19 Years

Chapter 18 : Disaster

Chapter 18 : Disaster

As February rolled around the next year Harry and Ginny were in a state of blissful happiness. Harry was training with the team four days a week with a match on every other Saturday so he had a lot of time to spend with his family as Ginny was remaining at home (having decided to put off potentially playing quidditch until the next year), with James who was now fourteen months old and as happy and healthy a baby as anyone could wish for. He had grown quickly and, although he had started out very small due to his premature birth, he was now catching up with other children of his age and had just experienced his second Christmas. He was looking more and more like Harry by the day, apart from his warm brown eyes, inherited from his mother. He was bright and enjoyed everything around him; his favourite thing was when his parents would place him on a training broom and help him zoom around the living room.

The only slight mar on Harry's cheerfulness was the occasional reports from Ron, who was now a trained junior auror, that they were still bringing in Death Eaters who had managed to escape in the chaos of the battle.

"Harry, mate, I honestly think that they don't pose any real danger," Ron had one day reassured him, "Most of them are out of the country trying to get on with things. They just don't want to end up in Azkaban so they go into hiding."

Harry didn't like it, but he had to admit that Ron was probably right; without their leader, a couple of stray Death Eaters were unlikely to be doing anything other than trying to start new lives far away from the Ministry. He never felt threatened but he was uneasy that any of them would be allowed to go free after the atrocities they had committed during the war. Harry would later regret his attitude towards the potential threat.

On the tenth of February, which would have been James' first birthday had he not been born so early, Harry awoke with a troubled feeling. A familiar tingling at his spine that he could not place bothered him but he assumed he was merely coming down with a cold after so many early morning practices in the freezing British winter. It was his day off and he saw that it was late in the morning and both Ginny and James were no longer in the room, having let him sleep in. He rolled out of his warm bed and dragged a hoodie over his head as he padded into the living room where he saw James rolling around on a blanket on the floor, playing with a stuffed snitch. He smiled and picked him off the floor, walking into the kitchen where Ginny was making breakfast.

"Morning, love," he said as he kissed her cheek lightly, "You should have woken me. It's passed twelve!"

"I think you deserve a lie in," she smiled as she filled a plate with a mound of bacon and eggs and placed it in the middle of the table next to the toast, "They've been running you ragged."

"Mmmm, big match next week," he said as he plonked himself down in a chair and manoeuvred James into his high chair.

"Holyhead Harpies," grinned Ginny, "My loyalties are divided."

"If I see you cheering for them, Gin, I won't talk to you for a week," he laughed as he picked up a glass of water.

She smiled and helped herself to a piece of toast, "What d'you want to do today?"

"Nothing! I'm feeling particularly lazy," he said, looking out at the snow that was starting to drift past the window, he felt the uncomfortable sensation tingling up the back of his neck again but ignored it, "Let's just sit in front of the fire and stay warm. If there's enough snow later I'll take our boy out and make a snowman with him."

"Good," smiled Ginny, "I didn't much feel like having to get dressed today."

With that agreed they spent the next few hours snuggled up together on the couch. Harry would occasionally flick his wand to entertain James and they read to him from the old book of fairy tales that they had received the previous Christmas. Despite the lovely afternoon they were having, Harry still couldn't shake his feeling of unease but didn't mention it to Ginny, unwilling to ruin their happiness. As darkness fell the feeling only grew but he couldn't place why he felt so perturbed.

In the early evening Harry went into the kitchen to fix a bit of food for James' dinner, and as he walked out with the little plate of mashed up vegetables he left his wand casually on the counter by the sink. As if waiting for the moment when he was wandless, a crashing sound echoed through the little cottage.

"That's the wards!" Yelled Harry, moving swiftly towards Ginny and James, "Take James into the bedroom and apparate! Go!"

Ginny looked torn between protecting her son and her will to stay with Harry. He looked pleadingly at her and she raced into the bedroom and stood just behind the door, listening intently, unwilling to leave her husband. She had no idea what could have caused the carefully placed protective charms around the house to fall, but the look on Harry's face had terrified her.

Harry, realising his wand was still in the kitchen, ran for the door, desperate to reach his only means of defence. As he was about to enter he ran headlong into somebody much larger than him. He automatically took a step back and saw a huge figure in the unmistakeable garb of a Death Eater, complete with mask. He opened his mouth, to speak, to yell at Ginny - who he knew had not left - to get her wand and apparate away but he found he had no voice. He had been silenced and as he raised his fists to fight physically he heard a muttered incantation and he felt his body bind.

There was nothing he could do, no way to warn Ginny, no way to fight back. He felt himself being levitated and he knew the Death Eater was moving him towards the bedroom where his wife and son were hidden. The door swung open and Harry saw the petrified look on Ginny's face as she saw him floating in, prone, followed by the enormous Death Eater. Harry was pushed against a wall and he heard the rough voice of the man as he hissed, "You have destroyed everything Harry Potter. You have destroyed all that the Dark Lord dreamed of, and I am going to kill you. But first, I am going to destroy you. You are about to see your precious family killed. Your lovely son will be first."

The Death Eater turned away from him and began to advance on Ginny who was backing away into a corner. She turned and dropped James into his cot, before bracing herself against the man. Tears were racing down her cheeks as she spread her arms wide to shield James, in his little grey jumper suit, who had pulled himself up to stand in the crib, from view.

"Please, please, don't kill James, not my baby! Don't hurt him, he's done nothing... nothing! He's only a child!" She was screaming at the man, who seemed not to hear her, "Not James! Not James! Have mercy... have mercy... kill me instead!"

"Stand aside girl!" Yelled the Death Eater as he moved closer to her, "You will die later..."

Harry's vision had gone black. The hideousness of the scene unfolding before him was unbearable. It was all too familiar. This was the way his mother had died and now she, Ginny, the one thing he loved in the world above all, was about to do the same horrific, beautiful thing. The thoughts were running through his head at lightening speed. He could see another child, all alone, with a scar on his head. A burden to carry forever, never knowing his parents, an orphan with a hole in his heart. He knew what Ginny was about to do and there was nothing he could do to prevent this whole mess. The anger swelled inside him, greater than anything he had ever experienced. More powerful than any feeling Voldemort had ever stirred in him. It was born of the love he felt for those in front of him, of the loss of everything in his past and of the burning rage flaring inside him at his own helplessness to stop it all. The feeling was so strong he though he might burst. His body jerked forwards and he saw his hand stretching against its bond towards his family. There was a flash of unbearable intensity and a green light filled the room, sneaking into the blackness of Harry's head.