A/N: This is the first chapter in the story that I'm splitting. There are 3-4 chapters that exceeded 10k, and I'll be halving them (I believe in one case, it's something closer to 15k, and I may split it three ways), which is where the final chapter count comes from. Originally there are 63 chapters. In any case, this chapter will be in two parts, so if it seems that it cuts off in a weird place, that'll be why.

It was decided not long after that a trip to Godric's Hollow on the anniversary of James and Lily Potters' deaths was in order.

For all of Harry's denials that the date meant much to him, it was of considerable importance that he get the opportunity to visit his parent's graves, something he'd never been privileged enough to do in his short life.

It also seemed as though the idea appealed greatly to Snape, who, although he never seemed to shuck his melancholy over the prospect, did look a bit mollified once he'd proposed the trip to Harry. It was like a curtain had been drawn back from his eyes; a veil which had obscured his vision for the last few weeks finally lifted such that Harry at last felt as though he could once more recognise his guardian—his kuya—in the black depths he'd come to have such affection for.

Almost as though it were the answer to Snape's problems. The way to exorcise the wailing spectre of Lily Evans Potter who seemed to haunt him; more than likely every day, but certainly for the duration of the month of October.

He'd been a holy terror that entire month, and it did very little to comfort Harry knowing the origin of Snape's additional surliness (for he was often surly enough as it was).

Halloween fell on a Monday that year, and it was no consolation whatsoever that Snape spoke to Ms. Shaw in order to have him excused from school for the day.

In their conference, she'd eyed Harry with a look of utmost pity, and then had turned her sympathetic expression towards Severus himself, who squirmed under the well-intentioned tutting and condolences.

It seemed that Aida Shaw remembered Lily Evans with exceptional clarity. According to the headmistress, she had been a well-liked girl who was a bright spot in the lives of all who had known her. Chipper, helpful, and unfailingly kind. As Harry knew from what Severus had told him; she had even been so to the Snape boy who often spelled so much trouble to students and faculty alike. True, she'd not much acknowledged her classmate for the first few years of their shared classes, but by Year Four, they'd become inseparable, almost overnight.

She distinctly remembered, and took pleasure in relating to a red-eared, scowling Snape and a grim-looking Harry, the times where young Mr. Snape had been pulled into her office over his refusal to move to a seat further away from his friend.

Snape didn't allow the meeting to go on much longer after the reminiscing headmistress took it upon herself to begin airing out his musty memories. He interceded before she got too far along in her tale and explained that they had a long day's travel ahead of them, and Ms. Shaw dismissed the two with a gracious well-wish and a parting wave.

The Marina awaited them by the kerb, and both piled in without speaking, but their drive didn't last long.

Harry felt slightly disappointed when the car turned back onto their street, not realising until that moment that he'd been holding out hope that they might have been planning to drive to Godric's Hollow. His hopes were dashed when they pulled up to Severus' house rather than taking the road out of town that led to the south-bound expressway.

That alone should have suggested how very chary he was of making the trip at all. In the week preceding Halloween he'd felt a mix of emotions ranging from hope and optimism to the desire to avoid the confrontation with his parents' resting place altogether. On this morning, faced with the trip itself and the fact that Snape apparently felt comfortable going by magical means, he felt nothing short of sheer dread.

Almost as though if he merely avoided looking upon the pair of headstones that it was possible his parents were merely on holiday. Perhaps somewhere far away. Maybe they even had a very good reason for having left their beloved son behind.

He did not want the door to close on that hope, but he had no words sufficient to express these thoughts to Severus, who evidentially, was trapped in his own morose reverie, if his moping and sulking could be considered a trustworthy barometer of the man's black mood.

Somehow, Harry didn't think that begging off would do much to excuse him from the trip.

They walked into Spinner's End for a mere five minutes. Severus had left a potion over a conjured flame, in the hopes that his most recent experiment would reach a stable stage before they were meant to depart.

Not even bothering to remove their shoes, they stood huddled shoulder to shoulder in the cramped kitchen as Snape grabbed up a tin stirring rod and used it to lift up a portion of non-Newtonian, grey gloop.

Harry's face was a picture of dubious skepticism.

"What's that meant to be?"

"Dinner." Snape deadpanned, holding it out closer to Harry's eyes.

Doubtless he was betrayed by his disgusted expression for Snape let loose perhaps the first peal of laughter Harry had heard from him for at least a week or longer.

"No, Harry, you mustn't eat this. Not unless you wish to look much like Miss Hill did that day in class."

