5: Godric's Hollow

Harry packed a backpack with a few essentials and convinced the discomfited Hedwig to let him open her cage without giving him an indignant nip. He scurried down to the kitchen with such noisy vigor that he earned his own private monologue from Lady Black. Finding that Hermione had not yet arrived, Harry briefly considered making a break for it, but fortunately a more primitive part of his psyche (one which avoided pain) won the battle. He'd told her where he was going; if he left without her, she'd hound him like back taxes.

Once the portrait grew bored and quiet again, Harry could barely make out a muffled voice echoing down through the chimney. Slinking up to the drawing room, he found Lupin face first in the fireplace, emerald flames licking ineffectively at his hair. "I know, Rufus, but this doesn't have to be a 'you're either with us or against us' situation. Look, I can't even tell you how tired I am of having this same argument. This conversation is over." Lupin pushed himself out of the fire, flicking his wand sharply to extinguish it and muttering, "Bloody stubborn son of a--"

Harry cleared his throat, causing Lupin to censor himself and whirl around. "Harry! Good morning!" His eyes narrowed as he took in the backpack. "Going somewhere?"

"Yes," said Harry firmly. "Godric's Hollow."

Lupin gave him a measured look, frowning. "Why there? Why now?"

Harry shrugged before he could stop himself. "I'm not sure, Remus, to be honest. I've just had a feeling I need to go there all summer. Longer, even."

Lupin nodded slowly. "I see. Why now?"

"Because if I'm going to make it back for the wedding, I better not tackle something big like a Horcrux just yet," he said with a winsome grin. Lupin smirked, shaking his head and grinning back.

"Can't sit still for four days, can you? That's fine, Harry. But you understand I won't let you go alone?"

"Hermione's already on her way--"

"Without someone from the Order, that is. No, Harry, I mean it, I know you've handled all sorts of scrapes, but you're not ready to face a band of Death Eaters without help. Look what happened back in the Department of Mysteries."

"You know very well that was an ambush, Remus," Harry argued. "Anyone would need help if they walked into a trap. I'm talking about going off somewhere that no one expects, just to have a look around, and a bit of a think."

Lupin folded his arms. "Do I need to point out that trouble always manages to find you?" It was Harry's turn to chuckle.

"Look, I just want keep a low profile. I don't want to go parading in with an honor guard like Diagon Alley; we should have just carried a neon sign saying 'Aim Curses Here.' Hermione and I blend in with Muggles better than anyone in the Order. They'll never even know we were there."

Harry realized that Lupin was looking past him, and turned. Mad-Eye Moody was standing in the door, listening intently. "Don't mind me," he said gruffly. "Always love to catch a bit of suicidal ranting whenever I get the chance."

Harry sighed. He never, ever should have answered that stupid phone. "Anyone else want to butt in?"

"I think I'm it," said Moody, "but we can wake Lady Black if you're set on a third opinion."

Lupin was staring off with a thoughtful expression. He turned back with a furrowed brow. "I wonder... Listen, Harry, I actually agree, it's easier to hide one or two than ten. Alastor, you're the surveillance expert, what can we do to keep an eye on him from here? So we can get to him quickly if there's trouble--particularly if he can't ask for help?"

Moody pondered that a moment. "Heh. Interesting question. A Foe-glass, you think? That would reflect what's around Harry, from far away... trouble is, that's focused magic, it'd be a compass needle pointing straight at 'im, to the right eyes. Need something more subtle."

"Sirius had something like that," mused Lupin as he stroked his chin. "He and James had these mirrors they'd enchanted. I found one of them when I was... putting away his things."

Harry once had the other one, but he had broken it in a fury.

"I never asked them how they did it," Lupin said thoughtfully. "They were the only ones who could use them; even for me, they were just mirrors. What do you think, Alastor?"

When Moody scowled hard enough with that battle-worn face, it resembled a lumpy bowl of porridge more than anything else. "S'gotta be a charm of some kind. A quick word with Flitwick." He stoked the emerald flames back to life, stepped into them, and disappeared.

Harry excused himself to check the kitchen fireplace. Hermione had just climbed out, and to Harry's surprise, Ron was right behind her. "You're coming too?!" he exclaimed with delight.

"If I don't get a break from Fred and George, I'm going to commit fratricide," said Ron, wrapping Harry in a bear hug.

"I'm sorry we were so long," said Hermione. "Mum insisted on packing sandwiches, and then we had to pick up some Muggle clothes for Ron."

"No worries!" said Harry. "I'm waiting on Moody anyway." As if on cue, Moody's characteristic step-thump, step-thump resounded on the stairs.

"Done and done!" boomed Moody, holding out a little round pendant on a chain. "Wear this, missy, an' don't let 'Arry out of your sight." Hermione took it from him, peering at it dubiously as she slipped the chain over her head. It was clear from her focus that she was looking into a mirror, but when she tipped it at Harry, he jumped. To him, the whole pendant consisted of Moody's magical eye.

"That's just nasty," said Harry, a bit too taken aback for niceties. Moody snorted in disdain; the sound came to Harry from both Moody and the locket.

Hermione looked at them uncertainly, as did Ron. "What?" she asked.

"Never mind," said Harry.

Hermione shook her head quizzically, raising the pendant high as she pulled the front of her blouse away from her throat. "DON'T put it in there," Harry gasped, when he realized her intent.

Moody snorted. "I'll have you know, Potter, I'm a gentleman," he said (in stereo).

When Harry explained the nature of the pendant, Hermione regarded it as though it had suddenly sprouted hundreds of hairy tentacles. She peeked up at Moody with an even more aghast expression; he simply folded his arms and winked at her. Ron had to cover his mouth with his hands to keep from laughing.

"Oh, that's right, if it's so funny, YOU wear it!" Hermione told Ron.

"But it doesn't go with my outfit," Ron protested with a chortle.

