point, Nagini had not yet been turned into a Horcrux by Voldemort, so her combat power was not especially remarkable. If Voldemort had been given more time to prepare, Nagini would have become far more terrifying.
"Is it dead?" Hermione stood carefully at a distance, not approaching the giant snake.
"Where's Harry?" Ron turned and looked around.
Neville carried the fallen Harry out of the woods on his back, with the unconscious Wormtail floating behind him. "He's fine! He only passed out!"
"What about Wormtail?"
"He was knocked out too!"
Everyone let out a breath of relief at the same time. After looking at one another, they all smiled with ease and gratitude.
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