CHAPTER 9

The Flower And The Stag


The crack of apparition filled Harry's ears as he landed heavily on the cool ground of, hopefully, somewhere in the village of Godric's Hollow.

Harry stumbled, cursing under his breath, for a few small steps, his arms waving about idiotically in the air as he searched for something to hold him up, to help him balance. His left hand hit something cold, and surprisingly smooth, and he clung onto it like a lifeline.

Once he was steadied, Harry turned around to see his stone, as he realised, saviour, and nearly fell back down to the ground again.

His own face was smiling back at him, complete with the unruly hair and glasses, with his arm around a girl that he presumed was Ginny, though it didn't look very similar, and a little toddler being held by her. It was a boy with identical messy hair, and so it had to be either James or Albus, when they were just a bit younger - Harry would have to have words with Kingsley about this; surely people couldn't go around, erecting statues of people's families, could they? Boy-Who-Lived or not.

And then it hit Harry.

Of course this was not a statue of him. He was in Godric's Hollow. He had been here before, to this exact spot, with Hermione all those years ago. He had spied the tribute from afar, on the once-a-year occasions that he had returned since the end of the war; but he had never actually been this close to the memorial. He had never actually touched it, either.

Breathing hard, Harry managed to tear his eyes away from the face of his father and mother, and the one year old version of himself that looked scarily like his sons all encased in a stone shell. He counted his blessings that nobody was about to see him, one of the mysterious Potter's that lived just outside of the village, appear out of thin air.

Harry had never come to the village square whilst he had been living in the area, though Ginny had. It held far too many memories, and he only ever crossed a small corner of it to turn into the road in which the remains of his parents' and his hiding place was in the fist war.

Looking around the square once more, Harry once again concluded the same thing as he did every time he saw the picturesque place; it remained unchanged and untouched.

There were no longer the fairy lights and snow that had blanketed the place so many years ago, the Christmas Eve that marked the first time that he had ever been to Godric's Hollow - that he could remember, anyway. There was a faint rumble of noise coming from the pub, but not enough to panic Harry in any way, and the shops seemed to be quite quiet, too.

All in all, the quiet and secluded square held no obvious mutations from over the years, untouched by both the radical changes of both the Magical and Muggle worlds.

Shaking his head slightly, trying to shake off both these thoughts and the nerves that were coursing though his veins, Harry began to walk in the direction of the house in which he was supposed to have a proper childhood, a proper home throughout the years.

His feel crunching on the dirt and gravel lane, Harry wondered whether his parents were even alive.

It seemed too good to be true, for them to return. Sirius was already back, after all. Along with Remus and Tonks, Dumbledore, Colin and Fred. Harry didn't want to be greedy. But … James and Al and Lily would have Grandparents. Two more people to spoil them mercilessly. They would all get to meet each other, there would be no more one sided conversations by the graveside, there would be replies, answers, actual people; not just cold marble.

But Harry refused to get his hopes up, before he saw them, his parents, in the flesh. There was never any point in expecting the best things in life, after all, you might as well expect the worst, and then be pleasantly surprised.

Before he knew it, the house in which he was supposed to grow up in throughout his childhood loomed over his frame, casting a somewhat chilling shadow over him, making Harry shivered despite the relatively mild weather in this part of the country.

Harry looked over the small front garden in front of him. It was not as overgrown as it was when he had visited all those years ago on that first Christmas Eve, thanks to Harry's mother-in-law and her vast knowledge of household spells, however, the grass was getting out of control, and the various flowers that littered the place of which Harry had absolutely no clue what their names were, were in competition with some very ugly and very encroaching weeds.

Eyes not bothering to venture upwards, to the crater carved into the roof of the house that had caused so much heartbreak, not willing to linger any more just standing at the front of the cottage, anticipation building with every heartbeat, Harry entered the house that should have been a home, for the first time in thirty years.

