I need to kill off the parents of my main character but I can't figure out how.
Basic facts of the story.

Ophelia is an elf and Joseph is a dwarf; elves and dwarfs hate each other. But they live in the same castle because they don't the other side to protect England against the vampires i.e France. So the elves and the dwarfs decided, after a huge fight to broke the castle in two, each side having half of the castle but never seeing or speaking to each other. Now Ophelia and Joseph fall in love, run away, have a kid, leave him on a stranger's doorstep and die.

All very nice for the story, But I haven't been able to think up how they manage to die a violent death so quickly. Any ideas?

My first thought: if elves and dwarves hate each other, there are probably going to be quite a few of them who think marriage between their races is the most disgusting and horrible thing ever. Someone fanatical about it might think he's purifying his race by killing them.

Another possibility; since they ran off and are no longer in the castle where it's presumably safer, maybe they were killed by wild animals or vampires.

Do they have to die? Maybe they abandon the kid because they are afraid that it would help identify them as a couple.

They do have to die Elanhil, because my main character is heir to the dwarf throne. Also character's parents turning out to be alive is so old at this point that it isn't even very surprising.

I should have mentioned that they were secretly married. Because when Titus, my main character, goes to the dwarf court at the beginning of the book, everyone thinks that he is only a dwarf.

Considering they've already thrown caution to the wind and gotten married, it seems as though they would very easily be killed because they took some round about way just to avoid getting caught.

Also, do they leave him and then die, or is he found somewhere after? If it's the first you'll still need a reason they left him.

They were going to go visit some elves that have given up being elves. The mother manages to get Titus to these people but dies of her injures before she can explain anything. These people raise Titus until they find out that he has dwarf powers. Titus has power over fire and makes one go out.

Oh another thing, this is set in the real world England in 1800. And elves and dwarfs pass for humans.

Hmmm...quite the unique situation...but you seem to already have the solution. She dies from her wounds. Maybe they were chased away...

Attacked by wild animals? Doesn't really require much of an explanation since, you know...they're wild...

OR It could be a heroic death where they both die protecting their child...

The problem with that would be that if they died defending their child the child would likely be found and slaughtered as well.

Not necessarily, it could be one of those cases where they were both attacked unexpectedly with a poisoned weapon, both were stabbed but not fatally and then killed the attacker but shortly after having gotten the child to safety died from the poison.

What wild animals are there in England... cows... hedgehogs... squirrels... rabbits? The last wolves in the British isles were killed in the in about the 1730, so I can't use them.

Have you ever read Harry Potter? his parents die trying to save his life, and then he is abandoned on his Aunt and Uncle's doorstep... um... I think that my opening is already quite a bit like that it without adding to it.

I think that that they were attacked Whackem but I can't have them attacked by the big villain (again Harry Potter) but I have to think of something reasonable.

You could always leave it as a mystery as to their fate and leave it up to the reader to come up with what happened to them.

Like in 'Rangers Apprentice' the kid doesn't know for a long time how his parents died. In that book his dad died in war and his mother couldn't bear to live anymore and abandoned him on a doorstep and killed herself, if I remember right.

Yes I could have either of those. But I want some a cool idea that surprises the reader and has something to do with a plot of a later book. Which I have thought up at all.

Hmm... 'tis a tough problem...

I know

They could contract a disease, something they hadn't been exposed to in the castle. The little boy might develop immunity to it, if he caught it young, which could help him later in life.

Also, are there any special powers for dwarf-elf halfbreeds? Perhaps there's something the kid has the ability to do or withstand... that his parents don't. Perhaps he learns later that he could have saved them, had he been grown...

I decided to have the main bad guy kill the parents of my main character even if it has been done before. You see Titus's father was heir to the dwarf throne and Titus's mother came from like the third most powerful elf family. So when they married it was big news, people thought that their marriage might be the start to a new dwarf and elf friendly era. So the main bad guy kills them to destabilize elf and dwarf relationship. And he does a very good job of destabilizing; the elves and dwarfs promptly accuse each other of murdering Ophelia and Joseph. The elves and dwarfs almost go to war. They don't go to war in the end, but the elves and dwarfs cut off all communication with each other.

It has been done before, but it is very effective. I think if you can use that information to drive your plot, it will work well.

Yup, sounds awesome...