The first year of Nimue's life passed in a soft, sun-drenched blur of wonder and discovery. Each day brought something new—a tiny fingers' grasp, the first focused tracking of a dust mote dancing in a beam of light—delighting her parents and the entire household of Keith Manor.
She was, by any measure, an extraordinary child.
It wasn't that she was difficult, though she certainly possessed the iron-willed instincts of an infant tyrant when the nursery tea arrived a moment too late. Rather, she had a quality that caused people to pause and stare without quite knowing why. The white hair that had startled everyone at her birth remained, pale as winter frost and soft as dandelion fluff. It caught the light in a way that made her head seem faintly luminous against her silk pillows. Her eyes remained that striking, impossible Evans green, watching the world with an intensity that unsettled visitors and quietly fascinated her family.
The house elves absolutely adored her.
Tilly, the Keith household's head elf for three hundred years, appointed himself Nimue's personal guardian without feeling the need to consult anyone. He could often be found hovering near the nursery, his large bat-like ears twitching as he anticipated the child's needs before she even appeared to know Nimue had any. The other elves took turns visiting, appearing with soft pops to bring small gifts: rattles fashioned from enchanted thread, humming scraps of fabric, or honeyed treats stolen fresh from the kitchens. They whispered stories in the soft, melodic cadence of the elf tongue, and Nimue listened with an attentiveness no infant should have possessed.
"She knows us," Tilly told Jane one afternoon, his enormous eyes shining with devotion as he watched the baby reach out. "Little miss knows the old elves. She sees us, Mistress."
Jane believed him.
There was something in the way Nimue looked at the elves—a recognition in her small, reaching hands—that suggested an awareness far beyond her age. The Keiths had always treated their house elves as family rather than servants, but Nimue's connection felt older, a resonance in her magic. It was as if Emrys's blood carried memories of a time when elves and wizards had stood side by side as equals.
Jack visited the nursery every morning before beginning his duties as Head of House. He would lift Nimue from her crib, the scent of lavender and baby powder clinging to her skin, and speak to her in the old tongue. He wanted her to grow used to the rhythm and shape of the language she would one day speak fluently. She would grasp his fingers with surprising strength, staring into his face with those deep green eyes while she babbled.
At six months, Nimue reached the milestone every parent waited for with bated breath.
It happened during Jack's morning visit. He had lifted her from the crib and carried her toward the window to show her the sunrise bleeding gold over the treetops. She babbled happily, vowel sounds tumbling together, until she looked directly at him. Her expression turned solemn, and she said, clear and unmistakable, "Da."
Not Dada. Just Da.
Jack froze, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Nimue regarded him with those ancient green eyes and repeated it. "Da."
He didn't call for Jane. He couldn't find his voice. He simply stood there as hot tears slid down his face, holding his daughter while she returned to her usual infant noises. When Jane found them ten minutes later, Jack was still standing by the window, his cheeks wet, while Nimue had moved on to the important business of attempting to eat her own foot.
"She spoke," Jack said hoarsely, his voice thick. "She said Da."
Jane smiled and took the baby from him, pressing a kiss to Nimue's forehead. "That's wonderful, Jack. She is right on time."
"On time?"
"Six months is early for some babies and late for others. She is perfect."
Jack wiped at his eyes, feeling a brief flash of embarrassment at his own display of emotion. "She is perfect. Absolutely perfect."
The months that followed brought more milestones, each arriving within normal bounds but carrying an intensity that marked Nimue as different. She sat upright at seven months, her spine straight and proud. She crawled at eight, and by ten, she was pulling herself to a standing position by gripping the carvings on her crib. By her first birthday, she possessed a vocabulary of half a dozen words. Mama. Dada. Tilly, which emerged as Tee. No was her frequent favorite. More. And a garbled version of her own name that sounded like Mimi.
She understood far more than she could say. She responded to complex instructions and recognized the names of familiar people with an accuracy that was almost unsettling.
Her birthday celebration was intimate by design — eleven people gathered around one small child, as Keith tradition permitted in the first years. Parents, grandparents, godparents of the same standing, and the siblings who formed the innermost circle of both families. The manor felt warm and close, undivided in its attention. Jane baked the cake herself, a feat of stubborn determination that left flour dusted across the kitchen and in her hair. Jack presented Nimue with her first proper magical gift—a tiny silver rattle enchanted to produce soft, melodic sounds when shaken.
Nimue experimented with it immediately.
A gentle shake produced a delicate, chiming melody like falling water. A more enthusiastic shake produced a sound that bore an unfortunate, vibrating resemblance to Jack's snoring.
