Godric's Hollow

Puddlemere, Godrics Hollow, Hogsmede, Diagon Alley? What was it?

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@SaphireStark @Missy Clara Oswald @CatsAndRoblox @Pervaza972

Chapter Sixteen: Bathilda’s Secret

‘Stop, someone is watching us,’ said Tracey very suddenly.

‘There is?’ responded Theodore.

They had only just reached the grave of the unknown Abbott.

‘Yes, they’re over by the bushes.’

All three of them stood quite still, holding on to each other, gazing at the dense black boundary of the graveyard. Harry could not see anything.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘I think so, I saw the bushes move and I swore it looked like a person…’

She broke from him to free her wand arm.

‘We look like Muggles,’ Harry pointed out.

‘But we also just laid flowers in front of a grave that only you or someone with close to connections to you would lay them,’ said Theodore, now starting to become nervous to. ‘Maybe we should Apparate out of here.’

Harry thought of A History of Magic, the graveyard was supposed to be haunted, what if—? But then he heard a rustle and saw a little eddy of dislodged snow in the bush to which Tracey had pointed. Ghosts could not move snow.

‘It’s a cat,’ said Harry, after a second or two, ‘or a bird. If it was a Death Eater we’d be dead by now. But let’s get out of here, and we can put the Cloak back on.’

They glanced back repeatedly as they made their way out of the graveyard. Harry, who did not feel as sanguine as he had pretended when reassuring the other two, was glad to reach the gate and the slippery pavement. They pulled the Invisibility Cloak back over themselves. The pub was fuller than before: Many voices inside it were now singing the carol that they had heard as they approached the church. For a moment Harry considered suggesting they take refuge inside it, but before he could say anything Theodore murmured, ‘No, let’s go the other way,’ and pulled him and Tracey down the dark street leading out of the village in the opposite direction from which they had entered. Harry could make out the point where the cottages ended and the lane turned into open country again. They walked as quickly as they dared, past more windows sparkling with multicolored light, the outlines of Christmas trees dark through the curtains.

‘Do we still want to find Bathilda Bagshot? How are we even supposed to know which house is hers?’ asked Tracey, who was shivering a little and kept glancing back over her shoulder. ‘I’m starting to agree with Theodore, we should maybe go and come back another day. What do you think Harry?’

She tugged at his arm, but Harry was not paying attention. He was looking toward the dark mass that stood at the very end of this row of houses. Next moment he had sped up, dragging Tracey along with him, Theodore close behind him.

‘Harry, where are you g—‘ Theodore half-shouted.

‘Look...Look at it guys...’

‘Sorry I don’t understand…oh!’ said Tracey, her eyes widening.

They could all see it; the Fidelius Charm must have died with James and Lily. The hedge had grown wild in the sixteen years since Remus and Hagrid had taken Harry from the rubble that lay scattered amongst the waist-high grass. Most of the cottage was still standing, though entirely covered in dark ivy and snow, but the right side of the top floor had been blown apart; that, Harry was sure, was where the curse had backfired. The three of them stood at the gate, gazing at the wreck of what must once have been a cottage just like those that flanked it.

‘How come it hasn’t been bought and rebuilt?’ thought Tracey out loud.

‘Maybe you can’t rebuild it?’ Harry replied. ‘Maybe it’s like the injuries from Dark Magic and you can’t repair the damage?’

He slipped a hand from beneath the Cloak and grasped the snowy and thickly rusted gate, not wishing to open it, but simply to hold some part of the house.

‘Harry,’ said Theodore in a warning tone, ‘I know you want to go inside, but doing so combined with what we did in the graveyard our cover would be—oh look!’

His touch on the gate seemed to have done it. A sign had risen out of the ground in front of them, up through the tangles of nettles and weeds, like some bizarre, fast-growing flower, and in golden letters upon the wood it said:

“On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981, Lily and James Potter lost their lives. Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard ever to have survived the Killing Curse. This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters and as a reminder of the violence that tore apart their family.”

And all around these neatly lettered words, scribbles had been added by other witches and wizards who had come to see the place where the Boy Who Lived had escaped. Some had merely signed their names in Everlasting Ink; others had carved their initials into the wood, still others had left messages. The most recent of these, shining brightly over sixteen years’ worth of magical graffiti, all said similar things.

“Good luck, Harry wherever you are.”

“If you read this, Harry, we’re all behind you! Long live Harry Potter.”

‘That’s really risky but brave of all of them,’ said Tracey, it almost sounded like hope was in her voice.

