Hi, guys! Sorry for the late update, but, you know—better late than never, right? –sheepish grin—

Disclaimer: Same old, same old, I suppose. Levina's mine, Harry is not. Yeah.

…

Levina slept poorly, plagued by more night terrors than usual. She normally tried her genuine best to suppress her reactions to the nightmares and muffle her shrieks into her pillow, but that night, her anguished cries openly echoed through the tent without restraint.

She wanted to complain so badly. To bitch and moan about the physical and mental pain of her torments, her hunger, and the aching desire for Fred to be there with her. And yet, she kept her mouth forcefully shut and pressed on, knowing the others were suffering just as much as she.

The trio ate breakfast in silence. Hermione's eyes were puffy and red; she looked as if she had not slept. They packed up their things, Hermione dawdling. Levina felt a sharp pain in her abdomen, knowing that no matter how much she missed Ron and regretted her actions, Hermione's case was worse. Levina had seen Hermione's adoration for him since day one, and likewise. She recognized the pain reflected in the poor girl's pink eyes.

Levina finished packing halfheartedly and dusted off her jeans, though it did nothing to clear them of dirt. The muddy river beside them was rising rapidly and would soon spill over onto their bank. They had lingered a good hour after they would usually have departed their campsite. Finally having entirely repacked the beaded bag three times, Hermione seemed unable to find any more reasons to delay: She, Levina, and Harry grasped hands and Disapparated, reappearing on a windswept heather-covered hillside. The instant they arrived, Hermione dropped their hands and walked promptly away from them, finally sitting down on a large rock, her face on her knees, shaking with what she knew were sobs.

Hesitantly, Levina glanced once at Harry before settling onto the rock beside Hermione, resting a and on her shoulder. She'd never been a good comfort and therefore had no words to say, merely letting her hand linger gently in an attempt to convey her thoughts. Harry walked in a circle around them, putting up enchantments as he went.

They did not discuss Ron at all over the next few days. When Levina herself was not sobbing her eyes out and screaming, she could hear Hermione whimpering and crying in her bunk. Despite Levina's efforts to plug her ears, the canine hearing thwarted her and her heart felt awfully heavy and numb.

By day, they devoted themselves to trying to determine the possible locations of Gryffindor's sword, but the more they talked about the places in which Dumbledore might have hidden it, the more desperate and far-fetched their speculation became.

They were spending many evenings in near silence and Hermione took to bringing out Phineas Nigellus's portrait and propping it up in a chair, as though he might fill part of the gaping hole left by Ron's departure. Despite his previous assertion that he would never visit them again, Phineas Nigellus did not seem able to resist the chance to find out more about what Harry was up to and consented to reappear, blindfolded, every few days of so. Levina was even somewhat glad to see him, because he was company, albeit of a snide and taunting kind. They relished any news about what was happening at Hogwarts, though Phineas Nigellus was not an ideal informer. He venerated Snape, the first Slytherin headmaster since he himself had controlled the school, and they had to be careful not to criticize or ask impertinent questions about Snape, or Phineas Nigellus would instantly leave his painting.

However, he did let drop certain snippets. Snape seemed to be facing a constant, low level of mutiny from a hard core of students. Ginny had been banned from going into Hogsmeade. Snape had reinstated Umbridge's old decree forbidding gatherings of three or more students or any unofficial student societies. From all of these things, Levina deduced that Ginny, and probably Neville and Luna along with her, had been doing their best to continue Dumbledore's Army.

The idea warmed her heart a bit, but Levina found herself growing lonelier and lonelier…What was Destiny up to these days, off at Beauxbatons? Were they experiencing similar problems? Probably not, seeing as Voldemort was invested in Britain, not France…But still. She wondered why they weren't contributing to the ongoing war…

The weather grew colder and colder. They did not dare remain in any area too long, so rather than staying in the south of England, where a hard ground frost was the worst of their worries, they continued to meander up and down the country, braving a mountainside, where sleet pounded the tent; a wide, flat marsh, where the tent was flooded with chill water; and a tiny island in the middle of a Scottish loch, where snow half buried the tent in the night. They had already spotted Christmas Trees twinkling from several sitting room windows before there came an evening when Harry resolved to suggest again, what seemed to them the only unexplored avenue left to them. They had just eaten an unusually good meal: Hermione had been to a supermarket under the Invisibility Cloak (scrupulously dropping the money into an open till as she left).

