It has been a long time since Harry has taken the Knight Bus, and as he steps off of it, he hopes it will be a long time again. He is feeling nauseous, but he wonders in the back of his mind whether this is half because he is seeing the Hollow for the first time. It looks nothing like he's expected, really, but he isn't sure what he expected. Some distant part of him expected rubble, he thinks, but another part expected the house from his photo album, perfect and shining. Part of him even expected his parents, which Harry knows is foolish.
What he gets instead is a pretty Muggle subdivision, not entirely unlike Privet Drive. The lawns are perfect and manicured, the houses a pretty shade of eggshell, and the windows all covered with delicate lace curtains. There is no marker to indicate that here, almost seventeen years ago, the greatest battle of the war against Voldemort was fought. There is no marker that says, Here lie Lily and James Potter, and a little bit of Harry Potter's soul.
He's disappointed by the pretty little houses and the pretty little pavement paths that wind their way between them. He's disappointed by the cute little dogs chained in the cute little lawns and the shiny, freshly washed cars that sit in the drives next to freshly painted sheds. Godric's Hollow is perfect in all of the ways anyone could ever want it to be, except for the one way Harry needs it to be. The hollow cheer of the town reflects the hollow part of him, and he realizes that sixteen years is a long, long time.
Harry calls the Knight Bus back, and if the driver that has replaced Stan is surprised to see him again so soon, he doesn't show it. He settles into a seat and when the driver calls back, "Where to, then?" he responds easily.
"Number four, Privet Drive."
::
Once again, number twelve is thrown into chaos. Ron admits in long, rambling sentences delivered in shameful tones, how he left Malfoy in the middle of Muggle London, and Remus can scarcely believe the boy's tale. Malfoy tells them all what happened, and then Severus tells them how he'd found the boy. Between Molly and Alastor, Remus wonders if Ron mightn't have got off easier sentenced to time in Azkaban for his little prank, they scold him so. He stays out of the situation, himself, but offers to help look for Harry in between taking care of Tonks. Molly tells him no, that they need someone to wait at the house in case Harry comes back, anyway. Between the rest of the Order and the entire Weasley brood, there is more than enough search power to find him, Remus consoles himself.
He finds that Tonks is getting better. She has started sleeping better and no longer complains of pain in her lower back. He's worried because it will be a full moon soon, but she swears she's feeling better and that he needn't worry. With Severus back in the house, he can take the Wolfsbane again, which will lessen the severity of the transformation. Hopefully this time he can be back after less than half a week, but Remus knows better than to count on this.
It's hard to miss the fatigue that's been carved into Severus's face by his experiences since Albus's death. His eyes are dull and almost lackluster, his face is gaunt and thin, and his entire frame seems to fold in on itself. Everything about him reads as tired, and Remus can't help but hope he doesn't look as numb and exhausted as Severus.
Everyone has gone out to find Harry, and Remus and Tonks have the house alone for the first time since the fire. He's surprised by how empty it feels, and how much of an afterthought he feels like in the house he's lived in for years. He knows it's not his house—it's Harry's, even if every part of it always has and always will remind him painfully of Sirius—but it's strange to realize just how little of himself he has imparted in the place. Every room reminds him of someone else; the sitting room is Sirius, the young Sirius he'd first met on the Hogwarts Express, who'd offered to let Remus sit with him and his friend James, the two of them staunch old blood so stiff with fear that no one would like them, and the parlor is so hopelessly reminiscent of Regulus, who'd tried so hard to earn the acceptance of his peers that he'd fallen in with a bad crowd, that tears almost swim in his eyes. The kitchen is Molly perfectly, the only genuinely warm and cheerful room in the house, and he knows he will never be able to pass the bathroom without remembering that horrible day and Ginny and Charlie.
Even Malfoy has a room: the formal dining room, so refined and well put together but used for clandestine meetings of the Order. He shares this room with Albus, whom Remus looks for every time he enters. Harry's room is the front hall, where the light spills in from cracked and dirty glass to illuminate little squares of yellow sunlight on the ebony floors. The shadows loom ominously in the corners, and it is this juxtaposition between cheer and gloom that reminds Remus most of Harry.