‘It’s good to know more than just Potterwatch is on our side,’ said Theodore confidently.

But Harry beamed at both of them.

‘It’s brilliant. I’m glad they did it. I…’

He broke off. A heavily muffled figure was hobbling up the lane toward them, silhouetted by the bright lights in the distant square. Harry thought, though it was hard to judge, that the figure was a woman. She was moving slowly, possibly frightened of slipping on the snowy ground. Her stoop, her stoutness, her shuffling gait all gave an impression of extreme age. They watched in silence as she drew nearer. Harry was waiting to see whether she would turn into any of the cottages she was passing, but he knew instinctively that she would not. At last she came to a half a few yards from them and simply stood there in the middle of the frozen road, facing them.

He did not need Theodore’s warning of stepping on his foot. There was next to no chance this woman was a Muggle: She was standing there gazing at a house that ought to have been completely invisible to her, if she was not a witch. Even assuming that she was a witch, however, it was odd behaviour to come out on a night this cold, simply to look at an old ruin. By all the rules of normal magic, meanwhile, she ought not to be able to see the three of them at all. Nevertheless, Harry had the strangest feeling that she knew that they were there, and also who they were. Just as he had reached this uneasy conclusion, she raised a gloved hand and beckoned.

Theodore moved closer to him under the Cloak, Harry could hear both his and Tracey’s uneasy breathing.

‘How could she know we’re here?’

Harry shook his head. The woman beckoned again, more vigorously. Harry could think of many reasons not to obey the summons, and yet his suspicions about her identity were growing stronger every moment that they stood facing each other in the deserted street.

Was it possible that she had been waiting for them all these long months? That Dumbledore had told her to wait, and that Harry would come in the end? Was it not likely that it was she who had moved in the shadows in the graveyard and had followed them to this spot? Even her ability to sense them suggested some Dumbledore-ish power that he had never encountered before.

Finally Harry spoke, causing Tracey to gasp and jump, ‘Are you Bathilda?’

The muffled figure nodded and beckoned again.

Beneath the Cloak, all three friends looked at each other. Harry raised his eyebrows; the other two gave a tiny, nervous nod. They stepped toward the woman and, at once, she turned and hobbled off back the way they had come. Leading them past several houses, she turned in at a gate. They followed her up the front path through a garden nearly as overgrown as the one they had just left. She fumbled for a moment with a key at the front door, then opened it and stepped back to let them pass.

She smelled bad, or perhaps it was her house. Harry wrinkled his nose as they sidled past her and pulled off the Cloak. Now that he was beside her, he realized how tiny she was; bowed down with age she came barely level with his chest. She closed the door behind them, her knuckles blue and mottled against the peeling paint, then turned and peered into Harry’s face.

Her eyes were thick with cataracts and sunken in folds of transparent skin, and her whole face was dotted with broken veins and liver spots. He wondered whether she could make him out at all; even if she could, it was the balding Muggle whose identity he had stolen that she would see.

The odor of old age, of dust, of unwashed clothes and stale food intensified as she unwound a moth-eaten black shawl, revealing a head of scant white hair through which the scalp showed clearly.

‘Bathilda?’ Harry repeated.

She nodded again. Harry became aware of the locket against his skin; the thing inside it that sometimes ticked or beat had woken; he could feel it pulsing through the cold gold. Did Dumbledore leave her the sword or a basilisk fang, did the Horcrux know, could it sense, that the thing that would destroy it was near?

Bathilda shuffled past them, pushing Tracey and Theodore aside as though she had not seen them, and vanished into what seemed to be a sitting room.

‘Harry, I don’t think this is safe,’ breathed Theodore.

‘Yes, what if Bathilda isn’t as trustworthy as we thought?’ whispered Tracey.

‘Look at the size of her, I think we could overpower her if we had to,’ said Harry, ‘Listen, I should have told you two, I knew she wasn’t all there. Muriel called her “gaga”.’

‘Come!’ called Bathilda from the next room.

Tracey jumped and clutched Harry’s arm.

‘Um, Harry…’ said Theodore, sounding quite unnerved.

‘It’s okay,’ said Harry reassuringly, and he led the way into the sitting room.

Bathilda was tottering around the place lighting candle, but it was still very dark, not to mention extremely dirty. Thick dust crunched beneath their feet, and Harry’s nose detected, underneath the dank and mildewed smell, something worse, like meat gone bad. He wondered when was the last time anyone had been inside Bathilda’s house to check whether she was coping. She seemed to have forgotten that she could do magic too, for she lit the candles clumsily by hand, her trailing lace cuff in constant danger of catching fire.