Having finished eating, and feeling rather content, Levina curled up in her bunk, bundled under a layer of covers. She missed the warmth of Lilypad (and Fred…) in the space beside her, but felt considerably better on a full stomach. She had very nearly fallen asleep when Harry spoke up.

"Hermione?"

"Hmm?" Hermione was curled up in one of the sagging armchairs with The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Harry cleared his throat and Levina perked up, leaning over the side of the bunk to observe them. "Hermione, I've been thinking, and—"

"You two, could you help me with something?"

Apparently she had not been listening to him. She leaned forward and held out The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Grumbling a bit at having to move, Levina wormed her way closer to the edge of the bed, peering down at the page.

"Look at that symbol," she said, pointing to the top of a page. Above what Levina assumed was the title of the story (being unable to read runes, she could not be sure), there was a picture of what looked like a triangular eye, its pupil crossed with a vertical line.

"I never took Ancient Runes, Hermione," said Harry wearily.

"I know that; but it isn't a rune and it's not in the syllabary, either. All along I thought it was a picture of an eye, but I don't think it is! It's been inked in, look, somebody's drawn it there, it isn't really part of the book. Think, have you ever seen it before?"

"No...No, wait a moment." Harry looked closer. "Isn't it the same symbol Luna's dad was wearing round his neck?"

"Oh!" Levina sat upright, immediately regretting the decision as the warm covers slipped off of her shivering form. "It is. What do you reckon it means?"

"It's Grindelwald's mark," said Harry.

She stared at him, openmouthed.

"What?"

"Krum told me..."

He recounted the story that Viktor Krum had told him at the wedding. Hermione looked astonished and Levina simply stared, open-mouthed like a sea bass.

"Grindelwald's mark?"

She looked from Harry to the weird symbol and back again. "I've never heard that Grindelwald had a mark. There's no mention of it in anything I've ever read about him."

"Well, like I say, Krum reckoned that symbol was carved on a wall at Durmstrang, and Grindelwald put it there."

She fell back into the old armchair, frowning.

"That's very odd. If it's a symbol of Dark Magic, what's it doing in a book of children's stories?"

"Yeah, it is weird," said Harry. "And you'd think Scrimgeour would have recognized it. He was Minister, he ought to have been expert on Dark stuff."

"I know... Perhaps he thought it was an eye, just like I did. All the other stories have little pictures over the titles."

She did not speak, but continued to pore over the strange mark. Then Harry spoke up again.

"Hermione?"

"Hmm?"

"I've been thinking. I—I want to go to Godric's Hollow."

She looked up at him, eyes slightly unfocused. Levina raised a brow down at Harry, taken aback. "Godric's Hollow? Why—?"

"Yes," Hermione cut in. "Yes, I've been wondering that too. I really think we'll have to."

Harry now looked equally surprised. "Did you hear me right?" he asked.

"Of course I did. You want to go to Godric's Hollow. I agree. I think we should. I mean, I can't think of anywhere else it could be either. It'll be dangerous, but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems it's there."

"What's there?" said Levina.

Hermione stared at her, mouth agape, as though it were the most obvious thing ever."Well, the sword! Dumbledore must have known you'd want to go back there, and I mean, Godric's Hollow is Godric Gryffindor's birthplace—"

"Really? Gryffindor came from Godric's Hollow?"

"Harry, did you ever even open A History of Magic?"

"Erm," he said, smiling sheepishly. "I might've opened it, you know, when I bought it... just the once..."

"I never read it," Levina stated proudly, shrugging as she tugged the covers back over her head.