Harry's eyes widened behind his glasses, going round and slightly glassy. "It's a poison?!"

"Not by design, but I have no question that were you to eat it you'd find yourself summarily incapacitated."

"Summary incapacitated," Harry repeated incorrectly, helpless but to think of how 'incapacitated' sounded very much like 'decapitated.'

"That's a euphemistic way of telling you that you'd be dead," Snape smirked, looking far too amused for Harry's comfort.

Harry's brain was still plugging along in first gear, that was to say, he'd not yet shook the eerie premonition that had beset him upon hearing the word 'incapacitated,' and this conjured up images of a man drinking Snape's gloopy mess, waiting a moment, smacking his lips, until his head sprang off his shoulders with a sound like that of a loud pop-tab.

Snape was doing that odd thing again where he stared, unblinking, into Harry's eyes. When Harry blinked, Snape did too, with a wry, amused shake of his dirty head.

"Nothing like what you're imagining," he informed his charge in a tart tone of voice. He gave the cauldron another stir for good measure before he turned the flame down and put the pewter standard size two under some manner of stasis with a businesslike tap of his wand to the rim.

"The ingredients are toxic—"

"What's it for?" Harry interrupted with a scowl, a frown creasing the bridge of his nose.

It didn't sit pretty with him to think he might have been helping the man develop different means of execution all this long while.

"Calm yourself, l'al brattlecan," Snape sneered as he rolled his eyes. He leaned one slim hip against the edge of the kitchen bench. "Call it temporary insanity, inspired by forced companionship with a scrappy imp—"

Harry didn't appreciate this and snorted as he brought up an indignant hand to scratch furiously at his cowlicks.

"—but I finally thought it silly that I was so quick to disregard your offerings, helpful as you no doubt intended them to be. Don't let that go to your head, however. Potential for success was contingent upon making alterations to your hopeless list of ingredients."

"My recipe?" Harry asked, his irritation giving way to mild wonder. "What recipe? What's it do?"

Here Snape looked away, a faint flush coming to the slashes of his high cheekbones and to the shells of his ears.

"I am hoping that that will become apparent upon completion." He admitted in a faint murmur, almost so softly that Harry could scarcely hear his words.

"You don't know? How can you not know! If you don't know what it does, how can you know when it's done?"

"I will know if it produces a stable mixture!" Snape snapped. "All else is merely inventive problem solving and application."

This seemed comically backwards to Harry's thinking, but then again, he was made to concede that Snape was the expert.

Even so, he thought it might have smacked of wild desperation on Severus' part.

"So it's just sposed'ta sit?" Harry ventured to ask, attempting to keep the skepticism from his voice. "For how long?"

"Until we get back at the very least. There are a few additional steps that will be necessary to attenuate any potential for spoilage."

Snape led them back to the sitting room and gave the child a once over, kneeling for a moment to straighten the collar on Harry's shirt with a jerky little tug of his fingers. From there Snape's hand moved to his shoulder where a bit of dirt had settled onto the fabric of Harry's jacket and the man buffed it away with sharp, but light, batting movements.

"Pulpug," the older wizard uttered under his breath as he fought the filth on Harry's outfit. His face bore a look of utmost concentration, but Harry couldn't help but to think that the man's apparent preoccupation with the state of Harry's dress was more than likely Severus' way of avoiding the inevitable.

"Are we gonna go?" Harry asked staring at the greasy top of Snape's head where it was bowed before him. His hair was so tousled over the crown of his skull that the part for his long hair stopped and started in varying places, creating a haphazard zigzag of tangled, greasy locks.

Standing to his full height, which, though not considerable, was still tall enough to tower over Harry himself, Snape sniffed and stared down at their shoes on the worn floorboards.

"We ought to be getting on," he said, as though the idea to move from the sad sitting room had been his own and not done at Harry's prompting.

He stepped closer and wrapped one lanky arm around Harry's shoulders, pulling the boy against him until Harry's face was pressed against Snape's solar plexus.

"I needn't instruct you to hold on for dear life, need I?"

Swallowing now, Harry shook his head. His first experience with apparition had been lesson enough. He couldn't imagine what it might have been like had he not had Severus there to steady him. Likely he'd have been torn apart as he was swept into the undertow of space and time.

No amount of bracing himself truly prepared him for the feeling of his stomach crawling up his oesophagus and the impression that, if he were to allow it by a mere moment of inattention, it might cause his body to turn inside-out, with all of the soft, tender innards on the surface, and the protection of his skin and outward features trapped within.

