Sorry it's a bit later than usual, I was bought my first car this morning. Its a small stick shift and is bright green. I'm rather pleased with it.On a more related note, this is the chapter they leave Nocturne top go back to school, with a side trip.
*
Harry woke up on the second of January, their last day in Nocturne, exhausted but calm. It had been a busy week, but a good one. And possibly the first time in his life he had felt truly free to be himself.
It was an addictive liberating feeling. He felt like the alley had become home, and he liked the people, and they seemed to have accepted him as one of their own. For the first time since he was a young child, he felt like himself again.
He was heartbroken to leave the alley. It was busy, dark and cozy. There was always a hint of a threat. The people are interesting and fascinatingly odd. And despite their prickly cautious nature, they' were kind enough once they start seeing him as 'Morbid's boy,' as one of them, one of their own.
They're like him. They don't fit in anywhere else. They'd didn't care that he had scares, they didn't stare when they saw, and they didn't ask. Because other than his lightning bolt scar he's not about to hide them all. Why should he?
The alley felt like home now. And for the first time, he was sad for the holidays to come to an end. And while he had considered sneaking into the forest for the Ostara break, he thought maybe instead he'd go back to Nocturne, he liked the people and thought he'd probably miss them.
He said goodbye to the regulars at The Hung Drawn n Quarters on Friday. Furloff, Birdie, Klaus, Fern, Ripgut the grumpy goblin who liked the tentacular curry, and the Crone, the dream catcher weaver that no-one knew the name of.
Secretly Harry just thought The Crone, liked everyone's confusion and deliberately refused to tell anyone her name. Though, with the number of fake names going around Nocturne, that was pretty standard.
It was not a teary goodbye or an emotional one, but Morbid made him promise to be back and said his room would be waiting for him and his sister next holidays. Her and Hermione use the time-turner at dawn to go back half a day, so they could get a good nights sleep and easily switch back to diurnal time without pulling another all-nighter.
The sun was rising and they left the inn and slipped silently out of the alley. They'd said their goodbyes before they slept and Harry was not a fan of goodbyes, but he felt sad leaving all the same.
They catch the Knight bus to Godric Hollow. They train didn't leave until 9 o'clock, a bit earlier for the term holidays. They had a few hours until then, and Harry wanted to see where his mum had lived.
The bus let them out in a little village square. Christmas decorations were still up, strung all around with coloured lights. The normality of it was jarring after how gothic Nocturne was.
There was what looked like a war memorial in the middle of the square. A windblown Christmas tree partly obscured it. There were several shops; a post office, a pub, and a little church whose stained-glass windows sparkled in the early morning light. It was so different from the feel of Nocturne, especially with the cross's on the churches windows that it felt almost unsettling.
Hermione eyed the church. "They... they'll be in there, won't they? Your mum and Mr Potter? I can see the graveyard behind it."
Harry felt a swooping feeling in his gut, more like fear or dread than excitement. Now that he was here, he wondered whether he wanted to see any of it at all. Hermione seemed to know how he was feeling because she reached for his hand and took the lead pulling him forward. Halfway across the square, however, she stopped dead.
"Harry, look!"
She was pointing at the war memorial. As they got closer, it had 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 her arms.
Harry drew closer. It was odd to see himself in stone, a happy baby without a scar on his head, gazing up into his mum's face. His mum was looking so happy in the arms of Potter.
Something like horror, revulsion and anger rose in his gut. How dare they make a statue of such a 'happy' lie to commemorate murder. That's what it was. A lie. A 'nice,' 'pretty' lie that stabbed you in the back!
He hated the statue. He hated and loathed it and wanted to blast off Potter's smug face. The bastard, holding his mother and him in such an intimate embrace as if he cared so much! As if they were the perfect happy family! How dare they!
And they looked so blissfully happy together! Like they never were! He wanted to blast it to pieces. To carve out Potter's stone eyes. But that would not fix it. It would not make it better. And really, it would only attract attention, scrutiny. The world viewed Potter as a hero.
