Disclaimer: I do not have any rights of ownership for the characters used except the OC's. All the credit goes to the authors. Only the plot belongs to me. All characters are aged up (above 18) and are consenting adults. This is a work of fiction and does not resemble reality in any way whatsoever.
Chapter 15
~ Harry Potter ~
The sharp, concussive crack of Apparition was swallowed almost instantly by the heavy, suffocating blanket of winter snowfall.
Harry Potter materialized in the narrow, claustrophobic confines of a darkened alleyway, his boots touching down on the frozen cobblestones with barely a whisper of sound. The transition from the warmth of Number 12, Grimmauld Place to the biting December air of Godric's Hollow was a shock to the system, but Harry did not shiver. He merely exhaled, a long, slow breath that plumed in the frigid air like dragon smoke, and let his body adjust to the temperature.
He was here. The place where it all began. The place where his life as just Harry had violently ended, and his cursed existence as the Boy-Who-Lived had been forged in the crucible of his mother's blood and a madman's green fire.
The village of Godric's Hollow was as quiet as a lamb. It was the kind of pristine, picturesque silence that one might find on a holiday greeting card, all snow-capped thatched roofs, frosted windowpanes glowing with the warm, amber light of hearth fires, and a sky so clear and black it looked like a canvas of crushed obsidian studded with diamonds. But to Harry, the silence did not feel peaceful.
It felt expectant. It felt like the drawn breath of an executioner right before the axe fell.
His senses, honed to a razor's edge by years of near-death experiences, were violently alert.
Harry remained crouched in the shadows of the alley, his breathing shallow and strictly controlled, his emerald eyes scanning the darkness with the predatory precision of a hawk. The Invisibility Cloak, draped over his broad shoulders, concealing his physical presence from the mortal realm. Yet, even with the ultimate camouflage woven by Death itself, Harry did not allow his guard to drop for a single fraction of a second. The erratic, terrified warnings of Bellatrix Lestrange—the woman who had been a monster, a slave, and was now a fanatic devotee of his newly claimed Lordship—echoed relentlessly within the halls of his mind.
"He went there," Bellatrix's voice echoed in the caverns of his mind, fragile and trembling with the residual terror of her possession. "He was angry. He cursed something or someone there. He set a trap. He left the snake. Nagini."
Harry's grip on his wand—the supple, loyal eleven inches of holly and phoenix feather that had saved his life more times than he could count—tightened until his knuckles strained stark white against the dark dragon-hide leather of his combat gloves. He surveyed his immediate surroundings with a cold, calculating precision. Every shadow stretching across the snowdrifts, every flicker of lamplight, every muted rustle of the winter wind moving through the bare, skeletal branches of the ancient oak trees was scrutinized, dissected, and evaluated for the threat it might conceal.
He was ready.
Let the snake come. Let the trap spring.
He was no longer the frightened, ignorant boy who had stumbled through the Department of Mysteries, nor was he the desperate fugitive who had fled a fallen Ministry. He was Lord Potter. He was Lord Black. He was a wizard who had stared into the abyss of Tom Riddle's mutilated soul, driven his fist into the darkness, and ripped a woman's salvation from the jaws of a living hell.
If Voldemort had left a trap in the resting place of his parents, Harry would not simply avoid it. He would dismantle it, crush it, and burn it to ash.
With a fluid, practiced motion, Harry reached up and pulled the hood of his cloak over his head. The moment the ancient silk settled over his head and form, he vanished completely from the physical world. He was a ghost walking among ghosts.
He stepped out of the alleyway and into the centre of the quiet village square.
The snow crunched softly beneath his invisible boots, the only sign of his passing. The square was charmingly rustic, surrounded by a smattering of small shops, a post office, and a pub from which the faint, muffled sounds of clinking glasses and low laughter occasionally drifted into the night. In the very centre of the square, standing upon a plinth surrounded by a wrought-iron railing, was a war memorial.
As Harry drew closer, stepping past the quaint kissing gate that led toward the churchyard, the magic of his blood reacted with the ancient enchantments placed upon the village. The stone obelisk of the memorial shimmered, the rigid lines of the monument dissolving and reforming like wax melting under a flame. The stone shifted, transfiguring before his hidden eyes into the likeness of three people.
Harry stopped dead in his tracks. His breath caught in his throat, a sudden, sharp ache blooming in his chest that had nothing to do with dark magic and everything to do with the simple, devastating tragedy of a stolen life.
It was a statue of a man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long, flowing hair and a kind, beautiful face, and a baby sitting securely in the woman's arms.