It was over in a manner of moments, but he still found himself pitched forward on a stretch of grass, heaving violently.

He thought he might have felt a sheepish movement against his thin back. When he glanced up he saw Snape withdrawing one pale hand from where he'd doubtlessly been patting Harry's shoulder. The man was looking away, as though shamed by his display of sympathy.

"Whenever you're ready," Snape drawled, feigning impatience. "I had hoped to wrap this up before noon."

Harry didn't answer him. There was no point when Snape was in this sort of mood. Nothing Harry could do would make Severus drop his pretense of irritation if he were dedicated to maintaining it.

"Where are we?" Harry asked, glancing around.

They'd arrived alongside a rural road, sheltered from passing motorists by an overgrown hedgerow.

Around them, fields and isolated islands of trees dipped and rose in gentle hills, causing the road to which they were abutted to wind listlessly in the valleys.

"Two miles outside of the village of Aethlingham."

Harry frowned as he watched Snape turn and begin walking alongside the narrow road. He had no choice but to follow.

"I thought we were going to Godric's Hollow." Harry was panting now. He was made to nearly sprint to keep up with the older wizard's lengthy stride. Each of Snape's steps was nearly a meter long.

He made no effort to moderate the speed for his charge. In fact, he was only made to slow when Harry latched a hand onto the back of Snape's faded black t-shirt.

Severus didn't quite stumble, but he did wobble a bit on his front leg as his head snapped around to glare down at Harry with an imperious sneer.

"I can't keep up, Sev'rus!" Harry gasped out, ashamed at how his words emerged a tad whingey.

"Perhaps, at that, the next conference I have with Headmistress Shaw ought to address the pitiable lack of physical exercise you're receiving," Snape lamented, though he did shorten his steps to half of their previous span.

"Maybe you should take me to the park more often," Harry wheezed, although he was finally recovering himself enough to get lungfuls of precious country air.

It tasted sweet, like the milk and honey drinks he'd been enjoying of late at Gammy Hill's kitchen table.

Finally, they settled into a pace that was neither too slow for Snape, nor too fast for Harry.

A quarter mile passed without commentary, although Harry enjoyed himself as he swiveled his head from left to right, watching the flocks of sheep on the long, grassy enclosures.

His hand trailed along the olden stone wall to his right where it picked up when the hedgerow ended.

Not a single car passed.

"I told you that you're welcome to go to the park whenever you like, Harry."

It took a second for the words to register, spoken, as they were, so long after Harry had assumed their conversation had concluded. Then it took several seconds more for him to think on why it was that he hadn't taken Snape up on his offer of free rein over Cokeworth.

He merely shrugged. It didn't appeal to him in the least to go to the dilapidated play set alone. Of late he'd been begrudgingly included in some of the footy matches, and the fact that he was allowed in even an inch into the worlds of other children made his solitude even less desirable than it had been before he'd had a handful of acquaintances.

Perhaps, at that, Nicky would want to head to the playground sometime. His father and stepmother never seemed to mark the boy's movements through town, and with the exception of those times when he was consigned to the watchful eye of his grandmother, Nicky could often be found out on his own just about wherever he liked, whenever he liked.

Harry had spotted him looking out over the bridge several times while in the car with Snape. Another instance, Harry remembered seeing the boy loitering outside of the small shop where he and Snape shopped for their everyday provisions.

Severus had even remarked on the boy appearing at The Yow on occasion, sent to pick up supper for his parents and brothers.

He never seemed to have anyone with him, whether friend or family, but for all that, Harry knew the other boy wasn't some manner of pariah. He was well-liked enough at Rowky Syke that it struck Harry as odd that he didn't spend time outside of school with any of the other children excepting his younger sister.

"I usually have a lot of homework," Harry fibbed, shrugging his shoulders as he dissembled.

Snape looked back over his shoulder at him with a frown. Perhaps he suspected that Harry wasn't being entirely truthful, from the way he pursed his thin lips, but if that were the case, rather than challenging Harry, he merely grunted.

"Anyway, what did you mean about it being my recipe, Severus?" Harry asked as he drew even with the man, finally managing to match him step for step. He was made to spread his front leg out comically far—as though spanning over a large crater—in order to do so, but it at least helped to pass the time and provided a tiny avenue for amusement on the interminable walk.

"It would seem that not only is your reading comprehension poor, but your overall skill at interpreting the English language leaves much to be desired," Snape rolled his eyes to the sky. His words, however, lacked the malice they might otherwise have held. "I mean that I used the list of ingredients you provided, albeit with numerous adjustments."

