I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind…
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
— Anne Sexton, "Her Kind"
Chapter Eight
Weeks passed, and then months, and soon winter was long gone and spring was dying. Holly's life had become split in half, and she learned to live two lives. The weekdays were for school and Privet Drive. There, she was meant to be the dutiful niece and the gentle girl she had been raised to be. Holly attended piano, Girl Guides, and ballet, all the while concealing the great secret truth she now bore inside her chest. And while Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon made a great point of ignoring her, Bobby and Dudley had no idea that anything had changed at all.
The weekends were different. It wasn't every weekend, of course, but enough so that it felt like she lived for them. Professor McGonagall and her husband had taken Holly all over the wizarding world. They had gone to a Golden Snidget Reserve in Somerset, and to the Tinworth Triangle for lunch. From the hills above a secluded spot in Wales, they had seen actual dragons in flight. Holly had gone to a magical play park in Northumberland, and ridden on the back of an Abraxan in a deserted field in Scotland. That last one had been on one of the many trips she had taken to the highlands, exploring all the various magical areas. (Though she had not yet been to Hogwarts, nor Hogsmeade as the Professor wanted her to experience those things 'with her peers'.) She had traveled in every magical way possible, except by broom, and her brain felt stuffed by all the new things she had learned.
Eventually, Mr. Urquart became Phin without her stumbling over the name, and though she couldn't bring herself to call the professor anything but Professor McGonagall, Holly grew extremely close to each of them. Phin was like a big kid, and always keen to have adventures with her. Holly sometimes wondered how he had ended up with his wife, as she was certainly not one to cross, but after a while Holly saw how deep the love between them was. And while Phin was all for any kind of fun, Professor McGonagall approved of educational fun. She and Phin created a game one day while they were on a picnic in Inverness having to do with wand movements and grips. By the end of the day, Holly had never laughed so hard in her life, and she knew all of the wand movements by heart, and could swish and flick with the best of them.
Holly's Easter break had coincided with Hogwarts', so Professor McGonagall and Phin had gotten permission to take Holly to Halladale. It was a small Scottish village in Caithness between Reay and Strathy, set right on the coast. About five hundred people lived there, but most importantly, it was the home of Isobel and Robert McGonagall, who resided in the manse attached to the small village church. Professor McGonagall's father was eighty-five if he was a day, but still very active and involved in the small town. He was Phin's age, but as a Muggle so he looked much older. He had been very kind to Holly, but it was his wife Isobel whom Holly had grown to adore.
Isobel McGonagall had once been a Ross, and she considered herself a student of magical history. When her husband left for anytime at all, she would begin to tell Holly such wonderful stories about the history of magical Britain; it really made the young witch look forward to taking History of Magic at Hogwarts. Isobel had even known some stories about the Potters too. Apparently Holly's family was ancient and old. One afternoon, Holly had been sitting down to tea with Professor McGonagall and Isobel, when the latter began discussing the history of the Potter family.
"They came over with the Bastard of Normandy, of course," Isobel said, taking a sip of her tea. The sunlight was streaming through the kitchen window, catching on the colored glass bottles sitting by the sink and casting colors on the walls. Isobel's hair was a dull grey color—which Professor McGonagall had told Holly was dyed, as her mother was a witch so did not age as other Muggles did—but it still caught the light. "The Potters were an old Norman family, but had little land. William the Conqueror liked to keep wizards and witches in his retinue to help defeat his enemies. He thought, rightly as it happened, that there was no unified magical society in England to combat him. After the Battle of Hastings was won, they were given lands in Hertfordshire, and William Potter was named Duke of Essex. That was one of the only magical dukedoms ever created in Britain. There were only two others."
The professor poured herself a second cup of tea. The sound of the Wizarding Wireless could be heard from the den, where Phin had dozed off while listening to the recap of the Quidditch game that had played that afternoon. (The Wigtown Wanderers had been crushed.) Raising an eyebrow, Isobel's daughter said, "I can only think of one other."
