Previous Chapters:

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003804769

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003805533

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003806102

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003806803

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003808304

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003810956

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003811902

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003814653

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003816806

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003819557

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003821422

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003822967

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003823601

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003825124

Tags:

@SaphireStark @Missy Clara Oswald @CatsAndRoblox @Pervaza972

Chapter Fifteen: Godric’s Hollow

When Harry woke the following day it was several seconds before he remembered what had happened. Then he hoped, childishly, that it had been a dream, that Allison and he were still together and that she had never left. Yet by turning his head on his pillow he could see Allison’s deserted bunk. It was like a dead body in the way it seemed to draw his eyes. Harry jumped down from his own bed, keeping his eyes averted from Allison’s. Tracey, who was already busy in the kitchen, did not wish Harry good morning, but turned her face away quickly as he went by. Theodore was sitting at the table, his face’s focus unnaturally absorbed by the apple slices on his plate.

She’s gone. Harry told himself. She’s gone. He had to keep thinking it as he washed and dressed, as though repetition would dull the shock of it. She’s gone, she’s not coming back, and it’s all my fault. And that was the simple truth of it. Harry knew, because their protective enchantments meant that it would be impossible, once they vacated this spot, for Allison to find them again.

He, Tracey, and Theodore ate breakfast in silence. Tracey’s eyes were puffy and red; she looked as if she had not slept. Theodore didn’t look well rested either. They packed up their things, Tracey dawdling. Harry knew why she wanted to span out their time on the riverbank; several times he saw her look up eagerly and he was sure she had deluded herself into thinking that she heard footsteps through the heavy rain, but no spiky-bobbed figure with a pink headband appeared between the trees. Harry was no better however, as every time he imitated her, looked around (for he could not help hoping a little, himself) and saw nothing but rain-swept woods, another little parcel of burning remorse exploded inside him. He could hear Allison saying, ‘You don't love me anymore!’, and with tears in his eyes he resumed packing with a hard knot in the pit of his stomach.

The torrential rain from the night before had caused the muddy river beside them to rise rapidly and would soon spill over onto their bank. They had lingered a good hour after they would usually have departed their campsite. Finally having gotten rid of any sign anyone had stayed there three times, Tracey seemed unable to find any more reasons to delay: She, Theodore, and Harry grasped hands and Disapparated, reappearing on a windswept heather-covered hillside.

The instant they arrived, Harry dropped their hands and walked away from them, finally sitting down in the grove of heathers; his face in his knees, shaking with twelve hours or more of suppressed sobs. He could hear Tracey also crying somewhere nearby, and Theodore setting up the tent and protective enchantments. After a couple of minutes, Theodore became silent and soon Harry registered him sitting next to him. Harry felt his foster brother pat him gently on the back.

‘Let it all out, it’ll be ok,’ he said at first, then when Harry began to calm down he added, ‘what finally broke down your walls, leaving the little island without her with us?’

‘No,’ Harry choked between shaky breaths, absentmindedly he picked one of the heathers and put it in his pocket, ‘I think that’s why Tracey broke. No, it’s just these flowers…they’re…’

‘Allison Heather Runcorn…’ Theodore said slowly in realization, and that was the last time any of them spoke her name.

They did not discuss Allison at all over the next few days. Harry was determined never to mention her name again, he felt so betrayed and heartbroken, as did Tracey, and Theodore seemed to know that it was no use forcing the issue with either of them. After that first morning Tracey never cried again over Allison, but late at night when Harry was sure the other two were asleep he couldn’t stop the deep sobs from escaping him.

As time moved on Harry had started bringing out the Marauder’s Map and examining it by wandlight. He was waiting for the moment when Allison’s labeled dot would reappear in the corridors of Hogwarts, proving that she had returned to the comfortable castle, protected by her father’s intimidating status. However, Allison did not appear on the map, and after a while Harry found himself thinking about Remus, Canini, and his uncle Ted. He knew most of his life that his uncle was Muggle-born, but for some misguided reason he had thought the Pureblood status of his aunt Andromeda and their wealth would spare him the treatment other Muggle-borns were facing. That illusion was shattered now, as Colin’s portion of Potterwatch had confirmed that he was on the run.

