Month: March 2020

Hermione Granger was letting Harry go into the cottage first, alone. She hadn’t told him to do it. She’d just followed with Jimmy asleep in her arms, letting him build a long lead. She’d loitered in the front garden, giving Harry time to take in the ground floor before she entered the cottage. When she finally opened the door, a task that was not made easier by Jimmy suddenly waking up, she entered.

The young mother found the open parlor that entry opened up to be quite cozy. She approached the fire place, between the two love seats, one of which had obviously been favored based on the indentations on the cushions. The fire suddenly came to life. There was a blanket between the two love seats with a bunch of toys on it, including a white snitch, which rose as Hermione approached it, saying over the blanket but moving slowly over it. It never went higher than eighteen inches.

Hermione gently lowered Jimmy to the blanket. The baby cooed, as the blanket supported him as if it was a mattress instead. The snitch passed in front of the barely two-month-old’s face and Hermione watched as her son’s eyes followed Baby’s First Snitch.

As it looked like Jimmy was amused and didn’t need anything, Hermione took the time to look through the bookcases flanking the fireplace. There were the usual copies of Hogwart’s books. She was sure that Harry would have chosen these copies if they’d all been all on the list. That wasn’t all that were there, of course. It seemed that one of them had been into Ancient Runes, a class that Hermione was looking forward to. There were a lot of those books including the five volume set of Tota et signa Runie by Ingenii Inventis. It was not a cheap set.

What really caught Hermione’s attention was Donec Sacrorumque Ritibus Miscuerent, a book that looked like it has a lot of use, judging from the large number of bookmarks in it. She pulled it out and opened it to the first of those bookmarks. It was in Latin, of course, but Hermione knew Latin, and even if this was a bit archaic in form, she could still puzzle it out. She found a seat on the other love seat, kicked off her shoes, and began to read about ways to protect her baby.

It was a quite interesting book, and she was still reading it when Harry returned from upstairs. Hermione didn’t realize that he’d returned to the ground floor until she felt him sliding up against her. “Something interesting, Hermione?” he asked.

“Yes, if Jimmy was in as much danger as you were, I’d probably be casting a few of these spells,” Hermione said. “I still might do a couple. You think I can take this book with me?”

“It’s my house, and I say you can,” Harry said. “Pick up Jimmy and come with me. There is something that’s puzzling me about the ground floor bedroom.”

Hermione picked up her son, who seemed to be a bit upset to be taken off the blanket. “I think we need to take that blanket and snitch, too. Jimmy seems to like it.” She noticed a brief grin from Harry, before it returned to the expression that she’d categorized as his thinking expression. They walked through the dinning area, allowing Hermione to get a brief glance of the kitchen before turning into the ground floor guest suite.

There was a short passage that opened up into a bedroom with a trio of windows that opened out on the garden. The walls seemed to be covered with what Hermione identified as undergarment advertisements. There was one for a Maidenform Bra, plus several that seemed to have come out from a Kay’s catalog, judging from the label and page number in the lower corners. One in particular advertised that the bra and brief set was also available in white, telling the world that it costs so little to look lovable.

“Well that’s interesting decoration,” Hermione said, eying a particular black and white picture where the woman’s panties were visible under her mini-skirt that was also an add for the change to decimal money.

“Bet it was considered risque by my father and his friends,” Harry said. Hermione met his gaze. “Anyway, that’s not what I brought you here for. I’m pretty sure that this room was regularly occupied, in fact I’d say it was slept in almost nightly.”

Hermione looked around the room, ignoring the pictures. The bed was not made. There was a set of Daily Prophets, obviously read, that she could see the dates on the top three as from October thirtieth, twenty-ninth, and twenty-eighth. It was a high enough stack that it had to contain a couple month’s worth. A leather jacket was slung over one chair, and there were some books opened on the desk below the window. “Yes, I can agree with that,” Hermione said.

“Well, I’ve identified who, and if what you said about the charm that my parents were hiding under was true, then something went very wrong,” Harry said, picking up a hit-wizard badge and handing it to Hermione.

She hadn’t know that Harry had listened to the full spiel that she’d gone after he’d asked if she could determine which of the four stories about what happened that night were correct. The answer had been that none of them could be completely correct due to internal inconsistencies. One thing it had covered, though, was that whoever held the secret could not live under it.

