Everything was going according to Jon's plan. Ron, wounded and anxious, had left Hermione and Harry under the influence of the Soul Vessel, and there was a sudden tension in the party.
When Harry woke up the next morning, it took him a few seconds to remember what had happened. Naively, he hoped it had been a dream, that Ron was still here and had not left.
But when he turned his head, he saw Ron's empty bed, drawing his eye like a corpse in the road.
Harry jumped out of his own bed, not looking at Ron's.
Hermione was already busy in the kitchen, and instead of saying good morning to Harry as he passed, she turned her head away hastily.
He's gone.
Harry told himself.
He's gone.
He could not stop thinking it as he washed and dressed, as if repeating it would soften the blow.
He's gone and he's not coming back. It was a simple fact, Harry knew, for their protective spells meant that Ron would not be able to find them as soon as they were out of this place.
He and Hermione finished breakfast in silence. Hermione's eyes were red and swollen, and she had not slept all night.
Hermione dawdled as they packed up, and Harry knew why she had hoped to delay by the river.
For several times he had caught her looking up eagerly, and he was sure she was fooling herself into thinking that she had heard footsteps in the rain.
But no red-haired figure appeared in the woods.
And every time Harry looked about him as she did (in fact, he could not help hoping) and saw nothing but the rain-washed wood, a little fire of anger flared up in him.
He could hear Ron say, "We thought you knew what you were doing!"
Thus, he continued to pack his luggage, feeling as if there was a hard knot in his heart.
The turbid water was rising rapidly, and would soon overflow their bank.
They stayed an hour longer than they should have left the camp.
Finally, after opening the beaded bag and repacking it three times, Hermione seemed unable to find any excuse for delay. Hand in hand, she and Harry appeared on a hillside where the wind was howling.
Once there, Hermione let go of Harry's hand, walked away from him, and sat down on a boulder, buried her face in her knees, and shivered.
Harry knew she was crying.
He looked at her, feeling that he ought to comfort her, but something held him still.
He was cold and tense from the inside out. He saw the contemptuous expression on Ron's face again.
Harry strode through the heather, circling the disturbed Hermione in a wide circle, casting her usual spell to keep them safe.
They didn't talk about Ron for the next few days.
Harry was determined not to mention his name again, and Hermione seemed to know that it was useless.
But sometimes at night, when she thought he was asleep, Harry could hear her crying in secret.
Harry, on the other hand, took out the map of the Survival Point and studied it with his wand.
He was waiting for the black dot marked Ron to appear in the corridor of the Hogwarts, proving that he was back in the comfortable castle, protected by his pureblood identity.
However, Ron did not appear on the map.
After a while, Harry realized that he had taken out the map just to stare at Jenny's name in the girls' dormitory. He didn't know if his eager eyes could enter her dreams and let her sense that he was missing her and wished her well.
During the day, they racked their brains about where Gryffindor's sword might be, and where Dumbledore would choose to hide it.
But the more they discussed, the more desperate and far-fetched their guesses became.
Harry couldn't remember where Dumbledore had mentioned hiding things, no matter how hard he racked his brains.
Sometimes he didn't know whether it was Ron or Dumbledore that made him angrier. We thought you knew what you were doing...
We thought Dumbledore had told you what you were going to do...
We thought you had a real plan!
He couldn't hide it from himself. Ron was right. Dumbledore had left him almost nothing.
They had found a Soul Vessel, but there was no way to destroy it. The others were as untraceable as before.
Despair seemed to swallow him whole. Harry was surprised to think about it now. He had been so full of himself that he had let two friends accompany him on this aimless trip.
He knew nothing and had no idea. He had been painfully wary of any sign that Hermione would come to him and say that she had had enough and was leaving.
They spent many nights almost in silence. Hermione often took out the portrait of Phineas Nigellus and propped it up on a chair, as if he could fill the huge hole left by Ron's departure.
Phineas Nigellus seemed unable to resist the opportunity to find out more about Harry, even though he had threatened to never come again, so he agreed to appear blindfolded every few days.
