Find the Hallows in the Hollow
Monday, January 13th
Everything hurt. That was the first, and really only, thing Harry could acknowledge when he opened his eyes again, other than that he was awaking from a world of darkness to the all too bright sunlight. And cold air. It was much too cold.
But someone was saying his name, with urgency too, which had to mean they needed him.
Something was wrong. Why else would he be in so much pain? Where was he? Where had he been last?
The Ministry, Crouch, Percy. Not Percy, his sore brain supplied, because Ron’s brother had clearly been imperiused when he tried to apparate the kids to who knows where.
Ron. He was yelling his name.
“Harry!”
Groaning, he forced himself to sit up, rubbing at his head and glancing around. All he saw was snow covered grass, but to his right Draco lay, slowly turning as Prongs began to lick at his face. And to his left was -
“Harry!” Ron, Hermione laying on his lap and looking, thankfully, totally unharmed. Though he unfortunately looked to have gotten harmed himself in the journey, which explained his screaming. This was clearly evident in the fact that his shirt sleeve was bleeding horrifically, as he fumbled with the buttons of his shirt to remove it so they could remedy it with… something.
“Harry, what do we do?” He said, wincing and crying out suddenly as Harry ran forward and tried to press his Runcorn’s cloak down on the newly exposed arm.
“Sorry, sorry, but we have to stop the bleeding, Ron.”
“Ugh… Can’t we wake Hermione? She might know how to -” He cut himself off by screaming again as Harry tugged his cloak into a knot around his arm, forming a splint.
“Sorry,” He mumbled again, and turned around to grab his rucksack off the grass, reaching in the front pocket for the miniature car and retrieving his wand but freezing, feeling an unending sense of helplessness when he remembered they weren’t in the Ministry anymore; they were in the middle of nowhere and the Death Eaters would surely catch them if he so much as made tiny sparks out of this wand.
Just then he heard a shaky voice whisper, “Engorgio.” however, and turned to see Hermione was raising Ron’s wand and pointing it at the car, which immediately enlarged to its original size. Hermione, who was perfectly of age and able to do spells without retribution. Add that to the list of reasons they needed her.
“Thanks,” siad Harry hurriedly as he sprung to his feet and threw open the doors, digging through Ron and Draco’s trunks for anything that might help them. He recalled the Half-Blood Prince’s book (Snape’s, his brain supplied, but he pushed that thought down real quick) and the various potions that could be used for healing, but it wasn’t like any of them had one at the ready and they couldn’t brew it up in seconds anyway -
“Dittany,” he jolted at the sound of Draco’s voice, and looked over to see him rolling onto one side, coughing up blood. “Grab the Dittany, it’s a small bottle.”
“Right.” He scrambled around threw books and clothes and dog treats and at one point felt a cauldron, but any bottle he removed from either trunk didn’t say ‘Dittany’ on it and Ron was getting paler and he was getting more anxious by the minute and if he didn’t find something soon -
“Accio Dittany!” He startled as a bottle flew from Draco’s trunk and into Hermione’s hand. Hermione who, ever as brilliant as she was, was now proving to be a brilliant help half-conscious and only recently saved. Honestly it was bizarre how the boys had survived a week without her.
Immediately, she got to work on Ron’s arm, Ron, who had fainted at this point, Percy’s glasses slipping off his nose, his hair growing longer and fuller as the Polyjuice wore off. Carefully, Hermione removed Runcorn’s haphazardly wrapped cloak and poured three drops of the Dittany onto Ron’s wound, which heeled within seconds, greenish smoke rising off it and when it cleared, leaving dried, deadenned skin that looked to be several days old in its wake.
Harry felt breathing in his ear and turned to see Draco had arrived, pale hairs cutting through Marchbanks’s chestnut brown head, the little color he had naturally returning to his cheeks. His face mimicked Harry’s own wonder at the healing magic.
“That’s all I feel safe doing,” Hermione leaned back, swaying slightly. “Especially in this state…”
She looked about to tip over, so Harry placed his hands on her shoulders gently. She gave both he and Draco a watery smile.
“That was brilliant, Harry,” she whispered. “You pulled us out of apparition, I could feel it. It’s a wonder we didn’t get hurt worse.”
“I think I did,” Draco ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth, tapping it with his fingers, and showed them fresh red blood. “Just a bit of skin in my mouth though. Feels sore but…” His eyes trailed down to Ron’s arm. “Not as bad as this.”
As if on cue, Ron rolled his head back and released a light groan, blinking and opening his eyes, which faded from brown to blue, the final trait turning him back to Ron Weasley at the same time Draco’s nose stretched and pointed. Harry was sure he now looked permanently like himself again too.
“How do you feel?” Hermione asked, leaning forward to press a hand against his cheek. He smiled, in spite of all the pain he must be in, and held it there, gazing into her eyes and simply drinking in her presence. Harry couldn’t imagine how he’d feel if he had to wait a week to save Draco’s life only to watch him get tortured repeatedly and dragged through the mud with words while he was helpless to stop it.
“Better, now we have you back.” She blushed, and the other boys looked away politely as they gently kissed.
“Where are we?” Ron asked once he’d pulled away, pushing himself to sit up, Hermione gently laying her hands on her to steady him.
“I dunno,” Harry said. “Somewhere between London and wherever Percy was taking us, I suspect.”
“I saw a glimpse of my house,” Draco said, standing and looking around them. “I think we’re in the acre a couple miles out from it. Mother used to take me here all the time, to pick apples in the summer.”
