Respects to the Potter Family
Despite being told to stay well away from everything going on with Malfoy, Harry could not resist keeping a persistent investigative eye on him. He was never without the Marauders Map close at hand anymore, obsessed with keeping constant tabs on the comings and goings of Malfoy’s labelled dot. As he slumped down in his favourite armchair in the Gryffindor common room next to the fire, he had the map held close to his face and was ignoring the disapproving glares that Hermione kept casting him over the stack of books she had taken out earlier from the restricted section of the library.
“You’re wasting so much time that you could be using to do something constructive,” Hermione scolded, flipping over another page of ‘Secrets of the Darkest Arts,’ which was so large that it filled her entire lap.
Harry did not immediately reply. He couldn’t put into words just how seethingly full of hatred he was towards Malfoy, whose treason had become more personal to him than it ever had been before, now that he knew it was going to force Snape’s hand so cruelly. Neither Hermione nor Ron were aware of the agreement between Snape and Dumbledore, which Harry had been forbidden to share with them. It was burning him up inside to keep such a dreadful secret from his friends and he couldn’t concentrate on much else at the moment.
“Well, you’re not going to find anything in those books anyway,” Harry said impatiently. “I already told you that Dumbledore said he removed the books on Horcruxes,” he lowered his voice at that last word, “from the library when he became Headmaster.”
The Gryffindor common room was crowded and noisy, as it typically was on a Friday evening marked by the cumulation of classes for the week. This was how Harry, Ron, and Hermione liked it best, because it meant they were in no danger of having their private conversations overheard and could speak freely. This had become more important than ever now that the work Dumbledore intended for them to complete had come to light.
“That doesn’t mean that these books are useless,” Hermione insisted, slamming the heavy cover shut with irritation and then reaching for ‘Magick Moste Evile’. “Just think for a minute about the sort of Dark Magic likely to be surrounding these objects. I don’t know why you don’t care about being properly prepared.”
Harry had no answer to this. Dumbledore had divulged to him that he believed he was getting close to finding another Horcrux after trying for quite awhile to locate the cave that a young Tom Riddle had once terrorized some other children from the orphanage in. Dumbledore had promised Harry that he would be allowed to go with him this time. A lesson of sorts in the ways of Lord Voldemort’s defences and what was surely to come. For the memory that Harry had successfully persuaded Professor Slughorn to confide in him had confirmed that there were four more Horcruxes remaining, and their work had really just begun.
“He’ll be with Dumbledore,” Ron pointed out in Harry’s defence, looking up from his nearly finished Transfiguration essay.
“But that’s not an excuse to not learn everything that you can on your own,” Hermione said firmly. “We aren’t going to have Dumbledore to depend on forever.”
Her words pierced Harry like a cruel blade and he stared more determinedly than ever at the Marauders’ Map, watching as the dots labelled for Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, and Gregory Goyle walked along an otherwise deserted corridor together. He didn’t know what he was looking for, he was still just hoping for some miracle to occur that would release Snape from his obligations before it cost him everything. Because while it was hard enough to contend with the fact that they would not have Dumbledore for much longer, Harry had not counted on losing Snape at the same time.
For there would be no possibility of Snape maintaining contact with him, or any of the Order for that matter, once he publicly proclaimed his allegiance to Voldemort and the Death Eaters. To do otherwise would be too risky and would arouse Voldemort’s suspicions in his established right-hand man. For all of this, Harry blamed Malfoy entirely, as he bitterly stabbed his wand against Malfoy’s dot on the Marauders Map and imagined himself cursing the other boy, just as his name disappeared.
“What did I do?” Harry asked, sitting up straighter in his chair and showing the other two the map. “Malfoy was just there - look Crabbe and Goyle are still standing in that corridor. Malfoy was just with them and then he suddenly vanished. He -”
But then suddenly it was like he had been struck by a bolt of lightning and Harry knew that he had solved an important mystery. His wand hadn’t made Malfoy’s dot disappear and you couldn’t apparate inside the Hogwarts grounds. Malfoy had vanished off of the map before in a similar way anyway, though neither Ron nor Hermione had found this of particular interest and Harry had presumed then that it had been a trick of the eye.
“The Room of Requirement!” Harry said triumphantly, as realization dawned on him. “I’ve never seen the Room of Requirement on the map before!”