"You mean the yew berries?" Harry asked, not capable of masking the obvious excitement he felt at the prospect.

"Amongst other things."

Harry's eyes wandered far afield, and he thought he might have located a few lounging Friesians who reposed upon their fields, soaking in the late-October sunlight. "You said you didn't know what it was for... do you have any clue at all?" He asked, wondering at what it was the man could possibly apply his strange assortment of ingredients to.

Grass seed. Rust. Bloater Paste. Earwigs. Woodworms. Petroleum Jelly. Plastic Shavings. Lead-laced paint chips. Dried paste. The ill-fated yew berries.

What could any of those make?

"I can only advise you that the use of your own contributions has changed the end-product such that it retains almost nothing of the original qualities a Potions Master ought to expect out of their use in a brew."

"Oh," Harry muttered, his toe connecting with a piece of gravel and sending it flying until it collided with Snape's calf.

The man glared down at him but said nothing about being pelted by a rock.

"The rust and petroleum jelly were especially useful," Severus added, looking as though he resented the fact that he was being made to admit such a thing.

Down in the valley to their right, past a crumbling stone enclosure, was an ancient limestone estate that appeared to be falling to pieces. Based on its location—about an acre away from a twist in a river—it ought to have been in a floodplain, yet it appeared as though whoever had built the old house hadn't concerned himself one whit with the potential for rising waters.

Harry stopped to stare out at the gorgeous old manor, levering himself on the rock wall and standing on his tiptoes to get a better look.

He was made to move again when Snape doubled back. The other wizard had seized the fabric at his shoulder in a pincer grip and was using it to tow the boy behind him.

"Don't. Dawdle."

Harry ignored him and pulled away, his head still craning to look down on the beautiful, decrepit house. "What's that? Do you know?"

"You expect I've memorised every old house in the country? Why do you think I ought to know off the top of my head?"

Shrugging now, Harry attempted to keep pace once more with Severus, and the sight of the house by the river passed after they came upon a copse of trees next to the road.

"I dunno. You knew this area well enough, I thought. And it felt funny..."

"What felt funny?"

Harry shrugged again, finding it hard to put in words. "I dunno," he said again.

"Like goosebumps? When I stood at the wall. It felt tingly. Like it does when you do the spells on the door."

He thought he might have seen Snape's shoulders tense as the man continued to walk, his eyes resolutely on the road before them.

"So," Harry continued, "do you know?"

Snape grunted.

"Because you didn't say you didn't. Only that you've not memorised every house."

Whatever it was that Snape said in response was so garbled that Harry couldn't hope to make it out.

"What's that?"

Snape's eyes flashed with malice as he answered. "Aethlingworth."

Harry screwed his face up upon hearing this. Something about the odd place name tickled at his memory.

"I thought we were on the road to Aethlingham—"

"One was named for the other," Snape bit out, sounding impatient. "Don't ask me which. I don't know. It would have been centuries ago."

"And where's Godric's Hollow?" Harry asked, not able to keep the frown from his face.

Really, was it too much to ask for the man to have apparated them a little closer?

"Godric's Hollow is a neighboring village," Snape answered. "Very close neighbors. There are many wizarding families there, though it is not exclusively a magical place. I thought it best not to invite interruptions by apparating too close to anyone's wards. Aethlingham, as I understand it, is majority muggle. Aethlingworth is the only magical household in these parts that exists outside of Godric's Hollow, and it is far enough removed that I didn't anticipate it would present any trouble."

Harry's lower lip poked out a bit as he sniffed. "You didn't want me looking at it." His voice was ever so slightly accusatory, even as he fought to keep it even.

Severus' brows drew down over his eyes, the darkening of his countenance adding weight to his words. "The owners are not known to be the welcoming sort."

It wasn't as though Harry had meant to go knock on the door. It was really rather silly that the man was acting as if they were in danger of a run-in with the people, Harry thought. Even so, he felt compelled to ask: "Who are the owners? It looked run-down."

"It's meant to. A clever bit of magic." They now could see clusters of limestone buildings set in the rolling hills. A few picturesque shops with thatch roofs and wooden signs hanging off hinges. "Hogwarts has a very similar enchantment. It's meant to deter would-be muggle snoops, burglars, and also the odd rambler who might wander by."

Snape had been clever in once more avoiding Harry's question. It brought on a leaden feeling to the boy's stomach as he wondered at who it could be who would be so bad that the man would refuse to even speak about the family.

