Harry Potter and the Seventh Serpent
Summary: Follows directly on from the end of book six – the search for the Horcruxes
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairings: Bill/Fleur, Lupin/Tonks, Ron/Hermione, Hermione/OC, Ginny/OC, Harry/Ginny, Gabrielle/Harry…some surprise pairings I don't want to spoil, and more I've either forgotten about or haven't decided on yet
Warnings: Bad language, violence, character death…and probably slash, knowing me
Disclaimer: I own the plot, and any OCs who appear. Harry and Co belong to JKR
Preemptive review-grovelling is probably in order…
About the location I give for Godric's Hollow – in book one, right at the start, Hagrid says that baby-Harry fell asleep as they were flying over Bristol. There aren't many places in England where Bristol is between you and Surrey – I checked a map – so I didn't have much choice.
Chapter 6 – Going Home
Wherein Harry reflects on What Might have Been, and a Decision is reached
Harry slept badly that night. Dim, steely predawn light filtered through the curtains and sent misty grey shadows creeping across the ceiling as he awoke the next day. He lay awake, staring at nothing for quite some time. It could have been any time between four and seven in the morning, but checking his watch would have required more effort than he felt capable of at that moment: an odd, empty feeling had settled in his chest, leaving him detached and a little light-headed.
After some time had passed he finally summoned the energy to move, and got out of bed – very quietly, so as not to wake Ron – to shower and dress. Groping blindly for the door-handle in the subdued half-light, he eventually slipped through the door and closed it carefully behind him.
The stained glass windows didn't let in a great deal of light this early, blocked out as it was by the surrounding buildings. But weeks of midnight snacks and early breakfasts had led him to remember the number of steps in every flight of stairs between his bedroom and the kitchen. Eight steps down to the gallery, left turn, turn right at the far end, then another turn halfway along and down the main flight, which had twenty-four steps. Yawning hugely, Harry wandered a little unsteadily through the crimson-carpeted hallways towards food.
Flickering candlelight shone through the gaps around the kitchen door, which was slightly ajar. Harry had neither the energy nor the inclination to speculate on who might be in there at this early hour, so he just walked straight in. In fact, he had already set the kettle to boiling with an absent wave of his wand and began rummaging through the cupboards for a mug before he registered the other person's presence. He cocked his head quizzically, unsure of the correct reaction when confronted with the sight of a half-asleep Professor McGonagall sitting at a battered kitchen table at five in the morning, clutching a cup of coffee.
"Good morning," he said eventually.
She inclined her head in response; "You're up early."
"I couldn't sleep, professor."
"Harry, you're not one of my students any more," she said with a weary smile; "My name is Minerva."
"Uh…okay," he responded after a moment's thought. Deciding to leave this conversation until he was a little more awake, he emerged triumphant from a cupboard with a mostly full sugar bowl and a tin of teabags. He retrieved a mug and spoon from the drying rack beside the sink and made himself a rather satisfactory cup of tea. He sank into a free chair, and there followed a silence which – to his surprise – was not even particularly awkward.
"Will you be joining the Order now?" McGonagall – or rather, Minerva – asked, regarding him over the rim of her mug.
"Soon," he replied; "I want to…visit Godric's Hollow first." The latter half of the sentence didn't want to come out at all and he took a large gulp of tea to cover his embarrassment. It didn't work very well; he ended up just scalding his tongue. She nodded understandingly, and for a moment he couldn't help but wonder where she had been that night some sixteen years ago.
"Do you know how to get there?" she tactfully skirted around the unspoken questions hanging in the air. Harry started to answer before stopping dead as he realised that no, actually, he didn't. "It's near the mouth of the Severn, on the east bank. Not far from Bristol."
"Thank you."
"It's nothing, really…" She finished the last of her coffee and stood; "I think I had better leave. Barely a week till the start of term, and I have far too much still to do. I have a…a difficult act to follow, so to speak." For a moment she looked incongruously young, and Harry realised for the first time that – much as they all mourned him, and much as she hid her own feelings – she had been closer to Dumbledore than anyone else. It was probably an appropriate juncture to say something comforting, but he couldn't think of anything that wouldn't sound irredeemably stupid. Instead he gave an understanding sort of nod and maintained a diplomatic silence as she left.
For hours he sat there, clutching his cooling mug of tea as sunlight slowly crept across the stone floor. He was still sitting there at seven, when Molly came downstairs to make breakfast. "Couldn't sleep, dear?" she said sympathetically. Harry nodded mutely and suppressed a yawn.
He didn't remember eating breakfast, although he was fairly sure he must have done so. A vague memory of prodding disinterestedly at a fried egg as conversation buzzed unheeded around him remained, but it hardly mattered. Afterwards, exhausted, he slipped back up to his room to catch a little more sleep.
'A little' ended up becoming 'a lot', and it was early afternoon when he finally came to. Rubbing his eyes, he staggered to his feet to retrieve a jacked and shoes. His (unmade) bed sagged slightly as he sat down on it to tie his shoelaces.
"Harry?"
