This was written as an original ending for the series that I intended on entering in my local library's contest...but then forgot and missed the deadline. Oh well. I really like it. Pour on the angst!
Godric's Hollow
A lot could change in a year, or only a little.
Godric's Hollow would go under the second category. The house stood as it had only a year ago (had it really only been a year?), and how he was sure it had for the past seventeen years since it's only inhabitants had left under the Dark Mark.
In contrast, Harry supposed he had changed quite a bit. He could not believe he was the same person after death after death after death…
He shook his head, urgently attempting to avoid that train of thought. He looked up at the house again instead.
It felt right to come here, not good, but right somewhere. There was a comfort and a sense of closure in this village; where it had all begun seventeen years ago, and then again just one passing of the seasons before.
He supposed the vines crawling along the sides of the house were a bit longer than when he had come last summer, and the shutters of the left upstairs window had not been hanging off their hinges then. But otherwise it was just as he had last seen it.
It still held the image of a desolate, abandoned place (which it was, he supposed), and it was hard to imagine it as inhabitable. But seventeen years ago, it had been, for what Harry would make the last time.
He went inside, a year ago, with the two of them trailing behind. They had seen the empty, dust coated crib and Harry had burned with anger and immeasurable revenge, and so they had as well.
Now the revenge was fulfilled and Ron and Hermione were dead and Harry was here again, just as it had begun.
Only this time he was alone and there were not pats on the shoulder, or awkward, yet needed words whispered for comfort. There was only a gaping hole in his chest and the sound of his labored breathing. He wasn't supposed to think of them, not yet when it still hurt this much.
There was no Dumbledore to force him past his pain, as when Sirius died. There was no Ron or Hermione to mourn with, as when Dumbledore died. There was only him, and he felt truly alone in the world.
Alone. Without Ron or Hermione.
He couldn't deal with people just now; there was no way he could celebrate. All around Europe people were cheering his name, he knew, and he would much rather they were praying for the dead. He didn't want it to end like this.
Steeling himself, forcing their faces out of his mind with only partial success (he had never been good at Occlumency), Harry faced the house again warily.
He had come without truly knowing what he was there for. He watched the house for a while, mind wandering, as he waited for some clue, some sign as to his own purpose here. Surely he had not come just to inflict more pain upon himself.
"So this is where your parents met their ends," whispered a horribly familiar voice behind him.
"So this is it," she had whispered, her eyes darting nervously over to Harry, as if afraid of how he might react.
"Not the prettiest place is it?" asked the boy that was holding her hand, noting the dismal condition of the house as if only for the purpose of preventing awkward silence.
"No. But I doubt anyone thinks the place where their parents were murdered is pretty." Harry's voice was a failed attempt at light and joking. It shook slightly, and he turned his face away from them as his eyes swam with sadness.
"Thanks to you. I never did properly thank you for that, did I?" Harry's voice was not threatening, only bitter and tired.
Snape did not reply, and Harry turned to face him, his hand lingering near the wand in his pocket.
To his surprise, he found that sallow face without a sneer, instead a sharp gaze that met his own eyes. They stared for quite some time, until Harry turned indifferently back to face the house.
"The Order sent me to make sure you didn't do anything stupid. They obviously don't realize it's in your nature," said Snape softly, and without his full malice. If Harry had looked, he would have caught a grimace flash across his face.
"Please. Try and stop me," Harry replied, hand fingering the wand in his pocket now as he stepped nearer to the decrepit house. He had heard that it was owned by some muggle couple who had no inkling of its historical importance. He hoped they weren't too attached to it.
He wasn't conscious just when he had made this decision. It certainly wasn't a very rational one; in fact Hermione would have heartily disapproved. Wait, he wasn't going to think about Hermione. Forget he just thought that.
He took his wand from his pocket then, and sensed rather than heard Snape do so as well behind him.
"As much as I would like to kill you, I'm not doing this for you," Harry whispered.
This was what he needed, after all. His heart knew that even if his mind didn't. He was a boy of seventeen years old, even if he didn't feel like it. He needed the satisfaction of breaking things, of causing damage, just as much as he had in Dumbledore's office two years ago.
Most of all he needed closure.
This was where it began, with Voldemort and the scar and really everything that had made Harry Potter who he was to the world. And damn, Harry hated the world right then. He hated that all the stupid world would remember was his name and his fight and that no one would remember Hermione Granger or Ron Weasley.
Harry hated his place, this house, these memories. This was where his parents fucking died.
Yes, this was right, whatever the logical part of his brain said.
This was why he had come here. Closure.
…
The firefighters arrived far too late for the old house. No one lived in Godric's Hollow anymore, so it was a while before the people in a neighboring town noticed the cloud of smoke.
By then the place had been reduced to ashes and charred timbers. The house's owners weren't too troubled, finding the insurance money quite generous and having never used the house anyway.
No one could tell though what had started the fire. Stranger still, it had been completely contained to the building, and none of the surrounding trees or the graves in the backyard had been damaged.
It's like they were protected by magic, some said.
Magic or not, the remains succumbed to nature over time, and the forest, slowly but surely, regained the land, till all traces of the house had disappeared.
Except- if one looked close enough, if they were for some reason determined enough to traipse through the forest in search of it, they could find a small clearing where the trees never grew. There were two graves here, with headstones as unseasoned as if they had been placed there yesterday.
Seeing them there, unmoved by time, undaunted by the surrounding forest, unchanged as years passed and even the name Harry Potter was forgotten, one might even be moved to call them magic too.