The wind felt like pins hitting my bare cheeks and my toes had lost all feeling, but I kept walking. It was a far walk in this weather, but I felt a sense of urgency that could not wait for my car to defrost. It was silly really, the reason for this journey. It started with the sudden passing of my mother last month. She had been sick for a long time, cancer. She had been positive to the very end, keeping herself busy making a collection of scrapbooks to preserve a part of our family history. Even though I had known that her end was coming, I hadn't been able to open one of these scrapbooks until this morning. I watched myself grow in the pictures before my very eyes. She had kept everything. Every ribbon, every silly coloring project done at school.

There were many things I had forgotten about. Including the picture that I know clutched tightly inside of my jacket pocket. I had only known them for a short period of time, but I had grown to really care about them, and them for me. I met the red haired woman at a family friend's baby shower. She said the woman, Petunia was her sister. I took in her appearance, and could tell that she was also with child. She had a very narrow frame, and the bulge in her mid area was definitely a baby. I asked when she was due. "July," she had said.

She was a very nice woman. She asked about me and my schooling and ambitions in life. At the time I was in my second year of high school and it was my desire to be a kindergarten teacher, or do anything involving children. It was at this point my mother had walked over and greeted the woman with a smile. I stood there as they caught up, wondering why my mother had never invited her over for afternoon tea. After a few minutes, the woman said that she had to get going home. As she was about to walk away, she turned around and asked me if I had a job. I did not. She looked at me an my mother and explained that she and her husband would probably have to got to work not too long after the birth of their son. She asked if I would be interested in coming around a few days a week after school to babysit. I looked at my mom who smiled at me. "Sounds great!"

He was a very cute kid, although it did bother me that his black hair would never lay flat, even at just one month old. If it ever did, I could never say. After a few short months of baby sitting and the most excellent cooking I had ever tasted, I fell ill with the flu. When I recovered, I called their house and left a message saying that I was completely over the flu and Harry, yes it was Harry, was in no danger of getting sick. They never called back. I had even gone to their house once after school. Vacant. Eerily empty. After Halloween of the next year, It was no where to be found.

I didn't know what she expected to find going back there now. The boy was old enough to have his own place by now. Probably done with college, maybe even married with his own black haired son. I looked up from the ground just enough to see the house number on the closest mail box. It should be the next one over. I took a few more paces and turned up the walk to the fence. I raised my eyes and gasped. Completely empty. It was still a blank canvas that no one had taken the time to paint.

I quickly noticed that I was not alone. There was someone wearing a billowing black cloak standing, touching the fence. I cautiously approached him. "It's just awful, what happened here. It was so long ago. I wasn't even alive," the man said with a sad chuckle.

I breathed nervously. What did this man know? "Yeah, I can't believe it."

"It looks so sad, forgotten, yet it is one of the most legendary sites in our world. So much pain, death, and yet, so much hope. You can barely tell it's a house any more with all of the ivy growing on it," the man said.

I looked again. Nope, there definitely was nothing there. He continued, "My grandfather knew them, went to Hogwarts a few years behind them. Said they were two of the people he had admired most. I never knew their family personally, but everyone knew of the great Harry Potter. Everyone has come out here at least once in his life. Some of us, more often than that."

Hogwarts? The great Harry Potter? "Excuse me, but I don't recall hearing about what happened."

He stared at me from under his hood. "Well I mean, I knew the family, babysat for the- for Harry. But they never returned my last phone call. Please, what happened?"

"You cannot see what is on the other side of this fence, can you?" He asked, very cautiously and quietly.

I shook my head, and with that he quickly turned, disappearing on the spot with a loud whip like noise. The man vanished before my own eyes, along with all the answers I longed to hear.

A/N- This is the intro from, as you can probably guess, a muggle perspective. Next comes The tale of the family that gave everyone so much hope through very dark times.