Terence Campbell apparated in front of his house. The November winds were tugging at his gown. From outside, he could make out the light shining through the green curtains behind the windows in the living room on the ground floor. Apart from that, the small house lingered in nocturnal darkness.

He stormed to the front door and swung his wand, escaping the bleak weather and bearing important news. The door opened immediately, and he entered and turned right into the living room. His wife Elvina and their little daughter Felicity were sitting on the couch, Elvina having a book in her hands. It seemed like she had been reading to Felicity, but with his entrance, she stopped and looked directly at him.

“And?”, she asked him with a nervous voice. Felicity looked from the one to the other.

“It’s true”, Terence replied tersely. He approached the couch and cowered down in front of his daughter. “Hey beauty, I think it’s bedtime for you now.”

“But I’m not tired yet”, Felicity insisted. That was part of their daily evening routine, but tonight there was no time for these games.

He took a small bottle from the depths of his gown and exchanged a nod with his wife. “Not tired?”, he managed to say in a playful tone, “how about you take this sleeping draught? It tastes like cocoa.”

“Oh, really?”, Felicity asked and eagerly grabbed the bottle. Her smile faded though. “But it’s cold. Shouldn’t cocoa be warm?”

“Usually, yes”, Terence responded, “but this one tastes better when it’s cold. You’ll see.”

“Oh, ok”, Felicity answered, raised the bottle to her lips and drank the potion. “That was quite yummy”, she commented with a smile, which then turned to a slight frown and a yawn. “But now I’m feeling… so…” And with that, she fell asleep.

Terence and Elvina took her upstairs and put her into her bed, covered her with a blanket and put the cat plushie they had given her for her last birthday next to her. The potion made sure that she would sleep for several hours without waking up from any noises.

“Let’s go down”, he told Elvina after they had watched Felicity sleeping peacefully for a minute.

Back in the living room, they sat down on the couch.

“It’s really true?”, Elvina asked with a desperate tone in her voice. “The Dark Lord has fallen?”

“Yes.”

“But… How is that possible?”

“I don’t know”, Terence replied. “As far as I know, no one knows. He killed the Potters, but somehow he couldn’t kill their son and just… disappeared.” He covered his face with his hands.

Elvina gasped. She stood up and wandered around the living room for a bit. Eventually she stopped.

“What are we supposed to do now?”, she enquired.

“We have to escape”, Terence answered. “The others are… planning different things. Some want to escape too. Others want to start looking for the Dark Lord. And others haven’t even been there today. Maybe they have been captured, maybe they just surrendered themselves. With the Dark Lord gone, they might make deals to stay out of Azkaban and sell others out.”

Elvina hesitated, before asking, “Couldn’t we do that as well? It might save us …”

“No”, Terence replied determinedly. “We’ve always worn hoods, I don’t know who else is a Death Eater. Certainly not sure enough to sell them out. But maybe we have been spied on and someone is ratting us out. I’m not going to take that risk. Who knows if and when the Aurors will find us?”

He stood up and went to the wall. All along the walls of the living room, family pictures had been draped. Some more were on small tables in the room. Terence stood in front of his favourite picture, which had been taken shortly before last Christmas in Hogsmeade. It had been a very lovely day. Felicity had enjoyed the snow there a lot, which was captured in this picture, where the three of them were waving into the camera happily. Pictures like this made the small house their home.

“Before Felicity was born, I would proudly have gone to Azkaban for the Dark Lord, even would have given my life. But… I can’t… Not anymore. We can’t leave her alone and we mustn’t risk anything that would leave her alone in this world.”

Elvina nodded. “You’re right. We can’t leave her alone. We must escape.” She hesitated. “But where?”

“Anywhere”, Terence replied. “Out of the country, first, and then we just… wander around and lay low until we find a place to settle down with Felicity. Australia, maybe, or America.”

“That sounds good”, Elvina agreed.

And with that, they rummaged through the house, packing their suitcases and getting ready to escape. They started by putting together clothes in their bedroom. After that, they collected several pieces of memory, most of all pictures, from the living room and put them into a travel bag in the living room.

For years, they had led a good life, enjoying their power. They were proud to be a wizard and a witch, although technically they were both half-bloods, but the other Death Eaters did not know that. Felicity’s birth about four years ago had been the brightest moment in their lives. But the downfall of the Dark Lord was about to turn their lives upside down.

“Will you get the suitcases from upstairs?”, Terence asked his wife. “I’ll finish with filling in the provisions from the kitchen and get Felicity and then we disapparate.”

“Ok, honey”, Elvina replied and stormed off, up the wooden stair.

Terence took a backpack and hurried into the kitchen. He opened the cupboards containing their food provisions and put them into the backpack with a quick swing with his wand. Magic had its limitations – they could not summon food out of nowhere, and it was best to lay low on their journey, so stealing food was no option. They had to make sure to have plenty of food with them. Fortunately, Elvina was a great witch and had placed an undetectable extension charm on the backpack, and plenty of food could make its way into it.