Harry was even happy to see him. After all, he was a companion, albeit a sarcastic one.
They liked to listen to any news that happened in Hogwarts, but Phineas Nigellus was not a good reporter.
He admired Snape — the first Slytherin headmaster since he had taken charge of the school himself.
Harry and the others had to be careful not to criticize Snape or ask disrespectful questions, or Phineas Nigellus would leave the picture immediately.
However, he did reveal a few bits and pieces.
Snape had to deal with a group of die-hard students who kept a low profile.
Ginny was banned from entering Hogsmeade.
Snape reinstated the old rules of Umbridge, which forbade gatherings of more than three people and any informal student societies.
From all this, Harry speculated that Ginny, and possibly Neville and Luna, were trying their best to maintain Dumbledore's Army.
The bits and pieces of news made Harry want to see Ginny so badly that he almost had a stomachache. At the same time, it made him think of Ron, Dumbledore, and Hogwarts. He missed the school almost as much as he missed his girlfriend.
Indeed, when Phineas Nigellus told him about Snape's repressive measures, Harry had a moment of madness.
He imagined simply going back to school to take part in messing with Snape. It seemed like the most wonderful life in the world to have food to eat, a soft bed to sleep on, and other people to be responsible for.
But then he remembered that he was the number one delinquent, wanted with a bounty of ten thousand Galleons, and that going into Hogwarts was now as dangerous as going into the Ministry of Magic.
Phineas Nigellus unwittingly emphasized this fact by asking leading questions to find out where Harry and Hermione were.
When this happened, Hermione would stuff him back into her beaded bag.
After such a rude send-off, Phineas Nigellus would not appear for several days.
It was getting colder.
Not daring to stay in one place for too long, they did not stay in the south of England, but continued to move around the country.
Halfway up the mountains, the freezing rain beat against the tents.
On the marshes, cold water poured into the tents.
On the island in the middle of a Scottish lake, snow covered half the tents at night.
They had seen the Christmas tree shining from several drawing-room windows. One evening Harry finally decided to mention again what he saw as the only way left.
Having just eaten a rare meal, stuffed with spaghetti and tinned pears, Harry thought that she might be easier to persuade than usual.
And he had carefully suggested in advance that they rest for a few hours without wearing the Horcrux, which was now hanging beside him on the bed.
"Hermione?"
"Yes?"
She was curled up in a sunken armchair, reading "The Tales of Beedle the Bard."
Harry could not imagine what she could find in the book; after all, it was not very thick.
But she was evidently still deciphering something, for "The Syllabus of Magic" lay open on the arm of the chair.
Harry cleared his throat, feeling as he had a few years ago when he had asked Professor McGonagall if he could go to Hogsmeade without the Dursleys' signature.
"Hermione, I've been wondering —"
"Harry, can you do me a favor?"
Apparently she was not listening to him.
She leaned forward, holding up "The Tales of Beedle the Bard," and tried not to seem so deliberate. It was almost time to steer Harry's thinking in a certain direction.
"Look at that symbol."
She pointed to the top of the page, where, above what she supposed to be the title of the story, there was a figure that looked like a triangular eye with a vertical line running down the middle of the pupil.
"I've never been to a Runic class, Hermione."
"I know, but it's not Runic, and it's not in the syllabus.
I always thought it was the symbol of an eye, but now I don't think so!
It's a mark made of ink. Look, someone drew it. It's not the content of a book. Think about it. Have you seen it before? "
"No … No, wait."
Harry looked at it carefully again. "Isn't that the same as the one Luna's father wears around his neck?"
"Yes, that's what I thought!"
"That's the symbol of Grindelwald."
She stared at him, her mouth open.
"What?"
"Krum told me …"
He repeated the story that Viktor Krum had told him at the wedding, and Hermione looked surprised.
"The symbol of Grindelwald?"
She looked back and forth between Harry and the strange symbol.
"I've never heard of Grindelwald having a symbol. There's nothing about it that I've read about it."
"As I said, Krum thinks it was carved on the wall at Durmstrang by Grindelwald."
She leaned back in the old armchair and frowned, thinking how to explain it all.
