Dedicated to the Lumos Book Club. Thank you for all your help in making this chapter it's best. <3 (if you see a comment with #lumos this is why)

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Godric's Hollow, 1981

The night was wet and windy. Children and families roamed about the streets in costume without a care in the world. 

Oblivious to what horrors were about to take place at the house down the street. 

Not knowing that within the night, two toddlers would be orphaned, and two parents would be dead.

Lily Potter was contemplating these thoughts as she stared out the shadowed window at the families laughing in the streets. Wishing desperately that her family could have been out there joining them.

She wished they could go to the park, or the grocery store, even the muggle bus stop down the road.

Of course, she didn't know at the time that she would never get to go to any of those places. That she would never get to go door to door asking for candy with her children as they grew older.

Sitting on the floor just behind Lily were her husband and two children. As she watched out the window, she was faintly listening to the chatter amongst her family.

"Alright now, Iris. I'm thinking of a colour." James prompted his daughter. She just stared up at her father with her wide doe-eyes. "C'mon, you can do it. What colour is daddy thinking of?"

Iris Potter stared only a moment longer before mumbling out, "Bwue."

James let out a giddy laugh, the game never getting old. "Yes, that's right!" he cheered, causing Iris to shriek happily, excited that she was being praised.

They played a few more rounds, James getting increasingly delighted every time his daughter successfully accessed his thoughts. After five or so minutes, Lily finally turned to watch her family with an adoring smile upon her face, nothing but love filling her gaze.

"James," she chastised playfully, bending over to brush Harry's hair back from his forehead from where he sat looking through a picture book. The young boy looked innocently up at his mother as she continued speaking, "She's not a toy."

The twenty-one-year-old wizard gave in with a sigh, "But it's just so much fun." His eyes suddenly lit up with a new idea, "We should get Padfoot over here soon and have a competition to see who can get the most answers from her."

Lily laughed, "You know he'd win."

James pouted, picking Iris up and moving her up so she was sitting on the sofa. He reached into the small bowl of lollies Remus had brought over the week before in hopes of making them feel better about being shut inside for the holiday and grabbed a grape flavoured lollipop. Unwrapping it, he handed it to Iris who eagerly took the small stick in her tiny baby hands and popped the sweet in her mouth.

James then turned to his son as Lily sat down beside Iris, pulling the curly dark-haired girl into her lap. He grabbed his wand off the coffee table and started producing clouds of coloured smoke that floated around Harry's head like bubbles.

"C'mon Harry, you can get it!" James Potter playfully cheered on his son, as the baby attempted to the grab coloured smoke James was making erupt from his wooden wand.

Lily watched with her signature smile plastered across her face, so happy to be in the company of her family. She would never have expected for her life to had gone the way it did, but she was fine with whatever was coming their way as long as she could keep the people she loved most safe. When she had found out she was pregnant, she and James were ecstatic, even more so when they learned it was twins.

At first glance, it was blatantly obvious to all that the two toddlers were twins.

With their near-identical tufts of dark hair, looking at their father, it was clear the twins took after the Potter side of the family. One difference though between the two was their eyes.

Although Iris Potter had eyes matching their father's, Harry possessed shining emerald green eyes, like those of their mother, Lily.

Lily Potter was a beautiful woman, in both looks and heart. An unbelievably kind and intelligent girl, Lily had been top of her class and a beloved friend to all.

She sat with her daughter held closely able to faintly hear the festivities taking place just outside of the window placed in the lounge of the family's cottage, outlooking the streets of Godric's Hollow. She gazed lovingly at her happy family, wishing it could stay like that forever, that her children didn't have a death threat hanging over them at that very moment.

Lily Potter was an intelligent woman, and she knew, as much as she didn't want to believe it, that it was only a matter of time before he showed up to try and take her children from her.

"Alright James, I think it's time for bed," Lily said, breaking her silence as her long dark-red hair fell over her face.

"You heard the boss, kids, it's sleep time," James said putting his wand's coloured smoke out and carelessly throwing it onto the couch.

James scooped up their son and handed him to Lily, who was attempting to convince their daughter to let go of her lolli. The couple switched jobs and James was given the task of getting the girl to relinquish the sweet.

Lily watched her daughter, holding back a laugh, as she refused to listen to James.

The girl was stubborn, but a few seconds later, James was able to swipe the lollipop out of her grasp and pick her up.

There was a terrible moment where Iris' sweet baby face broke into a frown and she feebly gurgled out the words, "Ba' ga'," shaking her small hands over by the cottage's front door.

Barely a second later, the front door burst open and James quickly shoved his daughter into Lily's waiting arms as they faced each other.

"I love you," they said to each other for the final time before James ran out to the hall, leaving his wand behind.

His shout sounded from the hall where he faced the intruder; 

"Lily, take Iris and Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"

Lily immediately took off up the stairs as tears started to pour out of her eyes, her two children wrapped in her arms embrace. She hurried into the nursery, slamming the door behind her, just in time to hear a cold laugh let out and the dreaded words,

"Avada Kedavra!"

Lily let out a heartbroken scream as she pushed random boxes and a chair up against the door, with her son and daughter still in her tight embrace, not understanding what was happening, unaware that their father was dead.

Lily Potter was sobbing as she looked down at her children, who were looking up at her with their big unknowing eyes, and whispered very quickly to them; 

"I love you both so much. I love you, Harry, take care of your sister. I love you, Iris. Keep him safe, protect your brother. Daddy and I will be with you, forever."