The three of them flew on broomsticks to Godric's Hollow under a Disillusionment Charm. This was carefully applied by Moody, and set to reverse itself when they landed. They were heading to the West Country, a lovely rural area with rolling hills and thatched cottages. Hermione took it upon herself to give them a rather academic introduction during their trip.

"All that's known about the Gryffindor family is that they were 'of wild Moor,' probably North Yorkshire. Obviously that's some distance from here, so it's really not certain at all why this would be named Godric's Hollow. If in fact it refers to Godric Gryffindor, though it's hard to imagine who else it could be. According to Hogwarts: A History, Godric's older brother found some powerfully magical object in the West Country, which contributed directly to the location they chose for Hogwarts. It may have been some sort of compass, or map. At any rate, this area undoubtedly became precious to their family after that, which is presumably why it's called Godric's Hollow."

"Yeah, well, there's also Dartmoor, where we're practically heading right now," said Ron. He ought to know, thought Harry, the Burrow was in the West Country as well. "Maybe it's called Godric's Hollow because he LIVED there."

"Of course!" Hermione snapped. "Maybe the Burrow was actually the Gryffindor family seat! Just because every knowledgeable sorcerer in Britain believes the Gryffindors are from Yorkshire..." Harry leaned into the wind until he couldn't hear the bickering anymore.

They had their pick of secluded spots in which to land. The village proper was only a few dozen houses; the rest of the Hollow comprised the wide open spaces of pastures and farms. They set down in a copse of elm trees and stowed their brooms in a long canvas bag made for Muggle skis. It would not be easy to explain why they would be hauling skis around the countryside in August, but better skis than brooms.

Since the sun was already on the horizon, they set out right away to find the Wizard tavern that Lupin had recommended. He had instructed them to walk to the north end of town along the main road, then perform a Revealing Charm on the back stairs of the Muggle schoolhouse on the left. They had landed just east of town, so this seemed straightforward enough. Unfortunately, when they reached the north end of town, they found a maze of chainlink fences and scaffolding. A bulldozer was parked on what was probably the former foundation of the school.

The three of them exchanged glances. "Three cheers for progress," groaned Harry.

"Do you suppose the entrance could still be there, under the rubble?" said Hermione.

Ron stared hard at the razed lot. "Hard to tell. It could be--all this is just Muggle construction. Though it'd be odd for the innkeeper to just sit tight and let them build Merlin-knows-what over his front door. I suppose it's worth a look, though." Ron dropped the bag of brooms and clambered easily over the flimsy fence.

"Ron! You're trespassing!" said Hermione reprovingly, but he trotted off in the twilight, wand in hand. Harry shrugged; they didn't have a lot of options, and now that it was getting dark, he'd much prefer to get indoors.

They watched as Ron navigated the dusty ground, stopping occasionally to mutter, "Aperio." He paced carefully around the big machines, even prodding the ground with his wand once or twice. He finally turned back to the others with a shrug, and called softly, "Nothing here!" To their surprise, the earth beneath Ron's feet promptly vanished, and he dropped completely out of view.

The two of them vaulted over the chainlink and had their heads over the edge of the hole in an instant. Ron was still on his feet, leaning against the side of a pit about eight feet deep. "That was rude!" he observed indignantly.

"What did you do?" demanded Hermione.

"I didn't do anything!" Ron sputtered. "The bloody ground just Vanished and dumped me in here. Oh," he said, noticing that he was standing before a battered looking doorway that led right into the earth. "I think I found the inn, though."

Ron flipped over a piece of cardboard hanging by a loop of string on the door. "Lumos," he said, pointing his wand at the sign. "The Green Dragon Inn is closed. Regretfully, The Management." He scowled up at Harry and Hermione. "Well, that's nice!"

Harry sat down at the edge of the pit. "Now what are we going to do?" he sighed.

Hermione knelt beside him. "Try the door anyway. Maybe the proprietor still lives there, we could at least ask where we might go next."

Ron nodded gamely, and knocked. The door swung inward about six inches. Ron immediately leapt in the other direction, to the far wall of the pit. When nothing else happened, however, he began to crane his neck in an attempt to peer beyond the door.

"Ron!" said Hermione urgently. "Climb out now!"

"Relax," he said. "There's a light somewhere in the back. Hello?" he called, and poked his head in the doorway.

"RON!" she hissed, but he merely waved behind his back at her in annoyance.

"Excuse me!" called Ron. "Is there anyone here?" He nudged the door wide open, letting his wand shine into the interior. There were a few dusty broken chairs in the room, and a countertop bar across the back wall. Ron stepped inside cautiously, but he saw nothing else; no bottles or mugs on the shelves, no wood in the bin by the fireplace. There was a light though, shining around the jamb of a door behind the bar. Ron pondered this a moment, then backed cautiously to the entryway. "I want to go knock on the back door," he called softly over his shoulder. "Harry, hop down here and watch my back, all right? Harry?"

Ron was suddenly saturated in adrenaline. He flung his back against the tavern wall, hissing "Nox!" to extinguish his wand. His throat constricted as he realized that Harry's feet were no longer dangling into the pit.

Everything was silent. Ron glanced quickly at the back door to assure himself it was still closed and the room still empty. He slipped quietly into the doorway and, from the darkness, scanned above the rim of the pit. Harry and Hermione were standing beside one another, and some sort of spotlight was trained on Harry's face.

Ron checked the back door again; it was still closed. He could Apparate out of the hole, perhaps ten, twenty feet on the side opposite his friends. That might put him behind whoever was holding the light. Then again, it might not, but the further away he went, the more difficult it would be to aim a hex. He might only have time for one shot. But if he could get the light off Harry and Hermione, they might be able to react. Twenty feet, then; he pictured the spot in his mind and Apparated.

Ron Disapparated with a loud crack, to find himself standing a few feet behind an old man, Muggle in appearance, beaming a powerful flashlight at Harry. Ron had his wand ready, but hesitated; something didn't feel right. The old man was shaking so hard that the batteries were rattling inside the flashlight. There was nothing in his other hand, no wand, no weapon. He hadn't even reacted to the sound from Ron's Disapparation.

