Harry grabbed the nearby trash bin and emptied the contents of his stomach into it before falling to his knees.
"Grandma Dorea!" he screamed and shook her shoulders.
Her eyes were glazed over, staring without seeing.
Harry knew now was not the time to shed a tear. He had lost many people in his life before, and he knew he needed to be the warrior. He began to search the room.
Dorea's wand was nowhere in sight, so she had not been disarmed. She had been attacked helplessly. Harry went to the stove, turned off the burner, and looked in the cabinets for clues. Nothing was missing.
He knew had the attacker still been in their house, they would have heard Harry attempt to wake his grandmother. They were long gone, via the Floo Network, he guessed, considering the soot around the fireplace.
He went to the fireplace and stuck his hand underneath the grate. It was only lightly warm. They had not been gone long when Harry came home.
This also bothered Harry. He knew this fireplace was being watched. His father, his mother, and he himself had all used this very fireplace that day to go to the Ministry. Whoever was watching had waited for Harry to leave to plan this attack on the people in the house.
He quickly took the few steps that led to the room he, Ginny, and James had been staying to find it a disaster. Harry smiled to himself. Ginny had not gone down without a fight.
The metal headboard of their bed was warped and drooping, where above it was a deep hole in the wall. There was a spot underneath the window where the carpet was smoldering and black. The door had several dents in it, where Harry believed the attacker had attempted to barge through, but Ginny had bolted the door. The lock was broken. Harry noticed the only thing gone untouched and unharmed was the crib. He went to the place where his son had once slept and pulled the grate down. He lowered his hand to see if the area was still warm, to find for some reason his hand couldn't touch the bottom.
Then it clicked. He began lifting the charms Ginny had set, including Muffliato to keep James quiet. After lifting every layer of protection, he finally lifted his Invisibility Cloak from his crying son. He was wailing. He knew that from behind his mother's charms, James had seen everything.
Harry held him close, rocking side to side, in an attempt to quiet his traumatized baby boy.
He went to the refrigerator, avoiding looking at Dorea, and pulled out a bottle of milk Ginny had readied for James when he woke from his nap.
He put the bottle to his mouth, and decided he needed his father and mother's help. He sent a Patronus to the Ministry, and not much later, a pair of silver deer leapt through the slightly opened front door.
First, the doe spoke with his mother's voice: "On my way."
Once she disappeared, his father's voice came through the mouth of the stag: "Do nothing without us. Gather the information you can. Tell no one."
Not a moment later, a loud crack came from the porch, and his mother ran in.
"Where is she?" she asked sternly.
"Kitchen." immediately, she went that direction. A few moments later, her Patronus flew out the door.
"I've sent a message to the Death Department of the Ministry. They will take her body and prepare it to be buried. We can't find Charlus, and there was an attack upon the Minister today." she sat next to Harry on the couch and tears quietly ran down her face.
"It's starting." Harry said.
"I know." she began to sob lightly. "We need to find Ginny. I'm so thankful the baby is okay though." She kissed little James's head.
Another loud crack came from outside, and James walked in the door with a group of solemn-looking wizards in long black robes.
"Where is the body?" one of them asked.
"In the kitchen to your right." Lily said, sobbing a little harder.
Harry's father ran in that direction before any of the three department workers could see her. Not much later, a loud cry came from the kitchen.
"Let him be for a while. Please sit down." Lily said, wiping her tears away.
"Madam, we have a few things to discuss about the burial with him. Since, as I understand it, you are not yet related. Is the husband here?"
"Nowhere to be found." Lily said, while tears began streaming down her face once more. "Will Aurors come here?"
"They should be-" with another loud crack, Mad-Eye Moody hobbled through the door.
His bright blue magical eye swiveled around, and his scarred face turned down slightly. Without asking, he went in the direction of the kitchen. Harry had long known his magical eye could see through walls and invisibility cloaks.
"Harry!" Moody's voice boomed from the kitchen.
"Tell me everything, Potter." Mad-Eye commanded when Harry's hand touched the door.
Harry told him all of the details, from the soot around the fireplace to the burn in the rug in his bedroom.
"I might be able to tell who killed Dorea. It's a Death Eater, though. Whoever it is, Harry, knows about you and Ginny's presence, Potter. You're right, someone is watching your chimney and they wouldn't have thought Ginny was Lily. They would have seen her leave. Have you made enemies here, Potter?"
"No, sir. I've been staying with my parents, really. I didn't meet much of anyone else at Hogwarts, either."
"Anyone who would want to hurt you, James?" Mad-Eye asked, his eye swiveling backward.
"Only one person I can really think of, but I'm not so sure."
"Out with it, man!"
"Snape."