A canopy of stars and wispy clouds graced the sky as the foursome came to the outskirts of a tiny Muggle village. The street was black, save for one window of one house, where a girl sat reading a book. A cat lay curled in her lap.

"Merlin's beard," Hermione said softly, gazing around herself. "So this is it?"

Harry stood rooted to his spot, illuminated by the glow of the streetlamp over the old wooden sign that proclaimed "Godric's Hollow."

"Yeah," he said tonelessly. "This is it." He shuffled forward, coating his trainers with dirt, his eyes holding each building like fragile heirlooms.

"So," Ron spoke up, breaking the awkward silence as they made their way down the empty main road, "are we just going to stay at the inn tonight and continue in the morning?" He nodded at a tall building with a facade of crumbling brick and red painted letters over the door. "I mean--"

But Harry kept going. "I'm going to the cemetery," he told them. "I just-- I need to visit Mum and Dad right now."

Ron exchanged a glance with Hermione, who warned him with a single arch of her eyebrow not to argue, and fell in step. "Oh, look," she said brightly, pointing into a dimly lit yard. "Look at those tea roses."

"That's--" Harry paused. "That house. I remember seeing it-- that picture of Mum, this was the house in the background!" Without thinking, he swung the gate open and marched up the path.

"Are you mad?" hissed Hermione. "It's the middle of the night!"

One foot on the front step, Harry turned. "Hermione, I have to. Look-- when I stepped into this town, it was like-- it was like taking Felix Felicis, in a way. It's definitely not the same feel-good sensation, but it's a guiding force. Something's telling me--"

"That you need to talk to whoever lives here?" Harry turned in surprise to see a square-shouldered woman smiling at him, dressed in witch's robes. Her hair, jet-black, fell in a cascade of loose curls.

"That's exactly it," Harry said, quite calmly. "My name's Harry Potter."

"I thought you'd come here," the woman said, still smiling. She had high cheekbones, Harry noticed, and her eyes twinkled. "And I know your name. If not for the scar--"

"Let me guess. My mother's eyes?"

The woman opened her door wide. "Won't you all come in?"

Harry crossed the threshold, closely followed by Ginny, who was uncertain about this entire situation. She scanned the house carefully, scrutinizing the polished mirrors, the glossy furniture, the immaculate ash-gray carpet. A white cat nuzzled against her ankle, but she nudged it away as they entered a sitting-room.

"Tea? You must have had a long journey."

"I'm fine, thanks," Harry said.

"Mead? Butterbeer? Anything?"

Ginny smiled. "We're fine."

"Well," the witch began, pouring herself a glass of mead and settling down into a green wingback chair, "I suppose I ought to introduce myself. My name is Eva Wingfield. I--"

"You're the one who's going to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts this year," Harry said, remembering.

"Right you are, Harry."

"Professor McGonagall just told me."

She smiled and took a sip of mead.

"So..." Harry drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. "I don't know why I'm here, to be honest with you. Do you?"

Thoughtfully, Eva held her glass in her hand. "Harry," she began with a wistful look in her eyes, "I wish I had all the answers for you. I really do." She sighed. "Your mother and I were friends, long ago. We were at Hogwarts together. I was two years below her, but she took me under her wing-- I wanted to be an Auror, you see, but I was terrible at Potions."

Harry grinned. "Professor Slughorn told me that Mum was brilliant at Potions."

"She was," Eva continued, "and she tutored me until I was good enough to scrape an "O" on my O.W.L.'s. We stayed friends while we worked at the Ministry together--"

"My mum was an Auror?" Harry burst out.

Eva shook her head. "She worked in the Department of Mysteries. She was an Unspeakable."

Thoughts of the night in the Ministry flooded Harry's brain. "Professor Wingfield-- d'you think my mum-- I mean, I've always seen the other ones, so I don't know-- but do you think she might have come back as a ghost?" As soon as the words came out, he realized how crazy he sounded. "I mean-- it's just that sometimes it feels like I'm being told what to do. Or showed. And I can't explain it. I just thought maybe--" He sighed.

Eva Wingfield smiled sadly at Harry. "I know," she said slowly, "that you desperately want a connection to your family. I wish Lily could be here, pale and transparent, but still very much Lily, to explain all that she's left for you. But the fact is, Harry, your mother was not afraid of death. Stepping in front of Voldemort's killing curse proved that."

"You're not afraid to say his name either," Harry noted.

"Fear of a name--"

"Increases fear of the thing itself."

"Dumbledore was a very smart man." Her eyes were soft.

"Yes he was."

"You see, people who are afraid of death are the ones who become ghosts. You always hear Muggles saying that it's because they have some job to do on Earth, or they have some message to relay-- that's codswallop. It's fear that holds them back from crossing the threshold. They choose to stay here as an imprint of themselves. Lily tried to explain it fully once. She said that when you die, you have a choice-- you can either be brave and take the exit door out of this world, or succumb to your fear and remain."

"So the Bloody Baron was afraid of death," Ginny mused. "That seems odd to me."

