[For the sake of making things easier for me, forget Godric's Hollow happened at Christmas thank youuu!]

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SEVENTEEN DESCENDING, ASCENDING

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       THE UPCOMING WEEKS trudge by, the nights longer and the days colder. A lot of the time, Hermione would sit by herself in the tent, her nose hidden behind a book, trying to distance herself from Harry and Holly. The two, on the other hand, attempted to continue with figuring out where to go next, Holly checking the magic mirror daily.

       Technically, the mirror was working, and it was being truthful, but every time Harry asked what it said, Holly would have to say she didn't know, and then, when he said she was hiding something, admit it was showing Ron. That's what Harry, Holly, and Hermione needed most. Ron. But he wasn't going to come back.

       Holly hopes he will eventually, that they'll run into him. She misses him, honestly. It's weird spending every minute with someone, and then none at all...

       The months fly past. When every day is spent searching books and reciting someone's life, they seem to blend together. A morning becomes a second in a series of months, all spent sitting around in the same tent, moving around the country, settling down and trying to think of another plan of action. It's as if they hope, that with every move, they'll have some sort of revelation, that the water will be hard not soft and somehow, that'll make them have a sudden realisation of where to look next for a Horcrux.

       It isn't raining, thankfully, the next time they packed up, placing all of their belongings into Hermione's beaded purse. And then the next couple of weeks became the same as they had been when they stayed in Cornwall, in the Lake District, in a cave a few miles from Tintern Abbey. Holly keeps on looking into the mirror, in hopes that it'll show something different to Ron. Sometimes, when Harry and Hermione get a little too Gryffindor she sees Draco, but that makes her erupt into tears, and she has to walk away from the other two for a while so she can look at her cousin, standing in Malfoy Manor, a sullen look on his face.

       She sits in one of the camping chairs, holding the mirror like she normally does. Next to her sits Hermione, reading the copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard that she inherited from Dumbledore. "Look at that symbol," says Hermione, to the other two. Both Harry and Holly look incredulous, given that neither of them took Ancient Runes. "It isn't a rune and it's not in the syllabary, either. All along I thought it was a picture of an eye, but I don't think it is! It's been inked in, look, somebody's drawn it there, it isn't really part of the book. Think, have you ever seen it before?"

       Holly frowns, standing up. "Wait, let me see..."

       And then she spots it, the symbol that haunted the halls of Durmstrang. For a moment, Holly feels physically sick, staring at the symbol with a frown on her face.

       "No way," she says quietly.

       "Do you know it?"

       "Of course I know it, you couldn't escape it at Durmstrang," says Holly, unable to take her eyes off of the mark of the Deathly Hallows. "It was Grindelwald's mark. He went to Durmstrang when he was younger, and he carved it in one of the walls and people would copy it to scare others..." She looks up finally, where Hermione is frowning at her. "Grindelwald was the predecessor to You-Know-Who. He never rose to power in the UK, he was scared of Dumbledore..." She points to the symbol. "But that's his mark."

       "Yeah," says Harry, and Holly raises an eyebrow, as if to say, how do you know? "Krum told me, at Bill and Fleur's wedding."

       "Grindewald's mark? I've never heard that Grindelwald had a mark. There's no mention of it in anything I've ever read about him."

       "Krum reckoned that symbol was carved on a wall at Durmstrang, and Grindelwald put it there—"

       "He did put it there," says Holly.

       "But that's... So odd! If it's a symbol of Dark Magic, what's it doing in a book of children's stories?"

       Hermione looks at Holly, who shrugs.

       "All I know is that it's Grindelwald's."

        "You'd think Scrimgeour would have recognised it," says Harry. "He was Minister, he ought to have been expert on Dark stuff."

       "You'd hope," says Holly.

       "Perhaps he thought it was an eye, just like I did. All the other stories have little pictures over the titles."

       Holly crosses her arms for a moment, glancing down at the book. "What story is it next to? Maybe that'll mean something..."