"Hmm, you always did rather pay more attention to transfiguration at the expense of the other subjects," Isobel said, her beautiful facing pouting. "The Blacks have the only magical Scottish duchy, but there was once one in the West Country and Wales that belonged to the Peverells."
"Wait a second," Holly interrupted, placing her rose and ivy cup in its saucer. "Are you telling me that I am descended from a duke?"
"Directly descended, in fact," Isobel confirmed, taking a sip of tea.
Swallowing, Holly looked up at Isobel. "So, I'm a duchess?"
"Not really," Isobel McGonagall replied, shaking her head. "Those titles became frivolous once we enacted the Statute of Secrecy. No one really holds to them any longer except the Blacks, and they actually own a good portion of the land in Scotland. Besides, you wouldn't be able to hold the title anyway as, if memory serves, they only allowed men to inherit. The title went into abeyance once your father died without a male heir."
"You mean I couldn't be a duchess in my own right?" Holly said hotly, her inner feminist making itself known. "But that's not fair!"
"Many things are not," Professor McGonagall said, patting her hand. "Best to learn that now, rather than later."
Holly slumped back in her seat, crossing her arms. She only sat up again when she saw Isobel raise a single eyebrow. Accepting another cup tea from the transfiguration professor, she took a sip of the warm liquid. Still curious, Holly forced her annoyance at wizarding law aside. "So, the only thing left, really, is the money, right? The house and the Hall are gone, aren't they? And I can't sit the Wizengamot, can I?"
"Not in your family's seat," Isobel corrected. "I think that is being held in trust for the birth of your son, though it might have been dissolved altogether. You would have to check with Dumbledore on that one. Though you could sit it some other way, I suppose. A position in the ministry, perhaps, or win an Order of Merlin."
"No," Holly said, shaking her head. "I mean, what is left of my heritage?"
"Very little," Isobel said sadly. "Unlike the duchy of Alba, the dukedoms of Wessex and Sussex did not hold direct administration. Taxes and such were collected by the Ministry, so they were easy to let fall by the wayside when the Statute came along."
"James once told me that there were tenants on the Lone Hill estate," Professor McGonagall interjected, "but they were all either killed, or lost their cottages when the Hall was attacked, and James never rebuilt any of it. There was simply no time with the war on. There are various properties you might want to inspect at some point, the deeds will likely all be in the family vault, though I know that there was no real diversification of investments. The Potter family money was old, and it never really increased. All that remains of the Potters is the history, Holly, and whatever you choose to do with it."
Holly had been silent after that, but Professor McGonagall's words had stayed with her into the summer. It seemed to her that there was so much which was expected of her due to who she was.
As the days grew longer and the weather warmed, the young Potter prepared for her last day of school in Little Whinging. By the time June rolled around, Holly was nearly itching to get to Hogwarts. Still, there were things she had to get through first, and one of them was Dudley's birthday.
That morning, Holly had dressed in one of her simple summer dresses and wandered downstairs. As usual, the kitchen table was almost covered with birthday presents. Dudley was counting them, while Bobby was struggling to tie his shoes. Holly went to help her aunt with the bacon, who merely gave the girl an annoyed sniff, before going to aid Bobby.
"Robert, sweetums, sit still!" Petunia said, all the while watching Dudley's reddening face out of the corner of her eye.
"Twenty-two," Dudley said, as Uncle Vernon walked into the room. "That's two less than last year."
Holly rolled her eyes, mentally tuning out the insipid conversation of her relatives until the phone rang. "I'll get it," she said, crossing the room and picking up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Holly, dear?" a frail voice said from the other end.
"Good morning Mrs. Figg, how are you?" Holly saw Aunt Petunia glaring at her, but chose to ignore it. Even speaking to batty old Mrs. Figg was better than having a conversation with her family these days.
"Not well, I'm afraid, dear. I seem to have broken my leg. May I speak to your aunt?"
"Aunt Petunia," Holly said sweetly. "It's for you."