James, Lily, and Harry Potter.
He stood there for a long time, the snow falling gently around him, settling on the bronze shoulders of the parents he had never known. They looked so young. They looked happy. It was a monument to a family that had only existed for a fleeting, desperate moment in time before being snuffed out. Harry stared at the statuesque face of his father, tracing the lines that mirrored his own. He looked at his mother, imagining the vibrant, fiery green of her eyes that he saw every time he looked in a mirror.
A bitter, cynical laugh threatened to claw its way up his throat. The wizarding world loved their symbols. They loved their tragic heroes and their martyrs. They built statues of the dead while leaving the living to suffer, to fight, and to bleed in a war that these very people had failed to finish.
"I'm not that baby anymore," Harry whispered into the cold night air, his voice barely audible even to himself. "I'm not the sacrificial lamb Dumbledore wanted me to be. I'm going to finish him, Mum, Dad. I promise you that."
He forced his gaze away from the statue, hardening his heart against the swell of melancholy. He did not come here to weep over the past. He had a purpose.
Harry turned and continued his walk down the winding lane that led away from the village square, following the instinctual tug of magic that hummed in his veins. The houses grew sparser, the manicured hedges giving way to wilder, overgrown thickets. The streetlamps flickered, casting long, eerie shadows across the unbroken snow.
And then, he saw it.
At the end of the lane, standing apart from the other cottages as if it were infected with a highly contagious disease, were the ruins of a house.
His house.
Harry stopped at the edge of the property, pushing the hood of his Invisibility Cloak back just enough to allow his unobstructed vision to take in the sight. The emotion that had been building inside him since he Apparated into the village suddenly piled up, a tidal wave of sorrow, anger, and profound loss crashing over his occlumency shields.
The right side of the top floor was completely blown apart, a jagged, gaping wound in the structure where the roof had caved in and the walls had been blasted outward by the sheer, devastating force of the rebounding Killing Curse. Dark, creeping ivy had grown over the wreckage, nature attempting to reclaim the site of unnatural death. The wood was rotting, the windows were shattered, and the front garden was a tangled, overgrown mess of weeds and dead winter vines.
This was it. This was where James Potter had stood, wandless and desperate, screaming for his wife to take their child and run. This was where Lily Potter had stood in front of a crib, refusing to step aside, offering her own life as a shield of ancient, sacrificial magic. This was where Tom Riddle's body had been ripped apart, his soul splintered, leaving behind a scar on a baby's forehead and a legacy of unending pain.
Harry managed to stay strong. He clamped down on his jaw, forcing the moisture from his eyes. He would not break down. He was Lord Black, Lord Potter. He had the strength of generations backing him, and the love of fiercely devoted women waiting for him at home. He took a step forward, his boot crunching on a broken piece of slate roofing that had lain in the snow for sixteen years.
As he approached the ruined wooden gate, his eyes caught sight of a wooden sign rising out of the nettles and weeds. The moment his hand brushed the rotting wood of the gate, the sign vibrated, and words etched in magical gold script appeared upon its surface.
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, a testament to their bravery and as a reminder of the violence that tore apart their family and Wizarding Britain.
Harry stared at the sign. The golden words seemed to mock him.
Disgust, hot and acidic, filled his throat. He felt his magic flare, a dangerous, violet aura shimmering briefly around his clenched fists.
A monument. A historical site.
The Ministry of Magic, in all its infinite, bureaucratic hypocrisy, had declared the site of his family's slaughter a tourist attraction. They had immortalized the place where his parents breathed their last, where a one-year-old boy was orphaned and condemned to a decade of abuse in a cupboard under the stairs. They had erected a plaque to commemorate a tragedy caused by a madman's paranoia, and facilitated by the cowardly, rat-faced betrayal of one of his parents' closest friends.
Peter Pettigrew had sold them out. Sirius Black had been thrown into Azkaban to rot without a trial. Harry had been sent to the Dursleys. And the Ministry had put up a sign.
Around the neat golden lettering, the blank space of the wood was covered in graffiti. Witches and wizards from all over the world had added their own messages in everlasting ink, carving their initials, writing messages of hope, or thanking the Boy-Who-Lived. The sight of those messages made Harry's eyes soften, a feeling that flickered across his face briefly before vanishing away.
Good luck, Harry, wherever you are.
If you read this, Harry, we're all with you!
Long live Harry Potter.
"Fools," Harry spat, his voice laced with absolute venom. "You write messages on a tombstone while the murderer sits in the Ministry and your children are hunted in the streets."