By day, they devoted themselves to trying to figure out potential ways to obtain a basilisk fang, but the more they discussed incredibly risky Hogwarts break-in plans or undertake the dangerous process of breeding their own Basilisk, the more desperate and far-fetched their plans became. If a basilisk fang was what they needed, Harry was becoming increasingly frustrated that Dumbledore never mentioned where to find one other than Hogwarts. There were moments when he did not know whether he was angrier with Allison or with Dumbledore. What we thought was that you actually knew what you were doing…What we thought was that you knew something from Dumbledore that would help us…That after all this time you'd have a plan!

He could not hide it from himself: Allison had been right. Dumbledore had left him virtually nothing. They had discovered one Horcrux, but they had no means of destroying it: The others were as unattainable as they had ever been. Hopelessness threatened to engulf him. He was staggered now to think of his own presumption in accepting his friends’ offers to accompany him on this meandering, pointless journey. He knew nothing, he had no ideas, and he was constantly painfully on the alert for any indication that Theodore or Tracey too were about to tell him that they had had enough, that they were both leaving.

They were spending many evenings in near silence, and Tracey took to bringing out Phineas Nigellus’s portrait and propping it up in a chair, as though he might fill part of the gaping hole left by Allison’s departure. Despite his previous assertion that he would never visit them again, Phineas Nigellus did not seem able to resist the chance to find out more about what Harry was up to, and consented to reappear, blindfolded, every few days or so. Harry was even glad to see him, because he was company, albeit of a snide and taunting kind.

They relished any news about what was happening in Hogwarts, though Phineas Nigellus was not an ideal informer. He venerated Snape, the first Slytherin headmaster since he himself had controlled the school, and they had to be careful not to criticize or ask impertinent questions about Snape, or Phineas Nigellus would instantly leave his painting.

However, he did let drop certain snippets. Snape seemed to be facing a constant, low level of mutiny from a hard core of students. Ginny Weasley had been banned from going into Hogsmeade. Snape had reinstated Umbridge’s old decree forbidding gatherings of three or more students or any unofficial student societies.

From all of these things, Harry deduced that Neville, Ella, Luna, Susan, and probably Ron and Ginny had been doing their best to continue Dumbledore’s Army. This scant news made Harry very proud, but also feel even more isolated than he had ever been before. Their discussions with the former headmaster was making Harry think of Dumbledore and of Hogwarts itself, which he missed nearly as much as his ex-girlfriend. Indeed as Phineas Nigellus talked about Snape’s crackdown, Harry experienced a split second of madness when he imagined simply going back to school to join the destabilization of Snape’s regime. Being fed, and having a soft bed, and other people being in charge, seemed the most wonderful prospect in the world at that moment. But then he remembered that he was Undesirable Number One, that there was a ten-thousand-Galleon price on his head, and that to walk into Hogwarts these days was just as dangerous as walking into the Ministry of Magic. Indeed, Phineas Nigellus inadvertently emphasized this fact by slipping in leading questions about Harry, Tracey, and Theodore’s whereabouts. Theodore shoved him back inside Tracey’s purse every time he did this, and Phineas Nigellus invariably refused to reappear for several days after these unceremonious goodbyes.

The weather grew colder and colder. They did not dare remain in any one area too long, so rather than staying in the south of England, where a hard ground frost was the worst of their worries, they continued to meander up and down the country, braving a mountainside, where sleet pounded the tent; a wide, flat marsh, where the tent was flooded with chill water: and a tiny island in the middle of a Scottish loch, where snow buried the tent in the night.

They already spotted Christmas trees twinkling from several sitting room windows before one small nice moment occurred.

The three of them had been listening to Potterwatch one cold snowy night, when something different happened.

‘—and that’s the weather for today,’ said the voice of Fred Weasley. ‘Rangefinder, I believe you had an announcement?’

‘Yes I do Rapier,’ said Colin Creevey, he normally sounded confident when he spoke during a broadcast but now he sounded nervous. ‘This message goes out to one person in particular, who I have faith is listening. Happy birthday my grey-eyed grass snake, I love you and hope you are safe.’

Theodore let a choked-gasp, his eyes now fixed upon the radio.

‘I’m sure he is Rangefinder,’ said Lee Jordan softly. ‘Well that’s our show for tonight, tune in next time with the password Alastor.’