"Well, as the village is named after him I'd have thought you two might have made the connection," said Hermione. She sounded much more like her old self than she had done of late. "There's a bit about the village in A History of Magic, wait..."

She opened the beaded bag and rummaged for a while, finally extracting her copy of their old school textbook, A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot, which she thumbed through until finding the page she wanted.

"'Upon the signature of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689, wizards went into hiding for good. It was natural, perhaps, that they formed their own small communities within a community. Many small villages and hamlets attracted several magical families, who banded together for mutual support and protection. The villages of Tinworsh in Cornwall, Upper Flagley in Yorkshire, and Ottery St. Catchpole on the south coast of England were notable homes to knots of Wizarding families who lived alongside tolerant and sometimes Confunded Muggles. Most celebrated of these half-magical dwelling places is, perhaps, Godric's Hollow, the West Country village where the great wizard Godric Gryffindor was born, and where Bowman Wright, Wizarding smith, forged the first Golden Snitch. The graveyard is full of the names of ancient magical families, and this accounts, no doubt, for the stories of hauntings that have dogged the little church beside it for many centuries.'"

"You and your parents aren't mentioned." Hermione said, closing the book, "because Professor Bagshot doesn't cover anything later than the end of the nineteenth century. But you see? Godric's Hollow, Godric Gryffindor, Gryffindor's sword; don't you think Dumbledore would have expected you to make the connection?

"Oh yeah..." Harry fell silent and Levina peered out from beneath her covers.

"It would be nice to visit my parents' graves," she remarked. It had never really occurred to her to do it before—in fact, the very idea of them even having graves hadn't been something she'd really thought of.

"That's what I was thinking," Harry agreed softly.

Levina rolled onto her side, lost in her thoughts. It would be weird, visiting the place where her parents were murdered so long ago…The thought both excited her and made her sick to her stomach.

"Remember what Muriel said?" Harry asked suddenly.

"Who?"

"You know," he hesitated. "Ginny's great-aunt. At the wedding. The one who said you had skinny ankles."

"Oh," said Hermione. The reminder of Ron's sibling had clearly struck a nerve with her.

"She said Bathilda Bagshot still lived in Godric's Hollow."

"Bathilda Bagshot," murmured Hermione, running her index finger over Bathilda's embossed name on the front cover of A History of Magic. "Well, I suppose—"

She gasped so dramatically that Levina sprung up from her covers again, reaching for her wand.

"What? What's going on?" she demanded, looking rather silly with her messied hair and wild-eyed look.

"What did you do that for?" Harry added, but he looked relieved. "I thought you'd seen a Death Eater unzipping the tent, at least—"

"You guys, what if Bathilda's got the sword? What if Dumbledore entrusted it to her?"

Levina lowered her wand, thinking. Bathilda would be an extremely old woman by now, and according to Muriel, she was "gaga." Was it likely that Dumbledore would have hidden the sword of Gryffindor with her

"Yeah, he might have done!" Harry chimed in. "So, are we going to go to Godric's Hollow?"

"Yes, but we'll have to think it through carefully, Harry." She was sitting up now, looking eager to move again. "We'll need to practice Disapparating together under the Invisibility Cloak for a start, and perhaps Disillusionment Charms would be sensible too, unless you think we should go the whole hog and use Polyjuice Potion? In that case we'll need to collect hair from somebody. I actually think we'd better do that, the thicker our disguises the better..."

Levina nodded in agreement, though she insisted that they help her Disapparate. It was never her strong suit, and the concern of losing a limb on the way was definitely on her mind…

Levina and Harry would gladly have set out for Godric's Hollow the following day, but Hermione had other ideas. Convinced as she was that Voldemort would expect Harry to return to the scene of his parents' deaths, she was determined that they would set off only after they had ensured that they had the best disguises possible. It was therefore a full week later—once they had surreptitiously obtained hairs from innocent Muggles who were Christmas shopping, and had practiced Apparating and Disapparating while underneath the Invisibility Cloak together—that Hermione agreed to make the journey.

