The Boy with Emerald Fire
The fire in the Potter cottage hearth snapped and hissed, spitting small sparks that drifted upward like dying stars. Each crackle sent a warm pulse of cedar smoke curling through the room, mingling with the faint, sweet scent of beeswax from the candles Lily had lit earlier. The glow painted shifting gold across her face as she sat cross-legged on the thick wool rug, auburn hair spilling loose over her shoulders like spilled autumn leaves. Before her lay an ancient tome—leather cracked and blackened at the edges, spine split like old bone, pages yellowed and curling as though they had once been kissed by flame.
No Ministry stamp marred its cover. No catalog number. No record in any archive that bore the name of the Light. It spoke of sacrifices. Of protections written in blood and will. Of essence transferred through the final heartbeat. Lily traced the faded script with a fingertip, lips moving in silent recitation. She did not flinch at the words. She had long since stopped flinching.
A soft giggle floated from the corner of the room.
Hadrian Potter—barely past his first birthday—sat upright in his crib beneath the window, tiny hands clutching the bars. A cloth dragon, charmed that morning, waddled clumsily beside him on the mattress. Every few seconds it puffed a harmless cloud of lavender-scented smoke, earning delighted squeals. The boy's laughter was bright, unguarded, the sound of pure joy cutting through the quiet like sunlight through fog.
But the giggles faded.
Hadrian's small face grew solemn. He stared at his mother with unnerving focus. Lily had not looked at him in several minutes.
The air in the room thickened.
Hadrian frowned—such a tiny, determined expression on such a small face. His fists clenched. And then his emerald eyes—vivid, impossibly alive—began to shimmer. Not with reflected firelight. With something inside.
The book trembled.
Lily felt the tremor through her fingertip first—a low vibration, like a heartbeat not her own. Then the tome lifted. Slowly. Deliberately. As though invisible hands had claimed it. It rose, pages fluttering once like wings, and drifted across the room.
Straight to the crib.
It settled gently in front of Hadrian, open to the page Lily had been reading. The boy looked up at her, mischief sparkling in those glowing eyes, and broke into a wide, triumphant grin. A delighted giggle bubbled out of him again, high and proud. He kicked his legs in glee.
Lily exhaled—a soft, fond sound. All the tension coiled in her shoulders loosened in an instant. She rose, crossed the rug barefoot, and lifted him into her arms.
Hadrian immediately buried both hands in her hair, tugging with the single-minded joy only a toddler possesses. He loved her hair. Always had. The strands slid through his fingers like silk, and every time she held him close, something deep inside her settled. Her magic calmed. His stirred. It was more than a mother's touch. It was recognition.
She had known for months that her son was not ordinary.
At six months he had made toys dance without crying. At eight months books had begun to follow him like obedient pets. At ten months the dreams he had while sleeping bent the shape of the nursery walls—subtle, but unmistakable. Lily had not panicked. She had researched.
Potter vaults. Peverell tomes. Records sealed even from Albus Dumbledore. Scrolls written in hands long turned to dust. She had read things James would never understand. Things the Order would call blasphemy. Things the Dark would kill to possess. She had decided long ago that her son would live. And that was worth any price.
Time turned.
Halloween arrived.
James had strung paper bats across the ceiling; they flapped lazily, enchanted wings whispering against the rafters. Jack-o'-lanterns grinned from every surface, candle flames dancing inside carved faces. The cottage smelled of cinnamon, pumpkin, and woodsmoke. Hadrian sat in the center of the rug, waving his cloth dragon like a battle standard. James laughed and dropped to his knees, pretending to be defeated by the tiny general. Lily watched from the doorway, smiling. But something pressed against her senses—not magic. Something older. Maternal. A cold fist closing around her heart.
Then Hadrian began to cry.
Not a tantrum. Not a wail. A single, sharp, panicked sound—like a warning.
James shot to his feet. "What's wrong, little man?"
Lily did not move. Her blood had already gone to ice.
The wards shattered.
It was not a sound so much as a feeling—a sudden, violent snap deep in the bones of the house. The air pressure changed. The candles guttered. The paper bats froze mid-flap and fell like dead leaves.
James's face hardened. He drew his wand in one fluid motion and sprinted toward the front door.
"Take him!" he barked over his shoulder.
Lily was already moving.
She scooped Hadrian against her chest, pressed a fierce kiss to his temple, and ran for the nursery. The door slammed behind her. She set him gently in the crib—he was quiet now, eyes wide, watching her with an unnatural calm that made her chest ache.
She knelt.
The sigils carved into the floorboards flared to life beneath her palms. Old magic. Older than Hogwarts. Older than the Founders. One whispered word from her lips and the ritual circle ignited—lines of silver-white fire racing along the grooves, forming a perfect sphere around the crib.
The door exploded inward in a shower of splinters.
Voldemort stood in the frame.
Pale as bone. Eyes red slits. Wand already raised.
Lily rose. She spread her arms wide, placing herself between the monster and her child.
"Please," she said. Her voice did not shake.
He did not answer.
The green light came fast.
It struck her chest like a hammer forged of winter.
She did not scream. She did not fall.
Instead, the circle erupted.
Magic—raw, living, furious—surged upward in a blinding column. It wrapped the crib like a second womb, cocooning Hadrian in light so bright it burned the shadows from the room. But this was no ordinary protection charm.
This was Lily Evans Potter.
Brilliant. Defiant. Mother. Scholar.
She had poured more than love into the spell.
As her heart stuttered and stopped, her magic did not fade. It poured.
All of it.
Her brilliance. Her will. Her hunger for mastery. Her relentless, consuming love.
It flooded into Hadrian—into his bones, into his blood, into the very spark of his soul.
He did not cry. He did not flinch.
His emerald eyes opened wide—and glowed.
Voldemort stepped forward, confusion flickering behind the crimson.
Then he saw.
He saw the child. Saw the ancient, furious power pulsing inside him. Saw the light in those eyes—not a child's light. Something older. Something vast.
For the first time in decades, the Dark Lord felt fear.
He raised his wand.
The curse never landed.
The moment the green light touched the edge of Lily's spell, it rebounded—not outward, but inward. It turned on its caster like a living thing.
Voldemort screamed.
His soul—already fractured by years of murder—shattered further. A sliver tore free, black and writhing, flung toward the boy like a curse made flesh.
It never reached him.
Lily's magic saw it. Rejected it. Caged it.
The fragment hovered, trapped above Hadrian's soul—unable to touch, unable to flee. A parasite bound by love and ritual and unbreakable will.
Voldemort's body disintegrated in a rush of ash and shadow. His essence fled, a formless wraith on the wind.
Silence returned.
The ritual circle dimmed slowly, lines of silver fading to soft embers.
In the crib, beneath runes still glowing faintly, Hadrian Potter slept.
No scar marred his forehead. No scream tore from his throat. No cry broke the quiet.
Only silence.
And the fire in his eyes dimmed at last.
Outside, the world had already begun to change.