‘H-he sent a message out just for me,’ said Theodore, looking very touched but also saddened…tears welled up in his eyes. ‘If only I could send a message back.’

It was only in the last couple months that Harry realized another aspect of this journey that was hard on his friends. Tracey and Theodore, along with being away from their families, missed Terence and Colin dearly, as Harry now missed Allison, but just like Harry they were keeping their longings silent. A couple times Harry had caught Tracey squeezing her copy of her and Terence’s matching small emerald lockets, while Harry had spotted Theodore opening a music box that had been a gift from Colin three Christmases previous.

Tracey nor Harry knew how to comfort Theodore in this moment, so Harry decided to change the subject slightly.

‘It’s your birthday?’ said Harry, acting borderline dumb.

‘Yeah, I guess,’ said Theodore with a shrug. ‘I’ve sort of lost track of what day it is at this point.’

‘Well happy eighteenth birthday Theodore!’ said Harry loudly.

‘Yes, happy birthday,’ chimed in Tracey. ‘We should celebrate!’

‘You’re right, Tracey did you pack the bottle Blishen's Firewhisky from my birthday?’

‘Yes, let me get it,’ she said as she started rummaging through her purse.

‘No, Harry wait,’ started Theodore, but there was now a smile on his face, ‘that bottle was a gift to you from Tonks, I don’t want you to waste it on me.’

‘But I want to share what’s left of it with you two. It’ll both warm and cheer us up, and don’t worry I’ll keep the bottle itself as a memory of Tonks’ gift.’

And so within a couple hours the half a bottle of Firewhisky became empty, and all three were telling jokes and laughing. After one round of soul-tickling laughter Harry suddenly blurted.

‘You know, I believe I could destroy the Horcrux right here, right now with Fiendfyre.’

‘And why don’t you?’ asked Tracey while giggling.

‘Because I’d burn this whole forest down with us still inside it,’ he bellowed.

There was silence for a second, and then all three burst out into laughing once more.

The next morning however there was no laughter, the complete opposite, every little sound was like a dragon’s roar. Tracey made some toast and it took all of them over an hour to each eat one slice. As they nibbled slowly on their pieces, Theodore slowly and quietly spoke.

‘I read about Fiendfyre in Magick Moste Evile, you know how to cast it and think it can destroy Horcruxes?’

‘Yeah, I learned it in our second year, it’s what I used to kill the basilisk,’ said Harry. ‘It’s an incredibly dark curse and it kills everything in its path so I think it could destroy the locket.’

‘Then why haven’t you used it?’ asked Tracey.

‘Because it can’t be controlled,’ said Harry in frustration, ‘it only consumes and grows, the only reason I survived was because Fawkes managed to absorb the flames. I’ve thought about waiting until we get all four Horcruxes, cast the spell, and then apparate away, but it could then kill kilometres and kilometres of life before a more powerful magical force stops it. Even to stop Voldemort I just can’t do that.’

There was a pause.

‘Basilisk fang it is,’ said Theodore finally.

The week continued onward and there came an evening when Harry resolved to suggest, again, what seemed to him the only unexplored avenue left to them. They had just eaten an unusually good meal: Theodore had been to a supermarket under the Invisibility Cloak (scrupulously dropping the money into an open till as he left), and Tracey had finally gotten the hang of “One Minute Feasts - It's Magic!”. Harry thought they might be more persuadable than when their stomachs were full of spaghetti Bolognese and tinned pears. He had also had the foresight to suggest that they take a few hours’ break from wearing the Horcrux, which was hanging off of a chair beside him.

‘Theo? Tracey?’

‘Hmm?’ mumbled Theodore, he was curled up in one of Dumbledore’s armchairs with The Tales of Beedle the Bard. He could not imagine how much more he could get out of the book, which was not, after all, very long, but evidently without Allison’s help he was still having difficulty deciphering parts of it and the copy of Rune Dictionary she left behind lay open on the arm of the chair next to him. Tracey was also reading, but she was taking her break from cooking or Horcrux wearing to read her personal copy of Magic Heart, and she was giggling at the good parts. Harry cleared his throat. He felt anxious, possibly more than he should.