‘Let me do that,’ offered Harry and he took the matches from her. She stood watching him as he finished lighting the candle stubs that stood on saucers around the room, perched precariously on stack of book and on side tables crammed with cracked and moldy cups.

The last surface on which Harry spotted a candle was a bow-fronted chest of drawers on which there stood a large number of photographs. When the flame danced into life, its reflection wavered on their dusty glass and silver. He saw a few tiny movements from the pictures. As Bathilda fumbled with logs for the fire, he muttered ‘Tergeo’; the dust vanished from the photographs, and he was at once that half a down were missing from the largest and most ornate frames.

He wondered whether Bathilda or somebody else had removed them. Then the sight of a photograph near the back of the collection caught his eye, and he snatched it up.

It was the golden-haired, merry-faced thief, the young man who had perched on Gregorovitch’s windowsill, smiling lazily up at Harry out of the silver frame. And it came to Harry instantly where he had seen the boy before: in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, arm in arm with teenage Dumbledore, and that must be where all the missing photographs were in Rita’s book.

‘Ms—er—Madam Bagshot?’ he said, and his voice shook slightly. ‘Who is this?’

Bathilda was standing in the middle of the room watching Tracey light the fire for her.

‘Madam Bagshot?’ Harry repeated, and he advanced with the picture in his hands as the flames burst into life in the fireplace. Bathilda looked up at his voice, and the Horcrux heat faster upon his chest.

‘Who is this person?’ Harry asked her, pushing the picture forward.

She peered at it solemnly, then up at Harry.

‘Do you know who this is?’ he repeated in a much slower and louder voice than usual. ‘This man? Do you know him? What’s he called?’

Bathilda merely looked vague. Harry felt an awful frustration. With how much force had Rita Skeeter unlocked Bathilda’s memories?

‘Who is this man?’ he repeated loudly.

‘Shouting at her isn’t going to help, what’s so important about the bloke in the photo?’ asked Theodore.

‘This picture, it’s the thief, the thief who stole from Gregorovitch! Please!’ he said to Bathilda. ‘Who is this?’

But she only stared at him.

‘Why did you ask us to come here, Madam Bagshot?’ asked Tracey, raising her own voice. ‘Was there a message you wanted to give us, or an item from Dumbledore?’

Giving no sign that she had heard Tracey, Bathilda now shuffled a few steps closer to Harry. With a little jerk of her head she looked back into the hall.

‘You want us to leave?’ he asked.

She repeated the gesture, this time pointing firstly at him, then at herself, then at the ceiling.

‘Oh, right…guys, I think she wants me to go upstairs with her.’

‘Ok then,’ said Tracey. ‘Let’s she what she wants to show us.’

But when Tracey and Theodore moved, Bathilda shook her head with surprising vigour, once more pointing first at Harry, then to herself.

‘She wants me to go with her, alone.’

‘What?’ asked Theodore, and his voice rang out sharp and clear in the candlelit room; the old lady shook her head a little at the loud noise.

‘Maybe Dumbledore told her to give the sword to me, and only me?’

‘Harry, do you seriously think this ancient blind old lady knows who you are?’ whispered Tracey, her eyes screaming with apprehension.

‘Yes,’ said Harry, looking down into the milky eyes fixed upon his own, ‘I think she does.’

‘Harry,’ Theodore hissed, ‘I don’t trust this, something isn’t right…’

‘Theo, I’ll be fine…but if something goes wrong I’ll let you two know,’ said Harry, he then turned to Bathilda. ‘Lead the way.’

She seemed to understand, because she shuffled around him toward the door. Harry glanced back at his friends with a reassuring smile, but he was not sure they had seen it; both were looking at the different books and pictures in the room. As Harry walked out of the room, unseen by both Theodore, Tracey, and Bathilda, he slipped the silver-framed photograph of the unknown thief inside his jacket.

The stairs were steep and narrow; Harry was half tempted to place his hands on stout Bathilda’s backside to ensure that she did not topple over backward on top of him, which seemed only too likely. Slowly, wheezing a little, she climbed to the upper landing, turned immediately right, and led him into a low-ceilinged bedroom.

It was pitch-black and smelled horrible. Harry had just made out a chamber pot protruding from under the bed before Bathilda closed the door and even that was swallowed by the darkness.

‘Lumos,’ said Harry, and his wand ignited. He gave a start; Bathilda had moved close to him in those few seconds of darkness, and he had not heard her approach.