Remus knows that the boy bears a weight far heavier than he should on his shoulders, but he also knows that there is nothing he can do to take this burden away. All he and the others can do is try to help alleviate the stress, and he knows that sometimes they fail to do this. He hopes that wherever Harry has gone, the boy is safe without the safety net of those who love him ready to catch him should he fall.
::
Dudley finds that life with Aunt Marge is not as awful as he might have imagined it to be. She lets him stay up late and watch the telly, and he can eat as much ice cream as he wants, not that he eats much ice cream. Because as pleasant as life with Aunt Marge can be, Dudley finds it hard to slip back into the routines of his old life.
Smeltings is completely out of the question this year, because he's spent so much time away. He isn't sure he'd want to go back there, anyway, to see all of his friends from before who will ask him funny questions about Piers. Instead, he's going to a local public school that Aunt Marge has found for him. It isn't Eaton, but it'll do, she says, and he agrees. At Brightstone Academy, nobody asks him about the fires. They don't want to talk to him about how he feels about his mum and dad. Nobody expects him to run around hitting first years like nothing's wrong, and if he wants to sit outside and think rather than try for sports, no one is going to laugh and call him a pansy.
Dudley thinks that perhaps he's finding a whole new side of himself, underneath the ash and years of dust where he's neglected it for so long. He finds he's not half bad at taking things apart, and sometimes it only takes him one or two tries to put it back together again. Aunt Marge says that in the spring they'll go look at University, but he's got half a mind to ask about trade school instead. Dudley feels his world shifting slowly to a new axis, and wonders how he's not too worried about it.
He knows he isn't smart like some other boys are. He'll never be an engineer or a doctor, but he thinks that maybe, if he can settle down and learn something useful—pay attention, rather than goofing off in the back of the classroom the way he and his mates used to do at Smeltings—he'll be alright. After all, he's not a kid anymore, and there's no one to take care of him but Aunt Marge. He's got to learn to make himself useful somehow in a way that he never has before.
Today, he and Aunt Marge are going to visit the house. It's the first time Dudley will be there, at Privet Drive, since the fires. He's nervous and feels like he might throw up, but he wants to go see what it looks like now that the debris has been cleared. Construction is due to begin on a new neighborhood soon, and the groundbreaking crews are going to get started within the next month. They won't call it Privet Drive anymore, and Dudley wants to see Privet Drive one last time before it's gone for good.
Aunt Marge takes the car, and she lets Dudley drive on the way over because her back is hurting her. Ever since the incident with Harry when Dad had had to ring for help getting her out of the sky, Aunt Marge has had chronic back problems. Dudley thought it was her belt, pressed too tight around her swollen middle, but Dad had gotten angry when he'd told him and Mum had told him to keep his comments to himself. She'd reminded him that Dad didn't like hearing about those sort of people, and Dudley is glad he's at the old house because a lump forms in his throat and his eyes grow wet from the knowledge that he will never hear Dad blustering around the house again, nor Mum gossiping over the fence with Mrs. Keller.
There is someone standing on the pavement in front of the spot where number four used to be, and Dudley wants to shout at them to go gawk at someone else's misfortune until he realizes that it's Harry.
Harry's changed a lot since the last time Dudley has seen him. His hair is longer, his shoulders broader, and his face is more worn. He looks like a grownup now, tall and powerful. Dudley wonders briefly if the time is as written on his own face as it is Harry's, and Harry asks, "What happened?"
Normally, when people ask this, they're only asking to be nice. Everyone between Surrey and Cambridge knows what happened on Privet Drive, even if they only skimmed the article about this little suburb going up in flames. Some ask him if he thinks it was terrorists, and some ask him how he is holding up, but everyone rushes through that part of the conversation because they don't really care; they're only asking because it seems rude not to, to ignore the fact that Dudley's alone now because someone set his neighborhood on fire.