It was January, however, so the trees Draco now gestured to were barren and almost dead-looking, the branches shaking in the cold wind or otherwise layered with snow. Still, it did appear to be a beautiful orchard of some kind, something Harry could picture a much younger version of the man he loved running around in, Narcissa standing on the arm of Lucius a few feet away, laughing at their son.
A vision of a happier life Draco had had once and would never have again, but still something he at least had memories of. Bitterly, Harry wondered what orchards he’d ever get taken to with James and Lily, if life had been different.
Maybe it was that train of thought that connected the dots in his mind, and made him suddenly brighten, looking around at his surroundings with a new light.
“Wait… the Manor’s in Wiltshire… Isn’t Godric’s Hollow in Okehampton? We might be able to walk from here and get there in only a matter of days!” He turned to his friends to see their reaction to this, and saw them looking at each other, the knowledge falling into place in their minds.
“You’re right…” Hermione’s lips tilted upward at the sides. “It’s as if… We’re meant to go there, right?”
“I had a good feeling about it ever since the library, Hermione,” he picked up the rucksack from the ground, slinging it over his shoulder, as if ready to go back to his birthplace at that very moment.
But then his eyes found Ron, barely a foot off the ground, pale as a sheet and looking sick at the prospect of moving anymore. Of another fight after the horror of nearly getting stuck inside the Ministry, or even possibly the Manor, by his own brother’s hand. Harry, Hermione, and Draco would be the only ones able to go on the journey, and they couldn’t just leave Ron behind, especially so close to the Manor.
“We’ll stay for now, though,” he said suddenly, dropping the bag once more. “And Hermione can put up some protection for us, right? So no one can catch us.”
“Right,” she stood up abruptly, striding over with Ron’s wand still in her hand, and holding it up and beginning to mumble spells he didn’t recognize. He looked over at Ron, watching for his reaction, but only seeing him shrug his un-wounded shoulder and lay back down, staring up at the cloudy sky.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked over to see Draco smiling gently at him.
“It’ll be alright. Ron will get better and those Hallows won’t be going anywhere.” Harry nodded.
“If they’re even there!” Hermione called over her shoulder to them, but Draco squeezed his boyfriend’s shoulder.
“They are,” Harry whispered, to which Draco couldn’t disagree. “I can feel it.”
They pitched a tent they’d managed to steal from Mr. Weasley while he and Molly were dropping off Ginny at King’s Cross, and only when all four were inside, sat upon the couch they’d once had animated discussions of the Quidditch Cup on, did the boys finally feel comfortable broaching the topic of what had happened to her with Hermione.
So they listened, for nearly an hour, as she went over her ride to Hogwarts, when Luna had mysteriously been absent. The arrival of the Carrows and Snape being made Headmaster, and Umbridge announcing all Muggle-borns would be banned from the school and those of age would be taken to trial, which was how Hermione had ended up on the floor, screaming and convulsing, before being dragged to the Ministry.
There she’d stayed in the cells on the 10th floor for the whole week the boys had spent planning how to break her out, getting minimal food and drink, and too many visits from Crouch Jr just to torture for her to count.
She did learn some things from him, however.
“He kept trying to ask me where Draco was too. I think he thinks, because he was the one to kill Dumbledore, that the wand belongs to him; that You-Know-Who will kill him unless he gets the wand from you, Draco.” she explained at the end of her story, as Harry handed her an apple out of the basket he’d left to fill with fruits from the orchard around them a few minutes ago.
“Good riddance,” said Draco, picking a brilliantly green apple from the basket and biting into it, then, eyes widening, he chewed and swallowed quickly to ask, “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”
Hermione smiled, miming sealing her lips with a zipper and he sighed.
The apples weren’t good, being so late in season, but at least the friends all got something in their stomachs before they started yawning profusely and called it a night, settling into their separate cots in the massive tent.
Harry stayed awake for a few minutes, staring up at the cloth ceiling.
All the things they'd done today, and all they had yet to do ran through his mind as he cast his eyes around the room at Ron, wincing every time he tossed or turned, Hermione curled up as securely as she could get, brows drawn together as she faced demons in her sleep, and then beautiful Draco, staring right back at him, blinking his sparkling gray eyes.
Wordlessly, he slid out of his bed and padded across the carpet over to Harry, slipping under his covers and holding his hands. They warmed each other up with not just body heat but emotion, pressing their foreheads together and staring into each other’s eyes deeply.
“I’m scared, Harry.” Draco’s voice came out in such a small whisper there was no possible way anyone but Harry could’ve heard it.
“I know. But we aren’t going to let Crouch or Vol -” Draco winced and he corrected himself quickly. “You-Know-Who or anybody else get to you.” Without hesitation, Harry closed the gap between them to kiss him on the lips, pulling back and whispering, still an inch from his face. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you.”
“Don’t talk about killing, Harry,” Draco mumbled, burrowing his head into his boyfriend’s chest and sighing. “But thank you.”
He rested his head on the top of his pale hair, and when his breathing became steady, fast asleep, Harry felt safe in whispering so only the stars could hear, “I love you, Draco Malfoy.”
-*-*-*-
Saturday, January 18th
For the next couple of days, the Quartet fell into a routine. Hermione was given Draco’s old wand to use permanently after a great deal of arguing over him not being safe using Dumbledore’s, but eventually she consented to it. Along with that, she also had begun rotating through the boys clothes, picking anything that fit well enough, but even wearing Harry’s jeans they were still much too long and she had to trim them magically.