Petunia took the phone from her none too gently, and by the time she was done speaking to their neighbor, she came back to the table in high dudgeon. "Bad news, Vernon. Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She cancelled the girl's piano lessons."
"Yay!" Bobby said, clapping his hands. "This means you can come to the zoo with us, Holly."
Holly gave her cousin a weak smile, ignoring how Dudley crossed his arms mutinously. In truth, she had no desire to go with her family to the zoo. Piano only ever took an hour, and after that she could have spent the rest of the day at the park, or come back to the house and gone through her parent's trunks again. She adored sifting through her mother's jewelry, and her father's clothes (that she swore still smelled of a familiar cologne). Holly had taken to wearing a silver bracelet on her wrist that was inscribed with, to the love of my life, from the love of yours. It had been the plan of Holly's to take a closer look at her parent's school books again before going to Hogwarts, especially a leather-bound journal from her father's trunk that seemed to be written in a nonsense language.
Dudley, still annoyed with his brother's cheers, punched Bobby in the arm, and the younger Dursley immediately began crying. Petunia fluttered over to him, anxious, and snapped at Holly, "Look what you did!"
Holly rolled her eyes, departing the kitchen and heading up to her room until the zoo. She hoped against hope her relatives would forget about her, but within fifteen minutes Vernon was bellowing up the stairs. Once she reached the ground floor, she saw that Piers Polkiss had arrived and sighed. He was a rat-faced little boy who liked to hold kids' arms behind their back while Dudley punched them.
They all clambered into Vernon's car, Bobby sitting in Aunt Petunia's lap, and departed Privet Drive. While Uncle Vernon was complaining in the driver's seat, Piers continually tried pinching Holly until she dug her elbow into his ribs, causing him to squeak. At that point, he glared at Holly, and turned away, speaking quietly to Dudley.
Once they reached the zoo, the day of tedium began. It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. Bobby had claimed Holly's hand, and squealed with happiness at the lion exhibit. By the time lunch rolled around, Holly was growing bored, but that changed when they went into the reptile house. Until that point, Holly hadn't minded the animals at all. The monkeys were funny, and the birds incredibly beautiful. The reptiles though, the reptiles she hated.
Just even stepping into the house set her nerves on edge. It was cool and dark in there, with little windows all along the walls. In each were different types of snakes and lizards and iguanas. Their beady little eyes stared at Holly as she passed, and she swore that each of them was measuring how many bites it would take to devour her. She shivered at the thought. Dudley had quickly gone off with Piers to find the poisonous ones, and Bobby had run off after them. Holly stuck as close to her aunt as she was able, something Petunia gave her a dirty look for. By the time they reached her cousins, they were standing in front of a large boa constrictor's enclosure.
"Make it move," Dudley was whining to his father. Vernon tapped the glass once, and then again at Dudley's request. The fat boy was quickly growing bored, but when he saw Holly, his face lit up. "Come here, cousin."
"I can see just fine from here, thanks," Holly told him, but Vernon gave her a shove forward and Dudley quickly had her face pressed against the glass. The boa constrictor looked interested now, and as she was so close, she could see his little face in exquisite detail. It was flat, with the eyes on either side of his head. A long forked tongue poked out as his nostrils flared in interest. "No, please," she said, trying to move backwards.
"What's wrong, Holly?" Dudley laughed, his chins wobbling. "Afraid of a little snakey?"
But Holly wasn't there any longer. Her face was still pressed against the glass, but her mind was very far away.
It was a bright and cheerful room, but it elicited terror when her mother ran into it, practically throwing Holly down into her cot. A loud shout could be heard from downstairs, and her mother began to scream. Her sobs continued then as the beautiful witch turned, and quickly trying to barricade the door, but before she made much progress, the door was blasted open. The chair and boxes hastily put up to shield them moved aside in one smooth motion. Holly's mother was standing in front of the crib, her arms widespread.
"Not Holly, not Holly, please not Holly!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl…stand aside, now."
"Not Holly, please no, take me, kill me instead—" Holly could see the back of her mother's head, that red hair like dancing curtains in the wind. The cloaked stranger was nothing to her, yet his high, shrill voice made Holly cower all the same.