The first thing that struck him, once he had pulled open the decaying door that nobody had touched in an age, it creaking and squealing ominously, was the layer of dust that coated the place. Even Harry's footsteps were muffled as he walked, and tiny little puffs of dust that had been collecting over decades floated, disturbed, up into Harry's nostrils, making him want to sneeze and sniff. He held that urge in, however. It would not do for such a loud disturbance to occur in something as important as this.

The hallway was just as Harry remembered it was, from that fateful Christmas Eve when he had witnessed it all. The pram was still against the wall in the beginning of the hallway, and other than the thick coating of grime and dust that covered it, there was no sign at all to indicate the horror's that had happened here, in this hallway.

Harry saw a door leading off from where he was standing, that was half ajar, leading off to a small but cosy kitchen, despite the fact that hardly any light filtered into the house, due to the now filthy windows. He did not enter, however. Nor did he voyage down the small hall just to the right of the staircase, where he was sure lay a living room and some sort of other room that may have been a dining room, or a study.

However, before Harry journeyed up the stairs, he paused, and looked at the sight of the foot of them in front of him.

His father had been killed here. Murdered. The image was etched forever in Harry's brain, the image of the green light speeding towards his father and he tried in vain to protect his family, without his wand even in sight.

Harry could almost see the body lying there, but he did not pause to brood. If there was even the slightest possibility of his parents being alive, which he was gradually doubting as he went on, due to the lack of noise emanating from the house, he had to get to them, and fast.

The stairs creaked ominously as Harry landed heavily on each one, pulling himself up off of them as quickly as he could to relieve the tension from the old and weary wood.

In fact, as surprising as it may of seemed to him, Harry was able to reach the landing of the rickety old house, and even get a quick glance at the hallway beyond, before he felt a dull and heavy thing hit the side of his head purposely, which was most certainly a fist.

'Oof,' Harry grunted, as he fell to the ground, a headache already searing it's way into his head, 'what the -'

'Who are you? Why are you here?' A male voice hissed out of the gloom from somewhere behind Harry, and Harry felt the need for a slightly cutting remark, before the impending grogginess and foggy mindset hindered him as he was sure it would as an aftermath of the hit soon. Already his head was beginning to throb uncomfortably.

'Well, it would be a lot easier to participate in an interrogation if I didn't feel as if I'd just been kicked in the head by a Hippogriff.'

There was a pause, and a sigh, and then a rather reluctant hand reached out to Harry to hoist him up.

'Sorry.' The person muttered, sounding somewhat reluctant and begrudging as Harry leant against a wall and closed his eyes tiredly, as if that would block out the now raging headache. He could hardly grasp why he was here now, he felt dazed and dizzy, and his determination and thirst for knowledge about his parents was long gone.

'Instinct.' The stranger continued. 'We're both a bit … touchy at the moment. I'm not going to go easy on you though. In fact -' Harry's wand came whizzing out of his hand, and he did nothing to stop it, '- there. At least you're not going to jinx me when I turn my back. Merlin, Lily's going to -'

'Lily's going to what?' An annoyed and suspicious feminine voice floated out from the dark gloom, somewhere down the corridor. There was hardly any light up here at all, the gloom pressing in on Harry so much that he could only see a brief outline of a person about a foot in front of him, at best.

'Er - nothing -' Said Harry's companion hurriedly.

'Who's there? Who's there with you James?' The woman said quickly, carelessly cutting in on the man's speaking, though Harry doubted that he minded much at all.

'Er -' Said the man standing next to Harry, looking towards him.

'Harry.' Harry supplied him with in a hushed tone, and he saw the man start, and then nod.

'This Harry bloke. Look, why don't we come in there with you, I'm not leaving him out of my -'

'No!' Shouted the other voice, high pitched and tearful. 'I am not having some stranger come in here, much less one called … one called H - Har -' Her voice cut off, and a small sobbing sound echoed through the dim gloom of the hallway, from the door at the end, Harry thought, his head clearing faster and better with every passing second, though his searing headache still remained stubbornly.

'Lily …' Harry's fellow muttered, staggering down the hall and out of sight.

