Chapter 2 - Understanding
Dumbledore found him on the doorstep of the ruined home at midnight. After Voldemort vanished, Harry took out his anguish on his home. Harry had blindly used almost every charm he could think of on anything he found in the house, the house tainted with murder and the blood of his parents – people he should have but couldn’t save.
“James?” Dumbledore’s voice was gentle but inquisitive, a hint of caution appropriate for times like these. Harry didn’t bother looking up as he spoke.
“They’re dead.”
“Ah.” Dumbledore sounded as if he already knew, though it wasn’t a surprise. House number twenty-three was uncannily visible to Muggle and wizard alike.
Dumbledore swiftly stepped around Harry and passed the open door to examine the damage. Harry didn’t follow; he knew what he would find there. The corpse of his father not far from the door, untouched by the fury Harry had unleashed. Upstairs, his mother, one motionless hand, as if stopped in mid-caress, resting lovingly on a sleeping child, now marked with a jagged scar.
The row of pictures that depicted the comfortable life the Potters had laid in shards of broken glass and splinters of damaged wood. Harry had searched for the photograph of the family they had been but found no trace of it ever being there.
What was he doing here? Harry couldn’t remember what had driven him so insane as to come to Godric’s Hollow. But there was a purpose to him being here, if not for the reiteration of the love he was fighting for and the people he had to avenge. He learned something about himself tonight, but he didn’t know what it was.
Harry heard soft footsteps approach from behind. “You must be Harry then, from the future?”
“Yes.” Harry began to turn his head so he could speak properly with his professor. He caught a glimpse of a bundle in Dumbledore’s arms.
“I ask that you not look this way. You – that is, your child self – are awake, and I’d hate to imagine what damage it may do to you in the future, if you should have dreams of seeing yourself.” Dumbledore’s tone was light; Harry could detect no sign of remorse in his voice.
“Where are you taking me?” Harry couldn’t keep his irritation out of his voice; the world didn’t stop for the two greatest heroes Harry had never known.
“I’m not taking you anywhere. Hagrid is on his way to take you to Little Whinging, though you probably already knew that. I suggest you put on your Invisibility Cloak; I believe that’s him right there.”
Sure enough, Harry spotted a star in the distant sky growing closer and closer. In the silence of Godric’s Hollow, he could here a rumbling noise that grew louder. Harry squinted; it looked as if it was a…motorcycle.
“Harry. If you would.” Harry threw on his Invisibility Cloak. “Now then, if you would step inside the house. You may watch from a window if you’d like.”
Harry stood and passed Dumbledore as he stepped into the ruined home as Dumbledore stepped out. Harry tried not to stare at the child swaddled in cloth in Dumbledore’s arm.
As Hagrid neared, Harry could hear something overpowering the roar of the flying motorcycle. Loud, wet bawling sounds. When Hagrid landed, the streaks of tears on his cheeks were visible even to Harry.
Hagrid cried long and hard, blubbering things Harry couldn’t understand. Dumbledore did his best comfort the giant man while holding a child who now awoke wailing as well. Harry could not understand how none of the neighbors heard the cacophony in the middle of quiet Godric’s Hollow. “There, there, Rubeus,” Dumbledore raised his voice so that he could be heard. “All is not lost. Lily and James gave their lives to protect little Harry, and didn’t they do that and more?”
Hagrid seemed temporarily comforted by this and wiped his nose with the sleeve of his coat. “Yer right, Dumbledore. Yer right.” Hagrid looked toward the house with despair, as if imagining the horrors that had occurred in that very place. He had no idea.
“Take Harry over to Little Whinging. I have some matters to attend to first, but I will meet you there.” Hagrid nodded glumly as he took the still shrieking baby. After he mounted the motorcycle, Hagrid glanced toward the home one last time before revving the engine and launching himself, and Harry, into the night.
Dumbledore stayed in the yard watching the motorcycle leave. When Harry could no longer see the headlight of the motorcycle, Dumbledore heaved a great sigh and made his way down the walk toward the door.
Harry was already there, seated once more at the doorway, glaring at nothing in particular. Dumbledore leaned against the doorframe and, when Harry looked up, seemed so tired and mournful. Could his former headmaster be missing his parents as terribly as he did now?
Silence.
Harry had so many questions, so many thoughts he needed to voice. But he had no idea where to start.
“How?” Harry finally croaked out. “How could I have stood by? I had ample chance to end everything before they died.”
Harry heard Dumbledore shift into another position, his eyes never opening. “I think you already know the answer to that, Harry. You have come to terms with mortality. It is impossible for any of us to escape death.” Dumbledore’s voice became gentler and barely a whisper. “Fate will claim the strongest of us all in the end. Lily and James died for a cause they strongly believed in, and there’s not an honor I can think of that’s greater than that.
“And for you to face Voldemort in the end, Harry, you must accept death.”
Harry knew Dumbledore was right once more, and he allowed the peace to settle between them. Whatever complex emotion he was feeling at that moment, regret was not one of them.
Harry realized that he didn’t feel as uncomfortable about the last battle with Voldemort as he had before. His greatest fear now, he knew, was not that he might perish but that he might fail in bringing down the murderer who would stop at nothing to ensure the spread of evil.
Something Luna Lovegood had said to him his fifth year came back. Anyway, it’s not as though I’ll never see Mum again, is it? And he will see Dad, Mum, Sirius, and Remus again as well. Suddenly, the doom lurking ahead of him didn’t seem that dark anymore.
“Harry, I believe it’s time for you to – well, go back to your own time,” Dumbledore quietly interrupted Harry’s thoughts. “I doubt you’d want to wait, what is it, sixteen years, so we’ll have to go to the Ministry to set up a little rendez-vous with the head of the Department of Magical Catastrophes.”
Dumbledore waited as Harry struggled to gain control of his muscles and stand. He silently accompanied Harry to the Ministry but not before he said, “By the way, Harry, you couldn’t have killed Voldemort then even if you wanted to.” At Harry’s quizzical look, Dumbledore smiled sadly. “You didn’t destroy the Horcruxes, remember?”
Fate had the upper hand once again.
End notes: This chapter was written on July 14, 2007. Anything proven incorrect in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will not be re-incorporated into this story.
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