They were to Apparate to the village under cover of darkness, so it was late afternoon when they finally swallowed Polyjuice Potion, Harry transforming into a balding, middle-aged Muggle man, Hermione into his small and rather mousy wife, and Levina into their blonde, teenage daughter. The beaded bag containing all of their possessions (apart from the Horcrux, which Harry was wearing around his neck) was tucked into an inside pocket of Hermione's buttoned-up coat. Harry lowered the Invisibility Cloak over them, then they turned into the suffocating darkness once again.

Under her own color spell, Levina opened her eyes. They were standing hand in hand in a snowy lane under a dark blue sky, in which the night's first stars were already glimmering feebly. Cottages stood on either side of the narrow road, Christmas decorations twinkling in their windows. A short way ahead of them, a glow of golden streetlights indicated the center of the village.

"All this snow!" Hermione whispered beneath the cloak. "Why didn't we think of snow? After all our precautions, we'll leave prints! We'll just have to get rid of them—you go in front, I'll do it—"

"Let's take off the Cloak," said Harry, and when she looked frightened, "Oh, come on, we don't look like us and there's no one around."

"I'll leave the color spell on," Levina replied, shrugging. It would take a bit of a toll on her energy, but she'd rather remain unseen.

Harry stowed the Cloak under his jacket and they made their way forward unhampered, the icy air stinging their faces as they passed more cottages. Any one of them might have been the one in which Nadia and Rick had once lived or where Bathilda lived now. Levina gazed at the front doors, their snow-burdened roofs, and their front porches, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Despite having lived her for the beginning of her life, she could not recognize a single shingle. Then the little lane along which they were walking curved to the left and the heart of the village, a small square, was revealed to them.

Strung all around with colored lights, there was what looked like a war memorial in the middle, partly obscured by a windblown Christmas tree. There were several shops, a post office, a pub, and a little church whose stained-glass windows were glowing jewel-bright across the square.

The snow here had become impacted: It was hard and slippery where people had trodden on it all day. Villagers were crisscrossing in front of them, their figures briefly illuminated by streetlamps. They heard a snatch of laughter and pop music as the pub door opened and closed; then they heard a carol start up inside the little church.

"You two, I think it's Christmas Eve!" said Hermione.

"Is it?"

Levina smiled faintly. Christmas was her favorite holiday, under normal circumstances…But now, it left her with an empty, sad feeling—a longing to be back at the Burrow, having a delicious meal made by Mrs. Weasley, playing around with Destiny and cuddling with Fred on the sofa…

"I'm sure it is," said Hermione, breaking her thoughts. "They... they'll be in there, won't they? Your mums and dads? I can see the graveyard behind it."

Hermione reached for their hands hand and took the lead for the first time, pulling them forward. Halfway across the square, however, she stopped dead.

"Harry, look!"

She was pointing at the war memorial. As they had passed it, it had transformed. Instead of an obelisk covered in names, there was a statue of three people: a man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face, and a baby boy sitting in his mother's arms. Snow lay upon all their heads, like fluffy white caps. Levina stared up at it, then back at Harry.

"She was beautiful," she remarked quietly.

"Yeah, she was…Here, have a look," said Harry, when he had evidently looked his fill. He stepped aside, letting her look, and the statues immediately transformed. The scene was the same—a family of three with two parents and a little baby girl, cradled in her mother's arms. She gazed up at it, drinking in their faces, their every feature, their smiles…

"All right," Levina breathed finally, forcing herself to step away. "Let's go…" And they turned again toward the church. As they crossed the road, he glanced over his shoulder; the statue had turned back into the war memorial.

The singing grew louder as they approached the church. It made Levina homesick, reminding her forcefully of Hogwarts, of Peeves bellowing rude versions of carols from inside suits of armor, of the Great Hall's twelve Christmas trees, of Dumbledore wearing a bonnet he had won in a cracker, of Ron in a hand-knitted sweater...