Harry wasn’t quite sure what to expect when he entered the house where his parents had died. Approaching from the front you couldn’t tell of what happened, if you ignored the magicals only historical marker. At least it appeared that it had been well maintained since his parents had died. The garden was not overgrown, in fact if anything it was immaculately maintained, with each paver on the walk carefully edged, so not a single blade lay on the slate path. It wasn’t the result of a hasty clean up either. Harry could tell the difference.

The door had opened softly, without a single sound. The first room was a large one with several chairs and a pair of love seats facing each other in front of a fire place. He could smell the smell of the fire it had once held. There was a set of stairs, four steps up before turning perpendicular against the wall. His eyes were not there, though he did intend to go upstairs. His eyes were on a simple brown cloak laying on the ground next to the stairs with a wand placed on top of it.

He’d been told of the tradition, that a fallen hero’s cloak and wand would be left in place for the family by an auror who had come by after Harry had sent word to Professor McGonagall that he wanted to see the cottage. Harry reached down and picked up the wand. He could hear Ollivander’s description, mahogany, eleven inches, pliable. It was so much more. As he took it in his hand, he felt warmth and protections fill him, and a moment of a memory of watching ethereal snitches trail from it as an indistinct man swished and flicked it in front of him overtook him. He placed the wand in the breast pocket of the white dress shirt that he’d worn to Godric’s Hallow, and bent over again.

This time Harry picked up the cloak, and smelled the scent of hard work, dirt, and some of the flowers he’d seen in the garden. He ran his hand across where his father’s name had been embroidered in black on the left breast. He couldn’t leave it on the ground, but it needed to remain. He looked at the hat stand that was a bit further in. He moved it and gently draped his father’s cloak over it. He briefly cast his gaze around the front parlor again, before heading upstairs.

At the top of the landing were two doors. The one on the right was smaller, and had a sign marked with a golden snitch and the name Harry in an imitation childish font. The one on the left was plain. He figured that it was his parent’s room. He knew that his mother had died in his room, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to see that room yet, so he went into his parent’s room.

He knew from Hermione that parent’s rooms were sanctuaries where parents could retreat to do things that it was best not to think of. Hermione had told him that she’d rarely gone into her parent’s rooms, save for special times like waking her parents up for birthdays and Christmas. It was considered a treat to be invited to snuggle up between her parents on the bed. Not remembering his own parents, he imagined that the same would be with his parents.

The bed was turned down on one side, and there was a wine glass fallen to the floor, leaving a stain where the liquid had splashed out. Opposite the bed there was a window nook, with an old rocking chair sitting in it. A slightly stained with mother’s milk cloth laid on the left arm of the chair. Harry found himself moving to sit in it, his fingers idly stroking the scroll work on the underside. Above the bed was a painting the black lake of Hogwarts in the autumn, the Forbidden Forrest edging against one side, and track used by the Hogwarts Express stretching across the far shore. As he watched, the Express chugged through.

The moment’s silence enabled him to collect himself and head towards the room that had once been his. He opened the room, not sure what to expect. Sun streaked through the window to the West that had once been broken and restored. There was also an east facing window, but his attention was first drawn to the crib, with its mobile of still flickering snitches. Harry imagined that Jimmy would enjoy those. There was also another rocker, a changing table with a diaper left in position to be put on. It was bigger than the ones that Jimmy used, but Harry had been older. There was a wardrobe and bookcase as well.

On the bookcase was candle, much like the one that Harry had lit for Jimmy at his Baptism. It lit as Harry approached, and Harry recognized it as his own magic. His luminous was known to be a lot warmer white than most of his class. He reached out with his hand towards it, and the candlelight brightened. He smiled.

Then he looked down to discover another cloak, just like his father’s on the floor. It was the same brown auror robe style that his father had, save that above the left breast pocket he could see “Lily Evans Potter” embroidered in black, not quite as centered as his father’s had been. He reached down to pick up the robes, just like he had picked up his father’s. This time, though he found himself unable to stand back up, as tears filled his eyes. Holding his mother’s robes against his body, Harry let himself cry.