They took turns watching the tent and collecting apples, Ron eventually gathering enough strength to do both, his arm in a sling, bandages rotated every night by Hermione. But eventually they also ran out of the already scarce apples around them, having to instead throw the cloak over their shoulders and exit the boundary to find any other fruits clinging to the wintery branches.
And on Friday night, the Quartet stood with the curtain to the tent pulled back, scarfs pressed to their faces, watching in pain as every last fruit was ripped from the branches by a vicious blizzard.
“We’ll have to leave in the morning,” Hermione concluded. “We’ll head on foot under the cloak, in case… you know…”
No one had brought it up by word, but they’d all seen Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy visit the orchard at least once over the course of the week, Draco standing just at the edge of the boundary watching them, silent and frozen, as they weaved between trees, sometimes together, arm in arm, and sometimes alone, drifting like lost souls in a void. Always gaunt, malnourished, and terrified looking, and sometimes a wound here or there. Split lip, bruised eye, or thin cut, still bleeding.
But every visit the friends kept silent, simply the look of grief stricken in Draco’s face enough.
Now Draco frowned at the speck they’d identified long ago as the Manor in the distance and turned back into the tent without another word. They took it as permission to leave, packed up anything thrown around the tent into Harry’s rucksack, and got ready to leave.
“Now you have to promise me you’ll be quiet,” Harry told Prongs in the morning, tapping his finger on his nose. “If we get caught because of your barking I will not be a very happy Potter, alright?”
Draco chuckled, pressing a fist to his lips and Harry glared up at him, one eyebrow raised. “Something funny, Malfoy?”
“A happy Potter,” he giggled and Harry stood to punch him in the arm, making him laugh harder.
The journey to the woods Draco swore were somewhere beyond the edge of the orchard was much longer than any of them predicted it to be, and Harry spent the whole stumble, during which the four thanked the snow for hiding their ankles and the fact that it was actively falling for hiding their footprints, wondering why fate had to determine he and his friends would start hunting Horcruxes before even Hermione had leaned apparition.
At least Hermione was of age and could use her wand without fear of the Ministry coming after her.
After at least an hour they reached the forest Draco had spoken of in time for Ron to collapse to his knees, unable to take another step in his condition. Sighing, Hermione took one look at her weakened boyfriend and consented to setting up camp here, even as their stomach grumbles with the want to get on the other side of the forest, find civilization, and hopefully food.
Instead, Harry, Draco, and Hermione scavenged the forest for edible mushrooms and berries and took them back to the tent while Ron rested.
“Why can we just go… ‘Accio Fish’ or something?” Ron asked, waving his hand for effect as Draco played with Prongs with one of his toys on the floor and Hermione and Harry worked in the kitchen boiling the mushrooms into a soap and cooking down the berries into a sauce.
“Because we’d end up summoning a river-full of fish,” Hermione explained, turning to give him her ‘oh Ronald’ look. “It’s not a specific enough command.”
“Damn.” Instead, they were left eating rubbery mushroom-soup and drinking the berries. Thankfully, in the morning, Draco got up early and climbed a tree to steal eggs from a bird’s nest, returning with them to find Harry beaming at him, shaking his head.
“What? Listen if we don’t feed Ron soon I think he’ll probably starve. Scrambled eggs it is.”
Harry was glad to make it, if only so he could present the plate to Ron when he rolled over and opened his eyes, and see the way he immediately brightened, grinning from ear to ear. Truly, all four of them were happy to eat something other than fruit, not one hardly even sad when the last crumbs were devoured, full and cheery. Cheery enough to actually have the sort of discussion Harry was expecting they’d have if they ever went Horcrux hunting.
Such as… “So after Godric’s Hollow… Where else should we look for these things?”
Harry dropped his plate and leaned back, swallowing. “I reckon he probably feels close to Albania. He spent years in isolation there, after all, before Bertha Jorkins had the most unlucky day in history.”
“Sure,” said Ron, licking his fork. “We’ll just search an entire country. Shouldn’t take too long, right?” Hermione slapped him on the arm and he glared at her. “Sorry, ‘Mione, but it’s true! What even happened there? Guess he met that snake, right?”
“Nagini,” Draco confirmed, nodding.
“But the snake won’t be there, it’s always right beside him.” Hermione pointed out.
“Not saying it will be,” said Harry. “But Albania’s where he met Nagini. It has a lot of significance to him.”
“You are right about… Wait a minute…” Hermione’s eyes widened suddenly, and they all perked up in their seats, watching as her thoughts sped a mile a minute in her eyes, the clear sign of a plan, a theory forming.
“What is it?” Harry asked after a moment, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. Slowly, she rose her eyes to meet his.
“It’s just… Vold -”
“You-Know-Who.” Ron and Draco corrected in unison, as they had plenty of times before, the former instinctually fearing taboo, the latter thinking it had to be real by the way his mark burned whenever the name was said.
“Oh for Merlin’s sake it’s ridiculous to call him that!”
“Riddle, then,” Harry compromised, not wanting to start a fight as they had a couple times before on empty stomachs. Hermione sighed.
“Fine, Riddle cares about the snake in a way none of us could ever make sense of, right Harry, Draco?”
The pair, who had both seen the snake up close, had it pressed against their skin, too many times for comfort nodded slowly.
“Well… Can you make a living being into a Horcrux?”
The air stood still. Even Prongs froze in wrestling with his ball on the ground.
“I… I dunno…” Harry mumbled, as realization crashed upon all four of them like a ton of bricks. “Diary,” He began to count on his fingers. “Locket, ring, cup, something of Ravenclaw’s… Maybe he never did get something of Gryffindor’s,” he looked up from his fingers, eyes wide. “Because I defeated him too soon. Maybe I was supposed to be his sixth kill, but he got defeated so when he arrived in Albania -”
“- He took what he could get.” Ron leaned back in his chair, eyes wide. “Blimey.”