       "Oh, it's this one," says Hermione, handing the book to Holly, who leans against the fold-out camping table, beginning to read the story. Her brows furrow, beginning to read the first line.

       But, before she can read any further, Harry clears his throat, and Holly looks up.

       "I've been thinking," he says, glancing at the two. Holly and Hermione exchange a look, both confused. He pauses for a minute, hesitant. "I—I want to go to Godric's Hollow."

       That's where his parents died, she thinks. She looks across at him, at the hopeful yet nervous look across his face, and she feels her stomach sink. He wants to see their graves, their old house, she thinks, and her brain can't help but add, because he might not get another chance. Holly feels worry clouding her thoughts before she tries to ignore it, nodding at him.

       "Yeah," she says, and she smiles weakly. "We should."

       Hermione nods. "I've been wondering that too... I really think we'll have to."

       Holly frowns. 'We'll have to?' What does that mean?

       "Did you hear me right?" says Harry.

       "Of course I did. You want to go to Godric's Hollow. I agree, I think we should. I mean, I can't think of anywhere else it could be either. It'll be dangerous, but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems it's there."

       "Er — what's there?"

       "Well, the sword, Harry!" says Hermione. Holly's mouth parts, and she thinks, ohhhhhhhh. "Dumbledore must have known you'd want to go back there, and I mean, Godric's Hollow is Godric Gryffindor's birthplace—"

       "Really?"

       "Harry, did you ever even open A History of Magic?"

       "Erm," says Harry, and he smiles sheepishly. He smiles properly, and it makes Holly feel better. She didn't realise how much she missed him smiling until then. "I might've opened it, you know, when I bought it... just the once..."

       Holly laughs, shaking her head.

✧

       HOLLY RESTS HER HEAD against the camping bed's pillow, having spent the last half-hour reading Hermione's copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Every time her eyes laid upon Grindelwald's mark, Holly would feel nervous, remembering how vicious people became at Durmstrang, when other students would try to recreate the symbol. She closes the book and rests her eyes. Ever since they moved to this place, she's always felt... sluggish? She isn't sure, but everything feels a little wrong.

       "Did you know someone died next to the tree outside?" says Susannah. She can hear Harry say goodbye to Hermione outside, who's planning to leave for a while and head to a supermarket underneath the Invisibility Cloak, to get them some more food.

       Holly keeps her eyes closed. "We're in a forest..."

       "There's a tree near and some kid died next to it. I saw his ghost — he's a bit of a dick, actually..." says Susannah. "I'm not saying he deserves to be dead but I'm also not say he doesn't deserve to be dead..."

       Holly feels herself falling asleep; slowly, and surely, she drifts away from Susannah's voice. Everything goes quiet, and she opens her eyes and for a second she presumes she's in a dream, but then, she recognises the white surroundings, the glowing mark on the castle wall. Holly isn't dreaming of Durmstrang again, she realises, because this doesn't feel like a dream. Everything feels at peace here — dreams don't have that quality.

       She frowns, and she thinks aloud, "Why am I here?"

       No one is there to respond, but the answer gives itself to her: "You were told you would forever have a tie to this place."

       "But why now?"

       "You were near death."

       She remembers the ghost Susannah mentioned.

       "Oh."

       She frowns.

       "How do I... go back?"

       "Will it to happen."

       Holly pulls a face. Will it to happen? What is she, Dorothy? Is she meant to click her shoes together and go, "There's no place like home..." Because right now, she doesn't exactly have a home. Her dad doesn't live in London, and there's no fucking way she'll ever think of Malfoy Manor or the Valen House as a home...

       She tries to concentrate, like she's trying to Apparate out of limbo. She clears her mind, a simple task considering how peaceful this place is, a stark contrast to the real Durmstrang. She closes her eyes, and thinks, I want to go back... Let me go back...