The second Terence was finished and about to zip the backpack, he heard an alarmingly loud bang from the front of their house. He froze in his movements. Booted steps followed. Steps that made it into the house.

“No, no, no, no, no”, he muttered. He tightened his grip around his wand. It seemed like it was too late. Somebody must have given them away. He had not expected this to be so soon.

He pointed his wand to the kitchen door. “Colloportus!”, he whispered. The door softly fell shut and the lock clicked. Not a moment too soon.
Terence heard the door from their front room to their living room open. He got closer to the door and listened carefully. Maybe it wasn’t Aurors?

“Do you think we’re right here, John?”, a female voice was asking.

“Family Campbell”, a stern, male voice replied, “that’s here. See that bag? Seems like they were about to escape.” He raised his voice and ordered, “Spread and look for them, they must still be here. And make sure to check the basement. Use any means necessary.”

Terence had heard enough. Those were Aurors indeed and there was no way to get to Elvina and Felicity and no escape for him. “I’m sorry, Felicity”, he whispered and directed his wand on the door again. It burst open. Through the dust in the air, he could make out several figures, coughing. They would soon recover though. He raised his voice.

“Elvi, it’s Aurors”, he shouted. “Take her and get away!”

He then directed his wand at the figures in the dust. “Stupefy!” One person dropped to the floor. “Stupefy! Stu…”

“Avada Kedavra!”, a voice shouted.

A flash of green light was the last thing Terence saw. He closed his eyes and recalled Felicity’s face. He smiled.

Elvina heard the bangs and shouting from downstairs without being able to make out what exactly was happening. The only thing she had made out was Terence shouting for her to get away. But how did he imagine her to do that? They could not disapparate from their estate, they had made sure that no one could. The broomsticks were in the basement, and she could hardly take Felicity and jump out of the window from the first floor. Frankly, there was nothing she could do but surrender. She left their suitcases in their bedroom and turned off the lights in there, turning the whole floor into darkness. “Lumos”, she murmured. Her wand lighted and she went to Felicity’s bedroom. She had to gather her strength for what she was about to do.

She hurried through the corridor, past the bathroom door and to Felicity’s room at the end of the corridor. There were not many things in her room. A wardrobe whose contents were constantly changing at this age of hers, some toys scattered on the floor, a chest of drawers, and her bed, in which she was lying, sound asleep, holding her little cat plushie closely now. She remembered how happy Felicity had been about getting that plushie, how she had taken it everywhere ever since. They would have to take it with them if they actually escaped. And she looked so peaceful, all wrapped up in the blankets and holding her plushie to her face. Her black hair, which she had inherited from Elvina, spread on the pillow. Her closed eyelids covered her eyes, which were the same dark green as her father’s.

Elvina kissed Felicity’s forehead. “Mommy’s going to make it all right, sweetheart”, she whispered.

Felicity moved a bit but did not wake up. “I love you”, Elvina added with a calm voice and smiled at her daughter before she turned to leave the room.

When she got back on the floor, she heard footsteps approaching on the stairs, at the other end of the corridor. Elvina just stayed where she was, her arms just hanging down from her sides, her wand lighting the area directly in front of her. She saw light coming up the stairs, and the moment she made out the first figure on top of the stairs, she put up her hands in surrender.

The figure stopped.

“I surr…”, Elvina started, but she was interrupted.

“Avada Kedavra!”

A green flash of light approached her at a furious pace. Not the living dark green of Terence’s or Felicity’s eyes, but a bright green. A deadly green. No, Elvina thought in horror. Felicity… I’m sorry. Then, she was surrounded by darkness.

John Dawlish pawed at the dead female body on the floor with his foot.

“What, by Merlin’s beard, is wrong with you?”, Alice Longbottom enquired him. She had been behind him when they were making their way up the stairs. She had not really seen what had been going on, but she condemned Dawlish’s actions. “Just because we are allowed to kill Death Eaters doesn’t mean we have to do that!”

“The world is better off without this Death Eater scum”, Dawlish insisted. “I will not give them any chance to curse or kill me. Better them than us.”

“There’s… TONS of defensive charms you could use instead of just killing all of them!”

“But none of them could stop an Unforgivable Curse! I’ll stick to it, as long as we’re allowed to, I’ll stop each and every one of these bastards.”

Alice gave up. She had worked with Dawlish long enough to know that it would do no good. He was just too stubborn for his own good, although he was a very good wizard. But his moral compass certainly did not agree with hers.