The hooded intruder forced the door open, cast aside the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with one lazy wave of his wand... and there she stood, her children in her arms. At the sight of him, she swiftly lowered her daughter and son into one of the cribs behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding them from sight, as though she hoped to be chosen instead...

"Not Harry and Iris, not Harry, please not Iris!"

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

She pleaded, as tears rolled down her face, desperately trying to beg for her children's lives, "Not my children, please no, take me, kill me instead --"

"This is my last warning --"

"Not Iris and Harry! Please... have mercy... have mercy... Not my kids! Not my children! Please -- I'll do anything..."

"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"

The green light flashed around the room and Lily Potter dropped like her husband. 

The children had not cried all this time. Harry could stand, clutching the bars of his sisters' crib, ignoring his sister as she attempted to pull him away. She was an intelligent child, much like her mother had been, and had realized by then that something was very wrong. 

Iris finally managed to pull her brother down to sit next to her, and she hugged onto his arm as he looked up into the intruder's face with a kind of bright interest, perhaps thinking that it was their father who hid beneath the cloak, making more pretty lights, and their mother would pop up any moment, laughing --"

The intruder pointed the wand very carefully into the boy's face. Harry began to cry: he had seen that the man was not James. Iris looked up, straight into the red eyes of the intruder as he yelled out;

"Avada Kedavra!"

The vivid green curse came spiralling out at Iris's brother, but when it hit him on the side of his forehead it bounced right off and at her, mirroring their now fresh scars, and then at the cloaked man like a pinball machine.

When it hit the intruder a bright flash of green lit up the room, and the cloak dropped to the floor, along with the man's wand, next to their mother.

The twins waited in the destroyed nursery for what seemed like hours, but in reality, was only about half an hour, and eventually, Iris ended up crying with her brother, as they were forced to share the room with their mother's unmoving body.

Iris recognized the first person to enter the house, it was one of her father's friends, Uncle Pete. She had never really liked him, always feeling something wrong in his head. He only entered to grab the cloaked man's wand, before he cast a fearful glance at the crying twins and ran out.

It wasn't much longer until another person entered, this one Iris had never seen before. It was a man with dark hair and it only took him once glance at her mother to send him into tears as he crashed against the doorway, devastated.

He stayed, clutching her dead body for the next few minutes, before apparently realizing Iris and Harry were still in the room and alive. His face turned to shock, and he stood up to look at the twins, noticing their new scars.

He stared at Iris a moment as his eyes teared up once more, he jerked forward suddenly, as if he had stopped himself from moving, then he hesitantly reached down and picked her up out of the crib and held her close to him as he cried.

Iris was good with emotions from practically the moment she was born, always being one to comfort Harry when he was sad or Lily when she was lonely. She could tell this stranger was sad and so Severus Snape soon found chubby toddler hands wrapping around his neck comfortingly as he wept.

"It's all my fault. All my fault. I'm so sorry," he cried.

He looked down at her wide eyes and tear-stained rosy cheeks and made up his mind, "I'll go, and you'll be safe. I already hurt you," he wouldn't look at the body of her mother laying just a few feet away.

His tears had ceased, though his sorrow had not, and so he quickly set her down and left. After that, it took just over an hour before anyone showed up.

Iris and Harry had stopped crying by that point, and Harry had fallen asleep from exhaustion after half an hour of waiting. Iris seemed to have somehow registered what her mother had said to her about protecting Harry, as she stayed awake and alert watching over her brother as he slept.

When Sirius entered next, he already had tears running down his face and red eyes from crying. He let out a sob as he saw Lily dead on the floor, and a choked gasp escaped him when he saw Iris and Harry alive in the crib.

"Paddy!" Iris held her hands up and made grabbing motions at him.

Her godfather rushed around Lily to pick her up into his arms. Iris wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face into his shoulder. Just then, the two heard someone else walking up the stairs with heavy footsteps. Sirius turned toward the door, taking his wand out as Iris turned around in his arms. When the person came to stand in the doorway, Sirius relaxed with noticeable relief.

"Hagrid."

He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild -- long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. But he too, had tears going down his face.

"Ah, Sirius, I'm sorry fer yer loss. Lily an' James... were great people. Anyway, Dumbledore sen' me here to collec' Iris an' Harry. So I bes' be off."

"Hagrid, can't I take them? I'm her godfather, I'll look after them both. I don't know where Remus went, his house is empty."

"Sorry, Sirius, no can do. Dumbledore says they're to go ter their aun' an' uncle's house."

"Hagrid, really I can take care of them. It's the least I can do for James and Lily."

"I thin' it's bes' we trus' Dumbledore, Sirius. I am sorry, though."

Sirius eventually nodded reluctantly and stood aside as Hagrid passed around Lily to pick up the still sleeping Harry out of the crib.

The two men walked out of the ruined house and down the pathway to where Sirius' flying motorbike had been hastily parked.

"Here Hagrid, you can take my bike, I won't need it anymore," Sirius said suddenly with a grave expression.

After Hagrid got settled on the motorbike with Harry secured in one of his arms, Sirius attempted to detach Iris from him but found the challenge met with difficulty, for it seemed the young girl did not want to let go.

"Come on, Iris. You'll be okay, just go with Hagrid. Everything will be fine, I promise."

Finally, Sirius managed to ease the toddler off of him and handed her over to Hagrid.

"I'll uh... see you soon, Iris. Watch out for Harry for me, okay?" He left a kiss on his goddaughters' forehead before backing away to let Hagrid leave.

Iris giggled and waved her tiny hand back at him as they took off and flew out of sight, neither one knowing it would take almost twelve years until they saw each other again.

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