“And,” Draco raised a finger to wipe his plate clean, licked it, and smiled. “All on full stomachs.”
They learned, quite quickly, that full stomachs meant happier moods and brainstorm sessions where Ron, with his good hand, could begin drawing up his plans once more, writing down ideas for where Horcruxes could be, while Hermione wracked her brian thinking through Hogwarts: A History, and trying to remember anything of Ravenclaw’s that Voldemort could’ve used.
Empty stomachs, however, brought out the brash natures of them all, resulting in scowls and Hermione’s slaps on the arm becoming more common at best, and shouting matches or flipped tables at worst. Harry was used to starvation, he’d suffered it for ten years at the Dursley’s, and Hermione could stomach her own cooking better than the rest of them and push through with sheer force of will and two working parents. But Ron had grown up with three delicious meals a day from a loving mother, and Draco expected grandiose feasts laid out on silver plates with sparkling silverware.
Harry loved him dearly, but it was that love that allowed him to see what he was hiding beneath his eyes every night as he tossed and turned, clutching his stomach, or winced as he pushed another bite of charred fish down.
However, Harry realized one morning as he stepped into the sunny meadow of a farmer they were squatting on, stomach full of toast with scrambled eggs, they were getting ever closer to Godric’s Hollow, Ron now able to walk and talk for hours on end without getting exhausted. With this realization he burst back into the tent, beaming, only to find only Hermione and Ron seated inside, cuddling on the couch.
They immediately sprang back away from each other, blushing, when Harry entered, but he paid them no mind, instead scouring his surroundings for Draco.
“Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Saint bloody Nicholas. No - Draco! Where is he?”
They looked at each other and shrugged and Harry sighed, turning and stepping back into the meadow, glancing around for signs of him. Wading through the snow, he found him, almost expectedly, sprawled across the ground as if to make snow-angles, staring up at the clear blue sky.
Tugging his scarf tighter, Harry laid down beside him and snuggled his hand into his, sighing as he too watched the clouds.
“I think we’ll be able to go to Godric’s Hollow soon,” he told him, getting a hum in response. Frowning, he turned to look at his boyfriend, and found his expression passive, devoid of all emotion.
“What is it?”
“I’m tired.”
“It’s my watch - you can go back in the tent and nap if you want.”
“It’s not that,” Draco pushed himself up, hugging his knees to his chest and shivering in the cold air, but not seeming to mind, instead staring forward with the same blankness in his gaze. “I’m tired of waking up in unfamiliar places without any good food. I know it sounds selfish but…” Draco winced. Why was he even telling Harry this? He grew up with those despicable Muggles, he couldn’t possibly expect him to understand -
“I get it,” said Harry, miraculously. “I could tell, I mean. I am your boyfriend, after all, Draco. I know you better than you think. You aren’t… accustomed to being out here.”
“None of you lot are either,” Draco pointed out, “Which is what makes me so selfish -”
“You aren’t selfish!” Harry protested, turning in the snow to grab his hands forcefully, as if to force sense into him. “You’re scared, and confused. I saw you watch your family for hours, we all did. You don’t know what to do without them, that’s all, and you’re feeling guilty about caring about them, because you think they’re evil. Well I’ll tell you this Draco; I’ve seen the way they look at you. The look they get at just the mention of you. You’re mom and dad may be gone right now, but they aren’t too far gone. If you get my meaning, that is…”
He knew he worded it weirdly, but Draco was nodding, smiling faintly, even.
“Thank you, Harry, I think I needed to hear that,” He leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek, then rose to a stand, holding out his hand to Harry, who took it with a smile. “Now let’s find those Deathly Hallows.”
-*-*-*-
Thursday, January 30th
“Are you alright, Ron?” The ginger headed boy rolled his eyes as Hermione began to approach him, saying, for what felt to him and everyone else like the hundredth time, “Yes.”
“Well I’m sorry for worrying about my boyfriend,” she snapped back predictably, ruffling his hair and making him turn very pink in the cheeks and ears before stepping back over to Harry, who was fixing a leash on Prongs’ collar.
The plan was for Harry, recognizable scar and hair hidden beneath a wool hat and face covered by a transfigured beard (he’d gotten the idea from Fudge of course), to be walking his dog on a leash for a midnight stroll while Ron, Hermione, and Draco followed behind under the cloak. They’d head for the cemetery, as from Hermione’s book they knew the mark of the Deathly Hallows to be written on Ignotus Peverell’s grave. But, additionally, Harry wanted to find his parents graves, a feeling deep within himself saying they surely had to be there. They were bringing along Harry’s rucksack, which Hermione had cast an undetectable extension charm on, removing Ron and Draco’s trunks and dumping their luggage into it, along with the tent.
“Harry?” Now, he stood and looked over at Hermione, curious as to what she had to say in addition to their plan. “I’ve been thinking and… What if it’s there?”
“The Hallows?”
“No, the sword, Harry.”
He paused, looking around at his friends as if they could give him the answer, only to see Draco was pestering Ron about his messy hair, though his was growing out too. They all probably needed haircuts.
“Er… What sword?”
“The sword of Gryffindor! Godric Gryffindor! Surely, if Dumbledore wanted us to come here, he must’ve wanted us to find the sword here. That’s why Fudge said it’s missing, because he hid it in Gryffindor’s childhood home!”
