Change the Future

DH 8

"Even little Rory loved her Moony and Padfoot" James says smirking at them.

Harry stood quite still, holding the paper in his fingers. Lurching to the bed, he sat
down. He read the letter again, but could not take in any more meaning than he had done the first time, and was reduced to staring at the handwriting itself. 

"Harry? Harry? Harry!"

"I'm here!" he called, "What's happened?" There was a clatter of footsteps outside the door, and Hermione burst inside. 

"We woke up and didn't know where you were!" she said breathlessly. She turned and shouted over her shoulder, "Ron! I've found him" Ron's annoyed voice echoed distantly from several floors below. 

"Good! Tell him from me he's a git!" 

"Harry don't just disappear, please, we were terrified! Why did you come up here anyway?" She gazed around the ransacked room. "What have you been doing?"

"Why does it really matter to you anyway what he was doing in his dead godfathers room" Sirius says looking at her.

"Look what I've just found" He held out his mother's letter. Hermione took it out and read
it while Harry watched her. When she reached the end of the page she looked up at him.

"Oh Harry" 

"And there's this too." He handed her a torn photograph, and Hermione smiled at the baby zooming in and out of sight on the toy broom. "I've been looking for the rest of the letter," Harry said, "but it's not here" Hermione glanced around. 

"Did you make all this mess, or was some of it done when you got here?" 

"Someone had searched before me," Harry said. 

"I thought so. Every room I looked into on the way up had been disturbed except for Rory's. What were they after, do you think?"

"Why'd you go in mine and that just proves it was Mundungus" 

"Looking for Harry obviously" 

"Why would he be in my room that he helped me empty" Rory asks tilting her head slightly.

"Information on the Order, if it was Snape"

"But you'd think he'd already have all he needed. I mean was in the Order, wasn't he?" 

"Well then," Harry said, keen to discuss his theory, "what about information on Dumbledore? The second page of the letter, for instance. You know this Bathilda my mum mentions, you know who she is?" 

"Who?" 

"Bathilda Bagshot, the author of" 

"A History of Magic," Hermione said, looking interested. "So your parents knew her? She was an incredible magic historian." 

"And she's still alive," Harry said, "and she lives in Godric's Hollow. Ron's Auntie Muriel was talking about her at the wedding. She knew Dumbledore's family too. Be pretty interesting to talk to, wouldn't she?" There was a little too much understanding in the smile Hermione gave him for Harry's liking. He took back the letter and the photograph and tucked them inside the pouch around his neck, so as not to have to look at her and give himself away. 

"I understand why you'd love to talk to her about, and Dumbledore too," Hermione said. "But that wouldn't really help us in our search for the Horcruxes, would it?" Harry did not answer, and she rushed on, "Harry, I know you really want to go to Godric's Hollow, but I'm scared. I'm scared at how easily those Death Eaters found us yesterday. It just makes me feel more than ever that we ought to avoid the place where your parents are buried, I'm sure they'd be expecting you to visit it."