Warily, Ron concealed his wand with his arm as best he could. "Do you need help, sir?" he asked, walking up to the old man as though he were some concerned passerby.

The man jumped and looked at Ron with wide, frightened eyes. "D-do you see that?" he asked in a high pitched voice, pointing at Harry.

Ron looked over at his friends in alarm. There was nothing behind them, nothing threatening them as far as he could tell. The combination of wands with Muggle clothes looked a bit odd, but didn't seem to justify the amount of fear in the old man. "Um, yes... there's two people there," he said cautiously.

"You see the man, then? Black hair?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?" His voice was becoming more urgent.

"Yes, I'm sure!" Ron was beginning to get irritated. "What's the game, then?"

"Lad," whispered the old man, "right there, that's a ghost, sure as I live and breathe. I'd know him anywhere, he was murdered nigh twenty years ago. James Potter."

Ron couldn't help but giggle with relief. "That's Harry Potter, sir. James's son."

"What?"

"Look at the eyes, sir. You'll see what I mean."

"Heavens above! Come here to me, lad!" The old man absently stuffed the flashlight into Ron's hands and approached Harry with his arms wide. He seemed so utterly delighted that Harry didn't have the heart to be dismissive. The old man put his hands on Harry's shoulders and looked at him in wonder. "Harry Potter. Who else could you be, you're just the image of the two of them. Hee hee!" Harry was suddenly being squeezed and clapped on the back, which felt incredibly awkward, but he patted the fellow gamely in return and hoped he'd let go soon.

"Look at me," the man said, stepping back, "cuddling you up like yer still a sprog. And you won't even remember me, do you, lad?"

Harry shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't."

"Ah, you was just a tot. Oh, lad, what a joy, never even thought you were alive, thought you were lost that night. I've got to get you home to my Birdie, she won't believe it's you. Can you come, Harry?"

"I, uh, where, exactly?"

The old man smiled fondly. "Ah, lad, never mind an old fool like meself. Name's Everett Gamidge. My Birdie and I knew your mum and dad. You once pulled all the buds off my prize rosebush!"

Harry smiled. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Gamidge. Again."

A brick path wound through a garden full of flowers before it came to the front door of the Gamidge's cottage. In his excitement, Everett had stomped straight through the beds to throw open the door and call his "Birdie," but Harry, Ron, and Hermione agreed with a glance to take the path. All three were somewhat relieved to see that Birdie was not a winged creature, but a plump, jolly matron with long white hair. She looked hale and sturdy, with dirt under her nails that must have come from those very flower beds. When Harry stepped in the cottage, he caught a whiff of cooked cabbage and cut flowers that didn't spark a specific memory so much as a certainty that he'd been here before.

After a round of warm introductions, Birdie piled a tray full of sandwiches and fruit and sent everyone into the living room to empty it. When Harry managed to confess, around a mouthful of ham and swiss cheese, that they had no place to sleep that night, the Gamidges insisted they stay in the cottage. Hermione was assigned to the small guest bedroom, and Birdie built nests for Ron and Harry in the living room.

"Your mum and dad were as dear as our very own, Harry," she said, sorting an armfull of throw pillows into two piles. "We met them, what, nineteen years ago. James was out walking and he saw my Everett slip and fall--that sort of thing can mean the end, you know, for a brittle old fool. I was in town when it happened. James helped him into the house and fetched your mum. She brought over something she'd cooked up, set him right as rain, praises be."

Harry glanced at Hermione, who raised a suspicious brow. If the old man had broken his hip, Lily must have concocted some sort of mending potion, like the ones Madam Pomfrey had in the hospital wing. I wonder what the Ministry would say about a witch secretly giving Muggles a medicinal potion, thought Harry. I doubt they'd approve... and I don't think I really care, or that Mom did either.

Birdie continued. "They were such a lovely couple. I'd look out the window on a frosty morning and there'd be James, salting the bricks so it wouldn't be too slick for us to take our walk. Never asked him to do it, he just saw the need and took it on himself to do what needed doing. The sort that keeps the world going round, I always say."

"And then you come along, Harry!" said Everett. "Hohoo, such a little armful! Our own have gone off to live in the big cities, you know, we've two in London and one in Copenhagen, so the grandchildren only came around so often, but you were Birdie's little sprog! Sometimes your mum and dad had to go off for a day or two, on business, and Birdie would go roost at your house for the night. They were so protective of you, they wouldn't even hear of having you come sleep here."

"Oh, Grandad," said Birdy affectionately, "you know how many things a baby needs; we'd have to haul it in a wagon over and back. Much easier for me to go there, where it was all put away and orderly. You were one to go through clothes, Harry-lad, always wriggling out of your diaper, you were."

"Piddled on me prize rosebush your first birthday," Everett grumbled, "though you could barely even walk at the time." Ron bellowed with laughter, as Harry began to wonder if this alleged prize rosebush had survived him.

At breakfast the next morning, Harry took a more serious tack with the Gamidges. "I was wondering if you could help me find my parents' graves today."

"Of course, lad," said Birdie, as she poured him more tea. "Grandad will have to do that, I can't get up the hill like I used to. You've never been up to them before?" Harry shook his head. Birdie frowned. "Good heavens, your auntie never took you? What's the matter with her?"

Harry didn't have an answer.

Everett spoke up. "I saw her at the funeral. Looked all pinched, she did, like she couldn't spare a drop of kindness for no one. Opposite of Lily. She never once mentioned she had you, Harry, we were all sure you were lost under the rubble. An' not a dry eye in the town, the whole family gone at once like that." He barely concealed the resentment in his voice.

"Now, Ev, you don't know she just did it to be ornery," chirped Birdie. "Maybe she was afraid they'd come after the poor tyke. Thought it safer to just let him be dead to the world."

"Who's 'they'?" said Harry, trying not to convey his desire for revenge along with his curiosity.