Harry felt as if he should follow, but his body just was not cooperating with his brain. He felt slow and sluggish, and he couldn't think for the life of him why the names James and Lily made his ears prick so avidly.

James and Lily.

'James and Lily.' Harry tested saying out loud, almost rolling them around in his mind and upon his tongue.

James and -

Merlin.

Now Harry knew who James and Lily were, why he was here, why they were here -

He stumbled to his feet, wobbling but still moving down the short and narrow hall towards the door that was doused in light, he noticed now that the door was thrown wide open in his father's haste, - his father - to get to his wife, to comfort her.

As Harry neared the door, he heard the jumbled murmurings of comfort, as well as the haphazard sobs of both of his parents.

'Harry's gone, J - James, he's gone and w - why is everything s - so dusty, there's a hole in the roof James, w - why -'

'Sshhhh, Lily, it'll be okay … I'm here … we'll find Harry, I promise … we'll fix everything up … it'll all be okay again …'

James' voice broke, and he stopped talking, just as Harry crossed over the threshold into the room, bathing himself and the scene that he had heard in a crisp light, that blinded Harry temporarily with it's shocking and stark contrast to the darkness before hand.

Harry's mother, Lily, was sitting in the middle of the floor in the room, the dust particles that had been disturbed twirling and pirouetting through the air around her, now only visible because of the light that was shining, like a God-send, through a crater that was carved out of the roof.

Harry's father, James, was sitting beside his wife, arms encircling her, embracing her, in a way so similar to that of Ginny embracing Harry when he had finally broke after the battle that it made Harry start a little.

There was shattered wood, a destroyed cot, bits of wardrobe and shelf strewn everywhere, tiny little bits and pieces of what looked like a child's clothing littering the dusty and sun worn floor, as well as various pieces of bent and distorted plastic that may have been toys or small pieces of furniture.

All of it was coated in a thick layer of dust. And in the middle of it all, crouched Harry's parents; his mother cradling an old and threadbare, but nevertheless cheery and plump little Teddy Bear, sobbing into it's head as Harry's father rubbed her back and rested his own head and cheek upon the top of her shaking and rocking head.

He felt as if he was intruding upon something private, and Harry was considering moving away from the scene, before he realised that it was actually only he, who could make the mess better.

And so Harry stepped into the light flooding the room, allowing it to cast his features, no longer in dreary shadow, but in the bright sunlight bathing the room in which the world's fate was decided.

It took perhaps a minute, but time seemed to stand still as Harry saw, as if in slow motion, his father glance up absentmindedly, only to do a double take as he fully took in his appearance. He rose to his feet, face formed into an expression that Harry could not discern.

Harry's mother remained on the floor, unaware.

'Wait!' Harry shouted, raising his hands up in a manner that he hoped was unthreatening. 'You've got my wand, remember? I can't do anything!' His father looked hesitant, and confused on top of everything else he was clearly feeling. The anger clearly had not set in yet though, and Harry hoped he could explain before it hit. After all, if his father's anger was anything like his own …

His heart swelled momentarily as he remembered that now, he would be able to find out.

'Why are you here?' A small and muted voice, as if somebody had simply turned down the volume on it, floated up to Harry and his father's ears.

Head jerking down, Harry found himself surprised that it was his mother speaking; even though there was no other person in the room that it could possibly come from.

She was looking up at Harry with the eyes that Harry so often saw reflected in the mirror and on his son's face, though hers looked grief stricken and pained, with red surrounding them in a thick line, from the tears that fell from them and also from her trying to stop them from doing so. There was a small amount of hope, however, a spark that had rekindled in her eye.

'I … I don't know how to explain.' Harry said lamely, looking between both his mother and father, his father's wand trained on Harry with a rigid steadiness, which made Harry wonder whether he had ever been through Auror training before they all went into hiding.

'The beginning's usually the best.' James said cuttingly, though some of the venom recoiled back into his mouth as Lily shot him a glare.

Harry, for his part, could muster only enough emotion out of the realms of his shock to shoot a withering glare towards his father, before speaking.