Harry gnawed at his bottom lip. “Well… I suppose it… makes sense…”
He really just wanted to see the graves of his parents, but he couldn’t tell any of them that, not even Draco. It already felt like their strength was weakening every day they had to push through and discuss more theories and more planning, but now they were finally doing something to get the Hallows and if the sword was there too, Harry couldn’t deny that hope out of his friends. He owed them that much, at least.
“We’ll look for it too,” was all he managed to say with a watery smile, but it was enough for Hermione, who beamed and turned for the road. He bent down to Draco, huddled with her and Ron, to kiss him on the forehead before throwing the cloak over all three.
Taking a deep breath, Harry took his first steps into his home in fifteen years, and with each step he took he passed cottage after cottage and wondered which won James and Lily had lived in once. Which he had been born in. He wanted to stop, and examine it all. Breath in the Muggle village that still somehow felt like the most magical place he’d ever stepped into. Had his parents walked where he was walking before? That fountain, up ahead, didn’t he remember it from one of the pictures in the book Hagrid gave him?
With a strange sense of horror, Harry wondered if he’d never be able to see his home, if the Fidelius Charm was still active. Just thinking that left a chill to his core unlike anything the cold air could provide.
As he delved deeper into the village he turned a corner onto a pleasant square lit by lamplight and pools streaming in from family windows or an opening and closing pub door. Up the road, beyond what looked to be a war memorial, Harry could see a Church, and beyond that he was certain the cemetery lied.
Without hesitation, Harry strode forward towards the cemetery, but as he got closer, that’s when the apprehension came. Did he even want to see those graves? Did he even dare?
As his steps became smaller he felt a tug on his arm, and looked over to see a small finger had emerged from the cloak, hovering in the air, pointing towards something beside him. He followed it to what he had first thought to be a war memorial, but now saw as he took a few steps closer, refusing to believe what he was looking at was true, that it was not an obelisk covered in names, but that it was transforming to form the figure of a man with untidy hair and round glasses, his arm wrapped around a woman with a kind, pretty face framed by long hair, holding a baby bow in her arms. Snow had fallen upon them like fluffy white caps.
Still Harry stepped forward, entranced, numbly raising a hand to trace his face frozen as a baby in stone, with no ugly scar etched across his forehead. A happy baby boy, gifted a normal life, with both his…
His parents. Sucking in a shaky breath, Harry looked up at his parents’ stone faces closer, and after a long moment of drinking them in, trying to shift so their empty eyes would shift onto him, he turned around and set off for the cemetery without another word.
Sometime between passing through bushes framing the church’s figure and a gate at the entrance to the graveyard, his friends had removed the cloak and now the four of them walked alongside each other, three supporting the fourth on his journey to see his parent’s graves. The snow was deeper here, but the land was barren so late into the night, so the Quartet gave no worries on whether it was safe to walk without cover. Besides, Harry was the most recognizable but his face was covered by a beard, and Ron and Draco had made sure to tuck their own signature ginger and platinum hair into their woolen caps.
The cemetery was beautiful, Harry had to admit, as the stained glass windows stretching high behind them in the church cast a blanket of pale blue flecked with red, gold, and green, which reflected wherever you stepped against the sparkling snow.
Harry strode towards the nearest grave, brushed off the snow, and beamed, smiling over at his friends. “Look here! It’s an Abbott, could be some long-lost relation of Hannah’s!”
“Blimey,” Ron breathed, stepping forward and examining it too, but Draco shook his head and Hermione begged, “Keep your voice down.”
They made their way forward through the rows of graves, splitting up to examine the names. They all saw quite quickly that it was going in alphabetical order so they could skip a lot of rows to get to the Potters and then the Peverell’s, but Harry was moving so slowly it told the others easily he didn’t want to rush this whole experience.
“Boys! Over here!” A few minutes later, the boys looked over at where Hermione stood a few rows down, brushing snow off of a grandiose grave. They quickly ran over, slowing to a stop when they read the two names upon it.
Kendra Dumbledore (born Scott)
June 29th, 1851 - June 26th, 1899
~
Ariana Dumbledore
1885 - August 31st, 1899
~
“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
“I forgot the Dumbledore’s lived here! It was in Skeeter’s book, remember?” Hermione said to the boys, who nodded numbly, still staring at the grave, entranced. Draco reached out a hand and dug his fingers through the groves of the quote at the bottom of the grave, picking out moss.
“That was on Dumbledore’s grave,” he said, turning to Harry. “Remember?” The other boy nodded but didn’t really care. Seeing this grave… A familiar twisting in his gut appeared, as it did whenever he was forced to think of Dumbledore and the things he was told and not. It seemed there were reminders of that man all around him, even here, in a graveyard.
They’d hailed from the same village, and he had never told him. Why? What possible reason could he have to withhold that information? He had thought they were so close… Merlin, they could have even visited this place together! That is, if their bond had been as close as Harry had thought. But he hadn’t even gotten his wand, no, Draco did. Draco, who had resented him until Fourth Year. How had he ever thought this old, wizened man, much greater than a stupid teenage boy who got lucky, could have cared for him?
And that was it, wasn’t it? He was so much greater… All he valued was that ‘greater good’ stuff in the letter in Skeeter’s book, and any closeness he sought to build with Harry was to drive him further towards defeating Voldemort.
“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Briskly, Harry turned away from the grave. He didn’t understand them, and they had been on Dumbledore’s grave too. It seemed every day there was something else tying back to those piercing blue eyes he didn’t understand.
Why couldn’t you have just given me all the answers? Why did you leave me alone like this?