"Why, the ones who murdered James and Lily!"

Harry sat bolt upright in his chair, jostling the tea tray. "Do you know about them?"

Birdie glanced anxiously at Everett, pressing her lips flat. The old man scratched his balding head, then leaned forward to speak directly to Harry.

"Harry-lad," he said carefully, "I can see your auntie has kept all this from you, and she may have been right to do it. But don't get yourself worked up, lad. There's not much to tell, 'twas never solved, never even found a suspect, to my knowledge."

"Anything you could tell me would be very important to me," said Harry simply and sincerely.

"Aye, lad, that I guessed all by meself," said Everett gently. He sighed, settling back in his chair and reaching for a pipe, which he lit and puffed several times with a faraway expression before he spoke again.

"It was Halloween, so Birdie and I had been up handing out sweets, o'course. It got late but I wasn't sleeping too well--" ("Too much candy upset his stomach," whispered Birdie confidentially) "--and suddenly I hears this kaboom, just a terrible deep sound, really. I knew something 'orrible had happened. Thought perhaps some kids had gone out to make mischief, and came across a piece of live ordnance from the Great War. You hear about that sort of thing happening now and again.

"I woke my Birdie, but she wouldn't hear a word of it, said I was being a tom fool. But I knew that weren't no innocent little firecracker! I felt the hum of it in me bones, it had power behind it. I headed off toward town, but I couldn't see a thing, no fire, nothing. I rounded the hill, though, that was between your folks' house and ours, and there it all was. The house was just gone, not burning, not crumbling; it was spread out as though the sky itself had smashed it flat and then went on its merry way. I just stood there with my mouth open, thinking I had to be dreaming. How could a house just collapse into rubble, without a trace of fire or machinery, not even a hailstone?"

Harry recalled number four, Privet Drive for a moment; even that had involved a lot of charred wood.

Everett continued. "It was dark, of course, but I could hear movement. I thought it might be one of them, you know, trying to get out. I tried to get in there, to help, but it was just heaps of glass, rubble everywhere, you know, no place to get your footing." His voice began to shake, and he took another puff on the pipe. "I finally had to get up the hill, just to get a decent look into it all, see where they were, how I could get to them.

"By the time I got high enough to look into the pile, I could see a man at the far edge of it all, pulling out a body. I didn't get a very good look, but I could tell it wasn't Lily or James. Too big to be either of them. The bloke pulling on it was just hauling it over all that shrapnel without a thought in the world for the way it was ripping to shreds. I thought at first he was trying to save someone, but no one would be so careless. That's when I caught on that he was pulling out a cadaver, and in a hurry too.

"I knew there weren't any good reason to do such a thing, so I goes back down the hill and around the pile to confront him. He must have had a car right there, running, because they were both gone in the two minutes it took me to get down there. Not a trace.

"Of course, then it hits me that good heavens, Lily and James are still in there, what was I doing chasing after these blokes! The sirens were coming from town, the police could see to those two. I headed back up the hill; I figured if they made it, they'd be trying to push their way out from under the roof. When I turned around to look down..."

"Yes?" said Harry.

"I've never told this to no one, Harry, because until las' night, I didn't believe it myself. I thought I must have swooned." He cast a somewhat guilty glance at Birdie, who was glaring at him reproachfully. "The most enormous bloke I've ever seen was wadin' through the rubble like it was no more than a snowdrift. Looked like he was half bear, he did. He picked up a section of the roof that must've weighed a hundred kilos and just lofted it up like the lid to the toilet. It was sitting on the top of your little crib, Harry-lad, and you were laying inside it like a pea in its pod in the midst of it all. I even heard your little cry. He picked you up just so tender and carried you out... and then he handed you to... another bloke." He looked up uncertainly, as Birdie shook her head with growing incredulity.

Harry leaned forward. "I believe you. The giant... fellow, we know him. His name's Hagrid, and he does look like he's half bear."

"The big half," said Ron quietly.

"And the other one, let me guess," said Harry carefully, "he was on a motorcycle."

Everett's eyes grew as wide as the teacups on the tray. For a moment, he was too astounded to speak. "That... that's right, lad! I knew I had to be seein' things, 'cause I knew neither of them was there before I went up the hill, and yet I didn't hear or see a thing approaching, least of all a big chopper like that one. Good heavens, you know him, too?"

"Yes," said Harry in a choked voice. "That was my godfather, Sirius Black."

Both Everett and Birdie jumped. "I know that name!" said Birdie. "Lily spoke of him! We never met him, but they said he was a dear friend."

"Harry, I can't believe it... all those years I thought I'd lost me mind! But how did they--"

"I don't know," said Harry, hoping desperately that Everett wouldn't press him for explanations. "They've never really told me much about that night either. Aunt Petunia never let me see much of them," he added plaintively, and it wasn't exactly a lie.

Everett trembled all over for a moment, then puffed a few more times on his pipe. "I'll be," he said musingly, then finally looked back up at Harry. "Well, the big one, Hagrid, you say?" Harry nodded. "Hagrid... he waded back in right away, and found poor Lily right by your little cot. He let out a cry such as I'd never heard when he pulled the rubble off and found her dead. The other one, Sirius, jumped up like he meant to dive in there too, but he was so busy holding you. By then, though, the coppers were arriving, and the fire engine, fat lot of good it did, but I reckon they heard the boom and figured there had to be a fire.

"Anyway, the two of them lit out of there faster than anything I ever seen. Sirius just spun his motorbike around and roared straight toward the woods. Another reason I thought I'd dreamed it all; he was gone so quickly, with no road and a babe in his arms--it made no sense, unless he was some kind of angel that flew off with you. But even on Halloween, you don't think of angels as riding on a chopper! I didn't see where the big one went. I watched the bike, you see, thinking it was going to crash, with you on it--but there was no sound of crashing or anything at all, and by the time I looked back, Hagrid was just flat gone.