"That's very strange.
If it's a symbol of black magic, why would it be in a children's storybook? "
"Yes, it's very strange."
But Harry always followed her train of thought. "And Scrimgeour should have recognized it.
He's the Minister. He's supposed to be an expert on black magic. "
"I don't know … Perhaps he thought it was an eye, like I did.
The other stories all have little symbols in the titles. "
She said no more, and went on studying the strange symbol. Harry tried again.
"Hermione?"
"Yes?"
"I've been thinking, I — I want to go to Godric's Hollow."
She looked up at him, her eyes unfocused, but she was actually relieved. She had been thinking about how to get Harry to talk about it, but now it seemed, as Jon had said, that Harry wanted to go there more than she did.
But Hermione's expression was blank, and Harry decided that she was still thinking about the mysterious symbol in the book.
"Yes," she said quickly, as if afraid that Harry would change his mind. "Yes, I've been thinking about it too. I really think we ought to go."
"Did you hear me?"
"Of course, you want to go to Godric's Hollow.
I agree.
I think we ought to go.
I mean, I can't think of anywhere else to find it.
It would be dangerous, but the more I think about it, the more I think it might be there. "
"Er — what might be there?"
Now she looked as puzzled as he had been.
"The sword, Harry!
Dumbledore must have known you'd want to go back there. Besides, Godric's Hollow is where Godric Gryffindor was born — "
"Is it? Gryffindor was born in Godric's Hollow? "
"Harry, have you ever opened The History of Magic?"
"Well," said Harry, smiling for the first time in months. His facial muscles were stiff and queer. "I may have, when I first bought it … just once …"
"But the village is named after him. I thought you might be able to make the connection," said Hermione.
Hermione said. She did not show any signs of guilt, so there was no problem when she spoke. It was just a little strange, but it sounded very similar to her usual style. This made Harry almost wait for her to announce that she was going to the library. "The History of Magic mentioned that village a little bit. Wait..."
She opened her beaded satchel, fumbled for a moment, and finally pulled out the good old textbook, Bashida Barchat's The History of Magic, and turned to the page she was looking for.
After the International Act of Secrecy was signed in 1689, the Wizard had gone completely into hiding. Perhaps naturally, they formed their own little communities within the community.
Many of the little villages attracted several Wizard families, who banded together to help and protect each other.
Dimworth in Cornwall, Upper Fryingley in Yorkshire, and Ottery Saint Catchpole on the south coast of England all had Wizard families living among the tolerant, sometimes confused, Muggle.
Perhaps the most famous of these semi- Wizard settlements was Godric's Hollow.
This village in the south-west was the birthplace of the great Wizard Godric Gryffindor, and the place where the Wizard, goldsmith Bowman Wright, had built the first Snitch.
The graveyard was engraved with the old Wizard family names, which was no doubt the reason for the constant ghost stories in the chapel for so many centuries.
"There's no mention of you or your parents," said Hermione, closing the book. "Because Professor Barchat only wrote until the end of the nineteenth century.
But do you see?
Godric's Hollow, Godric Gryffindor, Gryffindor's sword — don't you think Dumbledore would want you to think that? "
"Oh, yes …" said Harry.
He did not want to admit that he had not actually thought of the sword when he suggested going to Godric's Hollow. For him, the attraction of the village was his parents' graves, the house in which he had survived, and Bashida Barchat.
"Do you remember what Muriel said?"
Harry asked suddenly, but Hermione paused.
"Who?"
"You know," he hesitated, not wanting to say Ron's name. "Ginny's great-aunt, at the wedding. The one with the protruding ankle."
"Oh."
It was a very awkward moment: Harry knew she had felt Ron's name on the tip of her tongue.
He hurried on. "She said Bashida Barchat still lived in Godric's Hollow."
"Bahida Barchat," Hermione murmured, her index finger gently stroking the embossed name of the author on the cover of "The History of Magic". She wondered if this was the person possessed by the snake that Jon had asked her to meet. After all, it was more reliable to take down an old lady than to take down other people. "Well, I think —"
She drew in a sharp breath at the thought, and it made Harry's stomach churn.