He looked up to see Hermione hovering uncertainly in the doorway, and a flash of red hair behind her which had to be Ron. She took a few steps into the room and bit her lip as if considering her next words. "We know you're going to Godric's Hollow. We were wondering…if you wanted us to come with you?"
Harry opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again. Truthfully he didn't know if he wanted anyone with him. Yes, moral support could be good. But…he wasn't sure if he wanted anyone else there when he finally saw the place where his parents had died. Something told him it should be a private moment.
"Thanks," he said after a while; "But no. I…this is something I have to do alone, you know?"
"We understand," Hermione nodded.
"Be careful, mate," Ron added, and the two stood aside to let him pass.
It didn't take him long to reach Godric's Hollow, mainly due to his newly acquired Apparition license. Once he was in the general area McGon- Minerva – damn, that was going to take some getting used to – had described, he had just asked a local for directions to Godric's Hollow. After that he'd been there inside ten minutes.
Harry wasn't quite sure what he'd been expecting, but…this wasn't it. Godric's Hollow was a small but busy Muggle town centered around a crossroads. The central, oldest part of it was closer to what he had imagined – rows of stone cottages with verdant front gardens – but the rest was surprisingly modern. Birds twittered in the trees as he wandered around the small town…cars trundled back and forth along the narrow streets. In the distance, a train rushed past.
It seemed like a nice place. Harry imagined growing up in Godric's Hollow: a childhood spent playing in the neat public park and attending the open, friendly-looking primary school. Long summers spent climbing trees and lying by the shallow river that wound lazily through the town. Passing a newsagents', he had a vision of a green-eyed child with dark hair and a mercifully scar-free forehead pleading with his mother for sweets. She laughed and ruffled his hair affectionately, but remained unrelenting.
And then, finally, he saw it.
The ruined shell of a home was startlingly out of place in the middle of a row of tidy little cottages. It was hard to tell what had been caused by the original explosion, and what had been caused by the decay of time. The roof had long since disappeared, as had most of two of the four outer walls. Trees and grass and ivy had taken over, and the front garden was full of dandelions which waved merrily in the breeze. Harry leant on the rotting wooden fence, feeling rather faint. Was this the house he should have grown up in? Had it really once been bright, happy home like the cottages all around it?
In the garden of the next house an elderly woman was pruning a rose bush, while two young boys, free for the summer, played football in the street outside. At the sound of childish laughter in the sunlight, Harry felt a blinding rage boiling inside him. That should have been him, once. This should have been the place he had grown up: not a sterile, unfriendly house where he was treated like a stray mongrel that wouldn't go away. He could have been happy here. And some genocidal madman with delusions of grandeur had seen fit to take that away from him.
"Can I help you?"
Harry blinked and came back to reality. The old woman with the pruning shears was eyeing him suspiciously, and suddenly he felt painfully aware of the rips in the knees of his jeans and the faded state of his t-shirt. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, subconsciously trying to flatten his hair: "No, I was just…I only…" after some awkward stuttering he opted for the simple truth. He gestured towards the wreckage that had once been a house; "My parents lived here."
"Oh!" the woman flushed; fumbled with the shears and almost dropped them; "Oh I'm terribly sorry, I didn't mean to…"
"It's okay," Harry said; "Really."
"Still, I…" she laid the shears aside carefully; "Would you like a cup of tea?"
Harry had intended to politely refuse and be on his way, but nevertheless he somehow found himself sitting on a worn sofa while the woman – whose name turned out to be Mary – bustled around the kitchen. He chewed his lower lip nervously and accepted the tea gratefully, because while he was drinking he wasn't required to speak.
"They were a lovely young couple," Mary said sadly, sipping her own tea; "Newly married when they moved in, and the nicest neighbours you could have asked for. And then one night…well, you saw for yourself. Gas leak, it turned out to be. Terrible business."
Gas leak, Harry thought. Was that what the Ministry had told the local Muggles? He could just imagine some plain-clothes official spreading the rumour, tweaking the evidence to make it fit. Mary chatted on with the amiable imperturbability of someone who's quite used to no-one listening to her, reminiscing about her old neighbours – Harry blushed furiously at the assertion that he'd been an 'adorable baby' – and inquiring gently about where he'd been for the past sixteen years. He gave a heavily edited version of his life story: he'd been raised by his aunt and uncle, had just finished school, and now he was planning to join the…he cast around for the nearest Muggle equivalent to 'Aurors' and came up with 'police'. She nodded approvingly at that, and Harry finished his tea and suggested in the politest possible terms that he should probably be getting home.
It was late when he arrived back in Glasgow again, the sun slipping down in the sky on its journey towards night. The city was as busy as ever, and Harry had to elbow his way through the crowd on his back to Headquarters. As he slipped into the alley behind the boarded-up cinema, Harry made a decision. He was going to kill Voldemort. He was going to end the war. Seeing what could have been his home had steeled his resolve. He was not going to let the Death Eaters destroy any more lives.
I know I'm not going to get this finished before book 7 comes out. But I don't care – I will carry on with the plot I had previously decided on regardless of what happens in the latest book. This will end up being very AU. I don't care.
Reading without reviewing – the eighth deadly sin.