"This is my last warning—"
"Not Holly!" Her mother was sobbing harder now. "Please…have mercy…have mercy…Not Holly! Not Holly! Please—I'll do anything—"
There was a flash of green light, and her mother fell to the floor. Holly screamed from her crib. "Mummy!" Yet her mother did not get up, and looked as though she was sleeping on the floor with her eyes open. The stranger came forward then, the hood of his cloak finally not covering his head. She saw him for what he truly was then. She looked into his snake-like face and saw death.
When Holly came back to herself, she was cowering in front of the boa constrictor's cage, sobbing for her mother as Aunt Petunia was shaking her. She didn't know how much time had passed, but the zoo employees had been called, and they were looking at her with dismay. Vernon pulled her up from the ground and they left the zoo, Bobby crying and Piers and Dudley snickering all the way home. Holly simply sat there quietly, looking out the window and saying nothing.
When they reached Privet Drive, Holly got out of the car and began walking. Eventually, she reached the park, and there she sat herself down on one of the swings.
So that was what her mother sounded like, and that had been what she said before You-Know-Who killed her. Holly had known these things existed in the abstract, but she never truly believed she would hear them for herself.
Lily Potter had begged for her daughter's life, and here Holly had always been afraid that her parents hadn't really loved her, that they had been like Aunt Vernon and Petunia. Now she knew better. But what had her father had sounded like? Him of the snapping fingers and happy laugh. Had James Potter begged and pleaded too? Her toes scuffed the ground as she allowed the swing to move forward and back. Aunt Petunia would be angry about the state of her shoes, but Holly couldn't bring herself to care.
"There you are."
Looking up, Holly felt almost no surprise to see Professor McGonagall standing before her, though she was slightly shocked when the stern witch sat down in the swing next to hers. "I heard what happened," McGonagall began.
"How?"
"Dumbledore has a friend who lives here in Surrey. She informed us that you were leaving the area. We sent an acquaintance along to watch over you."
Holly sighed, thinking quickly. "Mrs. Figg is a witch?"
"No, though her parents were," McGonagall said. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"What's to talk about?" Holly said dully. "I heard my mother die—she begged for my life. Not hers, mine."
It was my fault, a traitorous voice whispered.
"So would any mother who had stood in her place. Your mother was an extraordinary witch, Holly, but do not mistake her for a martyr when she wasn't one," McGonagall said gently. "It is tempting, I'm sure, to build up an image of your parents in your head. One where they are infallible and perfect…but this is not who they were. Your mother could be very short-tempered, and rather unforgiving when the mood struck her. Your father, on the other hand, forgave and forgave the greatest of transgressions, never seeing any flaw in the people he loved. He could also be quite of a showoff."
Holly's breath caught. "She sounded so scared, and afraid…and alone."
"She wasn't alone," McGonagall said gently. "She had you with her."
"What happened to You-Know-Who after my parents died? You said he disappeared. Could he have died too?"
"It's possible," McGonagall allowed, "but I doubt it, and so does Professor Dumbledore. It is one of the things that makes you even more famous than simply being a child to survive the Killing Curse. At that time, You-Know-Who was getting more and more powerful, surely he would not have disappeared if there was a way he might return? Some do say he died, but that seems more like wishful thinking than truth. The fact of the matter is, Holly, I truly doubt he was human enough to die. No, he lost his powers, but he is still out there—just waiting."
They sat in silence for a long moment, but then the professor asked, "Would you like to see it?"
"What?"
"Godric's Hollow. Where it happened, and where your parents are buried. It might help, if you could see."
Nodding tentatively, Holly took McGonagall's hand, and they popped out of the park. Though she was used to apparition by now, she still had to fight the riotous nausea upon arrival. She stayed bent over, taking several deep breaths. Clutching her stomach, Holly first saw the house out of the corner of her eye.
