I took a lot from canon here with the grave and memorial; except of course it's Sirius showing Harry about. It felt wrong to shy away from quoting and somehow I felt it would dishonour all JKR put into a poignant encounter not to use her words.
Chapter 24: Godric's Hollow
Harry set off early in the morning with Sirius to Godric's Hollow, apparating from the castle using their Blood Group elf ability.
The village, containing as many muggles as wizarding families or more, was composed largely of small rather twee cottages mostly with front porches and well pitched roofs. There were several shops, a post office, a pub and a little church with stained glass windows set in a little graveyard.
Harry felt a thrill of something between excitement and fear; which was increased as he stared at the memorial that transformed itself to his wizardly eyes into a statue of three people: a man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face and with a baby boy in her arms. It was almost strange to see himself represented in stone and without a scar on his forehead….. snow lay on the statues and drifted down desultorily.
"They are honoured by all" said Sirius softly "Do you want to see their grave? For closure?"
Harry nodded wordlessly.
They went through the kissing gate into the graveyard and Sirius led him round the back.
"Good job it's not snowed too heavily to leave footprints" said Sirius "And it's snowing to fill them….all it could take is a careless word that someone visited the Potter grave."
"Are many of the wizarding community buried here?"
"You'll recognise plenty of names…there's an Abbott there….Kendra Dumbledore and her daughter Ariana over there. Albus should have told you more, sooner – and certainly have told the Order of the Phoenix more. Still, we all like to keep our grubbier secrets intact I suppose" Sirius added.
"I should like, when this is all over, to come here again with you and with Albus and mourn properly all our lost ones…to make those bonds we have stronger" said Harry softly.
"You can be extraordinarily deep Harry" said Sirius softly. "Over here is a grave Albus told me to show you; it's so overgrown by moss you can scarcely read it, but it's supposed to be the grave of Ignotus Peverell, the one who had the cloak."
Harry paused suddenly.
"Potter descended from Peverell – must be, because of inheriting the cloak. Peverell also gave rise to Gaunt. And Peverell was Slytherin's descendant; does that make me Slytherin's descendant too?"
Sirius blinked.
"I don't know; was it the Peverell side or the Gaunt that was his heir? Old Marvolo was proud of being descended from the Peverells but you know they were famous in their own right, Antioch, Cadmus and Ignotus. I guess it might explain the Parseltongue awakening so readily in you but….well, Potters have been Gryffindors for a long time and somehow I don't see…"
Harry nodded.
"Just a sudden thought" he said "But it does make me distantly related to Fishface."
"Heh, most of us are related to most others if you go far enough back" said Sirius.
"Don't people mostly marry others of their own house?"
"More the case of Gryffindor don't marry Slytherin….but Slytherin – Ravenclaw happens; and then if you get a child of that union in Ravenclaw, you can get Slytherin blood indirectly to a Ravenclaw – Gryffindor union. People often stay in House, but by no means exclusively. What about you and Cho Chang?"
Harry blushed.
"I take the point" he said. "Only…..it's nice to think that if I'm related to HIM through the Peverells I'm also related to Krait, and Draco indirectly as well likely Potter – Weasley connections. It – it's sort of nice to add ties to the Kindred ties."
Sirius nodded wordlessly.
His own rejection of kin made him sensitive to Harry's dislike of the Dursleys; and his craving for family. He felt the same way himself in being able to feel warmth at last towards his dead brother; and to be getting on better with the last link to him, Kreacher. And he also looked forward to getting to know his cousin Bella again now she was a small child.
"James and Lily are over here" Sirius said gently.
The words were engraved clearly, still sharp after only fifteen years.
"James Potter, born 27 March 1960, died 31 October 1981
Lily Potter, born 30 Janurary 1960, died 31October 1981
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
"Isn't that a Deatheater idea?" he demanded pointing at the last line. "Why is it there?"
