This day started out quite promising too. How could it all go so wrong, so quickly?

  She woke up early, feeling refreshed thanks to a full night’s sleep. A rare luxury for the Hogwarts Junior Charm’s professor and mother of two who often had to grade the work of students from first to fourth year late into the night. Done preparing for the day, Lily was about to exit her room when a silvery phoenix practically rocketed right up to her face.

  “Lily, you’re needed in my office. Please don’t delay.”

  After delivering the message, the misty construct faded away, leaving a flabbergasted Lily rooted on the spot. She had seen Dumbledore’s Patronus before, of course. They were a common enough sight during the war.

  However, it has been years since the Headmaster used the charm in such a curt and uncompromising fashion. This spoke of urgency that eventually unfroze Lily and got her moving.

  She could have walked but since time seemed to be of the essence, she used the Floo instead. Upon exiting in a flash of green flames, Lily saw three people sitting around the large desk in Dumbledore’s office. Aside from the Headmaster himself, there was Minnie and Sev.

  Despite how clipped he was in his message, the oft-called greatest sorcerer in the world greeted her with a warm smile.

  “Ah, Lily! Good, thank you for your prompt arrival. Please, take a seat.”

  The redhead returned the smile and nodded to her colleagues.

  “Your message sounded urgent, so I hurried over. Good morning Minerva, Severus.”

  The transfiguration professor was friendly with her “Good morning to you as well, Lily.”

  Severus Snape, on the other hand, simply grunted in her direction and didn’t even spare her a glance. Lily had to hold a sigh at that. Even after all these years, her relationship with her former best friend is still one of estrangement.

  Shaking her head clear of depressing thoughts, she sat down on the only available chair in front of the headmaster.

  “Now, what’s so important that I couldn’t even have some toast first?”

  Lily thought that some levity might be called for since she had a feeling that the impending discussion would be a serious one. She was right.

  “I’m afraid there was a troubling development this morning,” Dumbledore said with the dreaded steepled fingers.

  A foreboding sign, if there ever was one.

  “Hagrid was contacted by a representative from our local herd of centaurs,” he continued. “It was about a child they found unconscious in a clearing in the Forbidden Forest. They believed we might have lost one of our students. The child has since been brought to the Hospital Wing and left in Poppy’s care.”

  Dumbledore paused to allow Lily and the other two some time to digest this new information. While curious, Lily could tell that there was more he needed to convey so she kept silent, for now. Minerva and Severus seemed to share her conclusion.

  “While the child’s condition is curious, it is their identity that is most relevant. Severus, what have you to report?”

  This caused Lily and Minerva to perk up. As Slytherin’s Head of House, Dumbledore calling upon the potions master could only mean that it was one of his that was missing. In response to the prompting, Severus leveled a blank expression at the headmaster before speaking in dull tones.

  “All my students are accounted for.”

  The reply was short and abrupt. Just like everything Severus seemed to do, these days. Still, his response did cause Lily to relax a little. After all, one of her children was in his house. This relief was quickly dashed by Dumbledore’s next revelation.

  “Then we might have quite the conundrum on our hands,” he said before staring directly at Lily. “The child found in the forest appears to have quite a striking resemblance to your son.”

  Lily’s brain momentarily blanked. Fortunately, she wasn’t considered the most brilliant witch of her generation for nothing, so she rallied fairly quickly.

  “Harry? But, Severus just said that he didn’t lose any of his students!”

  The aforementioned man grunted in the affirmative.

  “Which is why this is a conundrum,” Dumbledore patiently replied. “I saw the boy myself before calling all of you. Regardless of how impossible it may seem, the patient currently lying on a bed in the Hospital Wing is Harry Potter.”

  Quiet descended on the room, with each person working through this revelation. Lily herself was having trouble deciding how she should react. Severus confirmed that her son was where he was supposed to be. As such, the child found in the Forbidden Forest couldn’t possibly be her Harry. But why did Dumbledore seem sure that he was?

  She was saved from her spiralling thoughts by Minnie.