‘You are Potter?’ she whispered.

‘Yes, I am.’

She nodded slowly, solemnly. Harry felt the Horcrux beating fast, faster than his own heart. It was an unpleasant, agitating sensation.

‘Have you got anything for me?’ Harry asked, but she seemed distracted by his lit wand-tip. ‘Have you got anything for me?’ he repeated.

Then she closed her eyes and several things happened at once: Harry’s scar prickled painfully; the Horcrux twitched so that the front of his sweater actually moved; the dark, fetid room dissolved momentarily. He felt a leap of joy and spoke in a high, cold voice:

‘Hold him!’

Harry swayed where he stood: The dark, foul-smelling room seemed to close around him again; he did not know what had just happened.

‘Have you got anything for me?’ he asked for a third time, much louder.

‘Over here,’ she whispered, pointing to the corner. Harry raised his wand and saw the outline of a cluttered dressing table beneath the curtained window.

This time she did not lead him. Harry edged between her and the unmade bed, his wand raised. He did not want to look away from her.

‘What is it?’ he asked as he reached the dressing table, which was heaped high with what looked and smelled like dirty laundry.

‘There,’ she said, pointing at the shapeless mass.

And in the instant that he looked away, his eyes raking the tangled mess for a sword hilt, or a fang, she moved weirdly: He saw it out of the corner of his eye; panic made him turn and horror paralyzed him and he saw the old body collapsing and the great snake pouring from the place where her neck had been.

The snake struck as he raised his wand. The force of the bite to his forearm sent the wand spinning up toward the ceiling; its light swung dizzyingly around the room and was extinguished. Then a powerful blow from the tail to his midriff knocked the breath out of him. He fell backward onto the dressing table, into the mound of filthy clothing—He rolled sideways, narrowly avoiding the snake’s tail, which thrashed down upon the table where he had been a second earlier. Fragments of the glass surface rained upon him as he hit the floor. From below he heard Theodore and Tracey call, ‘Harry?!’

He could not get enough breath into his lungs to call back. Then a heavy smooth mass smashed him into the floor and he felt it slide over him, powerful, muscular.

‘No!’ he gasped, pinned to the floor.

‘Yes,’ whispered the voice. ‘Yesss…hold you….hold you…’

‘Accio...Accio Wand...’

But nothing happened and he needed his hands to try to force the snake from him as it coiled itself around his torso, squeezing the air from him, pressing the Horcrux hard into his chest, a circle of ice that throbbed with life, inches from his own frantic heart, and his brain was flooding with cold, white light, all thought obliterated, his own breath drowned, distant footsteps, everything going…

A metal heart was banging outside his chest, and now he was flying, flying with triumph in his heart, without need of broomstick or thestral…

He was abruptly awake in the sour-smelling darkness; Nagini had released him. He scrambled up and saw the snake outlined against the landing light. It struck, and Theodore dived aside with a yelp; his deflected attack hit the curtained window, which shattered. Frozen air filled the room as Harry ducked to avoid another shower of broken glass and his foot slipped on a pencil-like something—his wand—

He bent and snatched it up, but now the room was full of the snake, its tail thrashing; Harry heard Tracey scream ‘Vipera Evanesca,’ but nothing happened to Nagini. Theodore was nowhere to be seen and for a moment Harry thought the worst, but then there was a loud bang and a flash of red light, and the snake flew into the air, smacking Harry hard in the face as it went, coil after heavy coil rising up to the ceiling. Harry raised his wand, but as he did so his scar seared more painfully, more powerfully than it had done in years.

‘He’s coming! He’s almost here!’

As he yelled the snake fell, hissing wildly. Everything was chaos; It smashed shelves from the wall, and splintered china flew everywhere as Tracey jumped over the bed and Harry followed her as they both seized the dark shape they knew to be Theodore.

Theodore cried out with pain as the two friends pulled him back across the bed. The snake reared again, but Harry knew that worse than the snake was coming, was perhaps already at the gate, his head was going to split open with pain from his scar.

The snake lunged as he took a running leap, dragging the other two with him; as it struck, Tracey scream, ‘Bombarda Maxima!’ and her spell flew around the room, exploding the wardrobe mirror and ricocheting back at them, bouncing from floor to ceiling; Harry felt the heat of it sear the back of his hand. Glass cut his cheek as, pulling the others on with him, he leapt from bed to broken dressing table and then straight out of the smashed window into nothingness, their screams reverberating through the night as they twisted in midair.