But Harry's different, Dudley can tell, and this is why he tells Harry the story. The whole, real story. Not the version he'd told police, where he'd missed the electric fire caused by faulty wiring and come home just in time to see the roof fall in, but the real version, where the strange men in pointy hats had made sure they'd burned down number four first, then decimated the rest of Privet Drive just for fun. The version where Piers had stood in the fire while Dudley had run away like a coward. Harry doesn't say anything when he's through telling the story, and Dudley doesn't have anything else to say, so they stare at each other without talking.
"I'm sorry," Harry says finally.
"You should be," Dudley replies.
"I never meant for this to happen, Dudley," Harry tells him, and he squeezes Dudley's hand between his own before Dudley pulls away.
"I wish it had been you instead," he tells Harry, letting as much of his anger into it as he dares. How dare he show up here after being gone so long? How dare he offer a compassionate hand when all Dudley wants to do is hate him? Harry is quiet for a moment, then ducks his head.
"It was supposed to be," he admits, and Dudley's heart freezes in his chest. "They were there to kill me, but I was already gone. I'm so sorry I got your family all tangled up in this, Dudley." Harry's eyes are clear behind his glasses and Dudley suddenly feels as if he's finally hearing the punch line to a joke he's heard years ago. "I know it's not the same, but for what it's worth, I've been through it, too. I know how hard it is when everyone wants to…make it better, I suppose. I know how hard it is to pretend that nothing's wrong when you've seen those sorts of things."
"Why? Why were they coming after you? Why did they," Dudley swallows hard against the lump forming in his throat, "kill Mum and Dad when they didn't find you?"
"They were after me because that's what they do: they try to kill me. They've been trying for seven years—no, seventeen, really—and every time I've been just lucky enough to scrape by. They've killed other people around me before, loads of them, but they've just never got to me." Dudley feels a surge of protectiveness come over him, but he shoves it down.
"But why? Why my family? Why me; why Piers?" he asks fiercely.
"Because you were there, most likely. They don't bother justifying their actins to anyone. They destroy lives just because they can. Just because someone's at the wrong place at the wrong time."
"It's not right," Dudley feels the spots of color rising on his face. "That's not how it should be!"
"But that's how it is," Harry says simply, and it occurs to Dudley that he's never really talked to his cousin the way he is now.
"Then what was it that happened to you?" he demands. He is amused by the stunned look on Harry's face, and intrigued by the flash of sadness that is quickly covered by a bittersweet smile.
"I suppose it all started when I was a baby…"
::
Draco can't stand not being able to help the others look for Harry. A gnawing feeling in his gut reminds him almost constantly of the look on Harry's face as he'd left the room. The weight of his responsibility for the situation sits heavily on his shoulders as he faces the empty house. Everyone else has gone—Lupin and Tonks to the doctor for a follow up, the Weaslette and her lover for a clandestine date disguised as more searching, and everyone else is out looking for Harry. Even Severus is out looking, disguised as a random Weasley. Granger has packed up her things and is planning to go home soon. Draco feels as though his little surrogate family is shrinking and the house is growing larger.
He's concerned with how attached to Harry he has become, and how much his moods depend on the other boy. He's been sulky all day as he waits for word of Harry, and when the word he gets is that Harry still can't be located, he becomes downright morose. He wants nothing more than to tell him the truth, but it's hard to do if Potter isn't here to hear the truth. He's hesitant to tell the truth, anyway, because as much as he hates Weasley, he doesn't exactly hate Potter anymore, and he doesn't want to upset him. He feels like he has become such a ninny.
Mostly, Draco tells himself that Harry's okay. He hopes so, and he thinks that he is, because unlike him, Harry has spent a lot of time in the Muggle World. He's escaped from Voldemort more than a few times, as well, which is a sure sign of self-sufficiency in Draco's book. He has to tell himself that Harry's okay, though, because every now and then his nightmares spill into the day. He's had more waking dreams than he can count, all about various ways that Harry can be tortured and killed without anyone knowing. He hopes every day that he will stop having these morbid hallucinations, but every day they come back, with growing insistency.