“Are you sure he never mentioned -?”
“Hermione.” Draco.
Harry looked over at his boyfriend in pure gratitude as he shook his head at Hermione, telling her silently to stop. She seemed to understand but, more importantly, Ron did, bending down to entwine his hand in hers and lift her to her feet, guiding her forwards. Draco immediately stepped over to Harry, prepared to do the same, but Harry had turned and was already headed off down the rows of graves. So instead, he simply followed.
A few minutes later, Hermione was ready to call over to Harry and Draco; she’d found the Peverell’s grave, but Ron held her hand to stop her, because Harry had paused before a grave at last, Draco stepping up beside him and taking his hand.
Reaching out slowly, Harry ran a hand across the white marble of the tombstone, staring at the words in a sort of numb suspension between awareness and fantasy.
JAMES POTTER
BORN 27 MARCH 1960 ~ DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981
LILY POTTER
BORN 30 JANUARY 1960 ~ DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
Harry took his careful time to read each and every word on the grave, and when he felt the presence of Ron and Hermione standing with him, he whispered, “It would have been her birthday today. She would have been thirty-seven.”
Hermione stepped closer to Harry and squeezed his hand. Ron reread the dates and thought, horrifically, on how he had two brothers who out-grew his best friend’s parents. Draco couldn’t tear his eyes from the marble, the reality of the Potter’s murder fully sinking into him for the first time, along with the guilt for all the times he had made fun of Harry for being an orphan. And at his master’s foot, Prongs let out a short yip, and Harry beamed down at him.
“Hey buddy,” he knelt down, scratching behind his crup’s ears, and pointed up at his dad’s name. “That’s who you’re named for.”
The group was silent for a moment, then Ron spoke Harry’s thoughts out aloud, something only a best friend seemed to be able to do. “‘The last enemy that shall be defeated is death.’ Isn’t that Riddle’s reasoning? Why… your parents didn’t make Horcruxes too, did -?”
“It doesn’t mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it,” Hermione explained, as she watched Harry pet his dog and reread the quote fondly. “It means… you know… living beyond death. Living after death.”
Harry still didn’t understand and then -
“Accepting it.” They looked over at Draco, who gave them all a watery smile. There were tears in his eyes. “Truly accepting it, and greeting it like an old friend, just like the story.” And not one of them had to ask what story he meant.
Harry looked back at the grave, and felt conflicted. On the one hand, that acceptance sounded beautiful and neat, but almost too much so. Life, as it had proven to him time and again, was no fantasy, especially then, during the first war, and now, during the second. His parents may have believed in heading forwards towards death, but that didn’t help who was left behind with the pieces.
It didn’t help him, a scared sixteen year old, left to tears that suddenly came running down his cold cheeks, hot and then cold as ice on his skin. Harry wasn’t a boy who cried often, and perhaps that was because it had been beaten into him as a young boy, but when he did, tears left him feeling vulnerable. When Viktor died, he’d felt vulnerable. When Dumbledore died, he’d felt vulnerable. Now he felt at home.
Which was why he didn’t wipe them away or hide, instead pressing his lips together only to repress a sob that would give away his friends in moments. Instead looking down beyond the thick snow at where James and Lily lay, bones and dust, not knowing or caring that their living son knelt right above them, alive only for them and their sacrifice but wishing, just for a moment, that he was beneath the snow with them.
Because this was no fantasy, this was real life, and they’d never know he was right here, they’d never know he’d grown up to look just like his father, a Quidditch star too, but have his mother’s brains wrapped up in her beautiful emerald eyes.
He felt three hands on his shoulders, and knew his friends were right there with him, as they always would be, comforting him, but he refused to look them in the eye, instead taking in deep breaths of the cold air, trying to steady himself.
He should have brought something for them, but of course he hadn’t thought of it with an empty stomach, but every plant around him was lifeless, frozen, and he couldn’t perform magic of course, because he was still just sixteen -
Then a Christmas wreath of pearly white roses bloomed on top of the grave and he realized Hermione had conjured up flowers for him.
With that Harry stood, and was about to leave, but as his eyes briefly locked with a pair of gray pools, shiny still with fresh tears, he recalled what Draco had said about accepting death.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
James and Lily were dead and gone, but they had believed in this sentiment, which was why Harry turned back and smiled at the graves of his parents and, for their sake at least, though it brought a bit of warmth back to his cold heart, whispered into the night air.
“Happy birthday, Mom.”
Hermione slowly led them back to the Peverell’s grave, where, sure enough, Ignotus Peverell’s name was engraved upon the oldest stone in the entire graveyard. Carefully, she brushed aside the snow above it to reveal the mark of the Deathly Hallows, just as the book from months ago in the Hogwarts library had claimed.
They all looked around, as if expecting something to appear out of thin air, and Draco turned right around to the grave nearly identical to the one beside it, pushing aside snow to reveal the name Cadmus Peverell.
“This must be the second brother!” he exclaimed, brushing the snow off above the name to reveal, once more, the mark of the Deathly Hallows. Beaming with the thrill of an uncovered secret, he ran to the grave beside that one and announced that that too had the mark, reading the name, “Antioch Peverell.”
“So this is it,” Ron said, and looked around, as if expecting to see the Hallows floating before each grave in wait to be grabbed. “Now what?”
“Well I doubt Dumbledore would’ve wanted us to dig them up if they were buried with them,” Hermione said, and Harry nodded, knowing if nothing else Dumbledore always had the highest respect for death and the dead. “And there wouldn’t be such a fuss made over them if they were in plain sight, would there?”