He felt a sudden, violent urge to raise his wand and blast the sign into a thousand splinters. He wanted the rotting cottage burnt to the ground, purging the memory of Pettigrew's betrayal and his parents' death from the face of the earth. His magic swelled, ready to obey his wrath, the dark, seductive pull of the pent-up rage within his body, amplified by the touch of the Black Family magic and the remnants of the lycanthrope's attack.
But then, he remembered the touch of Narcissa's cool, calming hands on his shoulders. He remembered the soft, adoring gaze of Fleur, and the fierce, protective embrace of Apolline. He remembered Bellatrix, weeping in his arms, her soul saved by his mercy, not his wrath.
He took a deep breath, reining in his magic. Destroying the ruins would accomplish nothing. It would only alert Voldemort to his presence before he was ready to strike.
Harry turned his back on the ruined cottage. He could not bear to look at it any longer. The house was dead. His family was not there.
His eyes, sweeping the darkened street, caught the entrance to the graveyard behind the church. The tall, wrought-iron gates stood partially open, the path beyond them winding through the snow-covered tombstones like a pale ribbon.
His feet took him there, almost of their own volition.
He pulled the Invisibility Cloak tight around himself once more, his paranoia spiking as he approached the churchyard. This was the perfect place for an ambush. High vantage points from the church tower, plenty of cover among the crypts and headstones, and the psychological distraction of the graves. He moved with agonizing slowness, his wand drawn, muttering localized detection charms under his breath.
He slipped through the kissing gate, the metal cold and biting even through his gloves. The graveyard was vast, much larger than he had anticipated, the headstones dating back centuries. The snow here was completely untouched, pristine and white, save for the narrow path cleared by the wind.
Harry walked the rows, his emerald eyes darting left and right. He read the names as he passed, recognizing families that had shaped wizarding history. Abbott. Bones. Prewett. And then, a name that made his stomach churn with complicated resentment: Dumbledore.
He paused briefly by the grave of Kendra and Ariana Dumbledore. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
"You kept so many secrets, old man," Harry murmured to the snow-covered stone. "You hunted the Hallows with a dark lord, and you raised me like a pig for slaughter. But I broke your rules. I'm playing my own game now."
He moved on, his heart beating a frantic, heavy rhythm in his chest. He knew he was getting close. He could feel it in his blood, a strange, magnetic pull that drew him deeper into the heart of the graveyard.
And then, a few rows down, near a large, ancient yew tree, he saw it.
It was a headstone made of white marble, standing out starkly against the grey, weathered granite of the surrounding markers. The stone was unblemished, shining faintly in the moonlight.
Harry's breath hitched. He closed the distance in three long strides, falling to his knees in the deep snow before the grave. The cold seeped through his combat trousers, but he didn't feel it. He pushed the hood of his Invisibility Cloak back, letting it pool around his shoulders. He didn't care if he was seen right now.
He reached out a trembling hand, his gloved fingers tracing the deeply engraved letters on the marble surface.
JAMES POTTER
Born 27 March 1960
Died 31 October 1981
LILY POTTER
Born 30 January 1960
Died 31 October 1981
Beneath the dates, an inscription was carved into the stone:
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
The emotional dam that Harry had been reinforcing for hours, possibly even years, finally broke.
He bowed his head, his forehead resting against the icy marble of the headstone. The tears came, hot and fast, blurring his vision and freezing on his cheeks. He wept not just for the parents he had lost, but for the childhood that had been stolen from him, for the friends who had abandoned him, and for the heavy, bloody crown he was now forced to wear.
He stayed like that for a long time, the silence of the graveyard broken only by the ragged sound of his breathing. The wind howled through the yew tree, sounding like a mournful choir.
Finally, Harry lifted his head. He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve, a wet, self-deprecating chuckle escaping his lips.
"Hey, Mum. Hey, Dad," Harry spoke, his voice hoarse, cracking in the quiet night.
He sat back on his heels, crossing his legs in the snow, looking at the names as if he expected them to answer.
"It's me. It's Harry. I know it's... I know it's taken me a long time to come here. Seventeen years. I'm sorry about that. I didn't know where you were for a long time, and when I did, the old man always kept me locked up at the Dursleys."
Harry paused, a dark sneer twisting his features at the mention of his relatives. "You probably know how that went. Petunia and Vernon... they hated me. They hated magic. They shoved me in a cupboard and treated me like a freak. But don't worry, Dad. I didn't let them break me. I'm bigger than them now. Much bigger."