They'd never understand.
But one day. One day he'd make them forget anything good about James Potter. They'd know his mother's true story. He was Hadrian Evans Peverell, son of Lily Marie Evans. He was not a Potter. The potter line died with James Potter, the disgrace and Harry would awaken and bear his ancestor's true name with pride.
"C'mon," said Harry, feeling ill. As they crossed the road, he glanced over his shoulder; the statue had turned back into the war memorial.
There was a kissing gate at the entrance to the graveyard. On either side of the slippery path to the church doors, the snow lay deep and untouched. They moved off through the snow, carving deep trenches behind them as they walked around the building, keeping to the shadows beneath the brilliant windows.
Behind the church, row upon row of snowy tombstones protruded from a blanket of pale blue that was flecked with dazzling red, gold, and green wherever the reflections from the stained glass hit the snow. Keeping his hand closed tightly on the wand in his jacket pocket, Harry moved toward the nearest grave.
Abbot
He wondered how many family members of people he knew were here.
They waded deeper and deeper into the graveyard, gouging dark tracks into the snow behind them, stopping to peer at the words on old headstones.
"Harry, here!"
Hermione was two rows of tombstones away; he had to wade back to her, his heart positively banging in his chest.
"Is it- ?"
"No, but look!"
She pointed to the dark stone. Harry stooped down and saw, upon the frozen, lichen-spotted granite, 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."
So Dumbledore's family had indeed lived here, and part of it had died here. Harry could not help thinking that he and Dumbledore both had deep roots in this graveyard, yet he had never thought to share it with him?
Really? He thought cynically.
It would have been a great way to get Harry to feel indebted to him. What a bond that would have been. How much it would have meant to him, visiting his parent's graves. But it seemed that to Dumbledore, the fact that their families lay side by side in the same graveyard had been an unimportant coincidence, irrelevant, perhaps, to the job he wanted Harry to do. And it was not as if Dumbledore had ever been a proper guardian, or even care about Harry.
So why did Harry feel letdown?
"Here!" cried Hermione again a few moments later. "Oh, no, sorry! I thought it said Potter."
She was rubbing at a crumbling, mossy stone, gazing down at it, a little frown on her face.
"Harry, come back a moment."
"What?"
"Look at this!"
The grave was extremely old. Harry could hardly make out the name. Hermione showed him the symbol beneath it.
He peered at the place she indicated. The stone was so worn that it was hard to make out what was engraved there. There was a triangular mark beneath the name that was just as hard to make out.
"That's that odd mark in the Tails of Beatle the Bard..." Harry said.
"Its the symbol of the three Deathly Hallows according to Luna," Hermione said, pointed it at the name on the headstone.
"It says Ignotus, I think..."
"Ignotus Peverell," Harry whispered, "my ancestor."
He felt painfully lonely, standing there looking at a carved rock that was all that was left of one of his long-dead family members.
Hermione took his hand again and said, "come on, Harry. Let's find your mum, all right?"
He nodded and let her lead him between the graves. It was strange walking through the cemetery. It seemed to be unnaturally quiet, even for an early morning. Deeper and deeper amongst the graves he went, and every time he reached a new headstone, he felt a little lurch of apprehension and anticipation.
"Harry, she's here..." Hermione said, pointing to a grave next to her.
He felt as if something heavy were pressing on his chest; a grief that weighed so heavily on his heart and lungs that he could barely breathe.
The headstone was white marble, easy to read, as it seemed to shine in the early morning light. Harry did not need to kneel or even approach very close to it to make out the words engraved upon it.
His parents' names, dates of birth and date of death. On a shared headstone.
She did not even have her own headstone, he thought bitterly, his throat aching. Even in her death, his mother was tied to that man. He scowled, his eyes stinging furiously. The stone showed nothing of her personality at all! And that quote underneath it!
'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.'