And then his scar burst open and he was Voldemort and he was running across the fetid bedroom, his long white hands clutching at the windowsill as he glimpsed the bald man, the little woman, and the young teenager twist and vanish, and he screamed with rage, a scream that mingled with his vanishing targets, that echoed across the dark gardens over the church bells ringing in Christmas Day.

And his scream was Harry’s scream, his pain was Harry pain…that it could happen here, where it had happened before…here, within sight of that house where he had come so close to knowing what it was to die...to die...The pain was so terrible…ripped from his body…But if he had no body, why did his head hurt so badly; if he was dead, how could he feel so unbearably, didn’t pain cease with death, didn’t it go—

The night wet and windy, two children dressed as pumpkins waddling across the square, and the shop window covered in paper spiders, all the tawdry Muggle trapping of a world in which they did not believe…And he was gliding along, that sense of purpose and power and rightness in him that he always knew on these occasions...Not anger...that was for weaker souls than he...but triumph, yes...He had waited for this, he had hoped for it...

‘Nice costume, mister!’

He saw the small boy’s smile falter as he ran near enough to see beneath the hood of the cloak, saw the fear cloud his painted face.

Then the child turned and ran away…Beneath the robe be fingered the hand of his wand…One simple movement and the child would never reach his mother…but unnecessary, quite unnecessary…

And along a new and darker street he moved, and now his destination was in sight at last, the Fidelius Charm broken, though they did not know it yet…And he made less noise than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement as he drew level with the dark hedge, and peered over it...

They had not drawn the curtains; he saw them quite clearly in their little sitting room, the tall black-haired man in his glasses, making puffs of coloured smoke erupt from his wand for the amusement of the small black-haired boy in his blue pajamas. The child was laughing and trying to catch the smoke, to grab it in his small fist…

A door opened and the mother entered, saying words he could not hear, her long dark-red hair falling over her face. Now the father scooped up the son and handed him to the mother. He threw his wand down upon the sofa and stretched, yawning…

The gate creaked a little as he pushed it open, but James Potter did no hear. His white hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open.

He was over the threshold as James came sprinting into the hall. It was easy, too easy, he had not even picked up his wand…

‘Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off!’

Hold him off, without a wand in his hand..?He laughed before casting the curse...

‘Avada Kedavra!’

The green light filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it made the banisters glare like lightning rods, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut...

He could hear her screaming from the upper floor, trapped, but as long as she was sensible, she, at least, had nothing to fear…He climbed the steps, listening with faint amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in…She had no wand either…How stupid they were, and how trusting, thinking that their safety lay in friends, that weapons could be discarded even for moments...

He forced the door open, cast aside the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with one lazy wave of his wand…and there she stood, the child in her arms. At the last sight of him, she dropped her son into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead…

‘Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!’

‘Stand aside, you silly girl…stand aside now.’

‘Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—‘

‘This is my last warning—‘

‘Not Harry! Please...have mercy...have mercy...Not

Harry! Not Harry! Please—I’ll do anything—‘

‘Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!’

He could have forced her away from the crib, but it seemed more

prudent to finish them all...

The green light flashed around the room and she dropped like her husband. The child had not cried all this time. He could stand, clutching the bars of his crib and he looked up into the intruder’s face with a kind of bright interest, perhaps thinking that it was his father who hid beneath the cloak, making more pretty light, and his mother would pop up any moment, laughing—

He pointed the wand very carefully into the boy’s face. He wanted to see it happen, the destruction of this one, inexplicable danger. The child began to cry. It had seen that he was not James. He did not like it crying, he had never been able to stomach the small ones whining in the orphanage—

‘Avada Kedavra!’

And then he broke; He was nothing, nothing but pain and terror, and he must hide himself, not here in the rubble of the ruined house, where the child was trapped and screaming, but far away…far away...

‘No,’ he moaned.

The snake rustled on the filthy, cluttered floor, and he had killed the boy, and yet he was the boy...

‘No...’

And now he stood at the broken window of Bathilda’s house, immersed in memories of his greatest loss, and at his feet the great snake slithered over broken china and glass…He looked down and saw something…something incredible…

‘No...’

‘Harry, you’re ok, you’re going to be ok.’

He stooped down and picked up the smashed photograph. There he was, the unknown thief he was seeking...

‘No...I dropped it...I dropped it...’

‘Harry stop, it’s ok, you are safe, wake up!’

He was Harry…Harry, not Voldemort…and the thing that was rustling was not a snake…He opened his eyes.

‘Harry,’ Tracey whispered. ‘How do you feel, are you alright?’