“Maybe the Marauders never knew the room was there,” Ron suggested.
“I think it’ll be part of the magic of the room,” said Hermione. “If you need it to be unplottable, then it will be…..but Harry, you’re not supposed to be worrying about this.”
“Malfoy works for Voldemort,” Harry reminded them, for at least the hundredth time that month. “Snape didn’t deny it.”
“I know, Harry,” Hermione sighed, “but Snape also told you not to worry about Malfoy, so why won’t you listen?”
Harry stared at her as though she had completely missed the point, which of course she had. She couldn’t understand his desperation, not knowing that Dumbledore was forcing Snape to kill him in Malfoy’s place. They weren’t aware that Harry was potentially facing the loss of another parent in his life, so shortly after finding his new-found family.
“He’s a Death Eater, Hermione,” he reminded her quietly.
“And what exactly do you think you’re going to do about that?” she asked.
Harry opened his mouth and then closed it. He didn’t know what he was going to do about anything, there wasn’t anything that he could do. He knew this. And yet he couldn’t stop hoping for a miracle answer. Something that would persuade Dumbledore to reconsider his plans, or something that would prevent Snape from being so determined to protect Malfoy all on his own. Harry was full of grief, realizing slowly that everything was changing that he’d only just arrived at, and no miracle was going to stop it.
“Hermione, will you look this over for me?” Ron asked suddenly, attempting to diffuse some of the tension. He set his scroll of parchment on top of the book that Hermione was reading. She glanced down at it diagnostically and then over at Ron, who had suddenly become completely fascinated in the fire as Lavender Brown walked past them with her eyes red from crying. Ron had finally gotten the gall to break up with her last week.
“It’s still an inch shorter than McGonagall assigned, Ron,” Hermione sighed.
“Is it?” Ron asked innocently. “Well, could I have a peek at yours then? What else am I supposed to say about the Transfiguration of fairy cakes to fairies?”
“After all the notes McGonagall had us copy in class?” Hermione rolled her eyes. “And I told you to read that book I got out of the library on it. The real struggle should be on how to narrow it all down to fit into only two feet. Did you finish your homework yet, Harry?”
“What?” Harry said blankly, his eyes still glued to the Marauders Map.
Hermione scoffed as she began to comb through Ron’s essay, making some necessary modifications, while Ron leaned back in his armchair with his arms folded above his head. Meanwhile Harry continued to scan the Marauders Map in expectation of a sudden appearance from Malfoy. He was thinking that Sirius probably didn't know about the Room of Requirement and intended to ask him the next time they saw each other. If he did know about it, Sirius would surely have suggested it when they were trying to find a place to hold the DA and it would have been drawn on the map.
“Harry, Harry! Isn’t that Hedwig?” Ginny called from across the room.
It was unknown how many times she had had to call his name to get his attention, but Ron and Hermione were both also staring at him in exasperation when he finally looked up. Harry glanced towards the window where indeed Hedwig was fluttering her wings against the glass, with a letter tied around her ankle. Harry immediately stood up and shoved the map into the pocket of his sweater. Then he walked across the crowded common room to open the window and hold out his arm for Hedwig to jump onto.
“Whose it from?” asked Ron, as Harry sat back down in his chair. It wasn’t often that students received any post at this hour. Most of the mail typically arrived during the morning at breakfast.
“Professor Snape,” Harry replied, recognizing the professor’s handwriting on the envelope. He quickly untied the string from around his owl’s ankle, as Hermione set her books aside to come read over his shoulder. Harry held the letter out so all three of them could read it together.
XXX
Harry,
You will recall that you asked me to take you somewhere a couple of weeks ago. If you are still agreeable, you might meet me in thirty minutes outside the castle. Don’t forget your cloak.
Dad
XXX
“Where did you ask him to take you?” asked Hermione.
Harry hesitated for a moment before answering. “Godric’s Hollow,” he finally said, scrunching Snape’s letter into a ball and then standing up to toss it into the fireplace.
“Godric’s Hollow,” Hermione repeated, her face softening when she realized the significance. “Oh, Harry….”
“Hang on, isn’t that where -” Ron’s voice trailed off awkwardly.