"It's not that Malfoy bloke, is it?"

"The Malfoys live in Wiltshire, south of here. This is Gloucestershire."

By that point, Harry was made to give up his line of questioning, as it appeared that Snape was refusing to answer directly, and as they had finally reached civilisation.

Aethlingham was charming beyond reason. By all appearances an ancient town, likely kept afloat by a thriving tourism industry, if the well-heeled families that Harry espied coming and going from the tiny shops were any indication.

They'd passed at least four different inns, each with its own appealing, country-style moniker. That extra measure of authenticity that was so beguiling to the likes of Londoners.

It was almost too charming, Harry realised with a start.

After all, what business was there for a French pâtisserie in a tiny town in the Cotswolds? Plenty, if the intention was to attract bored housewives from out of town, but it smacked of insincerity, even if Harry couldn't quite put his finger on why or properly articulate what it was that screamed 'fake' to him so loudly.

The chip shop was so clean that it looked as though it had been repainted the week before they'd arrived, and it didn't seem like an errant leaf would dare to defile the cleanliness of the swept roads and pavement.

He and Snape looked like a pair of vagrants wandering in from the country lane they'd traversed in their much-abused clothing.

For the first time, Harry felt a bit of shame over the state of his wardrobe.

Perhaps, for this trip to see his mother at long last, he ought to have at least bothered to change into that dated get-up he'd borrowed from Severus for Mass.

At least Harry was wearing his school uniform, second hand as it was. Snape himself was wearing the too-short t-shirt he'd worn the day Harry had first laid eyes on him. The edges of the sleeves, which rode up two inches above his wrists, were frayed and tearing, and the collar was stretched into an oblong shape that had it drooping too far to the side, exposing one jutting clavicle to the morning light.

The tourists, wearing country-appropriate tweed jackets and twill trousers, tried to hide their stares of distain by averting their eyes.

Harry could feel his face flaming.

"Are we almost to Godric's Hollow?" He whispered to Snape's elbow, keeping his head bowed low. One small hand came up to scratch furiously at the hair on the crown of his head, only stopping when he felt one of Snape's hands reach out to swat at the motion.

"Stop that—your hair is messy enough. We'll be arriving shortly. The village begins on the outskirts of this shopping district."

Harry felt his trepidation mounting.

What would they find there, in Godric's Hollow? In all of the time he'd spent thinking about the trip, he'd not once considered what it was that their sojourn would actually entail.

He had considered the idea of a spooky cemetery, with cracked tombstones and bats—perhaps like that Scooby-Doo show that Dudley had watched in secret—but in his imaginings, it had always been nighttime. It was nearing ten in the morning, and the weather was lovely. Unless it was conjured by some force of magic, it would not be dark and stormy, as would have felt more appropriate for a trip to a gravesite.

Finally, the limestone of Aethlingham gave way to a small square of half-timbered buildings, and some of a more modern brick construction. None of these seemed as though they had been built for the sole purpose of humouring tourists. They were the usual arrangement of doctors' suites, office space, and local grocers that seemed best equipped to serve a small population of entirely normal people.

Up the lane from an attractive old church was an unassuming post office, and the public house.

The only way he knew that they'd passed into his town of birth was by a tiny placard along the road that announced that they were now entering into Godric's Hollow, est. 1689.

"It was actually established well before that," Snape commented, his voice adopting that dry, instructive quality that he often took on when lecturing about potions.

"Of course, Godric's Hollow was first founded around the supposed birthplace of Godric Gryffindor, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School. That was nearly a full millennium ago. The date to which the sign refers is the year where our Ministry ratified the International Statute of Secrecy.

"Should you ever find yourself in a town which lists that year as the date in which it was established, it is a reasonable bet that you will find wizards and witches about," Snape continued. "That was a period in our history when it became necessary for magical families, often spread far afield across the country, to migrate closer to one another in order to preserve our ways of life."

Harry frowned as he looked about the town.

It looked utterly normal. So normal, in fact, that he would think that even his Aunt Petunia would have nodded approvingly.

Then again, he didn't quite know what to expect from wizards. After all, Snape drove a car and worked a job behind a bar. Perhaps other wizards did too.

"So everyone here is—"

"No." Snape cut in, warning him off with a severe look. "There are perhaps more than five but probably fewer than ten magical families that reside here, as far as I could tell from enrollment at Hogwarts. The rest of the population is muggle, and with that in mind I urge you to watch what you say," he cautioned Harry, his voice pitched low.