‘Yes,’ he lied.

He was in the tent, lying on one of the lower bunks beneath a heap of blankets, looking to his side he could see Theodore unconscious in what was normally Tracey’s bunk. Harry could tell that it was almost dawn by the stillness and the quality of the cold, flat light beyond the canvas ceiling. He was drenched in sweat; he could feel it on the sheets and blankets.

‘We got away.’

‘We did,’ said Tracey, ‘but Theodore’s leg was broken and he fell unconscious from shock almost the second we arrived. I had to set up the tent and use Mobilicorpus to get you both onto bunks. Harry…you were…um…’

There were purple shadows under her dark hazel eyes and he noticed a small sponge in her hand. She had been wiping his face.

‘You were seriously ill,’ she finished. ‘Scarily ill.’

‘How’s Theodore?’ asked Harry, as he felt his own well being didn’t matter until he knew his brother was ok.

‘Theo is fine, I cast Brackium Emendo on him and gave him some Sleeping Draught, he’ll probably sleep until noon but he’ll be fine,’ she said, but her eyes never stopped focusing on Harry. ‘It’s you I was very worried about. I think, among other things, you were suffering from the snake’s venom, although thankfully it was no where near as bad as poor Mr Weasley…’

‘How long ago did we leave?’

‘About eight hours ago. The sun is nearly up.’

‘And I’ve been…what, unconscious?’

‘Er, not exactly,” said Tracey uncomfortable, ‘you were screaming, and shouting, and writhing violently…’ she added in a tone that made Harry feel uneasy. What had he done? Screamed curses like Voldemort, cried like the baby in the crib?

‘With how violently you were shaking I couldn’t administer any of my bottle of Antidote to Common Poisons, so the best I could do was cast Reparifor to try and mitigate any internal damage from the venom. I cleaned the bite, and because it was shallow I tried to use Murtlap Essence, but there must be some really dark magic in that snake’s venom because in the end I had to use the rest of my dittany to close the wound.’

‘Well thank you Tracey, I’m glad you were the one left conscious, I doubt Theo or I would have been able to-what’s wrong,’ as Tracey’s remorseful expression told Harry her story was not complete.

‘Th-the Horcrux, I couldn’t get it off, it welded itself onto your chest,’ she said, and Harry now knew she had seen something horrible while trying to heal him and she had to deal with it all alone. ‘I-I was only able to get it off using the Severing Charm, I used more Murtlap Essence and Burn-Healing Paste to heal and close the wound where the Horcrux had been, but I’m sorry Harry without anymore dittany it left quite a scar.’

He pulled the sweaty T-shirt he was wearing away from himself and looked down. There was a scarlet oval over his heart where the locket had burned him. He could also see the half-healed puncture marks to his forearm.

‘It’s ok Tracey, you did what you had to do. Where’ve you put the Horcrux?’

‘In my purse. I didn’t want to wear it while being the only conscious person here, and I think you should take a decent break from wearing it at all.’

He lay back on his pillow and looked into her pinched gray face. ‘We shouldn’t have gone to Godric’s Hollow. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault, Tracey, I’m sorry.’

‘Harry it is not your fault, I advocated for us to go too. I thought it was important for you to visit your parents grave and that we might find something important there.‘

‘Yeah, well…we got that wrong, didn’t we?’

‘I know you’re tired Harry, but I need to know. What happened? What happened when Bathilda took you upstairs? Was the snake hiding and waiting for you and kill her before attacking you?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘She was the snake…or the snake was her…all along.’

‘W—what?’

He closed his eyes. He could still smell Bathilda’s house on him. It made the whole thing horribly vivid.

‘Bathilda must’ve been dead a while. The snake was…was inside her. You-Know-Who put it there in Godric’s Hollow, to wait. You and Theodore were right. He knew I’d go back.’

‘Go back, the snake was inside her?’

He opened his eyes again. Tracey looked revolted, nauseated. ‘Remus said there would be magic we’d never imagined,’ Harry said. ‘She didn’t want to talk in front of you two, because it was Parseltongue, all Parseltongue, and I didn’t realize, but of course I could understand her. Once we were up in the room, the snake sent a message to You-Know-Who. I heard it happen inside my head, I felt him get excited, he said to keep me there...and then...’

He remembered the snake coming out of Bathilda’s neck; after all the body horror Tracey had already seen tonight, Harry decided she did not need to know the details.

‘…she changed, changed into the snake, and attacked.’

He looked down at the puncture marks.