"Everyone has their own reasons," Eva told her. "Perhaps he was just afraid that he wouldn't be able to terrify anyone once he crossed the threshold." She winked at Ginny. "Anyway," she continued, "when your parents went into hiding, I followed them here. Lily tried to stop me-- she said she didn't want to put me in danger-- but I was an Auror, and it was my job to fight people like the Death Eaters. I thought that if I was nearby, I might be able to save her. Help her, at least. But--" She broke off, twisting her hands in her lap, and went to the window. "It's almost dawn," she said abruptly, pushing open white organza curtains. She turned. "Harry, would you like to see where your parents' cottage stood?"

"How can you show me that?" he said incredulously. "I thought only the Secret-Keeper could--"

Eva drew herself up. "I was your mother's Secret-Keeper."

"But that's impossible!" exclaimed Hermione. "The whole point of the Fidelius Charm-- the way it works--"

"Peter Pettigrew was the Secret-Keeper for your parents," Eva explained. "I was Secret-Keeper for Lily alone."

"So," Ron mused, "Harry's dad could have had a separate Secret-Keeper, and even Harry himself?"

Eva nodded.

Harry's brain was in overdrive. "I need to see it," he decided, feeling that impulse again. "Will you bring me?"

She nodded again. "Let's go," she said, and led them out the door.

"Aren't you afraid someone will see you in your robes?" asked Ron tentatively.

Eva smiled. "The people in this town already think I'm-- well, eccentric, to put it nicely." She paused. "Especially after that visit from Mad-Eye."

They all laughed.

"So why did my mum want a second Secret-Keeper?" Harry wondered out loud, after a moment of silence.

"She never told me," Eva confessed. "But I can only guess that she didn't fully trust Peter. The only reason why she would have needed me to be her Secret-Keeper is if she somehow believed that Peter was going to betray them."

"I don't understand. Why would my mother agree to Pettigrew if she didn't trust him?"

Eva shrugged. "She trusted your father, and she trusted Sirius, and maybe that was enough for her to doubt her vision."

"Vision?" Harry suddenly had this wild image of his mother wrapped in Trelawney's shawls, entranced by a crystal ball. He shook his head, trying to clear it.

"Your mother had many talents, kindness being only one of them," Eva said quietly. "She may not have been a Seer in the true sense of the word, but she had an uncanny knack for sensing the future." She stopped. "Here we are."

Harry gawked. He hadn't expected this. Set between two bright green, neatly trimmed lawns was an expanse of black, charred earth. The cottage his parents had lived in lay in pieces; bits of furniture stuck out from the wreckage like broken bones, and curtains and clothes lay tangled like torn flesh. Almost without volition, he stepped off the road and crossed over onto the scorched ground.

"Harry?" Ginny cautiously tiptoed after him.

He knelt down at the side of the wreckage and tugged at a piece of cherrywood. "Look, Gin," he whispered. "It's a piece of my old crib."

Ginny put a hand on his arm as he sifted through the mess.

"My mom's jewelry box," he said to himself, as Ginny rose to join Eva, Hermione, and Ron.

"How is it that this place has never been touched?" Ron wanted to know.

"Well, it's Unplottable, of course, and the Muggles around here can't see it. As for the state of it, there were plenty of us who wanted to clean it up," Eva told him, "but Dumbledore thought we ought to leave it just the way it was. And Dumbledore always had good reason for everything he did, so I never asked questions."

"Omnipotent Dumbledore," Ginny remarked, as Harry smoothed out a set of smart black dress robes across his lap.

"Hey, mate." Ron knelt at his best friend's side. "You okay?"

Harry nodded, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to flow. "Dad's dress robes," he pronounced. "I found a journal, too," he said, "but I don't know whether I should--"

"Take it. There might be something useful," Ron advised. Then, with a half-smile-- "Like a detailed list of You-Know-Who's Horcruxes and their locations."

"If only it could be that easy." Harry let out a long sigh.

"Every time I walk by here," Eva said shakily, "I wish I could just blot it out." She dabbed at her eyes with the hem of her sleeve. "I remember it just like it was yesterday-- you were so tiny, so afraid, crying like... well, you had good reason to cry like you were crying."

Harry turned in surprise.

"I got here just as Hagrid did," she told him, "and thank heavens he was here, because I don't know how I could have dug you out of that rubble. Then Sirius came. He-- he wanted to take you with him, but Hagrid-- Dumbledore said you were to go live with your aunt and uncle."

"I could have grown up with Sirius?" Harry bristled.

"Well Sirius left then, and if we would have known what was going to happen-- you know, with Peter-- but, well, that was that. Hagrid left you with me for awhile, while he-- while he took your parents from the wreckage. I remember you--" She placed both hands on Harry's face. "I'd seen you many times before, but you never looked more like Lily than at that moment. If anyone else had been asked to name the most obvious change, they would have talked about the scar on your forehead, but me-- I would have said your eyes."

Quietly, Harry let that sink in while he concentrated on rolling up his father's dress robes and stowed them, along with the journal, carefully in his bag. He slung it over his shoulder, stepped back onto the road, and began shuffling away.

Ginny ran after him. "Harry? Are you okay?"