"The police came and pulled your poor mum out of the wreckage. They didn't find your pa 'til the next morning, when they could get a crane out. And o'course, no sign of you, but when they did find your little crib, it was crushed to matchsticks." Birdie nodded. "I thought I must have seen an angel," said Everett softly.

"I told the detectives about the third body, and the fellow pulling it out. They said they'd look into it. All the rescuers had trampled everything hunting for James, just on the off-chance, you know, so any footprints or tire tracks were wiped out. I never thought they put much stock into my story. Yet another reason not to mention the rest, why give them even more reason to think I was off my nut, eh?

"I think they finally blamed it on a 'gas line explosion.' But I know it was foul play, lad; those two that rushed off, they had a mean look to them. They were wearing long black robes, as if they'd come from a Halloween party, or, more like, some kind of secret society or summat. The sort of thing you read about and figure it's all rubbish--but when you someone sneak off a cadaver from a ruined house, you wonder just what's going on in hidden places."

Everett sighed sadly and patted Harry's shoulder. "I'm sorry, lad. Not much for answers. Come on, I'll take you up to the cemetery. You can have a good think up there in the quiet."

Harry nodded, then said, "I'd like to bring some flowers."

Birdie patted his cheek tenderly. "There's clippers in the shed out back. Take all you want, love, but I think you'll find you won't need many."

She was right. As Harry, Ron, and Hermione climbed the hill behind Everett, they didn't have to guess which graves must belong to the Potters. They were covered with flowers, the oblong diamond shapes of coffins perfectly outlined before two granite headstones. Birdie must have had something to do with this, but Harry knew the manicured perfection was not merely the product of muggle efforts.

Harry didn't need to ask his friends to let him go up to the graves alone. They exchanged the briefest glance amongst themselves, then Ron squeezed his shoulder warmly as he and Hermione turned wordlessly to a shaded bench nearby. Harry found himself oddly numb as he plodded up the hill, not the even calm he felt after performing Legilimency, but a sort of strained emptiness. I should be crying, he thought, or angry, something, he thought, yet nothing was coming to the surface.

There was a rosebush growing between the headstones, and as Harry approached, he saw a small granite marker below it. Walking up the grassy aisle between the plots, he bent on one knee to read the inscription:

In memory of Harry James Potter

lost to us with his parents

the candle that burns brightest

burns also fastest

Harry stared at the little rough-cut stone. I'm standing on my own grave, he mused ruefully for a moment. With a sudden angry impulse, he reach for the marker, meaning to hurl it as far as he could. But he stayed his hand, instead falling back to sit crosslegged on the ground and stare at it thoughtfully. He had been lost that night, ripped from not only the Muggle world, but the Wizard world as well; removed, along with Voldemort, into a separate universe. He had burned very brightly, opposite the utter darkness. Whether he was bright enough, or fast enough, remained to be seen.

Harry sat a long time between the headstones, breathing in the scents of roses and honeysuckle, and countless other flowers. He put a tentative hand to the ground over what was once his mother's head, wondering if there was some way to reach her with Legilimency. There was nothing there, though, not even a hint of presence--just a peaceful hillside where flowers went about their business turning sunshine into life.

"Here he comes," said Hermione quietly to Ron. They had assured Everett that they would find their own way back, and his shiny pate had already disappeared behind the hill. Hermione was a bit nonplussed to see that Harry had not been crying. She opened her mouth, but rather than speak, she just stood up and gathered him in her arms. He stood there woodenly, neither pulling away nor returning her embrace, conceding only to rest his chin against the side of her head. Ron made a few arrested attempts to place a comforting hand on Harry's back, then resolutely put his arms around them both.

Harry finally extracted himself. Though his eyes were dry, his voice broke when he tried to speak, and he had to cough to clear his throat. "I'm done here. I'd like to go back to that tavern, check out that light you saw, Ron." Ron nodded pointedly; he, too, wanted to hear a Wizard's perspective of Everett's story if one could be found.

The construction site was full of workers, but most were taking a lunch break. Harry and Hermione got under the Invisibility Cloak--there was just no way they could all three fit anymore, and since Hermione had that pendant that linked them to Moody, they all agreed she should stay with Harry--and carefully made their way to the spot where the pit had formed the night before. Harry planned to just walk up and stand on it as Ron had, but Hermione put her hand on his arm.

"Aperio Green Dragon!" she said softly, waving her wand, and in a much more civilized fashion, stairs appeared beneath their feet. They descended cautiously, as the only stairs they could see were directly beneath the cloak; the dirt outside the perimeter looked unchanged, as though the steps were leading straight into solid ground. But as they went further, new steps appeared, and finally they had gone far enough to see the entire staircase stretching before them, beneath what looked like a nearly transparent, tan canopy covering the familiar pit from last night.

Harry approached the door and knocked loudly, ignoring the cardboard sign. He and Hermione exchanged a frown. The bulldozer had started up again; it would take a miracle for anyone inside to hear a knock. Hermione shrugged and made a face, then pushed the door open wide.

"Hello?" called Harry into the public room, which was apparently used the same window charms as the Ministry of Magic, for daylight seemed to be streaming in despite the fact that the tavern was entirely underground. He stepped inside gingerly, looking for the back door Ron had mentioned. "Anyone here? I'm looking for Wizards--"

"You found one," said a voice from behind the door.

Harry jumped and spun around, to find himself facing a very small witch with a very long wand. He quickly raised both hands and took a step back into the light from the doorway, hoping that Hermione would keep out of sight. At that point, he realized that she couldn't help but do just that: he had walked out from under the Cloak to enter the tavern, leaving her entirely covered with it. A small part of his mind filed that maneuver away for future use.

The rest of him, however, peered down somewhat anxiously at a girl who could only be seven years old at most, glaring up at him with suspicious and frightened eyes. The wand was vibrating in midair from her trembling hands.

"Hi. Is there a grownup here?" said Harry politely.

"None of your beeswax!" said the girl loudly. "What do you want?"

