But what if, in Godric's Hollow on that very day—or night, rather—things had gone just a little differently? For starters, the roof didn't collapse because of the Killing Curse. It collapsed because there were people left to fight. Unfortunately, those people weren't the freshly deceased Potters, but an Auror squad responding to a detected Unforgivable, and a group of Death Eaters covering their Lord. Not that it mattered much that neither side had anyone left to protect—walking away peacefully simply wasn't in their nature. And so…
***
All hell had broken loose in Godric's Hollow: the roof of the Potters' house was burning and caving in, streaks of spellfire flared here and there, billows of smoke, noise, shouts—all of it swallowing the wail of a small child. And then that child was swallowed by an enormous hand and got such a fright that he hiccupped and fell silent. The well-known half-giant paused, looking around, but he couldn't help "his side" for an obvious reason—his right hand was occupied. With his left, he scratched the back of his head and finally decided that the child had no business being here, that someone might accidentally knock him dead, and that the Headmaster had specifically said the boy was to be kept safe and sound. The Aurors would manage somehow—what had they been trained for, after all?
And so he mounted the motorcycle belonging to Black, who had taken off on foot for reasons known only to himself, settled little Harry into the sidecar, and frowned, trying to remember what came next and which way Sirius had been pointing. Fortunately, a Bombarda aimed almost directly at the sidecar was intercepted by what was either an Auror or a Death Eater, and when the body—or rather, what remained of it—came flying at the half-giant, he awkwardly dodged (a flying arm), lurched into something (a thigh), jerked his leg (nerves—he didn't want to wash the fur coat, and there was a great deal of blood), pressed something with his hand, headbutted a flying skull, grabbed the handles in front of him, and the motorcycle roared and shot straight up into the sky.
That would have been fine, except that the Death Eaters below, seeing this spectacle overhead, redoubled their efforts and practically buried the pair in curses. Magic does absolutely nothing to giants and their kin, of course—but to an enchanted motorcycle, it works just fine.
The motorcycle roared again, as though it were alive, and with an unholy howl tore off to the southeast so fast it vanished from the airspace above Godric's Hollow in almost no time at all. It came down somewhere unknown and anyhow it could—in some field, and in pieces. The largest of those pieces was our half-giant, and all the rest landed on top of him. He was the first to hit the ground, as it happened. Not entirely gracefully. Not gracefully at all, in fact—though it wasn't his head that struck a stone. The life was simply knocked clean out of him. His spirit, if you prefer. So everything that came after was no longer any of his concern.
The baby, on the other hand, turned out to be lucky: he landed last, dropping straight onto a large, soft belly from which a wheel had only just rolled away. Perhaps the child himself was the final straw that helped the spirit depart its familiar home—or perhaps the wheel had been enough—no one can say. The poor thing had already cried himself hoarse and had nothing left, but he kicked his little legs a bit in the vicinity of the xiphoid process and passed out. He certainly couldn't have understood why the giant's heart, after a long pause—and that final kick—stirred and contracted. And then once more. And once more after that…
One-year-old Harry Potter fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, his small fingers curled into the fur of the coat, while the large, soft, warm belly beneath him began to slowly rise and fall, as if rocking him to sleep. Which was, all things considered, exactly right—the dark autumn night surrounded them on all sides, and there wasn't a light to be seen anywhere. Children, at this hour, are definitely supposed to be asleep.