Disclaimer: Anything you recognize – be it character, location, idea or line – belongs to others; I may be playing with them but I make no profit from this.
MAT 7:14 "For the gate is narrow and the way is hard
that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
The woman hurried in the cold, October night, trusting the darkness to shelter her movements.
Close to her heart she clutched her precious baby, bundled up in his warmest winter clothes and wrapped in her cloak. Even Summer had been colder this year, due to the war; Autumn was positively chilly, and in more than just the physical sense.
The fourteen months old was fortunately fast asleep, safely held in his mother's loving embrace, blissfully unaware of her fear.
She hugged him tightly as she sidestepped a puddle.
It was risky, she knew, moving around like this. The war was upon them, in all its harshness, and it was dangerous business going out one's door.
Especially with a child.
Especially with this child.
She shuddered at the thought of the Prophecy looming on his little sweet head.
She shouldn't have risked him like this.
But Bathilda was a dear friend, forever lending a helping hand to the younger woman and doting upon little Harry, and she'd needed help, pneumonia at her old age was not to be taken lightly, so Lily had gone.
Hopefully James wouldn't be too upset when he came back from his mission.
Hopefully James would come back from his mission, period: upset or not, that was all that mattered to her.
Her steps slowed and faltered as she passed before Godric's Hollow's church.
It was illuminated from the inside, the stained glass windows glowing in the dark like jewels and Lily couldn't help thinking that this light, too, was more than just physical: like the cold was stronger because of her dread, so the yellow warmth was more welcoming because of the surrounding bleakness.
It beckoned to her, but she hesitated.
She hadn't set foot in a church in years. Witches weren't welcome there, Petunia had taken great delight in telling her. Witches were evil. Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live, it was in the Bible.
For the first time, she questioned this truth.
Was the Lord's mercy not infinite?
Was her magic truly evil?
Was it not, ultimately, His gift, as were all things?
Would He truly condemn her without appeal for something she didn't choose, something she couldn't help?
Or was it how she used her gift that mattered?
She slowed to a halt and little Harry fussed a bit in his sleep.
Was her beautiful baby condemned already? Through no fault of his, damned without appeal?
For the first time in years, she wondered.
If she were to lead her beloved child to the Lord, would the little one be turned away?
Her world, she knew, had stopped asking these questions far too long ago; but she couldn't feign indifference, not tonight.
She should leave.
It was late, and it was dangerous. She should shrug these unwanted questions aside. They weren't sensible. The war was taking a toll on her, that was all. Fear was pushing her to seek comfort where she couldn't find it.
She should leave.
And perhaps, in another world, in another story, she did leave, and put all thoughts of Him from her mind, and her tale and her child's tale unfolded very differently.
But why wonder about it at all?
It is not for us to know what would have happened. Nobody is ever told that.
But anyone can find out what will happen; for in that cold October night, Lily Potter did, indeed, step into that church, and sought the help of He who alone can bring every comfort, and asked for protection for her baby from the only source that knows all, can all.
And if she thought that the faint lion roar reverberating through her soul so reassuringly was a link to her school House, and the family she'd found there, He didn't mind.
A/N: In the words of fringeperson (who knows *quite* a lot about crossovers)... "the Harry Potter fandom is a perfect 'little black dress'. It goes with absolutely everything, if you can just figure out how". Here's my take on mixing it with the Narnian universe.