"Don't you like the sentiment? I chose it" said Sirius "In that the last enemy is really I suppose fear of death; overcoming fear and embracing death willingly – like Ignotus did in the end – when it is your time and defeating death in the eternity beyond it, beyond the veil with your loved ones."
"But they don't live on…they're under that stone rotting, unknowing, indifferent!" said Harry resentfully. Tears were welling up, boiling down his face, the chill air almost seeming to freeze them as they fell. He let them fall, and Sirius laid an arm around his shoulders, not trying to stop the tide of grief, silent, knowing that this was no time for empty platitudes. As the tide subsided into hiccoughs, Sirius raised his wand and produced a bunch of red roses and white lilies. Harry caught it in mid air and laid it on the grave.
"Ghosts shun the veil because they fear it" said Sirius "We walk towards it every day we defy Riddle. It is nothing to fear. My brother embraced it to stop him. James and Lily did too. We all are prepared to. We do it for those about us we love; but also because we have an instinctive knowledge that there is more. They cannot interact with you but I am as sure as I am sure that I am dog that they hear of your deeds and are proud of you. Do you WANT to be protected all your life, have James and Lily turn up and make decisions for you, forbid you to be involved the way Arthur and Molly forbid Ron and Ginny from doing anything dangerous? You learned to stand on your own feet, and that was the lesson they gave you in the brief time you had them. Will you disrespect their memory by wanting them here to hold your hand?"
Harry was stung.
"No, but – but I'd just like to see them and…and talk to them."
"Well maybe you can use the resurrection stone for that….when you come to face Riddle, turn it then and ask them to stand with you and show you the way over if Albus is wrong. After all if he is wrong, it's probable plenty of us will be following you to make sure that he does too."
Harry gave a shuddering sigh.
"I don't mean to be selfish" he said wistfully.
"It's not selfish" said Sirius gently "But it's not going to help you to dwell on might-have-beens or play the if game. Come, let me show you the house."
"Isn't it hidden?"
Sirius shook his head.
"The Fidelius charm died with James and Lily" he said.
The cottage was at the end of a row; the hedge had grown wild since it had been uninhabited and waist high grass grew in what had been the garden. What was left of the cottage was covered with dark growths of ivy, and now snow starting to settle. Mostly it was intact, but the right side of the top floor had been blown apart, presumably where the curse had backfired.
"Can it not be repaired?" asked Harry "Is it like injuries from Dark Magic that can't be healed?"
"None of us had the heart I guess… and it was yours to do with as you pleased when you were grown" shrugged Sirius. "As to mending Dark Magic, that I don't know; but I am prepared to wager that the Blood Group won't let a little thing like Dark Magic stop them fixing your house."
It made Harry feel warm.
His parents might be dead but he would never be truly alone with his Blood Kindred; and he approached the rusted gate.
It was placing his hand on the gate that did it.
A sign rose out of the ground in front of Harry and Sirius through the tangles of nettles and weed like some strange, fast-growing flower or one encouraged on by Krait. In golden letters on the wood it said:
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.
All around these neatly lettered words scribbles had been added by other witches and wizards who had come to see the place where the Boy-Who-Lived had escaped. Some had signed their names in everlasting ink; others had carved their initials into the wood, others still had left messages, many of them addressed to Harry and wishing him luck, newer ones these, dating from the time of the Goblet of Fire competition and from the time Harry had been castigated by the press when the ministry had tried to play down his belief that Voldemort had returned.
"It's very heartening" said Harry "But I can't help thinking how Hermione would tut at people writing on an official sign!"
"I am very fond of Hermione" laughed Sirius "But she puts me so much in mind of a middle aged witch with too many responsibilities."
They looked at each other and grinned and said together,
"Molly Weasley!"
-/-
The gate yielded to alohamora; not that it was locked, but the accumulation of rust might as well have been a lock.
"I don't know how safe it is" said Sirius.
"Are their effects still inside?" asked Harry, looking nervously at the ruin.
"I don't know…. I was accused of their murder and put in Azkaban, remember?" said Sirius with some bitterness.
