Harry and Amelia Potter

7.15

"Muggles who've just been laying flowers on your parents' grave." Just then, up ahead, the stooped woman holds up her hand and we stop. Seconds later, a group of snatchers passes by the alley. As they vanish, the woman continues on.

"Relax. This is right. I know it." Harry states.

The woman hobbles on. The lane is lined with modest cottages with small and tidy gardens. Hermione barely gives them a glance, nervously eyeing the woman ahead, before realizing she is walking alone.

She turns, sees Harry and I standing several yards back, staring at a dark cottage, its garden overgrown with weeds, its roof entirely covered in ivy and snow.

Hermione returns to us, then gasps. "Oh my god. Harry... Mia..."

"This is where they died, Hermione." I say.

"This is where he murdered them." Harry says angrily.

I study Harry's bitter profile, then the house, careful not to disturb the moment with words. Absently, Harry places his fingers upon the locket at his chest. It is trembling ever-so-slightly.

Then, without turning, while still staring at the house, I speak. "You're Bathilda, aren't you?"

Hermione and Harry blink, confused, then turn and jump. The old woman is standing only yards away, watching us.

She doesn't say a word to answer me, just continues to walk towards a little cottage down the street. She reaches the door and waits for us to catch up.

The door rattles open and tiny Bathilda Bagshot hobbles inside, followed first by Harry and I, then Hermione, who wrinkles her nose. As Bathilda exits the room, Hermione glances about.

"Harry, I'm not sure about this." She whispers to my brother.

"Hermione, she knew Dumbledore. She might have the sword."

"Besides, she's barely knee-high to a house-elf. I think we can overpower her if it turns ugly." I add.

"There's something odd about her." Then she gives a face of disgust. "And what's that smell?"

"She's gaga, remember?" I say quietly.

Bathilda returns, holding a box of matches. She strikes one, tries to light a candle, but her movements are clumsy.

"Here. Let me do that." Harry says, taking the matches from her hand. He then ignites one of them and lights a candle.

Hermione eyes a photograph of a curiously compelling young girl, then runs a finger along a table. It comes away thick with dust. She frowns, looks up, and finds Bathilda watching her.

"Miss Bagshot? Who is this man?" Harry asks her. He stands by a chest of drawers, holding the match over a grouping of photographs. Coated in dust, the figures in the frames flit like ghosts behind veils. Harry picks one up, wipes away the dust with his hand. In it a merry-faced boy looks out, his cheery expression belying a particularly intense gaze.

I walk over to him and take it from his hand, seeing if I recognized him. I did, from a vision. He was the one who stole whatever it was Voldemort was looking for from Gregorovitch.

"His name. Can you tell me his name?" Harry asks, showing the picture to her. Bathilda stares at the photograph solemnly, then peers up at Harry and I. Her eyes are thick with cataracts. Harry and I stare, unnerved, then Hermione walks over, looks at the picture.

"This is him, Hermione." I tell her. "The one we saw in Gregorovitch's wandshop. The thief." I then turn to Bathilda again. "Miss Bagshot, who is he?" She looks at me, then jerks her head toward the stairs. "She wants us to go upstairs."

"All right..." As Hermione moves, Bathilda shakes her head, points at Harry and then to me.

"She wants us to go." Harry says, pointing to me and him. "Me and Mia. Alone."

"Why?" She asks.

"It's all right. You stay here." I tell her. She opens her mouth to speak again, but Harry and I hold up our hands, silencing her, then follows Bathilda. Just before we disappear, Harry looks back and winks, but Hermione doesn't look reassured.

Harry and I trail Bathilda up a circular staircase, uncomfortably narrow and lined with books. We enter a dark low-ceilinged room. I wrinkle my nose at the smell, then hear the door close behind us. The room plunges into darkness.

"Lumos." I say, and the tip of my wand ignites with a bright light. Harry and I sweep the room. Bathilda's face wavers in the dark, only feet away, staring at him and I.

We watch as Bathilda moves closer, transfixed by her milky eyes. The Horcrux on Harry's chest twitches.

Then she begins to speak in Parseltongue. "You are Potters?"

"Yes." Harry and I both answer.

"I have something for you..."

My arm droops, my wand tip painting the room with dots of light as I sway, wincing as my scar stings. I look over and see Harry cupping his forehead with his hand.

Bathilda points to a dressing table cluttered with soiled laundry, her milky eyes fixed on Harry and I. Something surfaces in her filmy corneas, her pupils changing from dots to silts.

I peer at the foul laundry, moving closer, when, out of the corner of my eye, Bathilda moves weirdly. I wheel and watch in horror as Bathilda's old body collapses and Nagini pours from her neck. As Harry raises his wand, Nagini strikes, piercing his forearm. His wand flies out of his hand. I raise my wand.

"Expulso!" I cast, but the serpent dodges it. My spell hits the wall, causing the brick to crumble. I feel the cold air on my skin.

Nagini's tail swings about, knocks Harry and I's legs out from under us. As we roll onto our backs, gasping for breath, Nagini's massive body rolls over us. The Horcrux ticks feverishly against Harry's chest. As Harry roars in pain, the lenses of his glasses fracture.

The snakes tail wraps around my neck, cutting off my airways. I gasp, trying to peal it off me, but nothing is working. I feel the life in me slowly fading away. Then the bedroom door swings open.

Hermione silhouetted against the stairwell, wand poised. A flash of red light ricochets around the room and Nagini's tail whips angrily about, releasing the hold on me, shattering the bedroom window. I gasp for air as Hermione dives aside and Harry covers his and my face as the curtains burst into flames and shards of glass shower the room in a rush of cold air.

As Harry reclaims his wand and rises, Nagini's body uncoils in fury, splintering furniture and blasting holes into the walls.

"Confringo!" As Hermione's spell caroms off the trembling walls, I see both her and Harry reflected in a mirror. Finally regaining my breath, I leap, sweeping both my brother and my best friend toward the smoldering window.

As we pitch ourselves into the night, the mirror explodes and shards of glass, reflecting bits of Hermione, Harry, and I and the giant snake, tumble in the night, slowly vanishing into nothingness.