“Where Voldemort murdered them,” Harry said bluntly, watching his letter be overtaken by flames.
He found that he couldn’t turn around and look at either of them just now. They had intact and whole families, they could not possibly relate to what Harry had endured his entire life. Never understanding or being able to properly mourn the parents he had never known, whilst growing up in a house where no photographs of them had ever existed and he was forbidden to ask questions. Harry had been desperate for a long time to see their resting place for himself, but now the prospect of facing it caused him to feel a thrill of something that was beyond excitement, more like fear.
“I thought he’d forgotten I’d even asked,” Harry confessed quietly, rummaging in his pocket for a stray owl treat to feed to the waiting Hedwig. “Or I thought he had changed his mind.”
“He probably just didn’t have time until now,” Hermione said fairly.
“Yeah, the only person whose seat is empty more often than Snape’s in the Great Hall these days is Dumbledore’s,” Ron added.
It was true, Harry agreed, as he held his palm out to Hedwig. Snape’s work for both the Order and Voldemort kept him more occupied than anyone else. Harry had resigned himself to seeing less and less of him, and was busy enough with school and meetings with Dumbledore himself that he sometimes failed to even notice. But suddenly Harry realized something altogether problematic about the situation that he had not foreseen before.
“How can he say that he is keeping a close watch on Malfoy when he’s gone from the school so much?” he asked, ignoring the look that Ron and Hermione exchanged. Hedwig’s beak bumped against his pocket in search of another treat. Silently, Harry took out another before he carried her back over to the window.
Hedwig hooted affectionately before she spread her wings in flight. Then Harry closed the window tightly and watched her grow smaller and smaller the further she flew, until he was surprised by a gentle hand on his back. Harry turned around to see Hermione and Ron both standing there.
“We’ll keep an eye on Malfoy if you want us to while you're gone," Hermione told him softly. They were good friends and they knew that this mattered greatly to Harry, even if they did not understand or agree with him. Perhaps their compassion for what he was about to see had pushed them to humour him enough that he’d hopefully forget to worry about Malfoy for a day or so. Whatever their reason, it had the successful effect of raising Harry’s comfortability just a little bit.
“Yeah, we all know Malfoy’s a git,” Ron added. “I’d love to get something on him.”
Harry forced a smile as he handed the map to Ron and then quickly went to gather up the things that he needed to be on his way. Harry knew that they weren't nearly as concerned as him but they didn't know everything that Harry did, though it pained him to withhold the full story. His friends would be just as horrified as he was if they knew the full extent of what was to come in the way of hopefully ending Lord Voldemort. So many costs that were made to be borne, the Horcruxes were just one component in a greater picture. Accepting a sacrifice was necessary did not make it any easier to live with, such as the truth Harry had harboured since age eleven, knowing that his Mum and Dad had died to save him.
"I'll probably see you in the morning," Harry told them, before he stepped through the portrait hole out into the corridor with a deep resolve in his soul.
It was a heavy burden to always bear; the knowledge that he was only alive because other people had loved him and stood in front of him in the face of death. It made him feel persistently inadequate. Desperate to prove himself and terrified to lose more of them, but mostly horrified that he would be the cause of anymore suffering.
It was easy to hate Malfoy, who didn't appear to have the slightest remorse for all the hurt he was inflicting. In contrast, Harry's regrets were abundant, even over the many things that he could not control or entirely take the blame for. He was like Professor Snape in that way, both merciless to themselves deep down and willing to do anything to alleviate some of that pain. As nervous as Harry felt about visiting the graves of his parents, he still wanted to go there more than he’d ever wanted to go anywhere. If only to say 'Thank You' and that he hoped he would make them proud.
"What's wrong, Harry?" A young man with sandy coloured hair and brown eyes asked when Harry had reached the gate that fenced in the Hogwarts grounds. Harry had never seen this man before, but he knew without even asking who it was. He had Snape’s satchel over one shoulder and was giving Harry the same look that Snape always gave him when he thought that he was not being entirely truthful about something that concerned him.
“Do you know what the Room of Requirement is?” Harry asked, watching the man’s brown eyes cloud over in confusion at the unexpected question.
“The what?” Snape asked.
“The Room of Requirement - or it's sometimes called the Come and Go room," Harry replied. "It’s on the seventh floor and it becomes whatever you need it to be. We held the DA there last year."
