Of Godric's Hollow

by shygurl23

AU.No Magic. Godric's Hollow. A town of many secrets. After the death of his mother, Harry has never returned until now. As he tries to unravel the secret behind her death; he finds family, friendship and maybe something more. But even they have secrets.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Harry Potter.

AN: AU. No magic. Lily and Petunia are on good terms. There is no Uncle Vernon and Dudley is not oversized.

Summary: Godric's Hollow. A small town that Harry only visited during the summer to see his Aunt till the death of his mother. Eight years after her death, Harry decides to return to the town that his parents left though in the end only one of them escaped the secrets of the town. As he tries to unravel the secret behind his mother's death, he finds friendship and maybe something more. But even the people he has befriended have their own secrets, so who is there to trust? And who is telling the truth?

Prologue

Eight Years Earlier

A short and skinny boy held his breath as he snuck behind the kitchen counter to hear the heated conversation between his mother, Lily Potter, and her sister, Petunia Evans. In all of his 10 years he has never heard his mother yell like she was right now. His mother and aunt have always been friendly and kind to each other but right now both of them looked like they wanted to throttle each other's throats. Looking between his mother and aunt, he quickly left as he came neither noticing him or the journal on the counter going missing.

GHGHGHGHGHGHGH

"I'm telling you Tunie I saw it with my own eyes!"

"Lily you are being outrageous. You'll wake the children! Just go back to bed and we'll finish this in the morning when the children are that Malfoy child's birthday party," finished Petunia in a low voice as she stalked out of the room leaving Lily alone. Lily Potter was a beautiful woman with dark red hair and startling green eyes. Eyes that now looked dull as she turned to look outside the window toward the river bank.

Her sister Petunia Evans lived with her son Dudley, a tall and skinny blonde for his age. Dudley was the same age as her son, Harry. Lily never knew who Dudley's father was and most likely she never would. After the death of their parents, Lily and Petunia grew apart and did not speak for several years. Within those years, Lily married her high school sweetheart James Potter, who worked his way up to being a political leader. Leaving behind his best friends Sirius and Remus; James got an internship working for a Governor, as far as she knew he never returned to his hometown. Even though he never saw his ex-best friends he did name Sirius, Godfather, and Remus, honorary Godfather, of his newborn son Harry James Potter. Sirius and Remus have never laid eyes on young Harry. During the same time, Petunia got pregnant but never mentioned who the father was. She moved to a small cottage by the river out in the countryside. The only neighbor's within a ten mile radius were Sirius Black and the Malfoy's. The land on the other side of the river belonged to a man named Tom Riddle but he did not live Godric's Hollow. He lived in another town not too far away called Wiltshire.

Even though it was late at night, Lily could see and feel the storm brewing outside. She would have to tell Harry not to get near the water in the morning as it would most likely be high. Though she knew it would be pointless, Harry was deadly afraid of water. He would not take baths, only a shower and that would last only a few a minutes.

Tomorrow…oh she was dreading the day with every fiber of her being.

Harry would be going to Draco Malfoy's 11th Birthday party. His parents Lucius and Narcissca always threw outlandish parties for their only son during his summer birthday. The theme for the party had something to do with snakes and water. Maybe she shouldn't allow her Harry to go, she thought. Harry and Draco didn't really know each other, only acquaintances and they only see each other a few times each summer she came to visit her sister. The young Malfoy always looked at her son like he was some kind of insect and never paid much attention to him. Though the only good thing the Malfoy child did for Harry is that he never questioned or begged him to play games he didn't want to, and never called her son names while others did.

Harry was a different child.

His eyes always scared her, even though they were the same as her own. He is also considered kind of small for his age, the doctor's have never figured out anything. James' side of the family had always been tall; the same with her side, so hopefully Harry will hit a growth spurt in his adolescent years. Unfortunately he inherited his father's dark hair, which was wild and crazy…untameable. Though it wasn't the physical appearance that worried her it was his personality. He never speaks much, just listens. She also never knew where his fear of water came from either. Only that James took Harry for a trip when he was four years old only to come back not wanting to be around Harry as much. Both were different after that. Though in his own he tried to make up for it by buying anything Harry wanted. 'What Harry wants he gets', was what James always said. The one thing Harry wants is what he'll never get.

Though this isn't what Lily Potter was thinking at the moment. It was the events that played out in front of her eyes earlier that day. She vowed then and there that she was never going to come back to visit and she was going to make sure Harry never returned to this town. A lot of weird things have been happening since her stay and something in the pit of her stomach told her it was not good either. One thing she never expected was to see Albus Dumbledore roaming free; the crazy headmaster who set the school on fire with the children still inside during her last year of school. Or the fact the Mr. Riddle decided to show his face around the town and spend the 'birthday' weekend with the Malfoy's. She also didn't expect to see her sister Tunie speaking with him in the woods on the far East side of the property which led to the Malfoy property.

