Chapter 26: Going home?

Author's note: Here's a nice long chapter for you! :) Writing is slower going at the moment, since work and life keep getting in the way, but I'll try to keep at least a couple of updates a week coming for you.

Enjoy!

Side along apparition, Harriet decided, was definitely more uncomfortable than apparating yourself. She and Ron had their apparition tests next week, though, so they weren't allowed to apparate themselves quite yet.

They appeared into the village at a small entrance to a churchyard. It had been bright at Hogwarts, but here, it was a dull grey day, with a slight drizzle just beginning to fall. Appropriate, thought Harriet.

"C'mon," Moody said gruffly. "This way."He led them down a narrow village street with hedgerows on either side. "Here it is," he said, gesturing to a gate and stepping back, hands clasped and head bowed as if in prayer.

There was a sign fastened to the front gate.

On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981, Lily and James Potter lost their lives.

Their son, Harry, remains the only 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.

Around it, people had signed their names, or left messages of support. It was almost strange to see herself referred to as a son. She was surprised at how quickly she had become used to being Harriet: Harry almost seemed like a different person now. Her friends remembered to call her Harriet now, even Neville, and everyone else just called her Potter, like they always had. She was even getting used to being a miss instead of a mister.

Slowly, and with fear, Harriet let her eyes drift up to the house. Grey. Grey was the best way to describe it. The yellow Cotswold stone was dirty, and the once bright blue door was faded and chipped, the paint peeling away. Severus hadn't lied when he'd said that the roof had come in; it was a shell of wooden beams, the slates hanging haphazardly, a number shattered on the ground and most fallen into into the house. Most of the windows were broken, and good chunk of wall was blown out at the top of the house.

"It's like a skeleton," Hermione breathed. "A dead house."

Harriet nodded. She didn't care how much it belonged to her, she could never live here. Quite aside from its state of disarray, there was a strange pall over the entire structure. It could have just been fifteen years of neglect, but it felt like more. Like something evil. She took a shuddering breath. "Is it safe to go in?" she asked, steeling herself.

"The floors and stairs should hold your weight," Tonks said quietly. She was tucked close to Lupin, his arm around her shoulders. "I came yesterday to check." Everyone seemed just as subdued as Harriet.

Lupin left a kiss on Tonk's temple and came forward. "I'll show you around, if you'd like," he offered, forcing a smile. Harriet nodded. She supposed he'd been in this house a lot, being one of the marauders. He opened the gate and trod carefully up the front path, the gravel pushed asunder by weeds.

The front door swung open at a touch, loose on it's hinges. Harriet felt the tingle of wards designed to keep wrongdoers out; she had already noticed the anti-muggle wards brushing against her at the gate. Other than the filth coating everything, the front hall was the same as in Severus' memory, just darker from the gloom of the day and the dirt encrusting what windows were left. Everything had a strange smell: the dust and damp and an odd, sour animal odour besides. "Here's the living room," Lupin said, his voice barely more than a whisper. Mice had clearly been nesting in the soft furnishing; there were bits of stuffing and fabric so dirty it was almost black on the floor, mixed with the litter of slightly decaying leaves blown into the house.

"That's odd," Lupin said, pointing at footprints through the leaves in areas they hadn't yet gone. "Looks like someone's been here recently."

"Tonks said she was here yesterday," Ron pointed out.

"Mmm. Maybe," Lupin whispered.

He showed them through the kitchen, where the only things clean were the magical oven and fridge: they had obviously had self-cleaning charms laid on them when they were made, and had somehow retained them though all this. Hermione brushed a cobweb out of her hair. "It would take forever to clean this place up to habitable standards," she murmured. For some reason, all of them were treading carefully and speaking low, as if they were afraid of disturbing something, or someone.

"I don't think it would be worth it," Harriet replied.

The last door off the hall was shut. Lupin hesitated. "This was James' office," he informed them. "It… it was cleared out. I cleared it out, and gave the contents to Dumbledore. I don't know what he did with them. He opened the door, but didn't go in.

The shelves were bare, but they'd obviously once held books and knick-knacks. Only a pot with the skeletal remains of a few quills and a muggle ballpoint sat on the desk. "I didn't want the accounts and things getting into the wrong hands," Lupin told them from the door."

Harriet turned and left the bare room. There was nothing to see there. "Professor," she asked quietly, "do you think my dad would have killed me if he knew I was a girl?"

Lupin took in a sharp breath. "I… I don't know, Harriet," he admitted. "James loved you, very much so, but had he known before you were born that you were female… I'm not sure he'd have let Lily carry on with the pregnancy. He believed so much of what we were taught: that men were strong, and you needed a strong family line, even if he didn't believe in blood purity."