Snape stared at him strangely. “What does this have to do with anything?” he asked.
“Malfoy’s hanging around in there an awful lot,” said Harry.
“Again with Malfoy,” Snape looked moderately annoyed as he played with the buckle on his satchel, finally opening it to take out a flask of what was unmistakably Polyjuice Potion.
"You’re throwing everything away for him," Harry insisted angrily, "and he's not worth it."
"Is that how you truly feel?" Snape asked tiredly, as Harry firmly nodded his head.They had had this conversation before and Harry knew that Snape was running out of patience with regards to addressing it.
"Well, you’re wrong," Snape told him, thrusting the Polyjuice Potion into Harry’s hand. "There’s no other way and you know that. Push Draco out of your head for once and for all, Harry. You’re letting your hatred cloud your better sense. You have to learn to let go.”
"Why?" Harry asked resentfully. "You don’t let go."
"I’ve let everything go," Snape said impatiently. "Look where we’re going today! What could possibly be left?"
Harry glared at the bottle in his hand and then brought it to his lips without saying another word. He choked down the thick mud-like concoction, grimacing and shivering as it slowly worked its way down his esophagus and landed heavily in his stomach. Already he could feel his body beginning to bubble with change, though without a mirror he could not appreciate the full effect. He just knew that his trainers, jeans, and sweater still fit moderately well when he felt the transformation nearly complete. His vision was blurry and it took removing his glasses to see properly again. Snape had acquired hairs of a donor more to his size this time and with improved eyesight, and Harry could hardly complain.
“I’ll carry that for you,” Snape offered, after Harry had slipped his glasses into a pocket of his backpack. Wordlessly, Harry handed it over to him. He watched Snape pull out the invisibility cloak and then pass it to him to put on, before shrinking Harry’s bag and slipping it inside his own.
“When we get back to the castle, I would like you to tell me where this Room of Requirement is,” Snape told him, refastening the clasp on his satchel. “I agree with you that it might be significant."
“Do you have any idea what he’s doing in there?” Harry asked, grateful that he was being taken seriously.
"I think so," Snape said vaguely, catching Harry’s eye. "I will tell you what I find out, but for now let's try not to think about it anymore. Do you still want to go to Godric’s Hollow?”
"Yes," Harry said firmly.
“Very well, then listen closely because we have to be careful,” said Snape. “We are visiting the sight of the Dark Lord’s downfall. You need to keep your cloak on and stay close to me. Understood?”
Harry nodded his head, feeling anxious. Though he noticed that he wasn’t the only one when Snape took out a key to open the iron gate and his hand was visibly shaking. They walked out together and then Harry slipped on the invisibility cloak while he waited for Snape to reseal the gate behind them. Then they stepped over to the apparition point and Harry grasped tightly to Snape’s arm.
Arriving, within a matter of seconds, in the center of a bustling little town. People were passing by them on their way into the grocery store, bank, and post office. There was a park full of laughing children all going down slides and hanging off the climbers, while their mothers sat on benches and talked. Without concerning himself with what Snape had just said, Harry pulled the invisibility cloak off of himself and got a glimpse of the reflection of a blonde boy in a storefront window.
“I don’t want to wear my cloak right now,” Harry said, his voice almost pleading as he looked over at Snape, who’d seemed about to say something. “I don’t look like myself anyway. Nothing’s going to happen.”
It suddenly felt important to him not to be hidden. Not in this town of his birth; the place he would have grown up with his mother, father, and perhaps even siblings, were it not for Voldemort. It was quite enough to be disguised under the influence of Polyjuice Potion, when Lily and James seemed so close to him and Harry felt a need to present himself as transparently as possible to them.
“Very well,” Snape said softly. “Give it to me and I’ll hold it for you.”
Harry balled it up and then passed it to Snape, who stuffed the shimmery fabric into the bag that held all the rest of their possessions. His eyes were focused on what appeared to be a war memorial in the center of the square and the elderly man staring up at it.
“Come on,” Snape said softly, beginning to walk in that direction. “That man is Sirius.”