He pulled out his wand and looked back at the mouth of the tent, expecting to see a hand reaching in through the flap, but there was nothing.
"What?"
He said, both annoyed and relieved. "Why did you do that? I thought you saw the Death Eaters pulling at the tent door, at least — "
"What if Bashida had the sword, Harry? What if Dumbledore had entrusted it to her? "
Harry considered the possibility. Bashida would be a very old lady by now, and, according to Muriel, 'senile'.
Could Dumbledore have hidden Gryffindor's sword with her?
If so, Harry thought, it was too risky.
Dumbledore had never revealed that he had switched the sword, or even mentioned his friendship with Bashida.
But now was not the time to doubt Hermione's reasoning. She was unexpectedly agreeing with Harry's most ardent wishes.
"Yes, it could be! Shall we go to Godric's Hollow, then? "
"Yes, but it must be carefully thought out, Harry."
She was sitting up straight now, and Harry could see that the prospect of having a plan had cheered her up as much as his.
"First of all, we must Apparate with the Invisibility Cloak on. The Charms may come in handy, too. Or do you suggest Compound Decoctions all the way?
Then we'd have to get someone's hair.
Well, I think we'd better get some, Harry, the more disguises the better... "
Harry let her go on, nodding in agreement when she paused, but his mind was already off the conversation, for for the first time since he had discovered that the Gringotts sword was a fake, he was excited.
He was going home, to the place where he had once had a home.
If Voldemort had not been there, he would have grown up in Godric's Hollow, and spent every holiday.
He would have invited friends home... and perhaps brothers and sisters...
His mother would be the one making his seventeenth birthday cake.
For the thought of visiting the place where it had all been taken from him had never felt more real than at that moment.
That night, after Hermione had gone to bed, Harry quietly took his knapsack out of the beaded satchel and dug out the album Hagrid had given him so long ago.
For the first time in months, he looked at the old photograph of his parents, smiling and waving at him. It was all he had left.
Harry was tempted to go to Godric's Hollow the next day, but Hermione had other ideas.
She was sure that Voldemort had expected Harry to go to the place where his parents had died, and she insisted on making sure that the disguises were as good as possible before they set off.
So it was a whole week later - after they had stolen hair from a pre-Christmas shopping Muggle, and had practiced Apparition and Transfiguration together under the Invisibility Cloak - that Hermione agreed to set off.
They had to Apparate to the village under cover of darkness, so they drank the concoction at dusk. Harry was a balding, middle-aged Muggle, and Hermione his small, scrawny, rat-like wife.
She wore a cloak buttoned up tight, and the beaded satchel containing all their belongings (except the Horcruxes Harry wore around his neck) was tucked into the inside pocket of the cloak.
Harry draped the Invisibility Cloak over them, and together they whirled into the suffocating darkness.
With his heart in his throat, Harry opened his eyes.
They were standing hand in hand in a snowy lane. Above them was a deep blue sky, and the first stars were already twinkling.
A few houses stood on either side of the lane, their windows gleaming with Christmas decorations.
Not far ahead, golden streetlights showed them the centre of the village.
"So much snow!"
Hermione whispered under the Invisibility Cloak. "Why didn't we think of it?
No matter how much he calculated, he would still leave behind footprints!
We've got to get rid of them - you go ahead, I'll - "
Harry did not want to enter the village like a pair of horses in a pantomime, draped over himself and magically masked his tracks as he walked.
"Take off the Invisibility Cloak," Harry said, seeing Hermione look frightened. "Oh, it's all right. We're transfigured, and there's no one around."
He tucked the Invisibility Cloak under his cloak, and they walked on unencumbered.
The cold air felt like needles on their cheeks. They passed more houses along the way: any one of them might have been where Jaime and Lily had lived, or where Basil now lived.
Harry looked at the snowy front doors and roofs and porches and asked himself if he could remember anything, though he knew deep down that it was impossible. He was only a little over a year old.
He didn't even know if he would be able to see that house again. He didn't know what would happen to a person who had been cursed with a loyalty curse.