‘Guys, I’ve been thinking, and—'

‘Harry, could you give me a hand with this?’ asked Theodore. Apparently he had not been listening to him. Tracey looked up at Harry for a moment, but when he went to help his brother she went back to enjoying her book. Theodore leaned forward and held out The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

‘Look at the symbol,’ He said, pointing to the top of a page.

Above what Harry assumed was the title of the story (being unable to read runes, he could not be sure), there was a picture of what looked like a triangular eye, its pupil crossed with a vertical line.

‘I never took Ancient Runes, Theo.’

‘Neither did I, but I’ve now gone completely through She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s copies of Rune Dictionary and Advanced Rune Translation, it’s not in either, and so I’m now starting to believe it is not a tune at all.’

‘So what is it then?’ asked Harry, who honestly wasn’t that interested.

‘Well once I started suspecting it wasn’t a rune I started thinking it was an eye, but after studying the page and following story I don’t think it’s an eye either. You see, it’s not part of the book at all, it was drawn in afterwards. Now the reason I asked you over here, and Tracey maybe you should come over to because of your knowledge from Ancient Studies, is that I’m hoping one of you recognizes it, as I do not.’

Harry let Tracey take a good long look first, but when she didn’t recognize it he took another look just to be safe.

‘No…No, wait a moment,’ Harry looked closer. ‘Isn’t it the same symbol Luna’s dad was wearing around his neck?’

‘It is? I didn’t get a chance to meet Xenophilius at the wedding,’ said Theodore.

‘It is that symbol, and that makes it Grindelwald’s mark,’ said Harry confidently.

Tracey stared at him, open mouthed.

‘What?’

‘Krum told me...’

He recounted the story that Viktor Krum had told him at the wedding. Tracey looked astonished, ‘Grindelwald’s mark? Harry I know we aren’t really saying her name, but I wish Allison was here, she knows a lot about Grindelwald.’

‘Well, she wouldn’t have been much help,’ mumbled Harry, a bit of anger rising at the mention of her name, ‘she said at the wedding she had never heard Grindelwald had a symbol.’

‘It’s possible Krum’s knowledge was incomplete,’ said Theodore. ‘I believed him when he said Grindelwald carved it into the walls of Durmstrang, but what if after leaving school Grindelwald didn’t really use it again and that’s why it’s not well known?’

‘And that begs the question, if not Grindelwald’s symbol, what does it actually represent, and why is it in Dumbledore’s book?’ asked Tracey.

‘Yeah it is weird,’ said Harry. ‘And if it was a Dark symbol you’d think Scrimgeour would have recognized it. He was Head Auror and then Head of the Department of Law Enforcement, he ought to have been expert on this sort of stuff.’

‘It’s possible he did what I did, checked it against all runes, and when he couldn’t find a match he assumed it was just an eye.’

No one spoke, but they continued to stare at the strange mark. Harry tried again.

‘Guys?’

‘Hmm?’ mumbled Theodore.

‘Yes Harry?’ said Tracey, giving him her attention.

‘I’ve been thinking. I—I want to go to Godric’s Hollow.’

‘Harry…I don’t know…’ said Theodore, now looking up at him.

‘I think we should do it,’ said Tracey suddenly and firmly. ‘I think at this point we’ll have to go there.’

‘But I thought you agreed that it’s a trap?’ said Theodore, quite serious.

‘I do agree that it is likely a trap, but I also think it’s a risk we’re going to have to take at this point,’ said Tracey. ‘There are many reasons we should go to Godric’s Hollow, firstly it’s not impossible that Voldemort hid a Horcrux there as it has meaning to him, being where Dumbledore grew up he could have left something important for us to fine there, and finally being the birthplace of Godric Gryffindor it possibly has the real sword and even though we’re Slytherin any Horcrux destroying item is worth investigating. There is also the fact that back at the end of June I made a promise to Harry that I would go with him to Godric’s Hollow, and I think it’s time to fulfill that promise.’

Harry did not want to admit that he had not been thinking about swords or Horcruxes at all when he suggested they go to Godric’s Hollow. For him, the lure of the village lay as his parents’ graves, the house where he had narrowly escaped death, and in the person of Bathilda Bagshot. He did really appreciate her support however.

‘Thank you Tracey, I really mean it,’ said Harry, taking in what she said. ‘Also Gryffindor came from Godric’s Hollow?’