Draco's never thought himself a Seer, but even he is getting worried.
::
Ron doesn't know what to do. He's searched everywhere, pored over subway maps and walked both cobbled and paved streets until his feet are too tired to go any further. He's been up both sides of the Thames, down Diagon Alley, and even through Knockturn Alley, though the place scares the piss out of him. He's checked the Leaky Cauldron and though he learns that Harry was there over the summer, no one knows where he is now, and Ron is running out of places to look.
Everyone is sitting at the table trying hard not to glare too much at him. Mum has been searching all over Hogsmeade every day, and Dad keeps an eye out for news at the Ministry. The Aurors, led by Moody, can't go out and search for him since they're supposed to be hunting down suspected Death Eaters, but even they have seen neither hide nor hair of him. Charlie has gone back to work in Romania, but even he is keeping an open eye and ear for gossip. Ginny, Fred, and George search a different city every day—today was Manchester—but between the three of them, not even a hair has turned up. They've even got McGonagall looking for him as she finishes up her preparations to open the school in the autumn.
Snape won't tell them where he's looking, but he's gone from before breakfast till after tea every day. Mum says that if anyone's going to find Harry, it's going to be him. He's determined that Harry will be found before the end of the week, but Ron doesn't think Harry is going to be found so soon. He'll be found when he wants to be, Ron thinks, but he keeps looking.
::
Harry and Dudley are at tea when the familiar shade of hair appears in the doorway. He whistles and the boy's attention is drawn to their table. He looks like a Weasley—one of the twins, to be precise—but he moves oddly, clearly unused to the body being used. Harry invites him to sit at their table and Dudley grunts around the rim of his teacup.
"Where have you been?" the unnamed Weasley demands as he sits down. "We've been looking all over town for you."
"I had to visit a few places," Harry replies indifferently, and the Weasley glares at him.
"Oh? And where, pray tell, were these 'places?'" the Weasley asks, a very Snape-like sneer forming on his lips.
"Godric's Hollow," Harry says simply, and he has the good graces to look abashed. "Then I went to Privet Drive. It burned down, you know. Several months ago."
"I knew," the Weasley sniffs.
"I didn't," Harry says. The Weasley stiffens in shock.
"How could they not tell you? I mean…" he asks, as expressive Weasley eyes show sympathy, pity, and remorse.
"They didn't even tell me about Snape until a month later," Harry tells him, and the Weasley's eyebrows crease in irritation. "I'm pretty used to not being told anything."
"But surely, Potter, you get the Prophet?" Harry shakes his head.
"Not anymore. I was tired of having my mail edited, so I stopped getting mail."
"Excuse me," Dudley says, and Harry turns to him. "Who's this?"
"Oh, this is Fred," Harry introduces the Weasley to Dudley. "Fred, this is my cousin Dudley."
"How do you do?" Fred is polite, if slightly formal. Dudley's eyes on him are sharp, as if he's watching him for any sudden moves.
"I remember you, I think. You came to get him," he jerks his thumb at Harry, "once. You gave me a toffee that turned me into a pig."
"I was obnoxious as a child," Fred says dourly, and Dudley nods cautiously.
"I don't think I ate toffees for at least a month after that," he replies. The waitress comes by and Fred orders Darjeeling with a bit of lemon. When the tea comes, they sit in silence until Harry stands and extends his hand to Dudley.
"I've really enjoyed hanging out with you, Dudley. I really have. But I think it's time for me to go do that hero thing I'm supposed to be doing. D'you have Hermione's address so her parents can owl your letters to me?" he asks. Dudley nods and Harry smiles. "Bye, then." Fred and Harry leave and Fred pulls Harry into an alley so they can Apparate back to Grimmauld Place.
::
Ron is in the kitchen helping his Mum cook dinner when Snape brings Harry back. Harry looks happier, healthier than he did when he left, and Ron thinks about how unhappy and frail Malfoy has grown since Harry left. The words come out of his mouth before he can form them, and quite suddenly he's confessing. He admits to Harry everything that he did to Malfoy right there, standing in the kitchen with a carrot in one hand and the vegetable peeler in the other. Harry slugs him, but afterwards he helps Ron stand back up and settles in to help cook.