They stood upon the edge of a cheerful lane filled with tall trees and paved with cobblestones—behind them was farmland. Before her stood a row of tall houses, but it was the second from the end that caught her attention. They walked towards it slowly, eventually standing before it silently. The hedge in front had grown wild in the ten years that had passed since Holly had been plucked from the rubble scattered amidst the waist-high grass. Most of the house was still standing, though a substantial section of the roof had been blown away. Holly had been expecting to have a full episode again, and it was rather shocking how the sight of the cottage left her feeling empty, not sad.
She stepped closer, reaching out to touch the rusted gate. A sign began to rise before her, seemingly attached to her touch. It was written upon in golden letters, and Holly read it aloud: "On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981, Lily and James Potter lost their lives. Their daughter, Holly, remains the only witch or 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." All around the sign, little messages had been left by the wizards and witches who had come to see where Voldemort had met his end.
Long Live Holly Potter.
Thank You, Holly.
God Bless the Girl Who Lived!
"The Girl Who Lived?" Holly said aloud, looking up at the Professor. She had known she was famous, but not that there was a silly name for her.
McGonagall nodded. "An epithet common for you in our world."
Her parents were not here.
Holly did not wish to stand there anymore, she wanted to leave. The professor seemed to sense this, for she took the little girl's hand and led her deeper into the village. They wound their way through the pokey streets, eventually leading to a town square. There were several shops, along with a post office, a pub, and a little church that seemed older than everything else. Behind it was a graveyard.
"Their graves are in there, aren't they?"
"Yes," McGonagall said softly. She led the little girl through the kissing gate at the entrance, and along the path inside. The pair of them then stepped onto the grass, winding around the church, and walking into the collection of tombstones beyond. Holly held tighter and tighter to the professor's hand the further into the graveyard they went. The duo passed by a pair of graves with the name Dumbledore etched upon them, but McGonagall did not stop. Deeper and deeper they hiked, until Holly saw a white, marble headstone and knew that it was them.
JAMES POTTER and LILY POTTER, the stone read, giving their dates of birth and death below. Beneath, in a curling script, was written: "Do not stand at our grave and weep. We are not there, we do not sleep." Holly reached down and touched the inscription, her fingers tracing over the carved letters.
"It's from a poem," McGonagall said. "Mary Elizabeth Frye was Lily's favorite. Dumbledore wanted to put a biblical quote on there, but though James was religious, Lily was not. So, I thought this…suited it better, somehow."
"It's perfect," Holly said, wiping the single tear that had fallen. Her chest was aching, and she rubbed at her scar absentmindedly. "My teacher read it to us last year when the headmaster died of a heart attack." She liked the thought that her parents were not confined to their cramped coffins below the earth. It was hard, but she wanted to believe that they were in everything now, in every leaf and every bird—that way they could always be with Holly.
The pair of them stood there for a good fifteen minutes until Professor McGonagall quietly took Holly's hand and popped them back to Little Whinging.
They arrived in the park where they had left, and Holly looked around to see that no one was there. It was as if they had never left at all. The only nod to the passage of time was the deepening sky, which was reddening with the setting sun. Holly went over to the swing she had earlier claimed, sitting down and beginning to push herself back and forth.
McGonagall followed for a moment, watching Holly keenly. "Was I right to take you there today?"
Holly looked up at her, surprised by the question. "Of course. I needed to see it."
"And will your head rest easier now?"
"Yes," Holly lied, sighing softly. "Thank you for coming to see me today."
"Of course. Goodbye, Holly."
"Goodbye, Professor," Holly replied.
The older witch smiled, disapparating with a pop.
Holly touched the bracelet onto her wrist, bringing the metal up to her mouth so she might kiss it. She wouldn't take it off—not now. Her mother and her father were dead, and yet they weren't, not really. Holly was certain that they would live while there were people still alive to miss them.
"Do not stand at my grave and cry," she whispered softly. "I am not there. I did not die."
As the light died in the park, the young witch used her feet to push off the ground and began to pump her legs, swinging higher and higher until she could nearly touch the blood-stained sky.
End Part One - Infancy