He reached out and traced his mother's name. "Hogwarts was brilliant, at first. I made friends. Ron and Hermione. I thought... I thought we were going to be together until the end. But the war... the war changes people. Ron couldn't handle the pressure. He left. And Hermione... she chose to chase after him instead of standing by me. I'm alone out here now. Well, sort of."
A genuine, warm smile broke through the sorrow on Harry's face. He leaned closer to the stone, his eyes sparkling with a familiar, roguish glint that belonged entirely to James Potter.
"Actually, Dad... you and Padfoot would probably be laughing your arses off right now. You'd be so proud of me it's ridiculous."
Harry shifted his position, his hands resting on his knees as he began to tell them about his life, the words spilling out of him in a torrent of confession and pride.
"I've claimed the Lordships. Both of them. I'm Lord Potter and Lord Black now. Sirius left me everything. I miss him, Dad. I miss him every day. But I didn't let his legacy die. I took back Grimmauld Place. And I... well, I have a family now. A different kind of family."
Harry's smile widened, a flush of heat warming his cheeks as he thought of the women waiting for him in London.
"You remember Narcissa Black? Lucius Malfoy's wife?" Harry laughed, a rich, dark sound. "She left him. She took one look at the madman running her house and she came to me for protection. And she's incredible, Mum. She's elegant, and brilliant, and she runs my house like a queen. She's... she's mine now. She serves me. She loves me. Padfoot would probably have a heart attack, but she's been the anchor keeping me sane."
He brushed a layer of snow off the top of the headstone.
"And it's not just her. I saved a pair of Veela from Fenrir Greyback. Fleur Delacour and her mother, Apolline. They... well, they're fiercely devoted. Veela magic is intense. They claimed me, and I claimed them back. They give me strength, Mum. They give me fire when I'm too exhausted to cast a single spell. Dad, you should see them... actually, maybe you shouldn't. Mum would probably hex you for staring."
Harry chuckled, but the sound faded as he touched upon the most unbelievable truth of all.
"And... Bellatrix." Harry swallowed hard, looking at his mother's name. "I know what she did. I know she was a monster. But we found out... she was possessed, Mum. Voldemort forced a piece of his soul into her when she was young. He enslaved her. I... I broke the bond. I went into her mind and I tore his soul out of her. I saved her. She's healing now. She's absolutely devoted to me. I took the Dark Lord's greatest weapon and turned her over to my side."
Harry looked at the inscription again. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
"I'm not afraid of him anymore," Harry declared, his voice ringing with absolute confidence, the power of his magic vibrating in the air around him. "I'm hunting him. I'm destroying his Horcruxes one by one. I'm going to end this war, and I'm going to do it my way. I'm not playing by Dumbledore's rules of mercy. I'm going to protect my house, my women, and our family name. I'm going to make you proud."
He fell silent, letting the words hang in the freezing air. He felt a strange sense of peace settle over him.
He had spoken his truth. He had confessed his sins and his triumphs to the only people whose judgment truly mattered, and in his heart, he felt their approval.
He drew his holly wand, wanting to leave something behind because who knew when he would get another chance.
He didn't want to leave something simple or fleeting. He focused his magic, drawing on the immense, stabilized core within his chest. He pictured his mother. He pictured the brilliant, blinding smile, the stories Remus had told him of her kindness.
He waved his wand in a complex, flowing pattern. "Orchideous."
From the tip of his wand, a stream of pure, golden light erupted, spiralling into the snow at the base of the headstone. Slowly, miraculously, green vines sprouted from the frozen earth, weaving themselves into a tight, circular wreath. Then, buds formed, blooming rapidly into massive, pristine white lilies. They glowed with an internal, magical light, enchanted to never wither, to never freeze, and to emit a faint, sweet perfume that cut through the smell of the dead and the winter.
Harry gently placed the wreath of lilies on his mother's side of the grave.
Then, he turned his thoughts to his father. He remembered the stories of James Potter, the star chaser of the Quidditch team, the prankster, the man who flew like he was born in the sky. He summoned a fallen, sturdy branch from the yew tree nearby.
He focused his intent, his transfiguration skills sharpened to a masterful degree by necessity. He ran his wand along the length of the wood.
The rough bark smoothed out, turning into polished, dark ash wood. The twigs at the end lengthened, straightening out into perfectly aerodynamic birch twigs, bound together by a band of conjured iron. Golden footholds sprouted from the sides. Within moments, the branch had transformed into a flawless, miniature replica of a Firebolt broomstick.
Harry laid the replica carefully on his father's side of the headstone.