"What a horrid thing to say!" He spat, "even in death, she can't escape and be free of him! Isn't that a Death Eater idea? Why is that even that there? Why is he even here! He has no right to be lying next to her."
Grief and fury were making his head foggy; he couldn't think clearly.
Hermione squeezed his hand tightly, "I don't think it means defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Harry," she said, her voice gentle. "It means... you know... living beyond death. Living after death."
But they were not living, he thought bitterly, she was gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents' mouldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing. His mother was gone. He would never really know her, and she was lying next to the person she hated, who had trapped her.
Tears came thick and fast before he could stop them, boiling hot then freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? He let them freeze. His lips pressed hard together, looking down at the thick snow, letting his hair fall around his face, hiding his eyes the place where the last of Lily lay.
Bones now surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that her living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of her sacrifice and wishing, for a moment that he was under the snow with her.
He slashed his wand angrily at the tombstone, splitting it in half, leaving James with the stupid white stone, and the stupid quote. He didn't care. But hers, he changed. But his mother would have her own headstone. He transfigured the white marble and into black obsidian with a flick of his wand. He wrote her name, then 'Free at last, free at least, thank the goddess almighty, I'm free at last.'
Hermione had taken his hand again and was gripping it tightly. The stone still looked plain.
"Based off Martin Luther King jr?" she asked softly.
He nodded.
"But changed to fit her. She'd like that I'll bet Harry. But remember she loved you more than anything. She stayed for you."
She made a good point. He thought for a minute. Truly thought about his mum and not his own anger. He flicked his wand again, thinking hard on what he wanted for her. He opened his eyes, and a statue of Hekate stood guard over her grave a small plaque at the base. He swished his wand again, and words appeared:
Lily Marie Evans
Devoted & Beloved
A fighter until the end.
Hermione squeezed his hand comfortingly. He could not look at her but returned the pressure. He took deep, sharp gulps of the morning air, trying to steady himself, trying to regain control. He should have brought something to give her! How thoughtless of him, he berated himself, casting a glance wildly around. But Hermione raised her wand, moved it in a circle through the air, and a wreath of blood-red roses blossomed before them. Harry caught it and laid it on his mum's grave, casting an ever-fresh charm on them.
He wiped his eyes and stood, letting her pull him into her arms in a tight hug. When she drew away, he wanted to leave suddenly.
"Come on," he said horsily.
He did not think he could stand another moment there. He looped his arm through Hermione's and led them back to the kissing gate. She squeezed his arm close to her side, sniffling.
They left the graveyard and wandered through the village. They ended up wandering down a little street leading out of the village in the opposite direction from which they had come. Harry could see the open country again where the cottages ended.
"Where do you want to go now?" Hermione asked quietly, but Harry was not paying attention. He was looking toward the very end of the row of houses. Next moment he had sped up, dragging Hermione along with him; she nearly slipped on the ice on the road.
"Harry-"
"Look..."
"I don't... oh!"
He could see it; the Fidelius Charm must have died with Potter and his Mum. The hedge had grown wild in the years since Hagrid had taken Harry from the rubble that lay under the waist-high grass. Most of the cottage was still standing, though entirely covered in dark ivy and snow. It felt unnatural cold, and still. As if the very earth held its breath.
The right side of the top floor and some thatched roof had been blown apart. That must have been where the curse had backfired. He and Hermione stood at the gate, gazing up at the wreck of what must once have been a cottage just like those that flanked it.
"I wonder why nobody's ever rebuilt it?" whispered Hermione.
"It was put under status," Harry replied. "But it does feel weird here. Maybe it's like the injuries from Dark Magic; you can't always repair the damage?"
"They made it a monument remembering that horrid night. How awful," he murmured, gripping her arm a little tighter. He slipped his other hand from beneath his cloak and grasped the snowy and thickly rusted gate.
"You're not going to go inside are you? It looks unsafe; it might- oh, look!" she cried.
