Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, the world would have been cheated out of a good book series. I'd have never gotten done with the first one.

And the ending would have been odd. It's a trademark of mine. Enjoy!

Death Dancer

I loved my brothers, but I thought them fools. They underestimated Death, and Death defeated them. -Ignotus Peverell

"Congratulations, Mr. Potter. You now have a healthy baby boy."

James Potter released the breath he hadn't known he was holding as he took the tiny bundle the Mediwitch handed him gently, unaccountably awed. Black Potter hair already covered the baby's small head, and his ruddy face was scrunched up as he dozed. His son. He had a son… he was a father. "I'm a father…"

On the nearby bed, Lily laughed weakly at his tone, letting her eyes slip shut. "Oh, my poor child," she teased. "Oh, poor me…"

James glanced at his wife in concern - the labor had been long and painful, and for a while he had feared he would lose either Lily or his child. Or even both. Just then, the baby in his arms shifted, and James' attention was caught as his son opened his eyes for the very first time.

A chill raced up his spine.

His son slowly blinked startling silver eyes neither James nor Lily had, eyes that no normal wizard had. James knew what they meant, and that meant nothing good.

Checking to make sure Lily wasn't looking, James pulled out his wand and cast the most powerful Transfiguring Glamour spell he knew. He couldn't truly change his son's eye color, but to the rest of the world, Harry would have Lily's eyes.

James felt the slight shift in the air as the wards brushed over him, warning him as they fell that danger was coming. The Godric's Hollow cottage wasn't well protected outside of the Fidelius, which they had cast all their hope upon, and he knew the end was coming soon.

But not for Harry. Maybe, if he was lucky, not for Lily, either.

So thinking, he snatched his son up from the sofa and thrust him into his wife's arms. "Take Harry and go, Lily! Run! I'll hold him off!"

"But James-"

"No buts!" James took out his wand, transfiguring the sofa into a towering wolf and the table into a snarling lion. The lamp became a falcon, the rug a bed of needles, and the window shattered inward to become a windstorm of glinting glass shards. "Just go!"

Harry raised a cry. 'You're going to die, Daddy!' it said.

I know, he replied silently.

Hugging the toddler to her chest, Lily finally obeyed and began to sprint from the room, dashing for the single hole in the outbound Apparation ward: the nursery. Just as she disappeared up the stairs, the door to the den exploded into countless splinters of wood James blocked with a fiery shield.

He directed the needles that have been the rug to rain down on the entrance, but a gust of wind blew them back. Releasing that Transfiguration, James told his creatures to attack the intruder and to protect him.

He didn't even once fathom they might get him out of this alive. He had had his three strikes; now he was out.

Voldemort slashed his wand through the air, and radiant scarlet energy tore through the air. Ducking under it, James silently incanted a Blasting Curse, casting low as his falcon dive-bombed the other wizard.

The Dark Lord easily sidestepped the curse, idly blasting the attacking lion into a thousand bits of gore, and cast a smoky gray spell, a Cruciatus, and a neon orange spell in quick succession. All three passed through his hastily conjured shield like it was nothing, and he braced himself.

His wolf leaped in front of him, taking the brunt of the curses. James stumbled back as it let out a howl of agony, collapsing to the floor and spasming as red mist evaporated from its ears, nose and mouth.

The Blood Boiling Curse, James realized, just in time to take a second Cruciatus to the chest.

Voldemort murmured something as he screamed that he couldn't hear, and then, with a mocking smile, brought his wand to bear. "Avada Kedavra," his lips formed, and then green light swallowed his vision.

The Dark Lord ascended the stairs. James Potter, as a spirit, followed him.

Lily Potter was a researcher, not a fighter. She knew she stood no chance in a duel with the most powerful Dark Lord ever to come from Hogwarts School. So she didn't try.

She tried to trick him. And she hoped it worked, as green light bore down on her , taking her life and sealing the deal, the magical contract she had offered and Voldemort unwittingly signed. Lily wasn't an Unspeakable for nothing.