"I thought it might be something like that," she replied. For all she'd hoped to hear that her father was a lovely man who would have adored any child who'd come along, she'd known that there must have been a reason her mother had hidden her. No one had told her that Lily Potter had been paranoid, but even one of the marauders admitted that James wasn't above demanding a male child. She looked up the stairs.

She knew, from the many accounts that existed of that Halloween night that James had been spelled down by Voldemort here, on the stairs as her father tried to protect Lily and Harry. She forced down the pressure in her chest, and climbed the stairs. They creaked, but held. At the top, to the right, was the nursery.

She looked around the dank, soggy room. There, above the cot, was the mobile of little golden snitches. Suddenly, she didn't want to see any more, couldn't see any more. She shoved past a startled Ron and dived down the stairs, her feet clattering against the treads. She leaned heavily against the outside of the cottage door and Tonks hurried forward. "Are you okay?" the pink-haired witch asked solicitously. She reached out to touch Harriet, but seemed to think better of it, pulling her hand away again quickly.

Moody clomped up behind her. "The lass is fine," he growled. "There's just a bad feel to this place. If you're quite done, Miss Potter, I reckon we should move on."

Harriet nodded slowly. "It feels like death," she said.

"Hey, mate," Ron said from behind her. Hermione wrapped an arm around Harriet's shoulder in comfort.

"Have you seen enough, Harriet?" Lupin asked quietly.

"Yeah," she said. "Actually, no, wait. Aren't my parents buried here? Can I visit the grave?"

"I don't see why not," Lupin said. "It's only a few minutes back to the graveyard anyway. Come on, being away from the house might make you feel better."

They walked in silence back down the lane. Harriet had the oddest feeling that they were being watched, but there was no one in sight. The windows of the houses across the road were dark, though, so an unobserved observer was not impossible. They veered away from the main gate of the graveyard, instead entering by the arched kissing gate next to which they'd apparated. One by one, they trooped through. Why was there always a puddle right where you stood to get through gates like these? Harriet wondered.

Godric's Hollow Churchyard had obviously seen plenty of deaths over its lifespan. There were old graves, so time-worn that the inscriptions had faded to faint indentations in the stone. A few from the fourteenth and fifteenth century were still clearly readable- wizarding graves, Lupin explained, magically protected from wear.

It was Moody who stomped his way over to a white marble headstone and beckoned Harriet over. She stared down at the stark inscription.

James Potter, born 27 March 1960, died 31 October 1981

Lily Potter, born 30 January 1960, died 31 October 1981

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

"What does it mean?" she asked. "'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death'? You can't destroy death; not without something like the Philosopher's stone. Even then, it's just... delayed"

"It's from the Bible," Hermione offered. "Something about death not being so bad anymore if you believe in an afterlife."

"That doesn't make sense," Harriet insisted. "They're dead. Dead is dead."

Lupin put his hand gently on Harriet's shoulder. "Lily and James knew that they were at risk when they joined the fight against you-know-who," he assured her gently. "They felt that the cause was worthy enough to offer up their lives, if needs be. They defeated death, because they defied death."

Harriet wasn't sure she really understood. "But what about my life," she whispered, almost afraid to say the words. "Why did they get the choice to give away my life?"

Lupin sighed deeply, wearily. "I don't know, Harriet. I'm sorry, but these are difficult questions, and I don't have the answers."

She turned back to to the gravestone. She felt like she should feel something, should be sad or want to cry, or something. Instead, she just felt… disconnected. This slab of cold stone had nothing to do with her life. Then again, it felt like her parents, the people who'd created her life, had nothing to do with her life anymore. "I should have thought to bring some flowers," she said.

Hermione stepped up beside her and twirled her wand over a handful of leaves she had picked up, transfiguring up a wreath of big white flowers with bright orange centres. "Lilies," she advised with a small, sad smile, handing them to Harriet to place on the headstone.

"Thanks," Harriet muttered, feeling silly that she hadn't thought of transfiguring some flowers. "I'm… I'm done now, thanks. We can go to the other house."

"Wait," Tonks said quietly. "Whilst we're here… shouldn't we see the statue?"

"Statue?" Harriet asked dully.

"Er, yeah… there's a statue of your parents in the village square. Well, and you as a baby…"

She couldn't help but think that a year ago, the idea of a statue of her parents would have delighted her, but now… it seemed silly. She realised that the wizarding world held the Potter family up as the heroes of their time, the vanquishers of Voldemort, but it all seemed so ridiculous. Putting up a statue of people because a curse rebounded when it hit their baby? But she had seen the sign at the cottage: a lot of people obviously gained great comfort from knowing that the Potters had died to destroy Voldemort, even though he had returned. "Lead the way," she said.