His touch on the gate seemed to have done it. 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."
Around those words things 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; some had carved their initials into the wood, others had left messages. The most recent of these, shining brightly over sixteen years' worth of magical graffiti, all said similar things.
"Good luck, Harry, wherever you are."
"If you read this, Harry, we're all behind you!"
"Long live Harry Potter."
"They shouldn't have written on the sign!" said Hermione, indignant.
"No, they shouldn't have," he said in a low, furious voice, "they made my house an amusement, a symbol of hope. They'd have me a martyr and would have me die for them, fight for them. They claim to be with me all the way, but where are they now? Where were they when I was bleeding and starving as a child?" He spat, sneering at what they'd done to his gate.
"An amusement made of the price I paid, for their freedom, the night I lost everything." He spat bitterly.
He wanted to clear all the words and claim his house back! Because it was his! His mother had lived here and given him a home here. They had no right to it! He didn't want to live there! Not in the place where he'd lost too much, and his mother had been so unhappy, but he didn't want them having it either!
It was private. He didn't want them coming and staring at his grief!
But he also understood, detachedly, what it was to the community.
Hope.
The price of hope, he thought cynically, of evil being defeated. He swallowed hard and clenched his fists.
He pushed open the gate and felt the ministry wards trying to lock him out. But under it all, he felt his mother's magic too. He took out his Boline and cut his hand, smearing the blood on the gate, pushing his magic at the wards. The family wards opened, cutting a door through the Ministry wards. He took Hermione's hand in his own bloody one allowing her to slip through the wards too.
It was deathly quiet inside as if they were in another world. The air was heavy and thick with a strange pressure that seemed to silence the world out side. The air was musty somehow, with old fear and his mother's unhappiness. The emotions seemed to have seeped into the very house itself.
It made Harry's pulse race and his breath become shallow. He felt tired all of a sudden as if the whole world was on his shoulders, and he might go to sleep and never wake up again.
He walked through the house, Hermione at his side like a silent shadow. A warm unobtrusive presence. And he was grateful for it.
The kitchen was at the front of the cottage and the living room behind that. On the other side were the bathroom, laundry and a study that had been turned into a room for Potter's friends, judging by the posters and pictures on the walls. It looked like a teenage boys room.
Harry walked through to the kitchen. It was not as cluttered as the one in her apartment, but he could still tell that it had been lived in and had the sense of organised chaos that her apartment had had.
It was as it was is if they'd stepped out and would be back at any minute. It almost made Harry look over his shoulder as if to check to see if his mum was following him in.
There were dirty dishes in the sink, and clean ones on the drying rack as if waiting to be put away. The makings of tea were sitting on the bench and a half-eaten jar of muggle baby food. The only sign of time having passed was the layer of dust over everything and the stain the tea left in the cup when it had dried up.
There were pictures all over the cool box. It wasn't a fridge like the Muggles had. But a wooden cabinet with cooling charms that worked like a fridge. He peered closer at them. There was a half-finished shopping list on it, there was a picture of him and his mum, and one of him covered in what could have been mashed pumpkin. One of his mum cuddling him close them both grinning brightly like the sun.
He opened the cool box curiously. It still had food in it. Still fresh from the fridges magic. He stared. So weird. So sad. He fingered the recipe books on top of the cool box.
His mum's. It started off in her own childish writing and changing as she grew up. His Grandma Evans' cookbook was there too, yellowed with age and held together with crusting yellowed muggle tape. And another receipt book that was clearly a wizarding cookbook, "Ms Merlin's Basic to Brilliant!"
Carefully he slipped his mum's and grandmothers into his bag to look at later.
There were more pot plants around the kitchen and herbs, and potion ingredients and a cupboard on the wall full of cauldrons, potion things. Dusty dried herbs and things hung from the ceiling beam. There was an empty cauldron on the table, next to a box of Bicarb soda and a pile of knives, stirring rods and other tools. There was a pile of ingredients, phials, and jars next to it. As if she'd been brewing or about to and hadn't bothered to tidy up.