The ancestors in their portraits roared with laughter. Tilly cried with joy. And Nimue, surrounded by love and the weight of ten thousand years of history, slammed her hand into the blue frosting of the cake with the unbridled enthusiasm of any ordinary one-year-old.
Spring arrived at Keith Manor in a rush of damp warmth and vibrant color. The gardens bloomed in a riot of jasmine and roses, and the lake glittered beneath the longer days. Nimue, now eighteen months old, had fully entered toddlerhood with a vengeance.
She walked with a determined wobble, falling often because she attempted to move faster than her small legs allowed. Each fall ended the same way: she pushed herself upright, dusted off her knees, and tried again. Her white hair had grown long enough to brush her shoulders, usually tied back with silk ribbons Jane selected to match her dresses. Her green eyes missed nothing, absorbing the world with an intensity that still made visitors quiet their voices.
Her vocabulary expanded to perhaps fifteen words, though she used them sparingly. Pointing and firm gestures remained her preferred methods of communication, her words saved only for when she truly wanted to be heard. She understood nearly everything said around her—conversations, nuances in tone, and the shifts in adult emotion. This comprehension, more than her speech, drew the most comment. A child her age shouldn't have been able to sense the undercurrents of adult discussion, yet Nimue did so with ease.
"Strong-willed," Jane remarked one afternoon, watching her daughter negotiate with Tilly over a wooden dragon. "I wonder where she gets that from."
Jack looked up from his book, his face a mask of exaggerated innocence. "No idea. Certainly not from her mother, who once negotiated a trade agreement with goblins and left them wondering how they had lost their gold."
"That was business."
"This is also business. Toy acquisition is very serious business."
Nimue, apparently satisfied with the outcome of her negotiation, looked toward her parents. When neither moved immediately, she pointed a small finger at the garden door. "Out. Go."
Jane raised an eyebrow, a small smile tugging at her lips. "Did she just give us an order?"
"She is practicing for leadership," Jack said calmly. "Excellent preparation."
The afternoon passed in a comfortable domestic routine. Jane and Nimue spent time in the garden, Jane redirecting tiny, dirt-covered hands away from flowers destined for eating. Jack joined them later, Nimue perched on his broad shoulders as they walked toward the lake, her grip on his dark hair fierce and unapologetic.
They had dinner in the morning room, just the three of them, where Nimue insisted on feeding herself and succeeded perhaps thirty percent of the time. Bath time followed, which she adored, leaving the entire room and her parents soaked. Finally, there were stories before bed, Jack reading while Nimue pointed at the moving pictures and named the creatures she recognized.
It was ordinary.
It was perfect.
It was everything a childhood was meant to be.
It was, within the walls of Keith Manor, a perfect evening. Beyond the wards, beyond the ancient oaks that had stood since Merlin's time, the night held something else entirely. Something that had no place near sleeping children and honeyed tea and the quiet sound of a family at rest
At the same time, two hundred and fifty kilometers away, a very different tension gripped the village of Godric's Hollow.
From the outside, the cottage at the edge of the village looked peaceful. Flower boxes lined the windows, and warm, golden light spilled onto the overgrown garden. It was the picture of domestic calm.
Inside, the air crackled with a sharp, static unease.
James Potter stood at the living room window, his wand gripped tight in his hand, watching the thick darkness beyond the garden hedge. His glasses sat crooked on his nose, and his hair was messier than usual, standing up in stressed tufts. There was a jagged tightness around his eyes that hadn't existed a year ago. Behind him, Lily Potter held their fifteen-month-old son close, Harry pressed against her chest. Her green eyes—that same Evans green—were fixed on the front door.
"They are coming," James said quietly, his voice flat. "I can feel it."
"The wards?"
"Holding. For now." He turned toward his wife, toward his son, his expression softening for a fleeting second. "Lily, if it comes to it…"
"Don't," she cut in sharply, her voice trembling. "Don't you dare say it."
"I have to. You know I have to."
She opened her mouth to argue, her eyes filling with tears.
The world exploded.
The front door didn't break or splinter; it simply ceased to exist, erased by a surge of dark magic that sent fragments of wood and stone hurtling through the room like shrapnel. James was already moving, his wand flashing as a silver shield intercepted the worst of the blast. Lily ran for the stairs, her heart hammering against her ribs, Harry clutched tight against her chest.
Death Eaters flooded through the jagged opening.
James recognized some of them. They were former classmates and former friends, their faces now hidden behind silver masks, their humanity twisted by cruelty. He didn't count them; there was no time.
He fought.