The teens fell silent. They’d felt so sure the Hallows would be waiting for them inside Godric’s Hollow, no one had considered what they’d actually do once they got here.
“I don’t think we need to look for the cloak,” Harry said softly, stepping up to Ignotus’s grave and running a hand across it, not caring as the snow prickled at his fingers through his gloves. “If this grave is really in Godric’s Hollow… I might be descended from the Peverell’s.”
“What?” He ignored her.
“Think about it, Hermione, Dumbledore gave me the cloak for a reason. Sure it had been my dad’s but… why did he have it in the first place? The story ends with the cloak getting passed on to Ignotus’s son. Maybe that legacy went on until it became my dad’s and then…” He looked over at Draco, who was holding the piece of fabric that sparkled under the moonlight in his arms, and passively noticed how the bright lights from the churches stained glass windows had gone out; it had gotten so late, every lamplight in the village seemed to be out or dimmed, in fact. “And then mine.”
“So why,” they all turned to Ron, who was glaring down at the graves, a darkness having fallen over his face they all swore hadn’t been there mere seconds ago. “Did we even come here in the first place?”
Harry stared at his best friend, gobsmacked. He’d never heard him talk like this, and hardly could recognize any of the Ron he knew in that voice, but, miraculously, Hermione managed to remain calm beside him as she thought on the question and exclaimed, “The sword! We could still find the sword.”
And then Ron’s head jerked upwards and the darkness was gone at the prospect of finally finding something and nodded, and the four headed away from the Peverell graves back towards the entrance where the g’s must be, Draco and Harry both looking back behind them reluctantly at the graves, feeling strange tugs at their hearts.
But once they reached the grave of Godric Gryffindor, it was the same problem once more; where did they even begin to look?
“Revelio!” Hermione exclaimed, but of course that didn’t do anything, nor did a helpless plea of, “Accio Sword of Gryffindor!”
The boys let her examine every inch of the grave, pushing past snow, even attempting to lift up the tombstone, of course whispering her apologies to her founder before doing so. Meanwhile Harry and Draco stood to the side, numb, shifting from foot to foot, long past determining Godric’s Hollow was a bust and they should probably leave, certainly Ron should at least, as he had stumbled back to sit on the grave behind him, apologizing quickly as he did it, shivering profusely, looking quite sickly.
However, that didn’t stop him from seeing a figure moving in the distance and springing to his feet, grabbing his girlfriend’s shoulder.
“What is it?!”
“Look,” he nodded across the graveyard and the other three all turned to follow his gaze, each feeling chilled to their core at the sight of a figure at the very edge of the cemetery but a second later… it had faded into the bushes with a rustle.
“Let’s go,” Harry whispered, and tugged at his boyfriend’s hand, leading his friends out of the graveyard and past the bushes on the side of the church, throwing the cloak over his three friends, before strolling forwards with Prongs tugging at his leash, trying his best to look like a normal Muggle out for a stroll.
A midnight stroll back from a graveyard but still, a normal Muggle.
He stopped, however, when he passed a house. A house he could see with his own eyes sure as ever, and therefore had to bear witness to how it was broken, in shambles, and caving in on itself at the roof. His family home, the Fidelius Charm having faded out, destroyed from an attack fifteen years ago, but preserved as if frozen in time.
Harry reached out and placed a hand on the frozen gate before him, not because he wished to push it open, but simply to have something to grab and hold onto. Something real which he could ground himself with so as to show his mind that he wasn’t dreaming; this was reality, and he was home. And as that feeling sunk in, so did the temptation to step forward and simply go inside, but then he felt a hand tug at his and realized in his dazed state he fully pushed open the gate and stepped across the threshold.
Now he turned around and saw Draco’s hand had emerged from under the cloak to stop him, a dark skinned finger pointing at a sign that he hadn’t noticed before, wooden and reading, in golden letters:
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.
All around it, in various colored lettering forming a mesmerizing rainbow of graffiti, were the names and well wishes of different wizards and witches throughout time who had stopped by this house to honor the Potter family. Good luck, Harry, wherever you are. We’re with you Harry! Long live Harry Potter.
“They shouldn’t have written on the sign!” Harry could hear Hermione muttering, but he ignored her, instead staying transfixed at the word, running a hand down the sign, his lips tilting up at the corners in a soft smile the likes of which he hadn’t had in days.
But then he had to raise his eyes, of course, and to do that meant seeing that a figure hunched over in robes, hobbling, was walking towards him.
Straight towards him.
And as she got closer it became clear that she was a woman, and a very old one at that, moving so slowly there was nothing Harry could do for a minute but stare at her, open mouthed, shuffling with a horrible gait. And then she stopped.
Stopped to turn and stare up at a house that should’ve been invisible to her… If she was a Muggle.
Draco was tugging on his hand again, but he stayed still. Something about the woman… He suddenly felt very warm, and when she stepped one way, for a moment he thought he had predicted that movement. But he couldn’t, possibly…
“Harry!” he was certain if he didn’t move soon his friends were going to beat him senseless later, but he didn’t care. The pull of the woman, which he felt through his chest and into his very heart and soul, was too strong. Not to mention he had the strangest sort of feeling, similar to how he was able to sense her next movement, that she knew they were there, and couldn’t call himself exactly surprised when she raised a gloved hand and beckoned them forwards.
“Abort,” Ron blurted immediately, Hermione whispering, “How does she know we’re here?” and Draco staying suspiciously silent, something Harry had come to realize meant he had retreated within himself either from confusion, fear, or both.