His mum had obviously spent a lot of time in the kitchen he thought. And for planning. She'd used the kitchen table as a study by the looks of it, as she had in her flat. There was still a thick book on the table in a language he didn't understand. Notes and bookmarks covered it, and there was a fat notebook with an odd silver quill.
He picked up the notebook to have a closer look. It had different symbols on the top corner of each page, some of which looked like diary entries, some of which looked like ward notes, or potions notes.
He stared. This must have been the notebook she used to update the books in the trunk while she was away. She'd mentioned it in one of her diaries, worked out how to link them and transfer things. He was struck again, dimly of how brilliant his mother had been as he carefully pocketed the notebook and quill.
He glanced at the door to the living room. Sure enough, the bouncing baby carrier she had written about was hanging off one side of the doorway as if taken down in a hurry. He crept into the living room. He was tiptoeing despite himself.
The living room looked like the Gryffindor common room cozy but garish in red and gold. It had few signs of Lily in it. Instead, it had a stack of files on one table and a stack of quidditch magazines on the arm of the sofa. There was Marauders paraphernalia everywhere
He glanced at the fireplace and saw the first sign of his mum. A well-thumbed muggle fantasy book, laying spine up on the arm of a black armchair that didn't really fit the room. And a stack of books on the floor next to it. It was as if his mum had just set it down for a moment. Next to it was a small sheepskin in front of the fire.
For a moment, Harry got the impression of warmth, safety and love, the smell of roses and a huge crackling fire in front of him.
He knew his mother had disliked the place, but she had read in the armchair in front of the fire, letting him nap on the sheepskin.
He turned and then caught sight of something on the couch.
A wand.
He picked it up, and somehow knew it was Potter's.
Why hadn't he had it on him? They had been at war! He gave it an experimental flick. It sparked sluggishly, and when he cast Lumos, it was like trying to blow air through a thin straw. It felt uncomfortable as if the wand didn't want him using it, didn't like him. He put it back down on the couch, and cast an eye around, and caught sight a door leading to a guest bedroom and a set of stairs.
The guest room looked like it had once been a study, but had been taken over by the Marauders, photos and posters stuck up on the wall, and Gryffindor banners hanging around the bed. He left the room, not really interested in his father's friends anymore, and slowly made his way up the stairs.
There was a master bedroom on one side, with an ensuite. It was clearly Potter's space. He'd decorated it in red and gold. Harry knew from her diary she'd hated it and anything red (clashed with her hair) and she'd never slept in it, even if he had decorated it with her in mind. And didn't that show how much Potter didn't really know his mum?
He was reluctant but poked around hoping to find something, anything to explain away his father's behaviour. Maybe a diary, like his mother had kept that could explain it all away. He didn't find one, but he did find a gold necklace with the Potter ring on it. He sighed and took a moment to scribble a note and slip the ring into the Gringotts box to send safely to Rodgrip.
The other bedroom had been converted to a nursery. Half of it closes to the door was clearly his mother's bedroom. It had a small bed, and desk, that seemed to double as a changing table, if the stack of clothes and the onesies were any indication. He stepped into the room, touching a foot of a purple and green onesie. It was soft, despite its dustiness.
It looked devoid of any of Lily's personality. It was as if it were not properly lived in. Not like her trunk, or apartment, or even the kitchen with its notes and potions things. It was as if it was being emptied. The bed had stacks of clothes, books, and baby things in ordered stacks and a half-packed bag were sitting on the pillow.
He had known she'd been prepared to run at any moment. Risk losing her magic and run just to keep him safe. He could feel his magic whirling as something in his gut twisted painfully.
The other half of the room was clearly a nursery. The walls seemed to have once been yellow, and he could just make out charmed animals bounding feebly about under all the black scorch marks. The little animals seemed to be half burnt and melted. It was a grizzly sight.