‘It’s in the name, Harry,’ said Tracey, rolling her eyes while laughing. Both of them then faced Theodore, who looked very hesitant.

‘It’s dangerous, guys,’ Theodore finally whispered. ‘But I have to admit, recently even I’ve been thinking we might have to go. Other than Hogwarts it really is the only place with possible information or items that we may need.’

‘It’s settled then, we’re going to Godric’s Hollow,’ said Harry, then the vastness of it all sunk in. ‘But where in Godric’s Hollow do we even search, especially because we don’t know what we’re searching for.’

‘The graveyard at the very least,’ said Theodore, now starting to sound confident.

‘Er, why?’ asked Tracey.

‘Seriously how did you both pass Professor Binns class for four years, have either of you ever even read A History of Magic?’

‘Well-no,’ Tracey admitted.

‘Erm,’ Harry said, smiling genuinely for what felt like the first time in months. The muscles in his face felt oddly stiff. ‘I might’ve opened you know, when I bought it...just the once...’

‘Alight, I’ll explain. I think you packed a copy, right Tracey?’ Theodore sounded much more like his old self that he had done of late; Harry half expected him to announce that he was off to the library.

‘Yes,’ and she pulled it out of her purse and handed it to him, Theodore opened it to a specific page and began reading.

‘“Upon the signature of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689, wizards went into hiding for good. It was natural, perhaps, that they formed their own small communities within a community. Many small villages and hamlets attracted several magical families, who banded together for mutual support and protection. The villages of Tinworthin Cornwald, Upper Flagley in Yorkshire, and Ottery St. Catchpole on the south coast of England were notable homes to knots of Wizarding families who lived alongside tolerant and sometimes Confunded Muggles. Most celebrated of these half-magical dwelling places is, perhaps, Godric’s Hollow, the West Country village where the great wizard Godric Gryffindor was born, and where Bowman Wright, Wizarding smith, forged the first Golden Snitch”-That’s another thing Harry, we might be able to open your Snitch there-“The graveyard is full of the names of ancient magical families, and this accounts, no doubt for the stories of hauntings that have dogged the little church beside it for many centuries.” It goes on to mention some of the influential magical families that live in each village, but since we can’t risk talking to them the next best option for information is the graveyard that is mentioned. It would be nice though if we could talk to Bagshot herself.’

‘I think we can,’ said Harry, a lightbulb going off in his head.

‘What?’ said both Tracey and Theodore.

‘When we were at Grimmauld Place I found a letter from my mum from her time at Godric’s Hollow, in it she talked about how Bathilda Bagshot would visit my family during a time when not even Sirius was allowed to visit. She also specifically wrote that Bagshot cared about me,’ began Harry, he then remembered even more facts he knew. ‘And at the wedding, Ron’s great-aunt Muriel told me that Bagshot still lives in Godric’s Hollow and about how she was connected to the Dumbledore family. I don’t know how much of all Muriel said was true, but it’s clear she knew more about Dumbledore than most. What I’m trying to say is my parents trusted her and she was close to Dumbledore, so of all the witches and wizards currently in Godric’s Hollow I think we can trust her.’

‘Bathilda Bagshot,’ murmured Theodore, staring intently at Bathilda’s embossed name on the front cover of A History of Magic. ‘If all that is true, than I suppose—‘

‘So,’ said Harry after letting Theodore consider it all for a minute, ‘are we going to go to Godric’s Hollow?’

‘Yes, however not today, but like the Ministry we’ll have to plan and prepare,’ said Theodore as he sat up from the armchair, and Harry could tell that the prospect of having a plan again had lifted his mood as much as his. ‘We’ll have to use more Polyjuice Potion, we can’t risk anyone in the village recognizing us. With She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named gone we should be able mostly fit under the Invisible Cloak again, for our feet we can use Disillusionment Charms. We’ll Disapparate together this time…’

Harry and Tracey let him talk, nodding and agreeing whenever there was a pause, but Harry’s mind had left the conversation. For the first time since he had discovered how they were going to destroy the Horcruxes, he felt excited.