"No, Gin. I'm not okay."

"Where are you--"

"I'm going to the cemetery," he told her, and stopped. "I need to go alone. It's nothing personal. I just--"

Ginny gave him a half-smile. "It's okay," she assured him. "I understand. We won't be far behind, okay?"

He nodded, gave her hand a quick squeeze, and walked off.

"Why did you let him go?" Hermione was outraged.

"He needs some time," Ginny said defensively. "Just leave him be."

They watched him disappear around a corner, then slowly began ambling down the street. The sun had made its way over the horizon, and it filtered through the canopy of leaves that sprayed from the tall maple trees shadowing the path.

"It's beautiful here," Hermione said conversationally, shading her eyes to gaze up at the foliage.

"Ever since that October night," Eva replied, "Godric's Hollow has been a very peaceful place."

At that moment, red sparks appeared in the sky.

"Look!" cried a pigtailed Muggle child in a nearby yard, pulling on the hem of her mother's skirt. "Fireworks!"

Hermione exchanged a look with Ron. "Harry," she whispered.

"Follow me," Eva ordered. She led them down the trail, past bright green lawns and perfectly kept flowerbeds, and through the forbidding wrought-iron gates of an old, heavily-wooded cemetery.

"Expelliarmus!" came a cry from behind a cluster of trees, and a wand went flying.

A shrill, crazed voice sounded in reply. "Accio!"

Ginny burst into the clearing, wand raised. "Petrificus totalus!"

Bellatrix dodged Ginny's curse, grinning maniacally back at Harry. "You've brought your little friends," she crowed. "How cute."

"We've grown up," called Ron, "or have you forgotten?"

"And it's not only the little ones," said Eva thickly, stepping around the corner.

Bellatrix's eyes glittered. "Wingfield."

"Lestrange."

"You've been absent for some time."

"And I hear you did quite the stint in Azkaban."

Bellatrix seethed. "We all figured the Dark Lord had killed you right along with the Potters, but no, you weren't even there... some protection you offer..."

"And you've come to Godric's Hollow after Harry as a pathetic attempt to regain favor with Voldemort, is that it?"

The two women glared at each other.

"Stupefy!" yelled Eva.

"Crucio!" Bellatrix shrieked.

Two jets of light shot through the air at the same time; Bellatrix slammed into an ancient oak tree as Eva collapsed to the ground in pain.

"Finite incantatem!" Hermione said immediately, kneeling to help her up.

Eva blinked dazedly at Hermione and grabbed for her wand. "She won't be alone," she began, when a squeaky voice verified her suspicions.

"Ennervate!"

Harry and Eva turned at once to see Peter Pettigrew at Bellatrix's side. At the sight of Eva, he shrank back. "Mistress," he said between chattering teeth, "her..."

Eva rose and stood, straight-backed, so that she seemed to command the attention of every tree and breathing thing and blade of grass in sight. "For a long time," she began, wand in hand, "I have thought about which curse I would use first if I ever saw you again. For years it was just fantasy. I thought Sirius had killed you, and I envied him. Then Minerva McGonagall told me that Sirius was innocent and you were alive and fantasy turned to planning, and now here we are, Peter, here we are and still I haven't decided."

"I can think of a few," muttered Harry.

Hungry for battle, Bellatrix turned on him. "Why don't you try them on me, then?"

"Crucio!" bellowed Harry without a second thought.

Bellatrix hit the ground, but didn't stay there for long. "Haven't you learned, boy?" she crowed.

"Expelliarmus!" chorused Ron and Hermione, and Bellatrix ducked. The spells ricocheted off a headstone, which shattered into pieces.

"Harry has a good idea, but you deserve much worse than torture," Eva growled, leering at Pettigrew. "You deserve worse than death, Peter..."

Fingers of sunlight reached down into the graveyard, illuminating Bellatrix's frazzled hair and mad expression. She raised her wand over her head. "Avada..."

"Stupefy!" cried Ginny, and blasted Bellatrix into a tall marble angel statue.

Pettigrew looked from Eva to Bellatrix and raised his wand. "Ennervate," he said meekly.

"Crucio!" Eva roared, and Pettigrew fell to the ground in a heap, screeching. As he writhed in pain, her eyes widened hungrily. Hermione turned away in disgust.

"Can't handle it, doll?" taunted Bellatrix.

Harry felt the echoes of Eva's cold hatred fill his heart, and he recoiled. "Avada Kedavra!" he screamed.

"Harry!" Hermione was horrorstruck.

But Bellatrix dodged the jet of green light, which split a tree branch like a bolt of lightning. "Still here!" she sang.

Eva's concentration broke, and she turned from Peter. "Harry! What--"

Bellatrix's eyes glowed like uncontrollable flame. "He's begun to feel it," she said wildly.

"Get out of here," Eva told Harry.

"But I--"

"Now!" she commanded, firing a Stunning Spell at Bellatrix, who dodged it.

With a flick of his wrist, Ron disarmed Pettigrew and turned to Harry. "Where to?"

Harry thought fast. "Grimmauld Place," he replied. "Apparate!"