  “How did you come to this conclusion, Albus?”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “I asked Poppy to run some tests and compare the results to our records to confirm his identity,” he said. “While she did so, I cast a few cursory detection charms for illusions, enchantments, ritual residues, or potions.”

  While speaking, Dumbledore took a small stack of parchments from his desk drawer and handed them to the trio. Lily was quiet for several minutes as she carefully examined the details of the report. Both the results from Poppy’s medical examination and the headmaster’s scans revealed troubling implications.

  Putting aside some frankly alarming findings such as signs of extensive injuries for now, Lily focused on the end of the document. The final verdict was incontrovertible no matter how many times she re-read the whole thing.

  Subject identity: Harry James Potter.

  It was right there, written in blocky letters by a record system that she knew for a fact could not be easily fooled. The child was her son. She looked up at Dumbledore then, noticing in her periphery that Minerva and Severus were already done reading - likely long before her.

  “How is this possible?”

  The question was simple but staggering. Lily fully admits that she isn’t the most knowledgeable witch in the world. She had her talents, to be sure. But she still pales in comparison to Minverva, for example.

  Even so, never in her life has she heard of this situation or something similar to it. So she clung to the lifeline that was Albus Dumbledore’s extensive experience for answers - and was promptly disappointed.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” By this point, Lily’s temper was hanging by a thread and everyone in the room recognized the coming explosion. “How could you not know?”

  “Lily, please understand. Never, in all my decades of life, have I come across a case like this. I simply don’t have the answers at this moment.”

  Seeing his Junior Charms professor about to burst, he hurriedly added, “I have theories, however.”

  That last part allowed Lily to tamp down on her growing ire. Dumbledore’s theories often make sense and are on-point, more often than not. The headmaster took her silence as permission to continue.

  “As I said, this is only a theory. However, from what little information I could glimpse from my brief time examining young Harry, a few details were clear,” the aged wizard’s face took on a ponderous look.

  “First, the scars indicate that he has seen battle of some kind. Second, the potency of his magic seems to belie his age. As such, I can guess that he is older than he appears, though I don’t know by how much. Thirdly…”

  Dumbledore paused with a deep intake of breath. As if this next part was causing him considerable pain to even disclose. For good reason, as it turned out.

  “Thirdly, while I don’t make it a habit to look into the minds of children, I felt that this situation called for drastic measures.”

  “You used Legilimency on the boy?!” Minerva growled in outrage, eyes wide in clear disbelief.

  Lily shared the sentiment and her blistering glare made her feelings clear to Dumbledore. A person’s mind is their last bastion of security and should not be accessed without their express permission.

  What the headmaster did was a violation of the highest order. By his regretful expression, he was well aware of this. Severus, on the other hand, seemed positively serene.

  “I understand your objections, believe me,” he said while raising his hands in a placating gesture. “But I think you’ll find that my discovery was worth the transgression.”

  “Well?” Minnie practically hissed. “What did you find?”

  Dumbledore closed his eyes and took a moment to collect his thoughts. The sign of hesitation was making Lily jittery and she squeezed her hands together to exert some measure of calm. Whatever he saw in the child’s mind, it was bad enough to disturb the normally implacable wizard.

  Several seconds ticked on before the headmaster finally decided to answer.

  “I ask that you three hold further questions until I’m done speaking,” he said, casting a stern gaze at them. “What I’m about to share with you is incomplete information, at best. I will need to ask him a few questions before I can draw any conclusions. However, the details might provide us enough of a starting point to resolve this dilemma without further incident.”

  After getting confirmation from his colleagues, Dumbledore continued.

  “The thoughts and images I managed to coax from the child’s unconscious mind were confusing and disjointed. Memories flashed too quickly for me to truly comprehend the context. What stood out most, however, were intense moments of fear and rage tied to events of conflict and death.”

  The pronouncement doused the three professors with iced water. Recollections of the last war flashed through their minds.

  “I cannot say for certain what the specifics of these details are. However, I can confidently predict that our latest patient may well react violently should we approach him without care.”