They had got a clue about the Campbells from a captured Death Eater, who had been all too eager to sell out some of his fellow Death Eaters to avoid Azkaban. It was pure luck to capture one so cooperative so soon. That was another reason why she condemned Dawlish’s course of action. She knew Alastor Moody quite well, and he refused to kill anyone despite Crouch’s permission of completely ruthless measures. She would have to talk to him. If they just killed Death Eaters, they would all escape the country, slipping from their grasp. Maybe Mad-Eye could talk some sense into Dawlish…

For now, however, she was just looking forward to getting home. Frank was waiting for her, together with their little son Neville. She smiled when thinking of them. The two of them were giving her life so much joy. And now that You-Know-Who had fallen, they would soon have more time for each other, as soon as they had captured the remaining Death Eaters. One month, maybe two… She felt in her heart that Neville needed his parents, both of them, more than in the past time.

She was dragged out of her thoughts by Dawlish, who entered the dark room in front of which the woman had died. She followed him because she wanted to make sure he would not do another stupid thing. Or at least to hand in a detailed report with all of his misbehaviours.

Their wands lighted the floor in front of them. There was not much to be seen first, until… Was that a toy wand?

Alice raised her arm and lighted the walls of the room. A wardrobe, a chest of drawers and there… A bed.

Dawlish approached the bed cautiously, with his wand ready to strike. Alice looked from Dawlish to the bed and back when he let the light of his wand wander over the bed.

“A child”, he announced. “Must be the spawn of this scum.”

Alice approached the bed as well. A little girl with black hair was lying there, sleeping peacefully.

“The poor worm”, she said emphatically. “Both parents dead…”

Dawlish gave her a look full of disgust. “I don’t care about the spawn of Death Eaters! But maybe you’re right… We should end her suffering…”

Thoughtfully, slowly, he raised his wand.

“What… what are you doing?”, Alice enquired, concerned and horrified at the same time.

“What needs to be done”, Dawlish replied with cold voice, directed his wand at the child and took a deep breath.

“Expelliarmus!”

Dawlish’s wand left his hand, flew through the air, and Alice caught it.

“What the fuck…”, Dawlish growled and turned toward her. “Give it back!”

“No”, she replied.

“I said, give it back!”

“No”, she insisted and directed her own wand toward him. “I will NOT let you hurt or even kill an innocent child!”

“How innocent could she possibly be, being the spawn of Death Eaters?”

“Did she make her parents join them? Could she have talked them out of it? Merlin’s beard, she probably didn’t even know anything about that!”

Dawlish looked at her, angrily but silently.

“Do you have children on your own?”, she enquired.

“No, you know that.”

“Then you can’t possibly understand”, she concluded.

“I do understand that she’ll cause trouble once she gets older”, Dawlish grunted. “You’ll see, she’ll just turn out on the dark side, just like her parents.”

“You don’t know that”, she countered him.

“What are you going to do with her, then? I thought you had your own son, want to adopt a girl in addition?”, he asked mockingly.

“Don’t need to”, she replied coolly while approaching the bed. “There is procedure. First, we look for any living family members. And if we don’t find any… Well, my sister Lisa can’t have children on her own, I’m sure she and her husband will happily adopt her.”

She bent over the bed and picked up the child. She was surprised that she still didn’t wake up, but she was clearly still breathing and her heart beating. She also found it astonishing that she was still holding her plush animal, a little grey cat. Alice took her safely in her arms.

Dawlish snorted and left the room furiously. Alice shook her head and followed him downstairs.

The other Aurors and the members of the special unit of the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol who had accompanied them on their raid were rummaging through the ground floor. They were looking for any information they could use to track other Death Eaters.

“Have you found anything?”, she enquired the leader of the special unit.

“Nothing useful”, he responded. “Some family pictures, but it seems like they didn’t have any information on other Death Eaters, at least nothing we could use.”

“Have you found any information about a child, maybe? Seems like they have – or had – a daughter.” She moved her chin to the sleeping girl in her arms. She saw the couch and laid her onto it carefully.

“I’ll ask the others”, the wizard opposite her answered and turned away to talk to his colleagues.

Alice sat down on the couch, next to the girl. It had been a long day, like most days in her profession this time. She saw a travel bag next to the couch and heaved it up before she opened it and looked through the contents. There seemed to be pictures and other mementos in this bag. She was surprised that they had been going to take those with them. She looked at some of the pictures. One of them attracted her attention. There was the little girl and her parents waving. It seemed to be snowing, and the happiness the family radiated there reminded her of her own family. She sighed. She hoped this war would be over soon before more families were ripped apart…

She kept the picture of the Campbells. It might be the last thing the little girl could keep from her family.

The wizard she had spoken to before got back to her.

“We have found some cards, for birthdays, Christmas, and for giving birth. It seems like the name of their daughter was… is… Felicity”, he reported.