‘It wasn’t supposed to kill me, just keep me there till You-Know-Who came.’

If he had only managed to kill the snake, it would have been worth it, all of it…Sick at heart, he sat up threw back the covers.

‘Harry, no, you should rest. I was about to give you some of the Sleeping Draught.’

‘You’re the one who needs sleep. No offense, but you look terrible. I’m fine. I’ll keep watch for a while. Where’s my wand?’

She did not answer, she merely looked at him.

‘Where’s my wand, Tracey?’

She was biting her lip, and tears continued to spawn in her eyes.

‘Harry...’

‘Where’s my wand?’

She reached down beside the bed and held it out to him.

The holly and phoenix wand was nearly severed in two. One fragile strand of phoenix feather kept both pieces hanging together. The wood had splintered apart completely. Harry took it into his hands as though it was a living thing that had suffered a terrible injury. He could not think properly. Everything was a blur of panic and fear. He held out the wand to Tracey.

‘Mend it. Please.’

‘Harry, I’m really sorry, but I don’t think that’s pos—‘

‘Please, Tracey, try!’

‘R-Reparo.’

The handling half of the wand resealed itself. Harry held it up.

‘Lumos!’

The wand sparked feebly, then went out. Harry pointed it at Tracey.

‘Expelliarmus!’

Hermione’s wand gave a little jerk, but did not leave her hand. The feeble attempt at magic was too much for Harry’s wand, which split into two again. He stared at it, aghast, unable to take in what he was seeing...the wand that had survived so much... The wand he had bought with Sirius by his side…

‘Harry,’ Tracey whispered so quietly he could hardly hear her. ‘It’s all my fault. When we were trying to keep the Snake away before we Apparated, the first charm that came to mind was the Bombardment Spell, but the snake is a Horcrux so it rebounded everywhere. My spell, it must have—must have hit—‘

‘It was an accident,’ said Harry mechanically. He felt empty, stunned. ‘We’ll—we’ll find a way to repair it.’

‘Harry, I don’t believe that we can,’ said Tracey, the tears trickling down her face. ‘When I took Ancient Studies we covered wand origins, wands are extremely complex and once they’re damaged it can’t be reversed. You’ll have to get a new one.’

Harry thought of Ollivander, kidnapped and held hostage by Voldemort; of Gregorovitch, who was dead. How was he supposed to find himself a new wand?

‘Well,’ he said, in a falsely matter-of-fact voice, ‘well, I’ll just borrow yours for now, then. While I keep watch.’

Her face glazed with tears, Tracey handed over her wand, and he left her sitting beside his bed, desiring nothing more than to get away from her.

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

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@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.

What do you think it would have been like if Lily and James had lived? What jobs would they have? Would they have stayed in Godric’s Hollow? Would James ever make the connection to the Three Brothers? And what about the Marauders? How different of a godfather would Sirius have been? Would Wormtail be involved in Harry’s life at all? What are your opinions?

Chapter one: the letters from no one

‘Mum, Dad I have a letter,’ shouted an overweight boy this was Dudley Dursley, ‘and Potter has one too.’ Harry Potter was Dudley’s cousin Dudley had blonde hair and was a bully to Harry who was skinny had untidy black hair and knobbly knees. He was with the Dursleys because both his parents had died, he thought in a car crash and he was left with a scar like lightning his mother’s sister his aunt Petunia and her husband uncle Vernon. Bring them in Dudders shouted aunt Petunia

Oh, Dudders it says here you have been accepted into Hogwarts. ‘Come again said Harry, Because I have too’

‘Ah well we have been keeping something secret from you all these years,’ said aunt Petunia. ‘Your parents were murdered by Lord Voldemort You and Dudders are wizards.’ ‘WHAT!’ shouted Harry ‘I’M A WIZARD!’ ‘Yes, you and Dudders are going to learn Magic.’ Harry looked at his letter again there was another piece of paper in it that said,

Dear Mr Potter I hope we find you well, we wished to tell you that you have been accepted Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry we inclose your book list and await your owl by no later than 31st of July

Hagrid the gamekeeper will come to your house to speak to your parents/guardians later

Thank you

Minerva mc gongall

So, this Hagrid could turn up any minute grunted uncle Vernon.

Then after a silent lunch aunt Petunia said Oh if my sister could see me now wondering which house my Didders will be in then uncle Vernon said imagine it Petunia

a Dursley at Hogwarts and you he said suddenly to Harry where will you get the gold from; we’re not splashing out for another 7 years. He had a point thought Harry then before he could think of a decent reply a CRACK!! Like a gunshot rang through the house ‘Hello I’m Hagrid I am here to see Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley, right can I see Harry firs.’ When Harry and Hagrid both sat down Harry burst out saying, ‘what aunt Petunia said was true me and Dudley are both wizards and were both going to Hogwarts?’