The cot was rubble on the floor, and the carpet was one giant scorch mark. But the wards the ministry used to lock the house down must be keeping the rain and snow out too. There were no weather marks inside, despite the roof and part of the wall having been blown off.
He could feel his own magic writhing in distress as he looked around, his head ached, and he could feel the remnants of dark magic sitting heavily in the air. He felt footsteps on the stairs running, a woman's soft cry's. He turned, but there was no-one on the stairs...
But he could hear them. Or were they out on the street? He glanced out the window, that looked out into the little lane. It was dark and windy outside, raining, making puddles on the street, the snow had gone...
The night was wet and windy, two children dressed as pumpkins waddling across the square. The shop windows covered in paper spiders, all the tawdry Muggle trappings of a world in which they did not believe... And he was gliding along, that sense of purpose and power and rightness in him that he always knew on these occasions... Not anger... that was for weaker souls than he... but triumph, yes... He had waited for this, he had hoped for it... He was going to saver this...
"Nice costume, mister!"
He saw the small boy's smile falter as he ran near enough to see beneath the hood of the cloak. He saw the fear cloud the boy's painted face.
Good. He smiled coldly.
The child turned and ran away... Beneath the robe, he fingered the handle of his wand... One simple movement and the child would never reach his mother... but unnecessary, quite unnecessary...
Pity.
And along a new and darker street, he moved, and now his destination was in sight at last. The Fidelius Charm was broken, though they did not know it yet... And he made less noise than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement as he drew level with the dark hedge and stared over it...
They had not drawn the curtains; he saw them quite clearly in their little kitchen, the tall black-haired man in his glasses, arguing with a woman with long dark red-hair holding a small black-haired boy in blue pyjamas. The child was resting quietly against his mother's chest, sucking on a strand of red hair that he held in his tiny little fist. The Mother cradled the child protectively as she appeared to be arguing back at the man viciously, gesticulating wildly with one free hand, saying words he could not hear, her long dark-red hair falling over her face.
The father seemed to try and comfort the mother, but she turned away sharply, crossing to the sink.
So they did not get along.
Interesting, he thought as the father seemed to let out a huff and crossed into the living room. He could just see it through the window. The man threw his wand down on the sofa and crossed over to the stack of files on the tables, yawning...
The fool.
The gate creaked a little as he pushed it open, but James Potter did not hear from the living room, and Lily Evens Potter was now engrossed in her book at the table.
His white hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open. He was over the threshold as James came sprinting into the hall, Lily up the stairs. It was easy, too easy. He had not even picked up his wand...
"Shit! It's him! Run Lily! I'll hold him off!"
Hold him off? Without a wand in his hand! He laughed before...
"Avada Kedavra!"
The green light filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it made the banisters gleam like lightning rods, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut...
He could hear her screaming from the upper floor as she discovered the extra wards he had put over the house earlier, trapping her in the room. Stupid girl, assuming he'd let her apparate or portkey out.
But as long as she was sensible, she, at least, had nothing to fear... He climbed the steps, listening with faint amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in.... How stupid they were, and how trusting, thinking that their safety lay in friends, that weapons could be discarded even for moments....
He forced the door open with one lazy wave of his wand and had her disarmed in a moment... and there she stood, the child in her arms in front of a crib, her face tear-stained and horrified. At the sight of him, she dropped her son into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead....
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside now."
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-"
He did not notice the blood on her hands or her son's face. He just sneered at her stupidity. As if begging would save her son.
"This is your last warning-"
"Not Harry! Please... have mercy... have mercy.... Not Harry!
Not Harry! Please- I'll do anything-"
"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"
He could have forced her away from the crib, but it seemed more prudent to finish them all...
The green light flashed, filling the room. She dropped like her husband. She made a pretty corps, he thought, satisfaction rising in him.
He turned to the child who had still not uttered a sound. It stood clutching the bars of its crib. It looked up into the intruder's face with wide soulful eyes.