"Lils?" James said beside her, sounding unbearably sad. "Why did you just die? Now Harry will have no one…"

Momentarily glancing away from where Voldemort stood speaking to her son in a quiet voice, Lily said, "It's the only chance I could give him, James. I can only hope it works…"

"He's survive," James rejoined, sounding completely certain in addition to sad. "I knew I should have told you…"

Lily blinked. "Told me what?"

Voldemort placed his wand's tip on Harry's forehead, laughing when the toddler reached up and wrapped a small fist around it, as though to make sure the Dark Lord wouldn't miss. "Avada Kedavra."

"This," James replied.

The spell exploded from the end of the wand, haloing Harry in a nimbus of deathly green light. For a second, the witch saw a shadow of Harry's spirit blink down at his body and give a sulky pout, before a ghostly hand seized his real one and he disappeared.

What?

Glowing crimson bands of the magic she had summoned for her contract with Voldemort penetrated the emerald glow, and from Harry's forehead the green light refocused and backfired with a bang like a gunshot. It hit Voldemort right above where his heart would be, at point-blank range, and Lily could only gape as he released a piercing, inhuman shriek… and disintegrated, his shade fleeing without a backwards glance.

Harry whined in pain, pressing a hand to his bloody forehead. "…Momma? …Daddy?"

James scooted over immediately, Lily moving slower due to shock. "Harry?" he said. "Harry, I'm here."

He can't see us, James, she almost said, only to have the words stolen out of her mouth when their son looked up, unfamiliar liquid silver eyes fixing on them. On them, not anything behind them or something merely close.

"Daddy?" said Harry, looking confused. "Why you wike tat? Go ba'! Momma, go ba'!"

"We can't," James said gently. "I'm sorr-"

Harry interrupted. "Can! Can too!" He began to try to crawl out of his crib, ignoring both specters for the moment.

"James," said Lily lowly, where the toddler could not hear, "why have my son's eyes changed?"

He looked at her evenly for one silent moment. "They haven't. The… Avada… must have disengaged the glamour I cast to make them green."

Before she could retort, a blast made them both jump and turn their heads. Frustrated with his inability to escape the crib, Harry's accidental magic had demolished the bars holding him in. He tumbled to the carpet, crawling to where Lily's body lay prone on the floor.

"Momma go ba'," he repeated, placing his hands over her heart… the exact place the Killing Curse had landed.

James stared at him and then at Lily, and breathed, "Harry… can you?"

She arched a brow at him, wondering if dying had knocked loose a few of her husband's gobstones. Surely he couldn't believe Harry could resurrect them? Dead was dead.

Then what did Harry do? a sly voice asked.

Deciding that there was no harm in hoping, Lily drifted over to Harry and placed her ghostly hand over his. There was a jolt, a horrid tug like a Portkey, and the next thing she knew she was staring up at the nursery ceiling in sheer, honest shock.

James whooped and cheered, the sound distorted and faint but undeniably there, and she leveled the faint shimmer in the air a deadly look that demanded an explanation. "Later, Lils," he said. "I promise."

"Momma ba'," Harry pronounced cheerfully. "Now Daddy. Momma, where Daddy?"

"Down in the den," James supplied, sounding every bit as perky as his son. "Hard to believe I got out of that duel intact… but thank Merlin. Never dreamed I'd be glad it was the Avada that took me down, but I doubt Harry would be able to put us back if it were anything else…"

Sending her husband's spirit a second glare for appearing to understand what was going on, Lily slowly sit up. It felt like she had been trampled by a pack of hippogriffs, but she couldn't complain. She was alive. She didn't know how, but she was alive.

Taking Harry in her arms, she sidestepped the empty robe on the floor, ducking to pick up the abandoned wand, and began to descend to the living room as quickly as her aching body would allow. People would be here soon, like the Headmaster and Sirius, and Lily knew that broadcasting that her son could reverse the Killing Curse was only asking for trouble.