‘O course It's true Arry Potter not going to Hogwarts.’

‘But that means that my Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon have known since I first came to them and Aunt Petunia also said that a dark force killed my parents.’

‘Ah I am not sure I am the right person to tell you’

‘Go on Hagrid,’ pressed Harry.

‘Oh, right the first thing you need to know is that not all wizards are good some go bad and the one we’re talking about went as bad as they go his name was,’ at this Hagrid stopped, ‘his name was again,’ Hagrid stopped.

‘Why don’t you write it down?’ suggested Harry

‘Nah can’t spell it Voldemort he went to your house killed your Mum and Dad and then he tried to kill you then he vanished some said he died Codswallop in my opinion I don’t think he had enough human left in him to die Right, we better ask your cousin to come in.’ When Hagrid had gone Mrs. Dursley said Dudders is it OK if we move from privet drive to Godrics Hollow so that your friends at Hogwarts can come over to stay and Lilly used to live in Godrics Hollow so we can visit Lilly and James's grave. ‘DUDLEY!!’ ‘What is that your drinking?’ asked Mr Dursley. Dudley had a bottle of liquid ‘the big man gave it to me.’ ‘DUDLEY you’re shrinking.’ Indeed, Dudley was shrinking until he was the same size as a normal boy. The week after went by in a flash with the Dursleys putting their house up for sale and buying a house in Godrics Hollow. So, by the time the Dursleys moved to Godrics Hollow that Summer they had a great time looking for squib jobs (as Uncle Vernon wanted to feel as though part of the Wizarding world) and got a job at Hogwarts itself as the caretaker (Mr. Filch who was the old caretaker left to spend time with his cat Mrs. Norris) and setting up a bank account for Dudley, but what the Dursleys didn’t realise is thar Hagrid gave Harry a key, a key to the Potter vault (687) and that when they left him to get Dudley a broom and cauldron and an owl and cat that Harry went and withdrew 60 galleons and 15 sickles and 12 knuts( there is 17 sickles in a galleon and 29 knuts in a sickle) so he went and got an owl ( a white snowy)

A wand 11" long, made of holly, and possessed a phoenix feather core. Some books and an ice cream from Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Then when he met up with the Dursleys he was shocked to see that Dudley was carrying a owl and a cat and a rat and a spell book on cursing enemies and had his wand in his hand.

They Floo powdered home and there Dudley started picking on Harry saying, ‘how stupid will you look Potter no uniform no books not even a wand.’ ‘well’ said Harry ‘that is a risk I am going to take.’ So for Harry he was relived when September came along and they were boarding the Hogwarts Express, Dudley went with Harry as he was a bit scared because in the books he had read muggleborns like himself have had a lot of predijuice, there was only one carrige empty. They went to sit in it. They had only been there for 5 mins and then a boy with red hair and a smudge on his nose said ‘do you mind everywhere else is full.’ Harry said ‘ of course, I am Harry Potter. This is my cousin Dudley Dursley.’ The boy said ‘Harry Potter WOW, I am Ron Weasley’ ‘Hello Ron.’ Said Harry. ‘Hi’ said Dudley. They sat down just as the train started leaving. After a little while Ron started to talk about quidditch ( a magical sport with 7 players) when the trolley witch came along ‘anything from the trolly dear?’ ‘yes please.’said Harry dudley was already at the trolly getting everything he could lay his hands on, but he could not get everything he did not have enough money, Harry then got some food for him and ron to share

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I was reading the Sorcerer's stone and it just crossed my mind that Harry and Hermione and all other people were able to see the Potters' hiding spot. The strange thing is that the house was protected by the Fidellius Charm and can only be seen by the people to whome the secret keeper has revealed its location; in this case, Wormtail. He was alive when Harry and Hermione visited Godric's Hollow and they both saw the house in ruins.

I don't think the charm was broken because the same charm was cast at the House of Blacks and it was not broken when Sirius died.

Does anyone has any explanation to this or is it just a plot hole?

So, some of you - most of you - already knkw this, but J.K Rowling announced a long time ago that when Harrys parents were killed by Voldemort, Lily Potter was pregnant with her second child. She had convinced James to make amends with Severus Snape and they had even agreed that he would be the baby's godfather.