Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter; it belongs to JK Rowling, etc etc.
Authors Note: Hey everyone, this is my new story. I really don't have anything to say, so I'm just going to get on with it. If you have any questions, ask me in a review, and I'll respond if I can.
Prologue
Harry Potter was knocked to the floor, the hard earth beneath his feet driving the air out of his lungs. He raised himself onto his elbows, looking up at his imminent, unavoidable death. The long wand of Lord Voldemort was pointed straight at his heart.
Harry, feeling as if he had slipped into some kind of slow motion time flux, raised his eyes along the wand, past the pale, extended fingers, up the arm, finally finding the pasty, snakelike visage that was Voldemort's face; red catlike eyes glowing with hatred, his lips quirked in a snarl, nostrils flaring. In his other arm, Voldemort twirled Harry's own wand through his long fingers. Voldemort followed his line of sight, and his countenance changed from one of hatred, to one of smug certainty.
'You want this, don't you Potter?' Voldemort laughed a cold laugh.
Harry glared at Voldemort, his heart racing, his mind chasing frantic thoughts around in circles, trying to find some solution to his quandary. Voldemort's remaining Death Eaters surrounded them in a rough circle, a death ring for the final battle between Harry and Voldemort, between Good and Evil.
Voldemort extended his wand out to him, in the middle of his open palm, like some grotesque, evil platter. 'Take it, boy!' Voldemort snarled. 'Take it! And let us finish this!'
Harry stared back and forth, between his wand and Voldemort's contemptuous face, which seemed to be daring him to try. Harry knew it was his only chance. He lunged for the wand, and was, for one second, sure that he would succeed. However, his fingers, inches away from snatching the prize, caught only air. Voldemort had closed his hand around the wand at the last second. Harry, on his hands and knees, looked up at Voldemort.
'So close,' Voldemort cooed evilly, and squeezed.
Harry's wand, which had been his for nearly twenty-three years now, snapped in half.
Voldemort let the broken pieces fall to the floor at his feet, and Harry's eyes tracked them for every millisecond of the small flight, once again slipping into that slow motion time flux. They hit the ground with an anti-climactic patter. Adding insult to injury, Voldemort ground the two bits of broken wood, the phoenix tail feather peaking out of one end, into the earth under the heel of his boot, an offensive burial.
Harry once again looked up into the sightline of death. Voldemort's crimson eyes burned with malevolent fervour.
'And so, Harry Potter,' Voldemort hissed. 'It ends!'
A blast of green erupted from the end of his wand, tracking its course through the air, towards Harry's face. Harry was oddly calm as his death rushed towards him. It was over. He closed his eyes. Voldemort had won. He'd let everyone down, but that hardly seemed to matter to him anymore. After all, they were already dead. At least he'd finally be able to see them all again. Then his daughter's face flashed before his eyes - and he didn't want to die.
That was enough.
A comfortingly familiar song seemed to burst into life through him. He opened his eyes. Fawkes the phoenix swept into view and devoured the green jet of light whole - time seemed to stop for a few seconds as Harry stared at Fawkes - and then exploded in a violent eruption of fire. Harry heard the Death Eaters yell with alarm. Voldemort jumped back with a rush of cloak. Harry leapt forwards, seized the broken pieces of his wand, and concentrated.
Crack!
He was gone.
When the dust settled, Voldemort ran his eyes over the scorched earth, and then roared into the night with a blazing hatred. Harry Potter had escaped one last time.
'Dad!' Little Lily Potter screamed.
Harry stumbled into the room, knocked over a vase, which crashed to the floor with a smash, and then he followed suit, collapsing to the floor. Lily dashed forward and knelt by her father, shaking him with fright, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes with worry.
'Dad? Dad? Dad?' she cried again and again.
'M'okay,' Harry managed to get out, mumbling into the floor. He struggled to stand; still clutching the broken remains of his wand, and staggered to a nearby chair, collapsing into it with relief. Lily hovered, biting her lower lip nervously.
'You didn't win, did you,' Lily said, more stating a fact than asking a question, her tone conveying fear and distress. 'He's coming for us, isn't he?'
'It'll take him a while to find our location, don't worry sweetie,' Harry said, breathlessly.
'But he will find us, won't he?'
Harry sighed. 'Yes,' he said regrettably.
'But you can beat him next time, right?' Lily squeaked eagerly.
As an answer, Harry held up his broken wand. 'I'm so sorry sweetie,' he said, tears slipping down his own cheeks.
Lily's face crumbled, crying as well, her tears leaving tracks in her dirt-smudged cheeks. Lily was almost eleven years old now, and would have been starting Hogwarts soon, that is, if Hogwarts were still a school, and not the impenetrable fortress of Lord Voldemort. She had her mother's bushy hair, but it was a dark black, like her father's. Her eyes she had also inherited from her father, for they were a brilliant emerald green. Owing to the fact that she and Harry were on the run, she was dressed in shabby robes and frayed Muggle jeans, her tiny form almost drowned in the too long robes.
'What are we going to do?' Lily hiccoughed, inching towards her father slowly.
Harry looked up and welcomed her with open arms. She crawled into his lap and buried her face in his chest, sobbing with terror. Harry held her tightly; rage in his eyes for everything that Voldemort had done to him and his family and friends, but also rage towards himself, for not being strong enough or wise enough to stop the evil wizard. With his wand broken, he had no chance of defeating Voldemort. If only he had a second chance to make things right.
Then it hit him. He could have a second chance. He could put all of this right. He could save everyone. Sure, it was risky, and illegal, but desperate times called for desperate measures. It was his only shot. If he didn't do it, then the world would fall into further darkness, ruled by Lord Voldemort forever. Harry was the only one who could stop it, and this was the only way he knew how.
'Dad?' Lily said, sensing her father's frenzied thought pattern. 'Dad? What is it?'
'I have an idea sweetie,' he said. 'I have an idea.'
'What is it?' Lily repeated, looking up at her father with awe and hope.
'We're going to make it right Lily.'