-- CHAPTER ONE --
Old Ties
It was sunny and bright as Harry got off the train at Godric's Hollow. The small town was bustling with activity as shoppers hurried from store to store. As in all Muggle towns, there were none of the typical signs of the magical world. Instead, mothers were shuffling from store to store with their children in tow. Teenagers, who had just gotten out of school for the summer holidays, were grouped outside various shops eating ice cream cones and sweets. Harry wondered if he could ever blend into the Muggle world. As a wizard, Harry felt even less in common with Muggles than before attending Hogwarts. His first ten years with the Dursleys were awful and once learning that he was a wizard, summers that he spent with his aunt, uncle and cousin had become unbearable. The Dursley's were ashamed of his magical abilities and forbid him to let other people know his unusual talents. Harry looked around at the people walking through the streets. They were huddled in small groups laughing and gossiping. Harry understood why ignorance was bliss.
The town that he had imagined Godric's Hollow to be was not sunny and bright with happy mothers and children. He had imagined it as drab and dark place. Much like his own memories of the town's significance to he and his family. This is where his parents had died but this is also where he had survived. Harry knew this is where he and Lord Voldemort's legacy began, so this is where he would have to start. He had taken his time travelling to the town. It wasn't so much the fear of the place and the memories of his parents that he wanted to avoid, but he felt now more than ever that he didn't want to think about his past. He would love nothing more than to just leave everything he knew behind and travel to where no one would recognize him. The scar that had made him unique was now just another painful memory that things would never be the same while he and Lord Voldemort lived together in the wizarding world.
Unnoticed by most people, Harry continued to walk through the small town until the busy road had become no more than a dirt path with few cars. If his parents hadn't died when they did, Godric's Hollow would have been a nice place to grow up. So much could have been different. On the top of the next hill, Harry could see a small church surrounded by a cemetery. Instead of following the road until it met the entrance to the church, Harry cut through a grassy field that would be a more direct path. He could hear the swish of the long grass as he made his way through the field. By the time that Harry had made it to the top of the hill, he was breathing hard. The shortcut had seemed like a better idea when he was still on the road. He had misjudged the steepness of hill. The graveyard was small and surrounded by a black iron fence that was less of a barrier to the outside world than a marker of where the cemetery ended and the town began. Still the grass within the fence was cut and most of the tombstones were garnished with flowers.
Slowly walking between the graves, he noticed that some were more than a century old. Cutting his way across to the other side of the cemetery, Harry carefully made his way between the tombstones noting whenever he saw newer ones. Dropping to his knees, he removed the leaves and dead grass from a grave. Lucy Pelissier. Born in 1954, died in 1978…he was getting closer. It looked as if her family had forgotten about her grave. Harry continued to clear the leaves from around the stone while looking for something to place in remembrance. He had never known this girl but it seemed important to remember her. Looking over her small grave he saw it. Just as unkempt as Lucy's was a larger gravestone of unfinished marble. Harry read the engraved on the stone.
In Loving Memory of Lillian and James Potter,
an inspiration to all who knew them
Getting up and brushing the dirt from his jeans, Harry casually walked up to the grave. Standing in front of the tombstone he stared at it without moving. He just read the inscription over and over again in his mind. Finally, without really knowing what to do he spoke out loud.
"I don't remember anything from when we lived here, but I think that I feel the closest now that I have ever really been to knowing my parents. From everything that has happened in the years that I have attended Hogwarts, I feel like I get closer and closer to really understanding. Lupin says that I have a lot in common with both of you." He smiles at this thought. "I think he's probably right. But how much does that matter now? Voldemort has taken everyone that matters to me. He took you both before I even had a chance to know you and then Sirius before we had a chance to really get to know each other either. And now he has killed Dumbledore, the only real family that I ever knew. I don't know how am going to do this without him. Why does it have to be me? Lord Voldemort will pay. He will pay with his life. I have nothing to lose. He has taken everything." With rage collecting in his throat and tears in his eyes he gripped the locket still resting in his pocket. He and Dumbledore had taken it from a cave Voldemort had used to hide a part of his soul. It had been the horcrux that they were looking for that cost Dumbledore his life. Swallowing hard, Harry wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, pocketed the note that had been hidden inside the locket and placed it on his parents' grave.
"I will find the five remaining horcruxes and destroy the thing that has taken everything from me."