They were en route to the church. It wasn't nearly as impressive as St. Catherine's was.

St. Jerome's was a provincial church, with all of the quaint and understated beauty that an intimate, local community parish ought to have. There were tall, stained glass windows set into the walls, which shone light into the aisles abutting the central nave, although it wasn't so tall as to have a clerestory—it wasn't, after all, a cathedral. Merely a church.

Most important of all, however, was what was around back.

Severus paused as they drew near to an iron kissing gate. He looked down at Harry with a strange look marring his angular face. Harry wasn't entirely sure that he liked this particular arrangement of Snape's features all too much.

It was a cross between a frown and a grimace. Too concerned and worried looking to pass for anger, and too steely to be mistaken for a wince of sympathy.

It was only when Harry glanced away from Snape's odd expression that he could he appreciate why the man looked so hesitant.

Beyond the gate were rows of well-maintained graves in neat, even rows. Along one of those alleys of the dead were buried Harry's parents.

He gulped.

"You're prepared for this?" Snape asked him, his odd eyes shining with some emotion that Harry couldn't hope to name.

It occurred to Harry then that Snape was treating him quite differently than he normally did. Almost as if the boy were made of porcelain, or something similarly delicate. The boy wizard found that he didn't care for it. Not a bit.

"As prepared as you are," Harry shot back, refusing to look the man in the eyes. He instead scowled down at where his trainers were depressing the overgrown grass.

To that, Snape finally seemed to collect himself enough to snort, and any hint of his coddling melted away as if it had never been to begin with.

Without another word spoken, Snape pushed through the kissing gate and strode off down the first row of graves, his head swiveling left and right as he searched.

Harry thought it best if he chose another avenue to search, and he instead veered to the left, passing weathered stone crosses and beautifully wrought limestone mausoleums.

The cemetery was deceptively big. From the street, it looked like a rather cozy yard, contained behind the stone fence as it was. Yet, inside the enclosure, it was apparent that the aisles of dead stretched on for at least an acre or more in each direction and Harry was forced to wonder whether a bit of magic might have been at work.

He passed by Wallaces, Tottens, Harcourts, Abbots, and Lewises. Wherever he looked rested Youngs and Browns, Drakes and even a seemingly misplaced Sviatoslav.

He reached the end of his row without laying eyes on a single Potter, and looked up to see if he could spot Snape.

The man was tall enough that in his all-black get up, he could be located near the middle of the lichyard, wandering just as aimlessly as Harry had done, with his spindly hands shoved deep into the pockets of his dark jeans. He was hunched forward, his spine in such a slouch that he looked nearly hunchbacked.

Well. If Snape was going to finish up the middle row, then Harry would migrate to the furthest one, that hugged the outside fence, abutting a farmer's field, and only separated by a line of primeval trees.

Here, many of the tombstones appeared very nearly ancient. The stones were pockmarked, lichen-covered, and worn away by the wages of time and the elements; making out the names was more difficult than it had been in the first row he'd explored.

One of the most curious depicted a rather cartoonish death's head, it's eye-sockets so wide and gaping that the skull looked bug-eyed as he grinned up from the top of the marker.

Harry's hand reached out to brush against the porous rock, his fingertips feeling along death's teeth. He felt a strange inclination to smirk back at the friendly, smiling spectre, and he did so, one cheek ticking up a bit and curving into a dimple.

Whose resting place was this, he wondered.

The name had suffered at the hands of time, and he thought he might have been able to discern an Ign—us Pre—ll.

He sounded it out aloud with a small frown while his finger listed along the ridges of a small triangle shape that occupied the spot below the grinning depiction of life's end.

There were no outward markers that Ignus Prell had been a wizard... but all the same, Harry knew it to be true.

With none of the other graves had such a fact been in any way discernable.

Harry heard the approaching crunch of gravel beneath Severus' boots, and when he looked up it was to see the man striding over with a purposeful gait, no longer stooped but looking determined.

"Is that Gryffin's door bloke buried here?" Harry asked, feeling suddenly curious.

That stopped Snape in his tracks as he pulled up about two feet from where Harry knelt over Prell's remains. "Doubtful."

"Oh," Harry sighed, feeling rather disappointed. It'd not occurred to him that there would be anything of greater interest to him than his own parents' resting place, yet he felt curiously disinclined to find them now, and rather more motivated to look for more witches and wizards of old.

"Come along," the elder wizard commanded with an imperious gesture of his chin. "I've found what we've come for."

(To be continued in Part II...)