Albus Apparated to Godric's Hollow, fully expecting to find a ruin and three new casualties to lay at Tom's feet. The sight that greeted him was a complete shock, albeit a positive one; although the wards were in tatters and the house was a mess, the corpses he expected to see weren't there.

They were alive. James, Lily, and their son were alive.

Unless corpses regularly walked around, cleaning up, he added to himself humorously, hardly daring to believe it. In his wildest dreams he had only imagined Harry surviving.

Lily was the first to notice him approach, pausing in her wandwork to give him a respectful nod. "Headmaster. We were expecting you," she remarked with a faint smile.

She looked faint as well, Albus noted. Too pale, but then, who could blame her? Voldemort had assaulted this house, even if by some miracle they had survived. "I cannot say how glad I am to see you are alive."

"No gladder than we are," said James, casting a quick Reparo on the broken window as he turned, cradling young Harry against his shoulder as the toddler slept.

"I suppose that is true," admitted the Headmaster with a smile. "James, Lily… if I may ask, what happened here?"

The Potters exchanged an inscrutable look, startling Albus. It was almost as if they were considering what to say…

James began. "I felt the wards give. Since there was no one with the Secret that wasn't already admitted, I knew something was wrong, and told Lily to take Harry and run. I was going to buy them some time. We dueled a little, and then he hit me with some sort of spell… that's the last thing I know."

Taking it from there, Lily explained, "I reached the nursery in enough time to escape, only I couldn't. Voldemort must have cast his own temporary Apparation ward." She paused. "He didn't seem inclined to kill me, oddly enough. Said he had another use for me in mind. I tried to keep between him and Harry, however. I've been researching magical contracts, and I was going to try and trick him into signing a life-for-life agreement."

Albus was impressed by Lily's plan, as he didn't think anyone had tried it before, but also alarmed. While he could guess why Voldemort had wanted Lily alive, that he had also spared James had much darker interpretations. And he couldn't shake the feeling the Potters were both hiding something…

Lily shook her head, running a hand through dark red hair distractedly. "Voldemort took me down with the same spell he used on James. I don't know what happened after that… but we both woke up minutes later, there's an empty cloak in the nursery, and we have Voldemort's wand. We can only draw assumptions."

Albus sat down, hard, on the newly restored sofa. "Tom has been destroyed?" he said weakly. First, the Potters were safe, and now, Voldemort had been destroyed. It was too good to be true. He would have to ascertain if Tom had been defeated or merely banished, as he feared.

"Have you seen Sirius?" asked James suddenly.

Taken off-guard, Albus looked at him askance. "The Aurors are hunting for him now, James. I am confident he will be in custody by morning."

Lily and James exchanged another glance, this time sheepish.

"Ah, about that…"

"Sirius was not our Secret Keeper," said Lily flatly. "He got it in his head to be a diversion. The man the Aurors should be hunting down is Peter Pettigrew."

"Peter?" It made so much more sense than Sirius, Albus had to admit. No one who knew Sirius could fathom that he would betray James. They were closer than brothers. But Sirius was a Black, and Barty was being very heavy-handed lately… "I must inform the Ministry at once."

James nodded. "We're going to finish clean up here and go to the manor. It's safer there, now the Fidelius is compromised."

Albus hesitated once in his walk toward the restored door. "If you would, leave the nursery be. As soon as I can, I'll return and investigate. Perhaps I can shed some light on the events of this night."

"Of course, Headmaster."

"You have a lot of explaining to do, James."

The tone was calm, even pleasant. There was no threat in the words. Lily made no movement to remove her wand from her pocket, and even if she had, she was no match for him.

That didn't change the fact that he loved his wife, and she was very, very angry with him.

James took a seat in one of the luxurious armchairs in the Potter Manor master study, staring into the fire to gather his thoughts. "I know. Where do you want me to start?"

"Why are my son's eyes silver, James?" she offered after a moment, taking a seat herself. "And why do you keep covering them up?"