At first, it looked like Tonks was pointing out a war memorial, just as there was in the majority of towns and villages the country over, the stone base bearing the names of all the lives lost during the World Wars. A couple of bedraggled looking poppy wreaths leaned against the plinth. As Tonks stood before it, though, the memorial faded, replaced by the statue she'd mentioned: James and Lily Potter, a baby in Lily's arms. She looked up at it, curiously. The artist had carved her parents to look older than they were when they'd died, for what purpose she didn't know.

Moody interrupted her thoughts. "We need t'get out of here," he drawled, his magical eye swinging wildly.

"Let her have a moment, Mad-eye," Lupin rebuked gently. "They're her family."

"There's something not right here. We need to go."

"It's fine," Harriet cut in. "I'm ready, we can go."

"Okay. Let's go back to the church to apparate, then," Lupin suggested.

Moody growled. "No time," he insisted gruffly. He grasped Harriet by the shoulder, and raised his wand. She felt the slippery coolness of a disillusionment charm whisper over her body: it would be enough to prevent any muggles seeing them disapparate, although she wasn't sure disappearing people were any less unusual. Moody hadn't let go; instead he apparated, taking her with him into the tight blackness.

They whirled into a quiet corner of a cobbled street. Harriet gasped, and Moody yanked her out of the way to make room for the others, Lupin bringing Ron and Tonks holding tight to Hermione. "Where are we now?" she asked.

"Kelpie Close," Moody said. "Just around the corner from Witch's Crescent."

"Perhaps some lunch before we go to the other house?" Lupin suggested quietly. "It's been a bit of a fraught morning."

Even Moody couldn't find fault with this, especially when Tonks suggested a muggle pub: he was less suspicious of foul dealing around muggles. Harriet was surprised to realise it was already ten to twelve. She hadn't realised that they'd spent so long at Godric's Hollow. The pub Tonks recommended wasn't far; just outside Mage's town. Very quickly, they were sitting at a table tucked into the corner by the big fireplace, glasses of lemonade in front of the three teenagers and Lupin, and pints of beer for Moody and Tonks (although Moody had insisted on watching the bartender with an eagle eye as he pulled the pint). It was still quiet, having just struck twelve, so the doorstop slabs of sandwiches and bowls of steaming chips soon arrived. Tonks sniffed the air appreciatively as she doused her chips in vinegar. "Can't get better than hot, fresh chips," she insisted. After a few mouthfuls, Harriet was inclined to agree. She watched Tonks and Lupin speculatively. Tonks ate the tomatoes Lupin had pulled out of his sandwich straight off his plate, and she just smiled when he pinched one of her chips. They'd become close over the last couple of years, and she wondered if they'd finally take their relationship further. It was clear to anyone who cared to look that they loved each other. She'd like to see Lupin settled and happy.

Eventually, Moody drained the last of his pint, which he'd been nursing long past the time the rest of them had finished. Tonks had teased him lightly, claiming that the older auror couldn't hold his alcohol. He'd even allowed a little grin- he seemed to view her in an almost fatherly sense, and let her get away with it.

She found herself cheered up by the food and the gentle teasing between the adults, though Ron and Hermione were still quiet. It took a lot to shock Ron into silence, but he seemed to have been frightened by her mad dash out of the Potter cottage. At any rate, both of her friends were there, but not pushy. It was sunny in Edinburgh; crisp and cold and bracing: just the kind of weather that made her want to fly as far and as fast as she could, just for the joy it brought. She smiled as she breathed in the cold air.

"It's nicer here than in muggle Edinburgh," Tonks informed her. "Not many cars, less nasty smoky stuff." Hermione looked longingly into the window of a bookshop as they passed it, packed in next to a slightly faded apothecary and a magical jeweller, his wares sparkling in the sunlight though smudge-free windows. A few hanging baskets of purple pansies and dittany, coming to the end of its flower.

They came to a halt before a few steps leading up to a four-storey, double-fronted townhouse of blocky, uncompromising stone. The scarlet door was bright and cheerful, but the curtains were drawn over the bay windows on either side. Lupin dug in his pocket and handed Harriet a key. "This was in Dumbledore's care," he explained. "It was in the cottage when… when they died. The others should be in the vault with the deeds." The key turned smoothly in the lock, and the door opened without a squeak.

Everything in the hallway gleamed, and there was a strong smell of freshly applied furniture polish. "That's odd," Lupin murmured, "I'd expect this place to be thick with dust, at least."