He is a little surprised by how well Harry seems to know his way around the kitchen. He can chop quickly, and between the three of them, Mum's famous shepherd's pie is in the oven baking away in less than half an hour. As Harry mixes a salad, he talks happily about wanting to get a flat, and Ron discovers for the first time that not everyone wants to stay at number twelve. Harry makes him promise to go flat shopping with him, and Ron almost refuses, but Harry continues on so easily that he figures it's better to just go with it than to keep fighting against him. Harry will do as he wants, whether anyone around him wants him to or not, and that's one of the few things Ron's finally learned over the last seven years.
At dinner, Malfoy stares at Harry with such wounded eyes that Ron almost begs Harry to go make up with him if only to keep him from putting him off his food any more. Malfoy stands up halfway through the meal and walks back to his room, and Harry follows him. They've not quite finished kissing in the hall when Ron goes by on his way to bed, but he simply walks around it instead of saying anything.
He feels completely disjointed from everyone as they begin to move again. He feels static, like the last bear to wake from hibernation. All around him, things are changing and people are growing. Time has stopped for no one but Ron, who stands in the middle of it all, untouched.
::
The doctor said that she must stay in bed for three weeks, and by the time Remus pronounces her well again, it is well into March. Her muscles feel tired and sore, and she's lost a lot of weight. Her skin is so pale that she feels almost like she's made of marzipan. Everything hurts, but only from disuse.
At first, Remus only lets her out of bed when he is there, so he can help her as she stumbles around, leaving enormous bruises on her arms and legs where she runs into tables and chairs, trips over rugs and her own two feet, and falls so jarringly that at first she's sure she's pinched a nerve when her toes go numb. Then he lets her walk around in the room when Molly's in the house to check on her. She can usually only make it to the chair by herself before she falls into it, exhausted, but any movement is good news, so she keeps trying.
Then one day she makes it all the way to the door on shaky, coltish legs before losing her breath, so she clutches the knob in her hand so hard that the cut glass leaves little lines on her palm and swings it open. There is no one in the hall, but the sight of something outside these four walls is so beautiful she wells up in tears. Now she begins to believe what Remus keeps telling her: everything is going to be okay. Everything is going to get better.
It takes her almost another two whole weeks before she can make it to the kitchen, where she spends her mornings talking with Molly about all of the changes in the house. When Molly tells her about Charlie, she remembers the cheerful eleven year old she'd met on her first day at Hogwarts and is confused until her mind calls up the image of Charlie Weasley as she'd last seen him, with long hair spilling over his eyes and his dragon tooth earring shining in his ear. He looks old, she thinks, and wonders if she does, too.
She feels old, like every part of her has outlived its manufacturer's warranty. It takes nothing to tire her out now, maybe a brisk stagger across the room or a short flight of stairs. She spends most of her time in the little chair that Remus has put next to the window. She watches birds, and once a neighborhood cat gets into the yard but Molly chases it out again with the broom. She feels like Whistler's Mother.
She feels haunted by a general gloom that seems to rise up out of the floorboards. Outside, the world is beginning to bloom and grow, but here in the dark holds of number twelve, Tonks feels like one of her limbs is missing.
::
Molly knows she must let go. She has held on too long to the hope that Bill and Fleur are simply on an extended honeymoon. It's grown childish and self-defeating, her desire to hide from the truth: they're not coming back. They're likely dead.
She talks with Arthur, who plans the funeral for early March. The ground might still be a little frozen, but there aren't any bodies to bury, so Molly figures it's not such a problem. She doesn't know what to do to plan a funeral—certainly not the funeral of her oldest son and his wife. They were supposed to grow old together, she thinks, but as the days pass the crying jags grow less frequent and she grows more used to the idea. It's not pleasant to put to rest her first baby, but there's nothing she can do about it.
She uses the wedding's guest list to send the notices.