"I just had a horrid thought… if the watch was given to her closest relative, Aunt Petunia, there's no way she'd give me my mother's watch, especially not to destroy" said Harry "The very blood tie that kept me alive proving to keep him alive too…how much irony would that be?"
"You worry too much, Scales is right" said Sirius "Time to worry about that if we don't find it. Then first off we do some grave robbing in case it was buried on her; and THEN I set Mundungus Fletcher to burgle Privet Drive of all its watches and we see which if any were Lily's. He owes me still after all."
Harry managed a shaky grin.
"Padfoot, I don't want to dig them up" he said.
"Nor do I" said Sirius soberly "But it may need to be done…we'll ask those who didn't know them, Draco and Neville and David…would that be all right?"
Harry nodded wordlessly.
His Kin would do it sensitively; but he could not face doing it himself.
-/-
The furnishings were untouched, covered in the dust of years and plaster from the ceiling.
"We have to go upstairs" said Sirius "Chances are it'll be on a bedside table."
"If she took it off" said Harry "Lots of people don't ever take their watches off; and with waterproof ones not even to bath."
"It'll be there, trust me" said Sirius "Of COURSE it will be…..Wormtail took it from Godric's Hollow to take to his master. And was told, I'm sure to take it straight back."
Harry sighed with relief.
Of course. That was why they were here. They were acting on information Krait had got directly from Pettigrew.
It was almost an anticlimax to find it, a slim gold lady's watch on the charred dressing table. Harry touched it briefly and felt that semblance of life that was indicative of a horcrux.
"How come he thinks I'd keep it when I can feel something like a heart beating in it?" he asked "Like all the horcruces…"
"Because most of us can't" said Sirius "You're a horcrux yourself we decided, or at least have some of his consciousness; and it synchronises with you like the blood group synchronises hearbeats."
Harry nodded; sighed; and got out Gryffindor's sword.
Instantly his mind was filled with taunting thoughts that Lily had chosen to die with her husband rather than live with her son; thoughts he knew to be ridiculous, but which had still occasionally haunted him. He placed himself aside from the thing's mental attack; and that became easier with every time too. And he thrust.
The glass shattered; and the hands flew at him like miniature daggers. They bounced on Sirius' hastily cast protego spell.
"Heh, dark and sticky ends" said Sirius, stooping to pick the hands up with a spell "Nagini's poison I shouldn't wonder. Shall I burn them?"
Harry nodded, drained; and Sirius muttered the spell to heat the metal hands enough to denature any poison.
-/-
They returned home; Harry felt quite light headed with the emotions he had been through. He reported to the others though.
"That's all then bar Nagini" said Krait with satisfaction. "Unless he makes more."
"Don't" said Harry with a shudder "I can't go through that much more often. Anyway, isn't the diadem safe now?"
"Yes" said Krait "But it occurred to me….he has sired several children, or rather not troubled to use a contraceptive spell. And I was wondering, could he be considering using any of US as Horcruces – with ready made bodies to take over. Certainly young Salazar. I am coming to the opinion that he scatters his seed every so often to have a reliable source of unformed minds to take over at need, by making them horcruces if his current form gets killed. And it proves he does not know you are a horcrux or he could have possessed you – which is why I thought perhaps you weren't as you might recall."
Harry nodded.
"I was going to say I like your idea. I don't LIKE it but I mean it seems reasonable" he said "Having made Nagini a Horcrux when he killed the muggle in Little Hangleton the idea of a sentient horcrux and a body he could use took his mind perhaps?"
Krait nodded.
"And then he found Abigail. And a couple of years later, that unfortunate house elf. A child of under two could probably be easily pushed aside; but I do wonder if there are more. He couldn't guarantee a boy and somehow I can't see him accepting a female human or humanish body."
Harry shrugged.
"We'll find out I guess; or we won't." He said philosophically. "I have a splitting headache….I'm off to bed."