  Silence reigned for a few heartbeats following Dumbledore’s explanation. The revelations painted a worrying picture that would require a delicate touch. The moment of introspection was broken by Severus.

  “How are we to handle him, then?” he asked with his characteristic drawl.

  The headmaster pinned him with a firm look.

  “With gentleness and understanding, I think.”

  The potions master scoffed, “Then I will have to decline meeting him. At least until he is no longer in such a…sensitive disposition.”

  In this, they were all in agreement.

  They spent a few minutes more drafting plans on how to best engage the subject of the morning’s meeting without possibly triggering a psychotic break. It was an hour past when Lily first stepped through the fireplace that they received word from Poppy.

  Her patient was awake.

  Dumbledore, Minerva, and Lily promptly went on their way to the Hospital Wing while Severus broke off to return to his duties. As they got closer to their destination, the redhead felt the butterflies in her stomach become increasingly agitated.

  Questions upon questions whirled through her mind along with increasingly preposterous theories. This continued until they rounded the last corner and saw the large double doors. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself for the coming encounter.

  The headmaster took it upon himself to enter first, with Lily and Minerva following in his wake. Her first glimpse of who may be an older version of her son (and wasn’t that a bizarre thought) was a shower of familiar features.

  A head of messy, black hair. Vivid green eyes. A thin, elfin face.

  With Dumbledore’s previous assurance that this was her son, somehow, Lily was barely able to keep her nerves in check. However, she wasn’t prepared for the maelstrom of emotions seemingly fighting for supremacy on his expression once they made eye contact.

  Surprise was followed by disbelief before being replaced by unbearable longing. Lily almost stopped in her tracks when she felt her heart get caught in her throat. It has been so long since her son gazed at her with unbridled, palpable, and unmistakable love. She had nearly forgotten what it was like and it made her want to savor the moment.

  It was not to be.

  Before even a single word could be exchanged, her child’s face twisted into unquenchable rage and the world was torn asunder.

  Well-honed instincts and years of familiarity with each other on the battlefield were the only reasons that Lily avoided crippling injury. She, Minerva, and Dumbledore managed to cast overlapping shield charms that weathered the worst of the blast. Even so, the Junior Charms professor’s next conscious experience was lying on her back and staring at a ruined stone ceiling.

  Lily was momentarily confused by the sequence of events surrounding her current circumstance, but her mind eventually caught up.

  An obscene amount of magical energy was suddenly and violently released. The brief feeling of impending danger gave just enough warning for them to react and protect themselves. A deafening cacophony of explosions, crumbling walls, breaking glass, and a series of blinding lights followed.

  Struggling to prop herself into a sitting position, Lily noticed that her ears were ringing and she had difficulty breathing. Pain and aches assailed her body. Her clothes were a mosaic of bloody cuts.

  She took this time to take in her surroundings and what she saw nearly caused her to choke. The Hospital Wing was completely obliterated. Walls, ceiling, and floor - none were spared. It was a devastation that she only ever witnessed at the height of Voldemort’s rampage.

  The next thing she noted was Minnie limping towards her with comparable injuries. The older woman was made of stern stuff, though, because she then proceeded to lean down and haul her upright.

  “Come along Lily, it would be unwise to stay here,” she said, her voice hardly audible to the redhead’s impaired hearing.

  Looping her less-injured arm over Minerva’s shoulders, Lily allowed herself to be dragged to the exit. Before they could take a few steps forward, however, powerful tremors forced them to stop lest they risk a tumble.

  Searching for the source of the quakes, Lily’s eyes widened in horror as she spotted two familiar figures beyond the destroyed walls of the Hospital Wing. Dumbledore and Harry were casting spells at each other in a brutal exchange. Neither one appeared to be holding back, at all.

  Her ears might not be in the best condition, but her eyes were working just fine. And there was no mistaking the intent on her child’s face.

  Harry was doing his damndest to kill Dumbledore. From the strain on the aged wizard’s face, he might just succeed.