Moody maneuvered Harriet out of the way. His head tipped back, his eye searching into each corner of the house. "No one here," he said a few minutes later. "Be careful though- who knows if there's someone who might come back." His wand was gripped in his hand- Harriet realised that she had hers tightly clutched as well. All of them did. If a house that had been shut up for almost two decades was so clean and neat… did that mean that someone was here, taking care of it? "Is there a house elf?" Harriet whispered.

"Shouldn't be," Lupin said. "The Potter's house elves died out- they had a generation of all males, so no babies. Lily liked to take care of the house at Godric's Hollow herself anyway. They didn't really use this one, or the place in London. Too grand for Lily."

Grand was certainly a good way to describe this house. Some of the furnishings in the drawing room looked a little word, but everything was sparkling clean. The curtains had been laundered, the windows washed to crystal clarity. The kitchen was completely empty, but the surfaces were so clean that they shone. "It really looks like there's a legion of house elves somewhere," Ron commented. "Even the tops of the cupboards are clean… who cleans the tops of the cupboards?"

"Sensible people, Ronald," Hermione said, although she seemed more distracted than sharp, peering into cupboards. "The garden's overgrown, though," she noted, gazing out of the window.

Ron gave a high pitched shriek as a loud pop sounded next to him. Moody and Tonks whirled around, wands pointed straight at the perpetrator: Dobby. Moody flicked his wand tip aside at the last moment, the total body bind hitting the wall instead of the house elf. Whether the wall was then bound was questionable; walls not moving much as a matter of course.

"Dobby!" Harriet cried out in greeting. "What are you doing here?"

"Dobby came to see if Mistress Harriet likes the house," the elf said, twisting his sock-kilt between his long knobbly fingers. "Dobby has been coming to clean it ever since he came to retrieve the books and found it in such a state. Winky has helped too."

Moody harrumphed and stowed his wand back in its holder. "Well, that explains that, then" he growled. "If you don't mind, I'm going to sit in the living room and wait for you. I can't be arsed with all this fannying about." He stomped out, and Harriet couldn't hold in the giggle anymore.

"Fannying about!" she gasped. For some reason, grumpy Moody had really tickled her, and when coupled with the relief of knowing that the mystery cleaner was Dobby, and not some squatting Death eater, she couldn't help it. Soon, everyone in the room was laughing, with the exception of a slightly befuddled house elf.

"Thank you, Dobby," Harriet eventually said, wiping away the tears of mirth from the corners of her eyes. "I appreciate it, I really do."

Dobby bobbed in excitement. "May Dobby fetch Mistress Harriet anything?" he asked.

She smiled. "No, Dobby, that's fine. Thank you, though."

Dobby grinned widely, and vanished again with a pop. "Y'know, I reckon you've got yourself a new Potter house elf," Ron commented.

"Dobby's a free elf, he doesn't belong to anyone," Hermione pointed out.

"Yeah, but he'd follow Harriet to the ends of the earth," Ron responded. "That sounds like the sign of a good house elf to me. Better than Kreacher anyway." No one could argue at that.

Lupin and Tonks went to join Moody in the living room, leaving the three teenagers to wander the house, now that they were sure it was safe. The downstairs boasted a big pantry, a dining room, a snug and a study in addition to the living room and kitchen. The first floor was split evenly between a massive master suite and a library, where they very nearly lost Hermione. She wandered around the room, a thick, aged book clutched to her chest. She was reluctant to put it down, wistfully looking back at it when Ron's sighs got loud enough,

"Keep the book, Hermione," Harriet instructed,.

"Oh, I couldn't!" she exclaimed. "It's a copy of Merlin's Wizarding Laws- they're quite valuable."

"Take the damned book. Consider it your Christmas present, if you like," Harriet insisted.

Hermione shot a longing glance at the book again. "If you're sure…" she said.

"You'll get more use out of it than I will," Harriet pointed out. "Having it or not having it makes no difference to me. Bring the book, and let's look around a bit more- I bet Moody will come to chase us if we take too long!"

Hermione giggled and retrieved the slightly musty tome, holding it like a baby as they wandered through the opulent master suite, with a little sitting room, two dressing rooms and a palatial bathroom in addition to the bedroom complete with intricately carved four poster bed. Harriet couldn't shake the feeling that she was visiting some kind of stately home; like the ones Aunt Petunia had always wanted to visit. She couldn't wrap her head around the fact that this was hers.

Additional bedrooms and bathrooms were of little interest to the trio; there were no particularly interesting discoveries to be made. The adults were only too keen to return their charges to Hogwarts again- Harriet suspected that Moody did not have the patience to be dealing with her outbursts, and was still stinging from her refusal to apply to the auror training scheme. She was tired too, and all too pleased to return to her familiar, comfortable room- not the splendour of Witch's Crescent, but a world away from the downtrodden, dismal cottage at Godric's Hollow.