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Lily Evans-Potter had always been a good person. Of course, a lot of people were. But Lily had never held a grudge in her life. When her sister Petunia had hated her for being a witch, she had instantly forgiven her; when Severus... When Snape had called her a mudblood, she had taken her distance, but now she was keeping it civil since he joined the Order. She had always been quick to forgive and not get caught up in silly arguments that didn’t lead anywhere. Her longest feud had ended up turning into the way of flirting with her actual husband. However, she was sure that was all going to change tonight. She was actually going to murder someone.
However, there is some important information that needs to be said before we unpack all of that. Let me take you back to that night, the 31st of October of 1981. It was a chill Halloween night in the Potter house. Harry had been put to sleep around eight and Lily and James hadn’t heard any noise from the magic-powered baby monitor, so they were just chilling in their sofa, watching the horror movie special that was airing on TV. James had wanted to dress up, even if it was just for themselves, so he was wearing a cape, had his face painted white and was wearing fake fangs, while Lily had put on a white dress with fake blood on it, mirroring the image of Carrie on the screen. Marlene had been the one who had introduced her to the book —and later on the movie— in the year and half that most of them had spent in the Order’s quarters, so now Lily couldn’t help but think about her, one of her best friends, who she hadn’t seen in almost a year.
It hadn’t been fun being isolated. She couldn’t complain about spending more time with James and Harry, but she missed everyone else. After so much time spent surrounded by friends up until Harry’s birth, now they felt a bit alone. James had never spent this much time away from Sirius and Remus. Peter had come to visit a few times since he was the Secret-Keeper and was the one that kept them communicated with the outside world, but it was not the same. They had gotten used to living in a small house, with a lot of people in which something was happening at all times, now everything just seemed too quiet.
The silence was still surrounding them while they snuggled on the couch... At least until everything went wrong. When the first crash was heard, both wizards stood up, wands in hand. The noise had come from upstairs; they weren’t aware of it then, but Voldemort had entered through the window and was now in Harry’s room. Their front door was then smashed, letting in a group of Death Eaters.
“Go get Harry, I can handle them here!” shouted James.
Lily didn’t need to be told twice. She sprinted upstairs, trying to cast any spell that would protect her son. The first thing she saw when she got there was the green light and she felt like she was dying for a second. But then the light disappeared, letting her see Harry, surrounded by a thin red bubble, and she was shocked. The former Dark Lord was disintegrating in her son’s bedroom while the kid cried, with a scar on his forehead that wasn’t there before. She ran to him and tried to calm him down, while examining the lightning scar on Harry’s forehead. Once she made sure he was okay, she put him in his crib with a protective spell around it and ran downstairs, just in time to save her husband from being hexed.
She threw some punches and received some as well, always protecting both of them from the hexes and bouncing them back so they hit the Death Eaters. After a while, someone came from upstairs —Lily had been so focused on Harry and Voldemort that she hadn’t checked to see if someone else had been there— shouting:
“Voldemort is dead!”
“And if you don’t leave you will be too!” Lily screamed, making the few Death Eaters that remained, leave in a hurry.
“Oh my Merlin, Lily, are you okay? Is Harry—?” Lily kissed him to stop him from asking more questions.
“We’re all okay. He somehow killed Voldemort, I still don’t get it, but we have bigger issues right now. What happened to Wormtail?”
James’ face got whiter and he sprinted upstairs to get the muggle phones for emergencies. They hadn’t been needed in almost a year, but right now, the Dark Lord had been defeated and one of his closest friends could be dead. The first call was to Peter, but he didn’t pick up the phone, so he called Sirius instead. Meanwhile, Lily had taken the other phone and moved to Harry’s room to check on him again. She didn’t listen to logic, she just called Marlene.
“Lily, is everything okay? Has something happened?” Hearing the voice of one of her best friends for the first time in so long made her tear up a bit.
“He’s dead, Marlene. Voldemort is dead. The war is over.”
A lot of screaming followed, as Marlene starting shouting it around the Order’s quarters. She could feel the joint joy of everyone involved. Only a few minutes later, Snape entered, aware of the attack because of his contact with his fellows Death Eaters, who had already announced the death of the Dark Lord. Sirius, Remus and Marlene arrived right after, deciding to apparate in their living room. It was then when it really hit Lily, while James hugged his friends tightly with tears in their eyes: They had almost died that night. And Wormtail was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey, has anyone heard from Wormtail?” Everyone was quiet for a second until Snape answered, while he stood awkwardly in the corner.
“He sold you out. He went to Voldemort and told him where you lived so they could attack you and the Longbottom’s at the same time. I only knew about it an hour ago.”
That’s when rage filled Lily entirely. Her face was almost the same colour as her hair and she left Harry with Remus as she went to pick her wand. As if prompted, Peter peaked his head through the front door, having cut his finger, to pretend he had been tortured in order to tell the Dark Lord where they were, not knowing that the truth had already come out.
“Y-you are alive,” he whispered, making everyone in the room look towards him.
“You are fucking dead!” Lily screamed, running after him. Now Peter was a creature that knew how to survive, so seeing the redhead mad, with a bloody dress —now even bloodier than before thanks to some punches from the battle that had happened in their living room— and her wand in her hand, he just ran.
Lily ran after him, seeing how he transformed into a rat and tried to escape. However, she was one of her brightest witches of her age and was married to an animagus, which meant that she knew enough spells to stop him from transforming. By the time Lily reached him, he had fallen to the floor, thanks to the spell, and was now pressing himself against the wall.
“Lily, I couldn’t— He said that—”
“What?! Tell me exactly what he told you so you rat us out! We could have been dead! Harry could have been dead!” Her wand was now pressed against his throat and he was sweating.
“B-but you’re not. I-I had faith in you. You survived!”
“Not because of you, you fucking treacherous rat!” Sirius screamed. The others had followed behind Lily and were now pointing their wands at him.
“He cut my finger. He—” Snape cut him off before he could continue. He had always hated the Marauders, so he was having the time of his life seeing one of them fall like this. Besides, he could have gotten Lily killed and he deserved to suffer.
“You went to see the Dark Lord weeks ago by yourself because you thought he would win the war. I heard you saying it. You’ve cut that finger yourself to put an excuse.”
That was it. Hexes were launched and some took effect, but with them, Lily’s previous spell disappeared so, as soon as he could, the man became a rat and went down the sewers to not be seen in almost twelve years.
“I swear if I see him again, he will not come out of it alive.” James hugged Lily from behind after the redhead expressed her rage.
“It’s okay, love. We’ve all made it. We’re here to fight another day.” After all the emotions they had gone through, Lily let herself rest against her husband’s body, breathing deeply. Seeing that no one was being hexed anymore, Remus went outside, with baby Harry on his arms, already asleep. Soon enough, wizards everywhere went outside and took the streets, celebrating the fall of the Dark Lord. However, the almost destroyed house of Godric’s Hollow would be one of the quietest. While the child slept, and the Order was notified, James and Lily, with the help of Remus, Sirius, and Marlene, cleaned everything up and prepared the beds for the inevitable sleepover that was happening. The next morning, a new world would begin, but for now, they were just happy to be reunited with their chosen family.