Harry couldn't suppress a smile. "I'm trying to find some other Wizards is all. I'm... new in town, sort of, I just wanted to talk to people."

The girl eyeballed him warily. "My mummy said to Stun anyone that came through that door."

Harry nodded. "Well, you better do it, then. Do you know how?"

"Of course I know how!" she said with disdain.

Harry waited expectantly, resting his hands in a more comfortable position on top of his head. The girl wrinkled her whole face in concentration, then finally said, "Stupid fly." She looked absolutely dejected when nothing happened.

Harry furrowed his brow. "When I want to stun someone, I say 'stupefy,' you know. It's just one word."

"Stupafly," she said, flicking the wand.

"No 'L'," said Harry, then, slowly, "Stoop-eh-fie."

"Stupefy," she said, and the wand gave a bit of a hum. She began jumping up and down, a gap-toothed grin from ear to ear.

"You almost got it! That's great! Settle down and concentrate, though, and point your wand."

"Stupefy! Stupefy!" she shouted, and two red bolts of energy lobbed past Harry's left elbow, one carving a tidy hole in the edge of the door.

"Look at you!" Harry cheered. "But you never aim at the head--"

"I know, I know," she said sullenly. "I'll take someone's eye out."

"No, no, it's just easier to hit someone when you aim for their chest or middle. Those are bigger."

The young witch nodded with solemn comprehension, then beamed at Harry. "Can you play?" she asked amiably, apparently deciding to forego the actual stunning process.

At that same moment, however, two grown-up sorcerers came bursting through the back door of the tavern. Harry kept his hands firmly on his head and hoped they would ask questions first before resorting to wands. His new little friend looked quite dismayed; this was worse than getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar, thought Harry.

"Calliope," said the man in a frigid tone, "back away from him. Now." She obeyed, glancing guiltily between Harry and the man, presumably her father.

"What do you mean, barging in here?" asked the woman. "The sign says we're closed."

"I'm sorry," said Harry. "I was hoping to find some Wizards. I didn't know where else to look."

"You a Wizard, then?" said the man menacingly.

"Yes." Harry figured he'd better play it cool and simple for the moment.

"Turn where I can see you." Harry obeyed. "Do I know you?" But even as he said it, the woman gasped in recognition; this was one of the rare moments that Harry was glad he had his scar.

"Uther, that's Harry Potter!" she said in astonishment.

Explanations followed, and after a quick trip under the Invisibility cloak to fetch Ron, Uther and his wife Lachesis un-Vanished tables and chairs in the public room and set out a chicken pie for lunch. Calliope curled contentedly in Harry's lap, ignoring the food in favor of a toy dragon. Harry felt a bit ashamed that he waited for his hosts to eat several bites before trying some himself, but Moody's magical eye had glared at him from Hermione's pendant. Something told Harry that the Auror would be in the room in an instant if he just picked up his fork and dug in.

Harry finally asked his hosts if they had been in Godric's Hollow the night his parents were killed. They had. "We were asked to help modify the Muggles' memories that night," said Lachesis. "Uther used to be at the Ministry. We wanted to get out of the city before we raised a family. We'd barely had time to settle in before You-Know-Who struck right on our doorstep."

"Did they modify Everett Gamidge?" asked Harry pointedly. Uther and Lachesis eyed each other apprehensively.

"I was assigned to him, Harry," said Uther cautiously. "He told me what he saw, and I looked at the memory. I... understood it much better than he did." Harry leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table, but Uther stared at the scraps on his plate, rubbing his chin. He exhaled heavily and ordered Calliope out of the room, which naturally met significant resistance. Lachesis finally persuaded her to help bake a cake for Harry, and ushered her through the back door.

"Harry, you have to understand," said Uther, "only my wife knows about this. Everett and Birdie are from an old, old family, they're pillars in this community, and I respect them. But the old man saw more than he ever should that night--and I saw more than I should, when I checked his memory.

"He'd arrived just minutes after it had happened. He saw someone lugging You-Know-Who's body out of the rubble. I couldn't believe it the first time I went through it, or the second or third, for that matter. But there was no mistake, Everett got a very good look at his face. The other one, though..." Uther paused, grinding his teeth.

Harry waited, never dropping his gaze from Uther.

"Ev didn't see the other one. He had a big hat on, and he was leaning down to drag the body; his face was completely in shadow. But he was pulling the body into a car. A Ministry car, Harry! I hadn't been gone from the Ministry six months when this happened, I'd know them anywhere.

"If only there'd been a bit more light! All I could see was the shape, not a single other detail. Ev didn't even register the car, he was so fixated on the two men, but I could spot it in the background of his memory. The poor gaffer, he shuffled back down the hill as fast as he could, but they were long gone by the time he got there. Of course, if they'd seen him, they'd have killed him on the spot. He was lucky."

Uther paused uncomfortably. "I knew Sirius Black. He and Potter came in here a few times after we took over the management. And everyone who's been to Hogwarts since the Great Muggle War knows Hagrid. I never believed a word in the Prophet about Black after the way Hagrid handed that little baby to him. Especially not after seeing someone at the top of the Ministry hauling off You-Know-Who. You never read about that in the Prophet, did you?"

The acid from Harry's stomach was doing a slow, burning climb up his throat. "Someone from the Ministry pulled him out of the rubble." Uther nodded. "To hide the fact that he'd been killed?"

Uther cocked his head. "Could be. Who knows? Maybe they just wanted a private trophy. But there was no one else there yet, no one. That car didn't have time to just happen upon the scene, not to mention get right in and find You-Know-Who just like that. The car, and the driver, had been there all along, Harry, waiting outside when the house was destroyed."

"And they went in to pull out Voldemort, not Lily or James!" said Hermione in a shocked voice. Uther nearly knocked his chair over backwards when she said the name.

"Come on, now, it's nothing new," said Ron in disgust. "There's always been Death Eaters infiltrating the Ministry. Rookwood. Crouch--or at least his son. Malfoy--he may not be a Minister but you can bet he could borrow a car any time he wanted, right up 'til he got tossed into Azkaban."