He was about to go to where he was born, it had been almost exactly four years since the last time he had visited. He loved his childhood with his adoptive family very much, but it was in Godric’s Hollow that, but for Voldemort, he would have grown up and spent every school holiday. Sirius and Remus would have just been his uncles…He might have grown up with friends other than children of the Order of the Phoenix…He might have had additional brothers and sisters…It would have been his mother who had made his seventeenth birthday cake. The life he had lost had hardly ever seemed so real to him as at this moment, when he knew he was about to see the place were it had been taken from him, as Sirius and Remus had only ever shown him his parent’s grave and nothing else. After the other two had gone to bed that night, Harry quietly extracted his rucksack from Tracey’s bag, and from inside it, the pile of photographs he had packed. For the first time in months, he pursued the old pictures, but this time focused solely on the photos from before he was orphaned. The photos of his parents, smiling and waving up at him from the images, which were all he had left of them now.

Harry would gladly have set out for Godric’s Hollow the following day, but Theodore had other ideas. Convinced as he was that Voldemort would expect Harry to return to the scene of his parents’ deaths, he was determined that they would set off only after they had ensured that they had the best disguises possible. It was therefore nearly a full week later—once they had surreptitiously obtained hairs from innocent Muggles who were Christmas shopping, and had practiced Apparating and Disapparating while underneath the Invisibility Cloak together, and Tracey had mastered the Disillusionment Charm—that Theodore agreed it was time to make the journey.

They were to Apparate to the village under cover of darkness, so it was late afternoon when they finally swallowed Polyjuice Potion, Harry transforming into a balding, middle-aged Muggle man, Tracey into his small and rather mousy wife, and Theodore into their blonde teenaged son. Tracey’s purse containing all of their possessions (apart from the Horcrux, which Harry was wearing around his neck) was tucked into an inside pocket of Tracey’s buttoned-up coat. Harry lowered the Invisibility Cloak over them, then they turned into the suffocating darkness once again.

Heart beating in his throat, Harry opened his eyes. They were standing hand in hand in a snowy lane under a dark blue sky in which the night’s first stars were already glimmering feebly. Cottages stood on either side of the narrow road, Christmas decorations twinkling in their windows. A short way ahead of them, a glow of golden streetlights indicated the centre of the village.

‘Look at all this snow!’ Theodore whispered beneath the cloak. ‘How did we not think of snow? After all our planning, we’ll leave behind prints!’

‘It’s ok,’ whispered Tracey, ‘I’ll walk behind you two and get rid of them.’

But Harry did not want to enter the village like a pantomime horse, trying to keep themselves concealed while magically covering their traces.

‘Let’s take off the Cloak,’ said Harry, and when both looked frightened. ‘Oh, come on, we don’t look like us and there’s no one around.’

He stowed the Cloak under his jacket and they made their way forward unhampered, the icy air stinging their faces as they passed more cottages. Anyone of them might have been the one in which James and Lily had once lived or where Bathilda lived now. Harry gazed at the front doors, their snow-burdened roofs, and their frost porches, wondering whether he remembered any of them, knowing deep inside that it was impossible, that he had been little more than a year old when he had left this place forever. He was not even sure whether he would be able to see the cottage at all; he did not know what happened when the subjects of a Fidelius Charm died.

Then the little lane along which they were walking curved to the left and the heart of the village, a small square, was revealed to them. Strung all around with coloured lights, there was what looked like a war memorial in the mile, partly obscured by a windblown Christmas tree. There were several shops, a post office, a pub and a little church whose stained-glass windows were glowing jewel-bright across the square.

The snow here had become impacted, It was hard and slippery where people had trodden on it all day. Villagers were crisscrossing in front of them, their figures briefly illuminated by streetlamps. They heard a snatch of laughter and pop music as the pub door opened and closed; then they heard a carol start up inside the little church.

‘I was a fool, it’s been six days since my birthday, hasn’t it? Guys I think it’s Christmas Eve!’ said Theodore.

‘It is?’

Harry had lost track of the date; they had not seen a newspaper for weeks.

‘Unless Colin got Theo’s birthday wrong, which is unlikely, then it’s got to be Christmas Eve,’ confirmed Tracey.

Theodore than looked in a different direction, towards the church, 'They...They're in there then, Harry? In the graveyard I mean. Your mum and dad?'

'Yes, they're, ere, around the centre.'