Harry’s heart felt very heavy in his chest as he walked across the square. All thoughts of Malfoy had fled from his mind and currently seemed unimportant. He hadn’t known that Sirius would be here. Had not intended to ask Sirius to bring him back to the place where he’d experienced good memories and then the very worst. But when the old man that Sirius had taken Polyjuice Potion to become looked over at the sound of them approaching, Harry immediately felt relieved.
“See this,” Sirius said softly, throwing an arm out around Harry’s shoulders and pointing a finger up at the war memorial.
It had suddenly transformed. Instead of an obelisk covered in names, there was a statue of three people: a man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face, and a baby boy sitting in his mother’s arms. Harry was gazing up into his parents’ faces. How strange it was to see himself represented in stone, a happy baby without a scar on his forehead. Snape had drawn closer to the statue as well but his face was unreadable.
“My father was a good man,” Harry said, staring at Snape as though daring him to disagree with him at this most inopportune time. But Snape did not rise to the bait. He did not say anything as he continued to stare up at the statue, a safe distance from Sirius and himself.
“He was the best man,” Sirius agreed, his grip on Harry’s shoulder so tight that it might have been painful were it not reassuring.
“I didn’t know there’d be a statue here,” Snape said suddenly, turning to look at them. “Did you?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Sirius replied. “Are you alright?”
Harry thought he saw Snape nod in the corner of his eye but he was still staring intently up at the statue as though glued there.
“He was brave too,” staring into James’s stone face and feeling his heart swell in his chest from pride.
“Certainly he was brave,” Snape agreed quietly.
Though there was a catch in Snape’s voice, it wasn't contemptuous and bitter like Harry would have come to expect in the past. More just like this was an uncomfortable subject for him, but one in which he'd resigned himself to discussing before he'd even agreed to take Harry to visit this place. Of course they'd discuss James Potter now and somehow that was going to be alright.
“They’ll be there,” said Sirius in a croaky voice, pointing at the little white church across the road once they had all looked their fill. “I can see the graveyard behind it.”
Harry looked up at him and realized only then that his eyes were full of tears. Sirius brushed them discreetly away with his thumb and then they followed Snape the rest of the way to the church.
“I won't go in,” Snape said abruptly.
"Come on," Sirius protested. "We said we'd go together."
But Snape shook his head. "You two go ahead," he muttered.
Harry opened his mouth to object but Snape had already turned around and was walking back across the square, apparently unable to go any further and refusing to explain why. Harry understood his reluctance and guilt, but it was still hard to resist the urge to pull him back. He looked back around at Sirius; watched him push the gate open and then followed him into the graveyard. Silently they began to comb through the neatly ordered rows of marble tombstones, stooping to peer at the words on old headstones in the search for Lily and James.
“Look at this,” Harry called after several minutes.
Sirius was two rows of tombstones away, but hurried up to him. Together they stooped down and read the words Kendra Dumbledore and, a short way below her dates of birth and death, and Her Daughter Ariana. There was also a quotation: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
“Must be some relation to him,” said Sirius. “You should ask.”
They kept walking, absentmindedly pausing at each grave for a quick glance before continuing on their way. Until they found it, just when Harry was expecting to keep walking the entire way through. He saw it and became consumed by a sudden grief that weighed on his heart and his lungs. The headstone was only two rows behind Kendra and Ariana Dumbledore’s. It was made of white marble, and this made it easy to read. Harry did not need to kneel or even approach very close to it to make out the words engraved upon it.
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 read the words slowly, as though he would have only one chance to take in their meaning, and he read the last of them aloud. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death….”
A horrible thought came to him, and with a kind of panic, he looked over at Sirius who was reading the grave just like himself. “Isn’t that a Death Eater idea?
Sirius didn’t answer. Harry was pretty sure that he hadn’t even heard him. He stepped closer, watching Sirius’s eyes reading the same words over and over. Harry leaned his cheek against Sirius’s shoulder and tried again. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death - why is that there?”
“It’s not meant the way a Death Eater would intend it,” Sirius said, once he managed to make sound come from his lips. “It’s there as a reminder that there are much worse things than death. It’s about living after death. It’s from the Bible.”
“But they’re not living,” Harry reminded him quietly.
