Peter Pettigrew pushed himself up from the dirt, ears ringing, and stared in disbelief at the wreckage of the Potter home.
Barely a week had passed since he had sworn himself to the Dark Lord, trading the Potters’ greatest secret for a promised place at Voldemort’s right hand.
Tonight was supposed to be the end of it all.
Voldemort had chosen this night as the most auspicious moment to eliminate the Prophesied child and his parents, and he had demanded that Peter accompany him to Godric’s Hollow.
Peter had stayed across the street, watching from the shadows as his master glided through the protective wards and forced his way inside.
A brief burst of spellfire lit the windows.
Then silence—followed by a cataclysmic explosion that tore away half the upper floor and hurled Peter to the ground.
Once the world stopped spinning, he transformed.
A Norwegian brown rat scurried across the street and slipped into the ruined house.
Back in human form, Peter began his search.
What he found left him stunned.
James and Lily Potter lay unconscious on the floor, stunned but alive.
Beside them were two infants.
It was utterly unlike Voldemort to use a Stunning Hex instead of the Killing Curse, but Peter assumed his master had his reasons.
Of Voldemort himself there was no trace—only a pile of tattered robes and a wand lying on the nursery floor.
Peter slipped the wand into his robes.
He descended the stairs on shaky legs and dropped onto a loveseat near James’s prone body, muttering curses under his breath.
Typical, he thought bitterly.
The one time I fully commit to the Death Eaters, and Voldemort immediately gets himself blown up.
Now what?
A soft, nervous snigger escaped him.
I could just stay a rat forever.
Find some wizarding child who needs a pet.
At least I’d be fed and safe from Azkaban.
He shook his head, forcing himself to focus.
Then his gaze settled on James, and a slow, cunning smile spread across his face.
The switch of Secret-Keepers from Sirius to Peter had been decided only a fortnight earlier.
James had been adamant that no one—not even Dumbledore—know about it.
If the secret had truly remained hidden, Peter realized he might still salvage something from this disaster.
He cracked his knuckles and studied his former friend with cold calculation.
From his pocket he drew a small box, tapped it with his wand, and watched it expand into a wooden chest roughly a foot across.
Inside lay a vial of shimmering purple liquid, a gift from a fellow Death Eater known only as Mr. Nemo.
Most Death Eaters were psychotic idiots.
Mr. Nemo, like Mr. Toymaker and Miss Direction, was quite mad—but decidedly not stupid.
Peter knelt beside James, pried his mouth open, and poured several drops of the potion down his throat.
Then he pressed his wand to the man’s temple.
The Aurors had ways of detecting memory charms on their own, but Mr. Nemo had promised that this combination would be both undetectable and irreversible.
“Obliviate,” Peter whispered.
“You will forget that you ever switched Secret-Keepers. You will forget you even considered it. You will remember only that Sirius Black was your Secret-Keeper.”
Satisfied, he cast a second spell.
“Confundus. You will hate Sirius for what he has done. You will want revenge more than anything in the world.”
He repeated the process with Lily after forcing the purple liquid between her lips.
Then his nose twitched—his rat senses warning him of danger.
In the distance, he heard the roar of Sirius Black’s flying motorbike.
“No time for the Confundus on you, Lily,” he muttered.
“But James will be vindictive enough for both of you. He always has been.”
Peter took cover and fired a Stunner, but Sirius dodged it with the reflexes of a seasoned Auror.
“Wormtail! You backstabbing vermin! How could you do this!”
little
Knowing he stood no chance in a fair fight, Peter shouted from hiding, “The Potters are all dead, Sirius! All of them! And you’re next! Catch me if you can, blood traitor! And by the way—I always hated that name!”
With a sharp pop, he Disapparated, confident that the predictable Sirius would chase him in blind rage rather than pause to question what had really happened.
November 1, 1981
“Albus? What happened? How did we even survive?” Lily asked weakly from her bed at St.
Mungo’s.
“I’m not entirely certain, my dear, but…” Dumbledore trailed off, frowning in confusion.
Then the door opened and a nurse wheeled in a double stroller.
The sound of an infant’s loud wailing filled the room.
Dumbledore’s gaze fell on the two babies.
One was crying furiously, dressed in bright Gryffindor-red pajamas with the name Jim embroidered on the front.
A faint, fading V-shaped scar marked his left temple.
The old wizard relaxed and smiled.
“Yes… I believe we have young Jim to thank for this.” “…Jim?” Lily repeated, bewildered, before maternal instinct took over.
She rushed forward and gathered the crying child into her arms.
“Shh, Jim. It’s all right. Mummy’s here.”
Albus turned to the dazed James, who was sitting up in the adjacent bed.
“The mark on Jim’s head is clearly a curse scar—the result of a backlash from Voldemort’s Killing Curse. It is obvious now that Jim was the child named in the prophecy: the one born as the seventh month dies, whom Voldemort would mark as his equal. Harry was born first, at 11:52. Jim arrived just before midnight. And now he bears the mark of Voldemort himself.”
“Our Jim did it?” James whispered in awe.
“It’s… a miracle.”
While the three adults marveled over the Boy-Who-Lived, they paid no attention to the second infant sleeping peacefully in the stroller.
His pajamas were identical except for the name Harry stitched across the front.
On his brow, a rune of power pulsed faintly with ancient magic—unnoticed by anyone in the room.