Harry felt a thrill of something that was beyond excitement, more like fear. It had been so long since he had last visited his parents grave, and every time previous he had been accompanied by both Sirius and Remus. Perhaps Tracey knew how he was feeling, because she reached for his hand and took the lead for the first time, pulling him forward. Halfway across the square, however, Theodore stopped dead.

'Harry! You never told me about this!'

Harry didn't know what he was talking about and was a bit confused. Theodore was pointing at the war memorial. As they had passed it, it had transformed. Instead of an obelisk covered in names, there was a statue of three people: a man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face, and a baby boy sitting in his mother’s arms. Snow lay upon all their heads, like fluffy white caps.

'I didn't know...Padfoot and Moony must not have known either...'

Harry drew closer, gazing up into his parents’ faces. He had never known that there was a statue...How strange it was to see himself represented in stone, a happy baby without a scar on his forehead...

'C’mon,' said Harry, when he had looked his fill they turned again toward the church. As they crossed the road, he glanced over his shoulder; the statue had turned back into the war memorial.

The singing grew louder as they approached the church. It made Harry’s throat constrict. It reminded him so forcefully of Hogwarts, of Peeves bellowing rude versions of carols from inside suits of armor, of the Great Hall’s twelve Christmas trees, of Dumbledore wearing a bonnet he had won in a cracker, of Remus' and Andromeda's Christmas cooking...

There was a kissing gate at the entrance to the graveyard. Theodore pushed it open as quietly as possible and they edged through it. On either side of the slippery path to the church doors, the snow lay deep and untouched. They moved off through the snow, carving deep trenches behind them as they walked around the building, keeping to the shadows beneath the brilliant windows.

Behind the church row upon row of snowy tombstones protruded from a blanket of pale blue that was flecked with dazzling red, gold, and green wherever the reflections from the stained glass hit the snow.

'Alright, lets see what information we can find,' whispered Tracey.

Keeping his hand closed tightly on the wand in his jacket pocket, Harry moved toward the nearest grave.

'Look at this, it’s an Abbott, could be an ancestor of Hannah’s!'

'We should try to keep our voices down, not draw attention,' said Tracey.

They waded deeper and deeper into the graveyard, gouging dark tracks into the snow behind them, stooping to peer at the words on old headstones, every now and then squinting into the surrounding darkness to make absolutely sure that they were unaccompanied.

‘Guys, over here!’ said Theodore.

He was two rows away of tombstones away and two rows ahead of where Harry knew his parents lay.

‘What is it?’ asked Tracey curiously.

‘Come see,’ Theodore insisted.

He pointed to the dark stone. Harry stooped down and saw, upon the frozen lichen-spotted granite, the words Kendra Dumbledore and, a short way below her dates of birth and death, and Her Daughter Ariana. There was also a quotation:

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

So Rita Skeeter and Muriel had got some of their facts right. The Dumbledore family had indeed lived here, and part of it had died here. A thought he had back at the wedding also appeared to be true, there graves were very close to his parents, so Harry likely walked right passed them several times while he was growing up.

Seeing the grave was worse than hearing about it. Harry could not help thinking that he and Dumbledore both had deep roots in this graveyard, and that Dumbledore ought to have told him so, yet he had never thought to share the connection. They could have visited the place together; for a moment Harry imagined coming here with Dumbledore, of what a bond that would been, of how much it would have meant to him. But it seemed that to Dumbledore, the fact that their families lay side by side in the same graveyard had been an unimportant coincidence, irrelevant, perhaps, to the job he wanted Harry to do.

Both his friends were looking at him, and he was glad that his face was hidden in shadow. He read the words on the tombstone again.

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

He did not understand what these words meant. Surely Dumbledore had chosen them, as the eldest member of the family once his mother had died.

‘Is it possible that Dumbledore mentioned—?’ began Tracey.

‘No,’ said Harry curtly, then, ‘let’s keep looking,’ and he turned away, wishing he had not seen the stone.

Of all the information he had hoped to find, that hadn’t been it.

‘I found Julie Parkes’ grave,’ said Theodore solemnly. ‘She was my age, this war is just terrible.’

Being the year above him and a Gryffindor Harry hadn’t really known her, but Terence had shared classes with her so if he was aware of her death he was probably quite bummed.