       Her eyes snap open, and she's suddenly lying on a camping bed again. Holly jumps up, her eyes wide. Susannah frowns.

       "The fuck?"

       "I went to limbo," says Holly, putting her hands on her face. "Oh my God—!"

       Harry steps into the tent, having either finished his shift of watching the outsides, or giving up for the time being, knowing that Hermione isn't near to tell him off for it. He takes one look at Holly, at the shocked look on her face, and frowns. "Are you all right?"

       "I just died and came back to life?"

       "Again?"

       "Yep," she says, her voice cracking in panic. 

       "What — Why?"

       "Because I came back, I'll always have a tie to limbo... And for the past few days I've been feeling strange, and then Suze says that some kid died outside, and then boom, I died for a minute, because I was near that kid's death..."

       Harry frowns at her still.

       "I'm not kidding," she says. "I full on died."

       "But—" He stops himself. "I leave for five minutes and you die again?"

       Holly smiles weakly. "I came back, though?"

       Harry looks at her for a minute, before a smile spreads across his face. Holly sees Susannah sneakily disappear, just as Harry pulls Holly into a hug, wrapping his arms around her. "I feel like we're at school again," she says quietly.

       "Me too," he says.

       "I actually miss Filch being a prat, isn't that weird?" she says, pulling away from him. She looks up at him, as he nods.

       "I don't think anyone's missed Filch before."

       Holly snorts. "Like, I want to be here, helping you. But I miss school sometimes," she says. She pauses, before she adds, "I miss my other friends..." She pauses again and glances away, knowing he'll react negatively to what she's going to say. "I miss Draco."

       "I don't think anyone's said that, either."

       Holly rolls her eyes. "You're hilarious."

       "Does... Does the map ever show you Hogwarts?"

       She shakes her head. "It mostly shows..." says Holly, looking at Harry cautiously as she finishes without saying Ron's name, knowing how odd it is, to mention him now. "That's why I say it doesn't show me anything. Because it either shows him, or it shows my cousin, and I know you and Hermione don't want to know about either of them."

       Harry frowns. "You see...?"

       "He seems to be OK," she says.

       Harry pulls a face. "Well isn't that—"

       "You know how important his family is," says Holly, crossing her arms. She didn't think she'd get this annoyed, standing up for Ron against Harry, but all right. "He'd be devasted if one of his siblings died."

       "You haven't been snapping, because you don't know if Malfoy's OK."

       Holly pauses for a second, caught off guard. He's never recognised Draco as practically Holly's brother. She never thought he would do.

       "Draco's protected," she says. "You've never said that before."

        "At the start of fourth year, we all thought you were his long-lost twin sister," he says, shrugging.

        Holly smiles. "Because Gryffindors are the best at noticing things."

        "Hey—!"

       She lets out a laugh. His smile grows, no longer used to this. They've all gotten so used to misery and the constant paranoia of checking over their shoulders that they've forgotten what it's like to properly laugh — it makes Holly smile even more... It makes Holly miss school.

       "I miss this," he says.

       "I do, too," she says.

       He holds her head in his hands, and she tilts her head up. Slowly, they kiss; Holly realises how long it's been since they have, because really, out of everything they're having to face at this current moment, how would they have the time to stop everything, just for this? But Holly misses this. She misses everything. Part of her wishes that she had enjoyed the year before more, or even the year before that. She wishes she hadn't had to grow up like this — a kid one minute and Undesirable Number 4 the next...

       "I love you," she says softly.

       His expression changes, becoming serious... But it's not serious. It's—it's not exactly sad, either... It's mournful, maybe?

       "I love you, too."

       Holly isn't sure what to say, her thoughts swimming with worry. If she's right about this, he must be convincing himself that he might die — God, the thought of that makes her panic, want to think, nope, nope, nope, and ignore the possibility. So instead she hugs him, wrapping her arms around his chest and thinking to herself, he can't be the one that gets killed...