There was a kissing gate at the entrance to the graveyard. Hermione pushed it open as quietly as possible and they edged through it. On either side of the slippery path to the church doors, the snow lay deep and untouched. They moved off through the snow, carving deep trenches behind them as they walked around the building, keeping to the shadows beneath the brilliant windows.

Behind the church, row upon row of snowy tombstones protruded from a blanket of pale blue that was flecked with dazzling red, gold, and green wherever the reflections from the stained glass hit the snow. Harry suddenly moved toward the nearest grave.

"Look at this, it's an Abbott, could be some long-lost relation of Hannah's!"

"Keep your voice down," Hermione begged him.

They waded deeper and deeper into the graveyard, gouging dark tracks into the snow behind them, stooping to peer at the words on old headstones, every now and then squinting into the surrounding darkness to make absolutely sure that they were unaccompanied.

"Over here!"

Hermione was two rows of tombstones away. Levina had to trudge back through the snow, over to where she stood.

"Is it—"

"No, but look!"

She pointed to the dark stone. Levina stooped down and saw, upon the frozen, lichen-spotted granite, the words Kendra Dumbledore and, a short way down her dates of birth and death, and Her Daughter Ariana. There was also a quotation:

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

So Rita Skeeter and Muriel had got some of their facts right. The Dumbledore family had indeed lived here, and part of it had died here.

Levina squinted at the words, puzzled. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." She wondered what that possibly could have meant, at least pertaining to Dumbledore…

"Are you sure he never mentioned—?" Hermione began.

"No," said Harry curtly, then, "let's keep looking," and he turned away, looking bitter. Levina watched him go with a sad frown.

"Here!" cried Hermione again a few moments later from out of the darkness. "Oh no, sorry! I thought it said Potter."

She was rubbing at a crumbling, mossy stone, gazing down at it, a little frown on her face.

"You guys, come back a moment."

"What?"

"Look at this!"

The grave was extremely old, weathered so that Levina could hardly make out the name. Hermione showed them the symbol beneath it.

"Look, that's the mark in the book!"

Levina peered at the place she indicated: The stone was so worn that it was hard to make out what was engraved there, though there did seem to be a triangular mark beneath the nearly illegible name.

"Yeah... it could be..."

Hermione lit her wand and pointed it at the name on the headstone.

"It says Ig—Ignotus, I think..."

"I'm going to keep looking for my parents, all right?" Harry told her, a slight edge to his voice, and he set off again, leaving her crouched beside the old grave. Levina watched him go, but didn't follow. She stood after a moment and set off again, in search of her parents' grave.

Every now and then she recognized a surname that, like Abbott, she had met at Hogwarts. Sometimes there were several generations of the same Wizarding family represented in the graveyard: Levina could tell from the dates that it had either died out, or the current members had moved away from Godric's Hollow. Deeper and deeper amongst the graves she went, and every time she reached a new headstone she felt a little lurch of apprehension and anticipation.

And then she froze. The names caught her eye immediately, so swiftly that she felt as though she had been clobbered upside the head. Hurrying, she knelt in front of the graves, her shoes crunching in the snow.

NADIA SNOWPETAL RICK SNOWPETAL

BORN 11 DECEMBER 1960 BORN 21 AUGUST 1960

DIED 30 OCTOBER 1981 DIED 30 OCTOBER 1981

"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?" –Edgar Allan Poe.

Tears began to well up in Levina's eyes. She wiped them on her sleeve, sniffling quietly. She didn't really think about them all that much, really, aside from when she had visions of them and night terrors. A swirl of guilt arose in the pit of her stomach at the thought, and she wished she had visited sooner.

A hand came to rest on her shoulder. Levina gave a start, nearly reaching for her wand, but soon realized it was merely Harry standing there. Hermione wasn't far behind, trudging up the snowy path to meet them. No words were exchanged. Instead, Harry gave her shoulder a squeeze and Levina nodded wordlessly.

She finally stood, taking his and Hermione's hands, and walked away through the snow, past Dumbledore's mother and sister, back toward the dark church and the out-of-sight kissing gate.