The lane turned left, and the centre of the village, a little square, came into view.
In the middle of the square was a war monumental structure, half-hidden behind a wind-blown Christmas tree, and decorated with lights. There were shops, a post office, a pub, and a chapel, gleaming like jewels across the stained glass square.
Here the snow was compacted: it was hard and slippery where people had been treading all day.
Villagers crossed in front of them, briefly lit by streetlights.
There were snatches of laughter and pop music when the pub door opened and closed, and carols were sung in the chapel.
"Harry, it's Christmas Eve!"
"Is it?"
He had forgotten the date. Neither of them had read a newspaper in weeks.
"I'm sure of it," Hermione said.
Said Hermione, looking at the church. "They... they'll be there, won't they?
Your father and mother?
I can see the graveyard behind it. "
Harry felt a shudder that was more like fear than excitement.
Now that it was so close, he did not know whether he wanted to see it or not.
Perhaps Hermione understood how he felt. She took his hand and, for the first time, led him forward.
But in the middle of the square she stopped short.
"Look, Harry!"
She pointed to the monument. As they passed, it changed. It was no longer an obelisk covered with names, but a statue of three people: a man with tousled hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a beautiful, kind-looking face, and a baby boy in his mother's arms.
Snow fell on the heads of the three of them, like fluffy hats of white wool.
Harry came nearer and looked into the faces of his parents.
He had never thought of a statue... how strange to see himself carved in stone, a happy baby, with no scars on his head...
"Come on,"
Harry said, when he had seen enough. They walked on towards the church, and as they crossed the street he looked back. The statue had changed again into a war memorial.
As they approached the church, the song grew louder and louder. Harry's throat tightened. He thought so strongly of the Hogwarts, of Nymphs bellowing carols out of their armour, of the twelve Christmas trees in the great hall, of Dumbledore wearing a bonnet he won from a firecracker, of Ron in a hand-knitted sweater...
There was a narrow door at the entrance to the graveyard.
Hermione pushed it open as softly as she could, and they slipped in.
The path to the church door was slippery, the snow deep and untrodden on both sides.
They crossed the snow, careful to keep to the shadows under the bright windows, and left deep furrows behind them.
Behind the church, rows of snow-covered headstones stood on a blanket of pale blue silver, dazzling red and gold and green, like the reflections of stained glass on the snow.
Harry gripped his wand in his pocket and walked towards the nearest headstone.
"Look at this, Abo. Maybe Hannah's lost relation!"
"Keep your voice down."
They walked deeper into the graveyard, leaving deep black tracks in the snow.
They stooped to examine the inscriptions on the ancient headstones, peering into the darkness to make sure no one was around.
"Harry, here!"
Hermione was two rows away, and he labored back, his heart pounding against his chest.
"Is it —"
"No, but look!"
She pointed to the black headstone, and Harry bent down to see that, carved into the frozen, mossy granite, was Candela Dumbledore, with the dates of birth and death, and his daughter, Arianna. And there was a maxim:
Where the treasure is, so the heart is.
So Rita Skeeter and Muriel were partly right.
Dumbledore's family had lived here, and people had died here.
Harry felt a surge of emotion at the sight of the grave that was sadder than he had heard. Both he and Dumbledore had deep roots in this graveyard.
Dumbledore should have told him that, but he had never thought to point it out.
They could have visited this place together. For a moment Harry imagined what a friendship it would be to come here with Dumbledore, and what it would mean to him.
To Dumbledore, however, the fact that their loved ones lay in the same grave seemed like an unimportant coincidence, perhaps irrelevant to what he wanted Harry to do.
Hermione was looking at him, and Harry was glad his face was in the dark.
He read the words on the tombstone again.
Where the treasure is, so the heart is.
But he did not understand the meaning of the words.
It must have been Dumbledore who had chosen the inscription, and who had become the head of the family after his mother's death.
"Are you sure he never mentioned —?"
"No," Harry said shortly. "Go on."
He turned away, wishing he had not seen the headstone. He did not want his trembling excitement to be tainted by resentment.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