"That's a bad place, Lils," James whined, and then sighed. "You know how a lot of purebloods, like Sirius, have gray eyes? It's a family trait, and since purebloods are so closely related, almost every pureblood has them. If Harry's eyes were gray, then it'd be understandable, if a bit odd. Granted, there might be a few people thinking you and Sirius took it up behind my back, but…"

Lily laughed despite herself. "You're rambling, James."

"Ah… anyway." James returned to the topic. "Anyway, Harry's eyes aren't gray. Silver isn't normal, Lils, not even in wizards. Actually, you only get that color if you have a certain ability." He paused to look at his wife seriously. "Silver means necromancer."

He watched her carefully as she took that in. Surprise flickered across her face, then comprehension.

"That's why you thought he'd survive the Avada." It wasn't a question, but James nodded anyway. "I can see why you wouldn't want it to be common knowledge, but why not tell me? He's my son as much as he is yours."

"You're an Unspeakable, Lily," James said flatly. He held up a hand to stall her indignant protest. "I know you wouldn't do anything to hurt Harry. But I don't know any of the precautions Unspeakables take, and I don't trust them with the knowledge. You infiltrated the Unspeakables for the Order. What if there's a Death Eater in the ranks, too?"

Lily looked down, unable to argue the point.

"And even if there isn't," James continued, as though he didn't notice, "necromancers can reverse the Avada. Can you tell me they wouldn't kill for the chance to study him, try and replicate the effect?"

She threw up her hands. "Okay, okay, you win, James. You had your reasons."

James grinned, sinking into the perfectly squishy armchair and closing his eyes.. "So I'm forgiven?"

She rolled her eyes, and then paused as a thought occurred to her. "James?"

He opened one hazel eye. "What, Lils?"

"What did you mean by you didn't think he'd be able to bring you back if Voldemort hadn't used the Avada to kill you?"

"Uh." James swallowed, remembered how close he had come to dying a very painful, not to mention very permanent, death. "Well, in Auror training we have a class on Dark magic and other deadly curses. The Unforgivables are covered really extensively. We do everything but cast the spell, pretty much, and the odd that about the Killing Curse is that it wasn't made to kill like it's used now."

Lily arched a red eyebrow at him in surprise. "'Let the thing be destroyed'," she translated. "I had read that it was originally supposed to be medicinal, somehow. Something about killing diseases."

"I'm not surprised you don't know, to be honest." James shook his head. "After Harry was born, I made a point to hunt down anything and everything I could get my hands on about necromancers. The Killing Curse is a ancient necromantic spell, and technically it was never meant to kill at all. Basically it kicks the soul out of the body, and necromancers would use it to free possessed people. Kick out the victim soul and the possessing soul, stick the victim back in, and then use some other necromantic voodoo to blast the possessor to itty bits."

"James, you almost sounded intellectual." Another eye-roll. "Then you ruined it. 'Necromantic voodoo'? 'Itty bits'?"

James shrugged, and then flashed her a smirk. "If it's up to me to be the wellspring of knowledge, I don't want you to feel too bad, Lily-flower."

She laughed. "Oh, get on with it."

He stuck his tongue out at her, and snickered when she rolled her eyes yet again. "Anyway, obviously, the Avada's incredibly lethal for being a supposedly benign spell," he explained. "But necromancers - real necromancers, not those idiots that think raising Inferi counts as necromancy - have power over spirits. They can pass over ghosts, bring them back for chats, knock souls out of their bodies for laughs, stuff them back in, and if they're really talented, some of them can do honest resurrection. Not without a sacrifice, though, so it's kinda illegal. Thing is, a displaced soul naturally passes over after a while. So, since there hasn't been a necromancer to stick people's souls back in their bodies for over five hundred years, Avada Kedavra is virtually a death sentence."

"Then we weren't actually dead," Lily mused, her green eyes thoughtful.

"Nope," chirped James. They were alive, Voldemort was dead, Harry was safe, and the future had never looked brighter. Life couldn't get any better.

A devilish smile appeared on Lily's face. "That's good," she said. "After all, I was afraid Harry would lose his little sister…"

James blinked. "Lose his… what?"