Harry nodded. It was not hard to imagine someone like Malfoy borrowing a Ministry car for an evening. "It's true, it might not have been a Minister."

Uther shook his head. "Perhaps not, but I'll tell you one thing: that car wasn't from the general fleet. It was a private Ministry automobile, and those only belong to high-ranking officials. Someone up at the top of the Ministry of Magic had You-Know-Who's body in their car, and whether they did the driving or just lent it to a 'friend,' they never let that fact be known."

Uther shook his head. "I didn't know what to do except keep it quiet. They'd have no qualms about doing to me and mine what they did to the Potters! I sent Everett home and filed a false report about his memory and the mods I'd done. All I did was blank out the fact that he and I had spoken. I left the truth there, intact.

"By the time Ev got out of bed the next day, the Ministry was long gone and the Muggle detectives weren't interested in a dotty old man's story about a third body being hauled from the scene. I guess he figured out for himself that no one was going to buy the parts about giants and motorcycles driving through trees."

Uther spoke urgently. "Harry, you can't go back to the Gamidges. I'm going over there now to get your things and modify both their memories; I'll have to just cut out the last twenty-four hours. They can't walk around town, telling people that they saw Baby Harry all grown up."

Harry's jaw fell. "But they were so happy!" he protested in a squeaky voice.

"They were happy before they saw you, too. But if You-Know-Who or the Ministry gets wind of this, they'll be dead. And probably not quickly, unless they're lucky."

Everyone at the table sat in silence for a moment as that sank in.

"But," said Hermione miserably, "what would Vol-sorry, You-Know-Who even be doing here? That was sixteen years ago!"

Uther waved his hand at the interior of the tavern. "Why do you think we're closed down? Three weeks ago, a man came in here asking about the Potters. Did anyone still live here who had known them, where could those people be found, that sort of thing. He didn't have a Dark Mark, but he looked as though he were either under the Imperius or a mortal threat. He was a nervous wreck, stuttering and twitching; mixing up his words; winking and shaking his head after he'd ask something as though to say 'don't answer that.' Cleared the whole place out. I told him I'd just taken over the inn when the Potters were killed, that I'd had no time to get to know them at all, which was all true. I just left off everything about the Gamidges. The next morning, the bloke pays his bill and leaves, shaking all over. An hour later, the schoolhouse explodes right over our heads. Thank goodness it was summer holiday!"

All three of them sat back, dumbstruck. Uther nodded. "I've always had top-of-the-line protective spells on this place, for sixteen years. I knew that wasn't the last we'd see of trouble."

At that point, Calliope burst through the back door, proudly carrying a slightly lopsided cake. "'Zert time!" she announced. Uther slipped out the back door to visit the Gamidges while Calliope carefully sliced and served cake to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. She scraped a huge section of frosting onto her own plate.

"I heard Daddy telling you about that man," she said coyly. Harry simply nodded, not certain that his host would appreciate him interrogating his little girl. Fortunately, that was all the prompting she required. "I knew who he was."

The three of them nearly crashed their heads together as they leaned forward eagerly at this bit of news.

"Mummy and Daddy didn't recognize him, but I've seen him before. Back on Diagon Alley. He was the man from the ice cream store."

"Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour?" said Harry cautiously.

"Yep! We used to go there when I was little. He was nice, he always gave me all the sauce as I wanted on my sundaes."

Harry looked up at Ron and Hermione. Florean Fortescue had disappeared more than a year earlier. "Calliope, do you think you could get me a glass of milk for my cake, please?"

The door had barely swung closed on the hem of her robes when Hermione spoke up. "I've had a theory about this for a long time. You used to hang around at Fortescue's, Harry, that time you stayed at the Leaky Cauldron?"

"Yeah. He gave me ice cream all day. And helped me with an essay I was working on."

"It probably looked, at least to passersby, that you two had become friends, don't you think?"

Harry glanced at her, then Ron. "I suppose. He came out and talked whenever things were quiet."

Hermione turned a bit pale. "Now, Harry, I don't want you to get all defensive about this, but I think he might have been taken so Voldemort could learn more about you."

Harry bristled, but he could also begin to see the correlations forming. "Keep talking."

Hermione eyed him cautiously, but continued. "We know that Voldemort caught on that you were using Legilimency against him, just like he was using it against you. After, what, five years of having a connection to you, he had to cut you off. But that was right when the entire Wizard world started screaming about you and the Prophecy--the worst possible time for him to lose his link to you. He's afraid of you, Harry. He wants to learn all about you, so he can prepare himself, predict your attack, make himself feel safer."

Ron made an appalled face. "Since when do you know all about how Vol-Voldemort feels?" Harry beamed at him proudly; they were getting better about the name, no doubt about it.

Hermione peered down her nose. "He's just a man, Ron. The sooner you start thinking of him as having the same frailties as the rest of us, the better."

Ron grimaced skeptically. "Hermione, sometimes you really creep me out."

She sniffed and turned back to Harry. "Anyway, I was saying: he can't sneak up and study you anymore. He needs spies, or other people who know you. Where's he going to look for people like that? He can't get to anyone in the Order, at least not easily. He can't get to the staff at Hogwarts. How many other people know you, Harry? He could have come after me, or Ron, or Neville, I suppose, but we're just kids, right? He wouldn't trust us to understand you and your motives like an adult would."

"He could ask HIM," said Harry in a malevolent tone. Ron and Hermione knew exactly who he meant.

"Maybe, certainly he could now, but a year ago, who knows? But it's not as though you ever told Sn-HIM anything personal, you hated each other! Voldemort needed an adult that you liked, maybe even trusted, someone who could give him solid, objective facts about how you think, how you solve problems. Sn--HE knows a little about where you're weak or vulnerable, but he can only guess at how you're strong! But Fortescue, there's a fellow who sat around and shot the breeze with you while plying you with ice cream, every day for two weeks."