Stunners, disarming charms, and shields were layered again and again. His wand moved faster than it ever had before, driven by pure desperation and a refusal to let them past. Three fell. Then four. But there were always more, a tide of black robes and mocking laughter.
A curse struck his shoulder, spinning him around. He staggered, his breath coming in ragged gasps, and kept casting. Another hit his leg, the bone snapping with a sickening crack. He dropped to one knee, his face pale, but he remained standing between the intruders and the staircase.
He could hear Lily's footsteps on the floorboards above. He could hear Harry's frightened cries. He could hear his entire world slipping away into the dark.
The green light came without warning.
James Potter fell forward, his glasses skidding across the floor, and he didn't rise.
Upstairs, Lily heard the sudden, horrific silence.
She knew what it meant.
She felt it in her blood and in her magic—the snapping of the bond that had always connected her to the man she loved. James was gone. James was dead. She was alone in the nursery now, trapped with her son and nowhere left to flee.
Heavy footsteps climbed the stairs. Voices followed, slow and unhurried. They knew she had no escape.
Harry cried, his small body shaking with terror at the noise and the dark magic pouring through the house. Lily held him tighter, pressing her lips to his messy hair, whispering words he was too young to understand but that she needed him to hear.
"Mama loves you," she said softly, her voice a fragile thread in the dark. "Mama loves you so much. Whatever happens, Harry, remember that. Remember Mama loves you."
The door burst open.
The Dark Lord stood framed in the doorway.
Even without a mask, she would have known him. He had red eyes and a face shaped by something serpentine and wrong. The very air in the room seemed to recoil from his presence.
Voldemort.
"Step aside," he said, his voice a gentle, chilling sibilance. "Give me the boy, and you may live."
Lily tightened her arms around her son. "Never."
"I don't wish to kill you. You are a witch of talent. You could be useful."
"Never."
He sighed, a sound of mock disappointment. "So be it."
He raised his wand.
And something inside Lily Potter woke.
It came from her blood. It came from the Evans line, from Morgana herself. Old, primal magic, unused for generations, stirred in response to her absolute need. She didn't understand it, but she knew with the certainty of a mother that there was a way.
A sacrifice.
Runes older than speech surfaced in her mind—symbols carved into stone when the world was young. She saw one of them clearly. She needed to draw it upon the one she loved. It had to be filled with intent, with love, and with everything she was.
The condition was simple and unforgiving: she had to love the one she protected more than her own life, and more than her partner's life. Two lives offered so one could endure.
James was already gone.
Lily would follow.
Harry would live.
Her hand moved without hesitation, her fingers tracing a sharp shape in the air above her son's forehead. It was a rune she had never studied, yet she knew its name completely.
Sowilo.
The sun rune. Light and victory, shaped like a bolt of lightning.
Golden light flared from her fingertips, warm and fierce. It burned into Harry's skin, marking him, claiming him, and shielding him in a cocoon of light. She poured everything into it—her love for James, her magic, her life, her soul.
Sowilo.
The curse struck.
Blinding green light filled the room. Lily Potter fell, her body collapsing beside her son's crib. Her last conscious thought reached for him, her fingers brushing the lightning-shaped mark on his forehead to ensure the rune was complete.
It was done.
Her arm fell across Harry's small body, as though she were still trying to shield him even in death.
The curse rebounded.
Voldemort screamed as his physical form was torn apart.
The cottage shattered, the roof collapsing under the weight of the magical backlash.
And Harry Potter—fifteen months old, orphaned, marked, and bound to a destiny no child should bear—lay amid the ruins of his home and cried for a mother who would never answer.
—
In Keith Manor, Nimue woke from a deep sleep.
She sat upright in her crib, her white hair disordered and her green eyes wide and unfocused. For a long, silent moment, she didn't move. Then she began to cry—a sharp, broken sound of grief that brought Tilly rushing from his post outside the door.
"What is it, little miss? What is wrong?"
Nimue couldn't explain. She had no words for the cold she felt.
She cried until Jane came, until her mother held her close and rocked her while singing the old songs. She cried until exhaustion finally claimed her, until sleep returned, and dreams followed.
Dreams of a searing green light.
Dreams of a burning cottage.
Dreams of a boy with her mother's eyes, alone in the darkness, waiting to be found.
-
The next morning, the wizarding world awoke to news that would change everything.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was gone.
Defeated by a child. By a baby. By magic no one could fully explain.
Death Eaters scattered into the shadows. Some fled the country, while others claimed they had been controlled, coerced, or bewitched. The Ministry scrambled to restore order, and the members of the Order reeled from their losses.
The war ended in a single night.
Just like that, it was over.