CHAPTER TWO
A/N - Hope that you enjoyed Chapter One, which I suppose you must have if you're reading this. I've had a few great reviews so far which are of course very encouraging, but I'd love to have some more! Keep reading, and enjoy!
Sleep did not come easily for Harry that night; in fact, it didn't come at all. He lay in his bed, at Grimmauld Place, his mind spinning as much as Ron's head would surely do come the morning. Returning to their new-found `home' with an extremely drunken Weasley in tow had been no picnic, especially with Hermione's steadfast refusal to help Harry with the burden, except to unlock the right doors and wear a constant look of superior indignation. Harry had groaned and grunted up the stairs to the bedroom he shared with Ron, who slept peacefully, save the odd, brief choking noise that jolted Harry each time, fearful of the worst.
Harry's tired, sleep-deprived mind had convinced him that he'd been laying there for hours trying to sleep, but in reality it had been just over one. The constant, nagging feeling that every moment not being spent in the hunt for Voldemort was a moment wasted got to Harry at night, when his usual stoic emotional control was weakened, his `Chosen One' mantra, a publicly-perceived ideal that Harry at times clung to as a source of confidence, seemingly disproven by such attacks of anxiety, of the like he was now experiencing.
He dare not sleep, nor even try to. Sleep invites dreams, and those dreams had been…harrowing. The faces of so many loved ones dead at Harry's feet…the deaths Harry had been a witness to; Cedric Diggory, the deadly Avada Kedavra curse that swept away the great Albus Dumbledore…deaths that had not occurred, yet presented themselves to Harry's subconscious mind with a startling clarity; Neville, Dean, Fred, George…Ron…Hermione…
It had been about two weeks since Harry faced that dream, the one where Hermione died. The sight of her dead body on the muddy ground, her face stone cold and devoid of all life, made Harry cry silently into his pillow for the rest of that night. It was torture, even more so because it was Hermione. All the others, all the men, they could fight, they could defend themselves, but Hermione…she had to be protected.
It was not just arrogant male protectionism that Harry derived that notion from; Hermione was too important to him to die. While Ron was Harry's wing-man, his ally, his team-mate through thick and thin, Hermione was his brains, his rationality, even his conscience. It was if Harry himself was half a being, and his two best friends completed him. During this past month, from the first two weeks at the Dursleys, to moving into Grimmauld Place and making it somewhat livable, Harry had come to realize just how much she meant to him. In forsaking their friends and families in this quest, the trio's bonds had grown deeper, and with the newfound maturity that such responsibility for the magical world brought, Harry had realized and appreciated this.
Sick and tired of trying to sleep, Harry threw back the duvet and got up, pacing his way quietly downstairs in his pyjamas. Finding himself at the dining table, Harry thumbed through a stack of yellowing parchments that had accumulated across the wooden surface. He picked out one from the pack, and looked at it for about the twentieth time.
About a week ago, Harry had found himself down Knockturn Alley. It was a dangerous move, especially in such times, but he had been told by someone in The Leaky Cauldron that there was a certain…individual that dealt in finding specific places, and creating Portkeys to get there. With that in mind, Harry had traversed the alley under his Invisibility Cloak for much of the trip, only daring to show himself within that shop, a small wooden shack bolted onto the end of the main bank of shops.
The man was tall, gaunt, gray-haired and grubby, but Harry had a sense that what he could provide could be trusted. He did not give the aura of a thief or a criminal, rather a man down on his luck, resorting to illegal activities to make a living. Harry paid five Galleons for a map and a Portkey, which until now had been wrapped up in an oily brown rag, stashed under Harry's mattress.
Harry studied the map, noting its supposed accuracy, in its attention to detail. Godric's Hollow was a small town, respectable and well-kempt with a keen awareness of its own history. What little information Harry had read on the subject had told him that. His eyes found the blank square at almost dead-centre on the map; the cemetery…
He had been putting this off for too long, he knew that. Something about actually seeing his parents' grave was something Harry was uncomfortable with. It represented final, irrefutable proof that his parents really were dead. Of course, Harry had accepted that most difficult of realities, but didn't exactly welcome visual confirmation of that. Still, it had become a wedge in Harry's already weighed-down mind, sticking out as a thing undone.
Fine…
Harry quickly changed into warmer clothes in his bedroom, taking care not to wake Ron. When he was fully dressed, in jeans and a T-shirt and sweater under a black jacket, Harry carefully lifted up the corner of his mattress, and withdrew that brown rag. He knelt down and laid it out on the floor, peeling back the rag.
Inside was a jagged, roughly square-shaped piece of gray stone.
A gravestone.
In a moment, Harry was standing outside the front door of Grimmauld Place, the night sky passing a constant, chilling breeze through the air that reinvigorated Harry's senses. Holding the rag flat in the palm of his hand, he looked around for any hint of people or activity, then slowly reached for the stone with his left hand…
WHOOSH! That familiar feeling gripped Harry, of being gripped and pitched into the wind. He closed his eyes in an effort to combat the nausea, waiting for it to end.
He fell to the ground, landing on his back on a patch of neat, dew-sodden grass. Gingerly, he propped himself up to his feet, looking around. A few lamps hung on trees dotted around the cemetery, providing a low level of light. Still, Harry's vision was hampered by a thick mist of fog. He withdrew his wand from his back pocket and muttered Lumos, the bright light at the tip of his wand guiding him as he approached a row of gravestones, inspecting the names.
Finally, he caught sight of a plain-looking slab of grey stone, neat and well-maintained. The engraving read:
JAMES AND LILY POTTER
LOVING HUSBAND, WIFE AND PARENTS
IN SACRIFICE, THEY GO TO A BETTER WORLD
Harry sunk to his knees, his feet numb and no longer able to support his weight. His breath caught in his throat, and his eyes began to water. He wiped at his face furiously as his grief took over, wracking him as he cried onto the sleeve of his jacket.
Hermione watched from behind a nearby tree. She had found about this place through careful reading, and managed to Apparate unseen, arriving a few minutes before Harry did. As she watched Harry break down, her heart screamed at her to go to Harry, to try and comfort him. But the rational side of her told her to stay away, to give Harry this privacy to grieve. A tear welled in her eye as she watched, heartbroken. Had he ever been able to grieve his parents? Hermione had thought.
She found it so desperately unfair, how Voldemort had taken away so much from Harry, and the magical world had now forced Harry into getting rid of him. They did not make the prophecy, of course, but the whole `Chosen One' campaign, the cynical attempt to cash in on Harry's repaired image, made Hermione's blood boil. Her entire childhood she had worshipped the Ministry.
But as she watched her best friend cry, unable to stop herself from tearing up, she knew the terrible effect it had on the people she loved.
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