The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents’ moldering remains lay beneath the earth and stone, indifferent, unknowing. And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending. He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, looking down at the grass hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now, surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping in the ground with them. (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Quote)
“Of course they’re still living, Harry,” Sirius said quietly. “This is just the place where their physical bodies were laid to rest. Somewhere - I don’t know where - but somewhere they are living a life that you and I cannot even begin to imagine right now. And it’s a better life. Of this, I am absolutely sure.”
Harry leaned more deeply against Sirius than ever, grateful that he was there, but found that he could not look at him. He concentrated on taking deep, sharp gulps of air, trying to steady himself, trying to regain control. His neck twisting as he began to frantically search around the barren cemetery that had not yet begun to blossom with the promises of spring. “I should have brought them something,” he trembled with regret.
But Sirius raised his wand and twirled it in the air, conjuring a cascading bouquet of lily of the valley, white roses, and daisies, which Harry caught gratefully and then knelt down to place the flowers on his parents’ grave. He pressed his hands flat on the grass as if to steady himself. His nails clawed into the soil, wanting to somehow be part of where they were. To let his presence be known. And when he finally felt ready, he stood up again, and went back to Sirius and let him hug him.
“Can we go now?” he asked quietly, wiping his sleeve across his face.
Without saying anything Sirius began to walk him towards the cemetery gate, but Harry found himself glancing over his shoulder more than once to get a lasting impression. He felt like he had been ready to leave too soon. How long had he stayed there? It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. After living for fifteen years without James and Lily Potter, had he honoured them properly on this visit?
“Maybe I want to stay...Maybe we should...” Harry’s voice was breaking, as Sirius stopped walking and waited to see what he was going to do. “I don’t know what I want -”
“Follow me,” said Sirius, taking hold of Harry’s hand as he guided them out of the graveyard. The gate shut behind them with a clang and they made their way down a cobblestone road past the church and away from the center of town. People were fewer this way. They passed by several large cottages, each more grander than the next. They were spaced further and further apart, surrounded by fields and orchards, like what Harry had seen Sirius and James flying in from inside the Pensieve.
“Can you see it?” Sirius said suddenly.
‘Wha - yes.”
The Fidelius Charm must have died with James and Lily. The hedges had grown wild in the fifteen years since Hagrid had taken Harry from the rubble that lay scattered amongst the waist-high grass. Most of the cottage was still standing, though entirely covered in dark ivy, but the right side of the top floor had been blown apart; that, Harry was sure, was where the curse had backfired.
Harry slipped his hand out of Sirius’s grip and grasped onto the thickly rusted gate, not wishing to open it, but simply to hold some part of the house.
“Oh. Harry, look!”
A sign had risen out of the ground in front of them, up through the tangles of nettles and weeds, like some bizarre, fast-growing flower, and in golden letters upon the wood it said:
On this spot on the night of 31 October 1981, Lily and James Potter lost their lives. Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard ever to have survived the Killing Curse. This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters and as a reminder of the violence that tore apart their family.
And all around these neatly lettered words, scribbles had been added by other witches and wizards who had come to see the place where the Boy Who Lived had escaped. Some had merely signed their names in everlasting ink; others had left messages. The most recent of these, shining brightly over fifteen years’ worth of magical graffiti, all said similar things.
Long live Harry Potter.
If you read this, Harry, we’re all behind you!
“It’s brilliant,” Harry smiled. “I…”
He broke off when he saw Snape approaching. His face was white as a sheet and for all his good intentions in accompanying Harry here today, it had clearly been too much for him to bear. There was almost something freshly broken about his spirit, Harry felt it; saw the movements of a man bowed down with unrelenting sorrow. As Snape drew closer, Harry opened his mouth and searched for words to unburden him even a little but it was Sirius that found his own voice first.
“Don’t leave us again,” Sirius whispered.
Snape didn’t answer him. He kept his eyes focused ahead and Harry saw him reading the words on the sign and taking it all in. While Harry studied the orchard behind the house that had become barren and withered from neglect. The apple trees no longer looked like they could bear fruit. Remembering the memory Sirius had given him and all the promise of what would never be, filled Harry with a despair that would have crushed him if he'd been standing here alone.
“Let's go home,” Harry said, when he could bear it no longer, squeezing Sirius’s hand in his tightly and reaching for Snape’s arm before he could attempt to divide himself from them again. Then he waited to be pulled into nothingness.