“Felicity Campbell”, Alice tried to speak the full name. “That is quite a lovely name. Thank you”, she said to the wizard. She stood up and stretched before taking Felicity into her arms again. “It seems like you have things here under control. I’ll disapparate to the Ministry, see if there is some family left for her.”

“Yes, madame”, the wizard replied and turned around again to investigate the house more.

Alice left the living room and exited through the front door. Dawlish was standing next to it, smoking a cigarette.

“You’re really going to do it, then?”, he addressed her.

“If what you mean with it is find a safe place for her, then yes”, she answered tiredly.

He shook his head in disapproval. “You’ll see what you’ll get out of this”, he commented.

“I assume I will.” She was not in the mood for another fruitless discussion with Dawlish. This time, she was the stubborn one, but she did not care. “Here’s your wand”, she added and threw it to Dawlish, who was not able to catch it, holding a cigarette in one hand.

“Damn you”, he cursed while she was walking away from the house.

She ignored him. She took some more steps through the dark streets in the night. Eventually she halted and looked around. There was no light in the houses around her, and the street was empty. “Time to get you to safety”, she murmured to Felicity before she took another step and disapparated, leaving behind the dark, empty street.

“… they will never regain their sanity.”

Lisa Jenkins broke down at the table, bursting out in tears. Augusta, the mother of Alice’s husband Frank, had just delivered the devastating news to her. Alice and Frank had been attacked by Death Eaters who had tortured them with the Cruciatus curse. They demanded intelligence in You-Know-Who’s whereabouts, but Alice and Frank had been unable to provide them with the information they had desired. The Death Eaters, eager to find a way to their master, continued torturing them until they eventually lost their minds. They were now at St. Mungo’s Hospital, unable to speak, unable to recognize the people around them, and unable to take care of themselves.

Vincent, Lisa’s husband, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug. She gave in to her emotions. She was glad that she could do that in Vincent’s arms. He gave her the security she had always been looking for without having to speak too much. It did not matter to her that he was a muggle, unable to perform any magic.

She sobbed in his arms for a while. She was glad that Augusta did not interrupt before she got calm enough to talk again.

“Wh-what’s going to happen to their son?”

“I guess I will raise him”, Augusta replied matter-of-factly. “Frank had no siblings, so unless you feel you can raise him as well, with that child you have already adopted…”

Lisa covered her face with her hands. She knew that raising two children, neither one of them her own, would be too much for her. They just did not have the space for another child in their small apartment. It had been hard enough to make do when they adopted Felicity. And she had already caused some issues in the one week she had been with them. Lisa did not blame her, of course. She was just old enough to understand what was happening, or at least to understand that something had happened. Having her parents ripped away from her at such a young age, she needed time to settle in. But was it not her family duty to adopt her sister’s son? And could she really raise the child of people who had been of the same kind as those who had damaged so much damage to her sister and her family?

Then again, Felicity did not have anything to do with that. She was in bed, sleeping right now. The one week had been problematic. She really missed her parents, but Lisa felt like things were getting slowly better and she had been willing to be patient with her. Now, could she do that to her, an innocent child? Give her away like that, only to have her having to settle in at another new place? Could she possibly live with that?

She remembered the day Alice had come by and asked her if she would like to raise a little girl. Her research at the Ministry of Magic had not provided her with any living relatives. Since Lisa and Vincent could not get any children of their own, Alice had considered this a better solution than giving Felicity to another family in this time. Many would be very reluctant to adopt a child of Death Eaters. Lisa, however, had accepted gladly, although she had known that problems might arise.

Thinking of her little sister made Lisa shed some more tears. She had such a good and kind heart. To some extent, she had always been more mature than Lisa, although she was two years younger. She was also so talented and full of joy and enthusiasm in the things she did, it was hard to imagine for Lisa that all of that was just gone like that now.

She swallowed hard and exchanged a quick glance with Vincent. He gave her a slight, nod of approval, making clear that whatever her choice, he would support her. The decision was hers to make.

She considered the options. If she raised Felicity, Neville would be raised by Augusta, who was quite an intimidating person. But Lisa knew Frank, Augusta’s son, and he had turned out a fine, young man, so how hard could it really be being raised by her? Felicity however… If Lisa would give her away, she would end up in yet another family. Maybe someone was willing to adopt her despite her heritage. But would that not be too much for a four-year-old child? Too much change, too much having to settle in a new place all over again?

What would Alice do in her situation?

Well, she knew perfectly well what Alice would do. And she should do just that to honour her memory. She wiped the tears off her face.
“You take Neville and raise him”, she said to Augusta, “we already have a child.”

Author's note: After some weird months, I present you a fanfiction from the Harry-Potter universe. The idea hit me and this part was finished in just about three days. The next months will be quite important for me, but also stressful (legal name change, writing my master's thesis etc), so I don't know when I can write anything else, but I hope I can make do at some point. Feedback is highly appreciated!!!

Cheers,
Filas