'You … you died. Voldemort killed you.' Harry stopped, looking imploringly at his parents, hoping that they would believe him.

'We know. We gathered that. It's … the last thing we remember.' Lily said, standing up and taking her place beside her husband. 'What we want to know,' she continued in a shaky voice, as if she were about to crumble back to the floor and dissolve into tears once more, 'is why everything's so dusty, and why there's a hole in the roof and why everything is so old -'

'And why you look like our son would.' James finished, but the statement held none of the anger that Harry was expecting from him. Instead, it sounded as if Harry's father was breaking from the inside out.

'The thing is,' Harry said slowly, knowing that this one sentence would answer most every question that his parents would have, and would, hopefully, reveal his identity without adding too much to it, 'you died quite a long time ago. Nineteen eighty one. It's two thousand and nine … you've been dead for twenty seven years.'

The expression's upon the faces of Harry's parents were, once again indiscernible. They were flashing inbetween emotions so quickly that Harry could not for the life of him identify them individually.

Minutes passed, the stillness of the room only permeated by a few ominous creaks over head, and Harry's throbbing head, but it was not until Harry's father spoke, one arm wrapped around his stoic wife as the other fell limply to his side, his wand dangling loosely from his hand, that the silence was finally breached.

'Voldemort's dead.' He said, hardly daring to believe it himself, it seemed, as his face was plastered in utter wonder. 'Because … because otherwise you wouldn't be here, because Voldemort was going to kill you, or you would kill him, but you're here … you're alive … you're Harry! You're Harry, you're my son!'

As Harry's father stood stock still, in both amazement and disbelief as he stared avidly at his newfound son, Harry began to do the same, tears welling uninvited in his eyes as he took in the two people that he had ached for, for so many years, and he thanked whoever it was that had made his parents connect the dots of the puzzle so quickly.

They were here, and they believed him, and they were here, and alive, and he could touch them, talk to them, and his children would know them, and Sirius and Remus and Tonks and Fred and Dumbledore and Colin were back and they would all be together, as it should be, as it always should have been …

His tears fell into dark red hair as his mother crushed him into an embrace that nearly choked the air out of him, but he could not find it within himself to care, for it was his mother that was doing so. His father smiled, his eyes surprisingly glossy looking as he caught eyes with Harry over his mother's shaking shoulder, which had buried itself into Harry's shoulder, so much taller he was than her.

Pressing his face into his mother's hair and inhaling the scent of her as his father looked on proudly, Harry closed his eyes contentedly, headache a distant memory, and wondered what on earth could possibly go wrong.

It was a stupid thought, given his history of luck.

When Harry opened his eyes, he looked up to the heavens, his eyes still leaking despite his happiness, but they were happy tears. He did not see a need to halt them. Harry didn't even know if he could.

His eyes strayed to an overhanging bit of ceiling, the heavy beams frayed and the plaster dripping off of it on occasion. It was a wonder, really, that it was still standing after all these years, having undoubtedly endured many days of the terrific English weather …

Harry's eyes widened as he saw, as if in slow motion, a particularly large crack that ran through most of the remaining ceiling that Harry and his mother were standing under, splinter and then split off from the rest completely.

The echoing crack that it made made Harry's parents look up jarringly, and stare in shock as the heavy tile, plaster, wood and brick began it's dismount towards Harry and his mother, both still frozen in their embrace as it fell.

Keep them safe, Harry's first thought was, as he watched the house collapse on top of them.

Keep them safe.

He pushed his mother roughly out of his arms, and straight into his father's she fell, landing heavily into him as she looked back, terrified, as did her husband.

Harry only managed to get a minute glimpse of his mother and father's horrified faces as the ceiling fell on top of him, and even less time to hear his mother's anguished scream;

'HARRY!'

And the world went black.


- It's finally, finally here! It took me forever to write this, and even now I'm not entirely sure it flows well. Please let me know your thoughts, they are very much appreciated. Also, is it possible to edit published chapters?
Thanks for reading and all of the reviews for the past chapters:)

- Spellmugwump97