"Happy Christmas, Mum. Happy Christmas, Dad," Harry whispered.
He stood up, his knees popping from the cold. He pulled the Invisibility Cloak back over his head, shielding himself from the world once more. He felt lighter. He felt ready.
He turned and began to walk away, intending to leave the graveyard and head back to Grimmauld Place.
But as Harry walked down the adjacent row of headstones, his eyes caught sight of something that made him freeze in his tracks.
It was an ancient, crumbling gravestone, older than almost any other in the yard. The granite was heavily weathered, covered in lichen and moss, the name barely legible. But it wasn't the name that caught Harry's attention.
It was the symbol carved beneath it.
A straight vertical line. Enclosed by a circle. Enclosed by a triangle.
The Deathly Hallows.
Harry moved closer, brushing the snow away from the base of the stone to read the faded engraving.
IGNOTUS PEVERELL
Harry's breath caught in his throat. He stared at the name, and then down at the silvery, fluid fabric of the Invisibility Cloak draped over his arm.
Narcissa was right. The stories were true.
Ignotus Peverell. The third brother. The humblest and the wisest, who had asked Death for something that would enable him to go forth without being followed. He had been given the Cloak of Invisibility. And he had passed it down to his son, who had passed it down through the generations, until the Peverell bloodline had married into the Potter family, and the cloak had fallen into the hands of James, and finally, Harry.
The cloak he wore... was the fabled Cloak of Death.
Harry gripped the fabric tightly. He wasn't just a wizard. He was the descendant of the Peverells. He held a Hallow. And if he held the Cloak, and Voldemort was hunting the Wand... the game was infinitely larger and more dangerous than he had ever comprehended.
A sudden, chilling realization hit him. If Voldemort had come here looking for the Peverells, looking for the thief of the Elder Wand...
Out of his peripheral vision, a shadow shifted at the entrance of the cemetery gates.
Harry spun around instantly, his wand raised, his body dropping into a low, duelling stance. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The peace of the graveyard vanished, replaced by the screaming adrenaline of a hunter startled by his prey.
He peered through the gloom, his eyes straining against the darkness.
Under the flickering light of a solitary streetlamp near the kissing gate, a figure was standing. It wasn't a snake. It wasn't a towering Death Eater.
It was the stooped, fragile silhouette of a very old woman.
Harry remained motionless; his wand pointed directly at the woman's chest. The warning alarms in his head, primed by Bellatrix's desperate warning, were shrieking like air-raid sirens.
"He killed a woman there. He left his familiar there to wait for me."
The old woman stepped fully into the pool of light. She was heavily bundled in moth-eaten shawls, her face a map of deep wrinkles, her eyes clouded with cataracts.
Bathilda Bagshot.
Harry recognized her from the photographs in Rita Skeeter's book. The celebrated magical historian. Dumbledore's old neighbour. The woman who knew all of the headmaster's darkest secrets, who knew about Grindelwald, who knew about their plans.
Bathilda did not speak. She stood in the snow, looking directly at the spot where Harry was standing, despite the fact that he was raising his wand. She raised a trembling, liver-spotted hand and beckoned to him.
She smiled. It was a sad, tight smile, devoid of warmth.
Harry's grip on his wand tightened until his hand cramped. Every instinct he had developed as a soldier in this war screamed at him to cast a blasting curse, to turn on his heel and apparate back to the safety of Narcissa's arms and the impregnable wards of Grimmauld Place.
This was the trap. This was Voldemort's snare, baited with the one thing the Dark Lord knew Harry could not resist.
Information.
Harry stared at the old woman. If she was Bathilda, she held the key to Dumbledore's past. She possessed the answers to the riddles Dumbledore had left him—answers he desperately, agonizingly needed if he was going to destroy the remaining Horcruxes and face the Dark Lord.
If she was a trap... then she was a trap he had to walk into.
Harry Potter, Lord of the Ancient and Most Noble Houses of Potter and Black, master of the Cloak of Death, did not run from traps. He walked into them and tore them apart from the inside.
Bathilda turned, shuffling slowly away from the gates, heading toward a dark cottage down the lane. She did not look back.
Harry lowered his wand slightly. He took a deep breath, the cold air filling his lungs, steeling his resolve. He thought of his parents lying in the snow behind him. He thought of his women waiting for him to return as a conqueror.
With measured, silent footsteps, Harry Potter stepped out of the graveyard, and followed the shadow into the dark.
Author's Note
A more emotion heavy chapter. Had fun writing this as it allowed me to explore and express a different side of writing. Let me know how you all feel about it.