"But all we were talking about was History of Magic, Hermione!" Harry said it almost pleadingly. He didn't want Fortescue to be captured and tortured on his account. How empty did his world have to be, in order to keep people safe from Voldemort? Harry was incredibly glad that Uther had gone off to set the Gamidges straight.

"History is essentially the study of war and tactics, Harry--exactly the kind of thing Voldemort would want to know about you! Besides, he wouldn't know what you'd talked about until after he'd captured Fortescue!"

"Or Fortescue went to him," said Ron vehemently. "You're both assuming the bloke is an innocent victim here, and you don't know that. He could have handed over what he knew about Harry willingly! The fact that he's still alive might even have something to do with that, eh?"

Hermione looked a bit subdued. Harry nodded, not looking at either of them, then spoke. "You're right. We don't know how Fortescue got in this situation, only that right now, he's been out gathering information about my parents. Their friends, actually. Which means Voldemort expected me to come here, and wanted to know where I'd be going, who I'd be talking to. He probably tried to blow up the inn to make sure I'd have nowhere safe to stay when I came." He sighed. "I imagine Fortescue knew I was curious about my parents; it probably came up at some point in the conversation." Hermione and Ron exchanged a glance; neither had the heart to tell him that this was as plain as the scar on his forehead.

Calliope skipped into the pub at that point, gave them all an utterly flustered look, then dashed back through the rear door. "I think she forgot the milk," said Ron.

At Lachesis's urging, Harry, Ron, and Hermione spent the night in the Green Dragon. Harry no longer desired to put anyone else in the Hollow at risk by inquiring about his parents. Lachesis had recommended they visit the muggle library, however; they could at least look at newspaper articles from that time.

After a breakfast of cold bacon and bread, they set out for the library, which was essentially the basement of a large manor house that served as Town Hall, courthouse, jail, and community center. Although Harry was curious about newspaper clippings, he went cold at the thought of peering at reels of microfilm, not knowing when he might suddenly land on a photo of his former home. Hermione offered to go through the films first, and Harry gladly accepted.

Wandering through the library, he noticed a peculiar tingling in his palms and the soles of his feet as he passed the shelf in the furthest corner of the room. It happened more than once, and he motioned Ron over to his side. "You feel that?" he asked.

Ron looked puzzled. "Feel what?"

"Walk this way, behind this last row." Harry steered him around the to the far side of the shelf. Ron's shudder as he stepped past the bookcase told Harry all he needed to know. They exchanged a pointed look and began carefully scrutinizing the shelves and their contents; there was something magical there, though neither of them had ever encountered anything quite like it before.

When a meticulous search turned up nothing, Harry tossed his head casually toward the librarian, who, like Madam Pince, apparently considered the reading or handling of books an act of sacrilege. Ron immediately sauntered to a shelf on the other side of the room and began pulling books down, holding them open in mid-air with one hand and flipping pages with a rough snap. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry watched the librarian eyeing Ron in agony; she was unwilling to leave her desk, however, which had an optimized viewpoint of all the shelves. When Ron began to mutter "Oho!" and fingered the corners of the pages as if to dog-ear them, however, her resolve broke and she bustled across the room.

Harry quickly yanked his wand out of the back of his shirt (he'd tucked the handle into his belt and let it rest against his spine, since there was nowhere in these summery Muggle clothes to comfortably conceal an eleven-inch wand) and muttered every revealing spell he could think of as he waved it at the shelf. Nothing happened. He tried spells both to open doors and unlock them, with no results. Ron was going be thrown out of the library any second now, and Harry knew he would undoubtedly be deemed guilty by association by the librarian. For lack of a better idea, he whispered, halfheartedly, the incantation to open the Marauder's Map: "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Those could not have possibly been the correct words, but perhaps all that mattered was the intent behind them, for at that moment a beautiful red book appeared on the shelf. Harry snatched it up, stuffing his wand down the leg of his jeans and giving the book the place of honor in the back of the waistband. He hoped the Muggle T-shirt was thick enough to obscure it. "I'm so sorry," he called to the matron, who was attempting to delicately but firmly remove a copy of Dante's Inferno from Ron's grasp. "Please excuse my brother! He has a rare form of epilepsy, he doesn't even know what he's doing when he's like this. Come on, Ronnie," he urged, handing Ron's book to the librarian and guiding him to the door, keeping his back toward the opposite wall as she watched them exit, seething.

When Hermione emerged half an hour later, she shoved a handful of copied microfilms into Harry's hand and proceeded to cloud up and rain all over them. "She almost threw me out too, you know! I had to lie and tell her I'd never seen you two before, but we'd ridden the same bus here and you'd been acting funny the whole way. What's the matter with you idiots?"

Harry and Ron were honestly trying to acknowledge, fairly, that they'd embarrassed her, but they were both so impressed by her off-the-cuff explanation that their faux humility fell apart. Ron actually scooped her into his arms and swung her around in an arc, laughing.

Harry beckoned her to sit beside him on a concrete bench in the square, where he could conceal the book in his lap as he showed it to her. He explained how he'd found it, but realized that she wasn't paying any attention; she was turning the pages reverently. She was so completely engrossed in the writing that she didn't even notice when Harry stopped speaking in mid-sentence. It dawned on Harry that magical books were not always benign, and he waved his hand a bit frantically in front of her eyes. She looked up at him with a rapturous expression.

"Harry... you know I've taken Ancient Runes," she began.

"Yes..." said Harry, twirling his hand in the air to encourage her to continue.

"I've only seen writing like this in the advanced textbooks Professor Rumil let me borrow," she said in an awestruck voice. "These were the 'ancient runes' that people studied, back when what we call ancient runes were the common tongue! And these--" she gently turned back to a page written in a different script, which was indented like a poem, "--I think this might be the Primary Tongue of the Eldest. Harry! Ron!" She stared elatedly at each of them in turn. "This is the language of the first Wizards on Earth!"