He pressed his wand very carefully into its forehead, not seeing the blood on it under the dark fringe. What did he care if the child had food or something in its hair? He just wanted to see it happen, the destruction of this one, inexplicable danger.
The child began to cry. He did not like it crying. He had never been able to stomach the small ones whining in the orphanage-
"Avada Kedavra!"
Harry blinked.
He was in the middle of the room on his hands and knees, panting as if he'd run a marrathon. Hermione crouching next to him.
"Harry," Hermione whispered. "Do you feel all- all right?"
"Yes," he lied, crawling over the crib. His mother's wand had flown under it when Riddle disarmed her. He picked it up mechanically and got to his feet, pocketing it.
He didn't want to be here anymore.
"Dobby," he croaked quietly and had to stop himself jumping at how loud the crack of Dobby's apparition was.
Dobby seemed to sense Harry's disquiet though and said nothing, just looked around the room, his ears sagging unhappily.
"Dobby can you and Winky pack the house up for me?" He asked quietly, pleading, "can you box it up and take the things to Gringotts? I don't want to go through it right now, but I want it safe."
The elf nodded, patted Harry's knee in a way Harry thought was meant to be comforting before popping away. Harry stood there looking at a black mark on the rug for a moment, feeling empty and hollow, before turning and walking away.
*
Harry had pressed blood onto the gate as they left and had willed the house to shut everyone out. He didn't know much about wards yet, but he had felt them reach out to his magic as he'd entered the first time. He hoped it would be enough. It seemed to be, as the wards seemed to shiver and drawn in on themselves as he left.
They walked back to the other side of town, and hailed the bus, drawing their hoods over their heads.
They didn't talk as they waited for their stop, but Hermione leaned her head against Harry's shoulder, wrapping an arm around him and let him keep his silence. She was a warm, steady presence.
And he was grateful for it.
*
They were the first ones at the platform when they arrived from Godrick's Hollow. It was a little early still so as Hermione slipped on to the train to get them a carriage Harry took a moment to put himself back together. He felt strung out and drained, yet at the same time as if he was about to walk into battle.
He'd found so much freedom over the break. He felt like he had gotten himself back for the first time in years. Now he felt like he had to pack it all back up. To pack up all that he was again, to hide himself again. Like he had to slip on the mask of the boy who lived again, he thought in disgust.
No. He was not that boy anymore. He never had been. He was Hadrian Evans-Peverell, Hadrian 'Harry' Lilyson. The Golden Boy never existed. He would not bow to any of them. He was free now. He would not play to their whims or let them use him any more.
He took a deep fortifying breath, and let it strengthen his resolve, and stepped onto the train.
He felt strong again, as he had in the alley, standing up to those who would sooner see him fall before they had taken him in as one of their own. He stalked down the train to the compartment he knew Hermione would choose. He let his hair fade back to black, and his eyes shift back to green. But he left his scar hidden and left his hair long, falling carelessly down his back. He liked how effortless it was to look decent for a change, with the long length.
He'd say it was a potion. He took the fang earring off and instead put in a pair of obsidian studs that he'd carved tiny protection runes and wards on.
Why should he keep up his pretence of playing along? He would not give away all his secrets, but he would not pretend to be something he wasn't now. He may not be reckless, but he had no need to hide now. Not completely anyway. He would play by the rules (some of them) and play their game (some of it), but he would not bend to their will.
END NOTES
Ostera break - easter break. Harry now followed the pagan wheel of the year, the traditional old wizarding festivals. He never put much stock in the muggle religious festivals before anyway so he doesnt use the names any more.The trace only detects under age magic, not who it was done by. So they won't be detected. And as its a wizarding (or mostly wizarding town) they won't investigate.A boline is a ritual knife used for cutting physical things. An Athame is a ritual knife too but unlike the Boline it never cuts physically or draw blood. Yes, I did bastardise a Martin Luther King jr quote and make it pagan.