She was only able to hear bits and pieces. It made her blood boil when she heard the rich tenor voice of the man mention her son and husband. And on top of that, her sister only told the man to hush and then she watched as he grabbed Tunie's arm to walk with him. After that she couldn't follow them but when she arrived at Tunie's cottage Dudley was sitting on the tree swing staring at her with an expression of curiosity that then turned into a glare. She ignored him as she continued on into the cottage to find Harry no where to be seen. A few minutes later after asking Dudley if he has seen his cousin she continued walking around the property yelling for her son. Finally in the distance she saw him sitting by a tree watching a dark haired man fishing in the distance. She knew who he was as she watched a big black dog running towards him and jumped into the water disturbing the man who then yelled, "Padfoot!"

The man then got up and froze as he saw her in the distance. She quickly grabbed Harry and half an hour later after walking around, she found Petunia, Dudley, and Tom Riddle sitting at a picnic bench on the dock. That's when everything changed which also led to the event of her just finished argument with her sister.

GHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH

Harry quickly went underneath the bedsheets in the guest bedroom that was his, after he grabbed a flashlight of course. He hated storms. When he heard the yelling stop he wondered if Dudley heard then shrugged his small shoulders because he didn't quite care actually. Quickly he pulled the journal out and turned on the flash light. His aunt always wrote in her journal after dinner. Aunt Petunia was the best aunt ever in his eyes. She always brought him something back when she went into town or he let him roam free on the property. Though the past few summers she has been acting different than usual. Always staring out the windows even when nothing was out there, crazy woman she was but he still loved her all the same.

Lately he has been reading her journal that she leaves on the kitchen counter. He loves reading her descriptive words even though he has no idea what she's talking about. Talking about some 'plot', 'kidnapping', 'a murder', and how she wished that he and his mom wouldn't have shown up this summer. He didn't know why she thought that maybe it had to do with the plot but he loved the rest of the story that was in her journal. His parents would never let him read anything but child stories and school books which both of them had to approve before him reading but this isn't bad because his aunt wrote the story.

He jumped when he heard the thunder and the creepy noises as the trees swished against the window as the wind picked up. Closing the journal he considered if he should return it back to the kitchen or wait. Deciding he should return it before the storm came so he could stay underneath the covers. Padding his feet toward the door he made sure that everything was quiet before tip toeing to the kitchen. It was dark…and breezy? The sliding French door was open.

As Harry put the journal back where he grabbed it he walked over to close the door but tripped over himself as more thunder and lightening appeared closer and louder. He quickly ran over to the close the door but stopped as he saw a dark figure running away from the dock. As another round of lightening occurred he saw a flash of red hair dive in the water. He gulped before deciding to wake Dudley up to go outside by the dock. He hated water and plus Dudley owed him a favor.

GHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH

A few minutes later a disgruntled ten year old boy pulled on his tennis shoes as his younger dark haired cousin was trying to push him out the kitchen sliding French doors. The things he did for his cousin. He had an idea why his Aunt Lily wanted to go swimming this late at night, but he knew his cousin wouldn't understand that she was probably on some rendezvous with some guy; like she always was when they visited for the summer.

"Aunt Lily! Harry saw you out here with some guy! I thought you were smarter than that woman. Aunt Lily listen to me I saw you swimming out there a second ago! I'll go get my mom if you don't get out of the water. It looks like another nasty storm is coming. I'm sure you want to make sure Harry is safely tucked in bed since he's a scaredy cat. Aunt Lily?"

GHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH

Petunia Evans woke up as she heard the hanging dock bell ringing. Looking at the clock she noticed that she has only been asleep for little more than an hour. It was starting to storm and the wind was awful. She knew she shouldn't have put a bell out there because each storm it would force the bell to ring. Though it was windy and starting to rain the bell didn't stop in its frantic ringing. Walking towards the back of the house where the kitchen was she noticed muddy footprints on her white carpet before her nephew Harry ran out the door carrying a flash light. In shock she yelled for him to get back inside when the lightening outside forced her to look towards the dock to see her son Dudley ringing the bell and pointing in the water.

GHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH

Sirius Black loved storms. He was smoking a cig when he suddenly heard a dock bell ringing in the distance. The same bell that always rang during bad storms that his annoying neighbor Petunia Evans owned; with a dramatic sigh and a roll of his eyes he threw the rest of the cigarette into the roaring fire in his fireplace. Getting up he looked out the window to see the rain starting to come down hard and the river rising-- flowing fast. Blowing a huff of air he went to go take out the fire and head up to bed. His dog whined as it heard thunder. Padfoot did not like storms…at all. With Padfoot following he started to head out of the room when lightening lit up the sky he saw a small figure in the corner of his eye carrying a flash light looking in the water. The poor sod kept slipping in the slick grass.

Sirius quickly strode out of the room into the utility room next door to open the outside door and yell out the figure to get inside. He finally noticed that it was a kid.

Grabbing his sandals and quickly putting a parka on he ran outside to the boy right as he cried out "Momma!"

As he got closer he noticed the boy was muddy but terrified. The boy dropped his flash flight which rolled into the roaming the water. When the next round of lightening occurred that's when he saw something white and a flash of something red in the water. He quickly pulled the kid into arms as he heard the boy mumbling "she's dead, she's dead, she's dead…"