The Other Potter

Chapter 4

I was sitting on a man's lap, rocking slightly as he laughed, clapping my hands together. For a moment I was confused, before I turned to see a baby my same height, with brilliant green eyes and jet black hair. Even without her scar, it was obvious who she was, I'd stared into that face ever since I'd arrived at Malfoy Manor, ever since I'd first looked in a mirror. It was me.

A woman entered the room, shaking her head at the man behind us. She walked over, and a name sparked through my mind, Lily. The man and woman were Lily and James Potter, my parents.

I felt myself being passed into her arms, and a few baby noises that I didn't remember letting out passed from my lips. Lily jostled me around to make room for Younger Eve as she was passed up and was held next to me.

It was the strangest feeling, feeling my limbs move without wanting them to, trying to stop them but being inable. I felt my hand moved up and poke Younger Eve in her squishy, puppy fat face, her mouth opened and clamped onto my finger, and I was filled with disgust, but unable to pull away, until seconds later my arm moved out of her reach, but even then I couldn't wipe my finger. I was inside the baby Harry from fourteen years ago, and he was in control.

Instead, I tried to process my surroundings as I could see them, though my eyes wouldn't move where I wanted them to. The rooms walls were a sunny yellow, and there was a roaring fire in front of us, spreading an uncomfortable warmth around us.

"Time for bed, you two," I heard Lily say from behind me, and I felt a strange warm glow inside from hearing my mothers voice.

"Mumma," Younger Eve gargled, and I copied him a second later.

"Mumma."

"Mumma."

"Mumma."

It was a competition now, and I steeled myself in fury. Had I really ever been so childish to play a stupid, immature game like this? I tried and tried, but I couldn't keep my lips shut.

"Mumma."

"Mumma."

"Oh look, James, you've got them competing against each other already!" Lily said in an exasperated voice, but she was laughing. James wrapped his arms around her, and I could feel his arm brushing against mine, and with a jolt I thought how different he felt from Voldemort, the man I considered my father.

Voldemort felt cool, untrustworthy and deadly, whereas James was strong and capable and loving, and for a moment I felt safe in my fathers embrace, and I reveled in it, though a part of my mind told me I was cheating on Voldemort, despite how absurd it sounded.

We were carried like that, awkward and stiff, to the hallway, where James let us go and Lily started up the stairs, just as the lock on the door clicked loudly open. As if in slow motion, I felt my mother turn, saw James striding towards the door, and with a jolt I realised that he had left his wand in the lounge room.

The door creaked open, and James started quickly backing away from the cloaked figure that stood there, calling, "Lily, He's here! Take the twins and RUN! I'll hold Him off."

My mother ran up the stairs, fleeing the scene below, but even as we flew into another room, a flash of green light lit up the hallway. The door behind us slammed, and Lily dumped us in Harry's cot, then proceeded to pull the dresser across the door by hand - she'd forgotten her wand too.

Stupid, stupid woman, I thought. I had seen the Dark Lord fling objects out of his path without lifting his wand, she didn't stand a chance against him. Just as she had stepped back, there was a blast and the dresser was flung aside, the door opening to reveal the cloaked man, red eyes visible beneath the hood.

"Take me!" Lily screamed in a last attempt, and I could have hit her. How pathetic? The window was right beside her, there was even a broom in the room, she could have smashed the glass and flown us away, but instead she chose to die like a fool. "Take me, but don't kill the twins, take me instead!"

"Stand aside girl," Voldemort instructed, and I was amazed. He was offering her a chance to live, why wasn't she taking it, it would have been so much easier for her to take it. What was she doing, she knew he was after Harry, how could she justify sacrificing herself for him?

"No, kill me instead!" She flung herself in front of us, just as a flash of green light ricochet around the room. She seemed frozen there, suspended for a long moment, before dropping to the ground. Voldemort moved forward.

For a wild second I felt afraid as this snake like man raised his wand, and I felt like screaming, "No, don't, it's Evangeline!" but I knew it was no good, and so I closed my eyes as his wand flashed and an unimaginable pain ripped through my forehead.

When I looked up next, the hooded figure was hunched over, leaning against the cot and breathing constrained breaths. My heart froze as I watched what I had no memory of, as Voldemort's hand grasped for the Younger Eve grabbed her small arm.

And in that second Younger Eve's eyes flashed towards me,, and in the darkened pupils I could feel Harry, my brother, staring out at me, experiencing the same through my point of view, and that was when all of the Dark Lord's training kicked in.

As much as I wanted to know what happened to me after Voldemort had taken to me, I knew that it would utterly destroy my mission to kill Harry, that he would know my true intent. So with a tremendous amount of strength, I felt my mind pull away explosively from that reality, and felt my brothers energy leave with it, and, with all light gone, I was engulfed once more into the darkness.

                                                                               *

When I woke up, it was to a Ron and Hermione leaning over me. When they saw me open my eyes, they leaped up, calling, "She's awake, Madame Pomfrey! She's awake!"

Before I knew it, there was a rather dumpy woman standing over me, twisting my head from side to side, taking my pulse and staring into my pupils, I leaned away, fumbling for my wand.

"What do you want?" I hissed, scrambling back in the thin hospital bed I was in, completely aware of how unfamiliar my pristine surrounding were. "Keep back."

The woman took a step back, but Hermione edged closer, her hands outstretched in a gesture of peace. "It's alright, Evangeline," she said. "When you touched Harry's scar you both passed out, so we took you straight to the Hospital Wing when we got to Howarts, that's where we are now."

"What the bloody hell hapened?" demanded Ron over the top of her. "You both started thrashing around for ages before just laying there, you scared the-"

"Eve."

It was Harry. Madame Pomfrey tried to push him away, but he simply flipped her off. "Eve- you my sister. My twin sister! You knew you were didn't you, but you didn't tell me!"

"Harry-" I began apologetically as I could manage, but before I could even start he engulfed me in a hug, and for the first time since I'd met him, I thought of something other than the most effective way of breaking his neck to make it look like and accident; I thought of home.