‘Harry, is this your parents’?’ called out Tracey. Harry turned around expecting to say yes, but Tracey was standing over a further and much older grave.

‘No, why?’

‘My bad, I thought it said Potter,’ she was rubbing at a crumpling, mossy stone, gazing down at it, a little frown on her face. ‘Wait! Harry, Theo, get over here!’

Quickly they converged on her point.

‘What is it?’ asked Harry.

‘Look what I found?’

The grave was extremely old, weathered so that Harry could hardly make out the name. Tracey showed him and Theodore the symbol beneath it.

‘You’re right Tracey, it’s the symbol from my book!’ exclaimed Theodore in excitement.

Harry peered at the place she indicated: The stone was so worn that it was hard to make out what was engraved there, though there did seem to be a triangular mark beneath the nearly illegible name.

‘Are you sure?’ Harry asked.

‘I think so,’ said Tracey as she lit her wand and pointed it at the name on the headstone. ‘I think the name says Ignotus…that name sounds familiar.’

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ said Theodore, writing down information from the grave.

‘Me neither,’ agreed Harry, who resumed looking at other names.

Every now and then he recognized a surname that, like Abbott, he had met at Hogwarts. Sometimes there were several generations of the same Wizarding family represented in the graveyard. Harry could tell from the dates that it had either died out, or the current members had moved away from Godric’s Hollow. Deeper and deeper amongst the graves he went, trying to find anything that would help his quest, but the urge to visit his own parents grave only continued to grow.

The darkness and the silence seemed to become, all of a sudden, much deeper. Harry looked around, worried, thinking of dementors, then realized that the carols had finished, that the chatter and flurry of churchgoers were fading away as they made their way back into the square. Somebody inside the church had just turned off the lights.

Finally after not finding anything new for several minutes he abruptly turned around and headed straight for the centre of the graveyard. Seemingly noticing his sudden change in direction the other two turned and began to walk in the direction Harry was going until all three converged at a single grave.

The headstone was made of white marble, just like Dumbledore’s tomb, and this made it easy to read, as it seemed to shine in the dark. He had read his parents grave many times before, but Harry felt as though he was a different person now than he was then. He did not need to kneel or even approach very close to it to make out the words engraved upon it.

“James Medini Potter

Born 27 March 1960

Died 31 October 1981

Lily Joy Potter

Born 30 January 1960

Died 31 October 1981

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

Harry read the words slowly, as though it were the first time doing so, and he read the last of them aloud. ‘“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”…’ A horrible thought came to him, and with it a kind of panic. ‘I never thought of it before, but isn’t that a Death Eater idea? Why is that here?’

‘It’s ok Harry, I don’t it means defying and defeating death literally like how You-Know-Who tries to do,’ said Tracey reassuringly. ‘I think it’s meant to be more like the spirit lives on after death.’

‘It doesn’t though,’ Harry mumbled, he thought visiting his parents would cheer him up but he was now feeling morbid.

‘It does though,’ said Theodore softly but firmly, putting an arm around Harry. ‘Remember when we were in that room in the Department of Mysteries, the room with the whispers. I denied it at the time, but I now believe they’re the voices of loved ones we’ve lost. They continued on, but we’ll catch up with them eventually in the end.’

Harry tried to force a smile, and Theodore let him go, but his face fell again moments later. Despite what Theodore said, Harry knew the truth, that they were not living, they were gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents’ moldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing. And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, looking down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now, surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them.

Realizing Harry was not better, Theodore was the one to take Harry’s hand this time, and was gripping it tightly. He could not look at him or Tracey, but returned the pressure, now taking deep, sharp gulps of the night air, trying to steady himself, trying to regain control. He should have brought something to give to them, and he had not thought of it, and every plant in the graveyard was leafless and frozen. But Tracey raised her wand, moved it in a circle through the air and a bouquet of poinsettia blossomed before them. Harry caught it and laid it on his parents’ grave.

As soon as he stood up he wanted to leave. He did not think he could stand another moment there. He put his arm around Tracey and Theodore’s shoulders, and they put their arms around his waist, and they turned in silence and walked away through the snow, past Dumbledore’s mother and sister, back toward the dark church and the out-of-sight kissing gate.