No Longer

A Cunning Mind

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**Albus Dumbledore

Albus Dumbledore apparated himself to the Godric's Hollow nursery. He figured he'd have a good fifteen minutes to poke around before Hagrid would be able to get here. 

The room appeared to him as before, excepting of course, Lily's body being splayed on the ground dead. She lay before Evan's crib, her red hair fanning out in an arc to frame her pale face. Stepping closer, he twitched his robes into his side as he passed so they wouldn't brush against the corpse. 

He did so disdain the thought of a body touching his precious deravenora silk robes. They were, after all, his second favorites, navy blue with silver constellations and detailed trimming. His tailor had added in specific embellishments that he'd designed himself, and he wasn't about to have them sullied by a corpse.

"Corpus Revelarum," he muttered, giving his wand a slight swish and jab.

Curly lilac colored script wrote itself out in the air just before his wand, giving a brief overview of Lily's death.

Lily Juniper Potter (née Evans)

TOD: 11:42 pm 31st of October 1981

COD: Wordless Avada Kedavra

Caster: Untraceable

As he'd planned, Voldemort's crony had reported hearing the false prophecy he'd planted in Trelawney's head. Predictable as could be, Albus knew the wizard would choose a day of some significance to mount his attack on his supposed 'doom', aka, the Potter's child. The muggle holiday of Halloween was the closest, so it had taken very little fiendish calculation on his part to figure this was to be the day.

Knowing as he'd set it up that Lily would sacrifice herself for her little brat Evan, he'd imbued her with a charm. The charm basically brought her dying wish true, so long as it could happen within the time it took for her body to naturally cool off. Darker castings did tend to have slightly morbid deadlines, but who was he to complain if it got the job done?

Lily had too high an opinion of herself to let her favorite son die, and while her wish may have had impure motives, the power of the charm mixed with the natural power of a life sacrifice was strong enough to bring true her final wish. Her protection would have banished Voldemort from this plane of existence.

He was surprised to find the other boy alive though. Harry, so far as he could tell, was uncommonly average in every way, excepting his size. He was rather too small, and utterly lacking in the soft baby fat expected of a child little more than a year old. 

For the first time, Albus noticed an inch long scar that ran jagged over the toddler's left eyebrow, shaped peculiarly similar to a lightning bolt. He himself had a scar on his left knee that was a perfect map of the London Underground though, and it wasn't exactly strange to have a jagged scar. 

Harry was fast asleep in his crib, and Albus briefly wondered at how the child was sleeping so soundly. Did he not understand what had happened in this room? Perhaps not. He was, after all, fifteen months old, and there was a slight possibility he'd even slept through the entire thing.

Back to his main priority though. Evan also lay sleeping, and Albus' gaze instantly latched onto the v-shaped scar in the child's cheek, it was obviously magic touched. He smiled his true smile, cold and mean, that he never allowed cross his face in the presence of others.

The clear mark would only make the child stand out more. He would grow more famous, and as a result, Albus would gain even more power being the one to guide the boy's strings. 

He was, after all, chess master in this game of life, death, magic, and power. Quite literally playing both sides, there was nothing anyone else could do to stop him. Well, except kill him, but that would be far more difficult a task than the average spell crafter could accomplish. He'd amassed too much power to be brought down by any single wizard.