Regardless, Harry instead found himself drawn towards the woman physically now, and he walked forwards, letting go of his boyfriend’s hand.
Which left his friends watching helplessly as Harry walked off with the woman, tugging Prongs along with him, even as the intelligent cruppy tried pulling against him in fear.
“What is he thinking?” Ron hissed and Hermione shushed him, moving forwards and not bothering to wave Draco’s wand to remove their footprints now, instead just moving as quickly as she could to follow Harry and the mysterious old woman as they headed down the road. They passed several more houses, eventually reaching an iron gate the woman pushed forwards with shaking hands before leading Harry up the overgrown garden path to her home where she fumbled with the key to her front door even more.
“Harry!” Hermione tried once more, a desperate hiss, but he ignored her, instead stepping inside after the woman, the door shutting behind them, almost cutting off Prongs’s forked tail.
Ron cursed under his breath as they ducked beneath the overgrown bushes of the old woman’s garden and threw off the cloak, looking each other in the eye with worry.
“He’s going to get himself killed,” Hermione whispered, but Draco shook his head.
“Harry may be thick but no one’s that thick. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Does he?” And for the second time this night, a darkness fell across Ron’s face, and Hermioen cast a worried look over to him, shuffling closer and squeezing his hand, whispering, “Not now, Ron, not here…” to which Ron softened but Draco watched the exchange with horror.
He’d walked in on Ron and Hermione whispering to each other at times, but he had always brushed it off as them brainstorming theories. Now it seemed as if they were in on some cruel joke he was oblivious to, and if there was one thing Draco Malfoy didn’t like, it was being oblivious to things.
“No,” he said bluntly, wheeling on Ron. “What was that about? Have a problem with Harry, do you?” Hermione looked over at him, pale and wide eyed in horror, but Ron stared him dead on and forward.
“No,” he said simply, “No problem.”
Draco squinted and sneered at him, prepared to make another smart retort, but Hermione suddenly grabbed both of them by the arms, as if suspecting they were going to lunge at each other in the next second, which she should know was hardly Draco’s style, but he complied and listened to her anyway, tearing his eyes away from glaring at the ginger for a moment.
“We can’t do anything to help Harry by fighting about him. Now, I say you and Draco sneak over to those windows and try to hear what they’re saying first, who knows, she might be friendly?” She stood, refixing the rucksack over her shoulder, and Ron rose immediately, raising his eyebrows at her.
“What are you gonna do?”
“I’ll be planning our escape route because there’s about a ninety percent chance with our luck she’s not friendly.” With that she headed off behind the house, and Ron and Draco glanced at each other awkwardly before quickly looking away and crouching low, pushing through the bushes before reaching the nearest window sill and pressing up against the side of the cottage, getting as close to the window as they could without being seen behind the thin, moth eaten curtains.
Draco could hear something, quiet, and high pitched. Was that hissing? He’d heard this sound before, but where…
“Is that…?” The boys locked eyes, and both realized simultaneously where they’d heard the serpentine language from, Draco springing to his feet and bounding around the house to bellow out, “HERMIONE!” to his friend as she stepped back from the blue rover she had just enlarged to its regular size. She spun around and, at the look of terror on his pale face, ran forwards, the two coming around the house in time to see Ron hoisting a rock above his head, before chucking it forwards at the window.
It shattered to pieces upon impact, the rock ramming into the great snake rearing towards Harry and causing her to fly backwards. The rest of the Quartet wasted no time in hoisting themselves through the window, Ron and Draco rushing to the aid of their friend, who lay on the carpeting floor, howling and writhing, gripping the sides of his head in clear pain. Hermione stood at the window, Draco’s wand raised, firing spell after spell at Voldemort’s trusted pet as she fought viciously to try and reach Harry.
“He’s coming!” Harry was gasping.
“Confringo!” Hermione bellowed and Nagini howled with pain, hissing at her viciously.
“He’s coming! We have to go!” He struggled against Ron and Draco’s arms, crawling for the window, and an understanding was made that they had to get out of there quickly.
“Hermione, let’s go!” Draco shouted, then howled with pain as Nagini saw an opening and lunged at him, digging her fangs into his arm. Maybe she hoped he’d react with a wand, but he was smarter than that, wincing with horrendous pain and gripping the windowsill as Nagini sank her teeth ever deeper into his arm, but remaining frozen, knowing Hermione would wheel around and fire a spell and sure enough she did.
“Bombarda!” The snake gave her biggest hiss yet, falling backwards, now the one writhing on the floor, as Ron gave Draco a hard push through the window and onto the snow, and he was sure he cut himself somewhere there but he could also feel the snake’s venom spreading throughout his body, and everything was starting to feel numb.
But not the burning in his left forearm, far different than the pain in his right where Nagini had bitten him, where his mark seared and he knew for certain Harry had been right. Pulling himself forwards across the snow towards where the car was parked Draco screamed with all his might, “WE’VE GOT TO GO!”
A second later he felt hands on his shoulders and knew he was being hoisted upwards by something, thrown into the car. Dark hair was in his eyes and screams in his ears.
Harry?
The roaring of an engine. Ron was behind the wheel, looking back behind them panicked but Hermione was slapping him on the arm, pointing forwards, shouting for him to go, go, go.
All of it felt all too loud on his brain. Draco buried his head in Harry’s hair, feeling his boyfriend’s tears, hearing his screams and, as his best friends shouted and fought for their lives, he whispered, the only one there to comfort Harry through whatever he was seeing behind his eyelids, “It’s okay… You’ll be alright…”
He had no way of knowing how much that was enough for him.