✧

       "REMIND ME TO NEVER GET a fringe," says Holly, frowning at the hair swept over her forehead, the Polyjuice potion having turned her hair into a dark brown, with a massive fringe almost covering her eyelids. Over the past week, the three of them had attempted to get hairs from unsuspecting muggles around towns — most of this was down to Holly, who was the only one that could get close enough without looking weird — and now here they stand, in their separate disguises. Holly's disguise seems to be in her late thirties, with thick-rimmed glasses and bright green eyes, whilst Harry's disguised as her husband, and Hermione a young teenager, supposedly theirs. Holly feels a little weird about this, she's not gonna lie, but whatever. It looks less strange than three adults wandering around, late at night.

       They ditch the Invisibility Cloak, the snow on the ground rendering it useless as an easy way to stay concealed. Holly has the locket around her neck, hiding it underneath a turtleneck, alongside her usual diamond necklace. She can't go without her normal necklace, but she knows it's one of the easiest ways to recognise her — so she hides it.

       The three walk past a line of houses, most of them having their bins out for the bin men to clear them out in the morning. She sees one with a heart-shaped box of chocolate sitting on top, and another with a dying bouquet of red roses, and realises it's already mid-February.

       They reach the graveyard, and already Holly feels herself start to drift. She takes hold of the fence for a moment, hoping her dizziness will clear. Harry and Hermione frown. "Maybe you should stay here," he says.

       "I'm fine—" She almost falls over. "Yeah, OK."

       The gate clicks open and closed as Harry and Hermione walk into the cemetery, Holly leaning against the fence to look a little less uneasy to passers-by. She feels herself start to drift away anyway, despite not being inside the graveyard itself. Her eyes close for a second, but before she can open her eyes and find herself in Durmstrang again, she hears the voice of a man say: "There's a woman down there, watching you."

       Holly frowns. The man talking to her becomes clearer; she recognises him from the photographs at home, of her dad when he was a little boy, sitting on his grandfather's knee. Great-Grandpa Lippincott, cool. He frowns at her, his arms across his chest.

       "Don't look at me, watch her," he says, pointing towards the woman. It's an old woman, with frizzy hair and a shawl over her clothes.

       Holly does what she's told, keeping her eyes on the woman. She sees the woman standing next to a destroyed house — Harry's old house? — turning to read the plaque next to it. Holly hopes Harry and Hermione will be back soon.

       Her great-grandfather continues to stand by her side, his ghostly glow illuminating the street for her. Her hand brushes a little too closely to him and quickly he warns, "If you touch someone like me, you'll be connected forever... You don't want to be connected to a ghost."

       Holly's brows furrow. Quietly, she says, "What do you mean?"

       "I'm not the same ghost as your Susannah," her great-grandfather says, his lip twisting in distaste. She presumes he knew Susannah as one of the members of the cult. Oops. "I'm a projection from the afterlife... I'm only a soul. If you were to touch me, our souls would touch, and would connect... That's why you can't touch any soul you meet in the afterlife, except from Death."

       "Oh," she says.

       And then the woman gestures to Holly, beckoning her.

       Holly's eyes narrow in confusion. "Uh, Gramps...?"

      "Do not trust her," he says. Holly looks at the ghost, as if to say, no shit, but he already begins to fade; she watches him disappear out of sight, leaving her to stare ahead at the old woman, her hand stretched out towards her. She glances over her shoulder, unable to spot Harry and Hermione. Her lips twist as she looks back at the woman... She has her wand, she should be fine...?

       Holly walks towards the woman, her heart beginning to pound. The locket begins to jitter against her chest, and she figures she's just dreaming, she's working herself up. She looks ahead at the woman, beginning to recognise her.

       "Are you Bathilda Bagshot?"

       The woman nods. 

       "Wow — uh, your book—"

       Bathilda gestures again, for Holly to follow. She looks over her shoulder, still unable to spot the other two. So she follows, thinking, this shouldn't be too long... She walks behind Bathilda, her heart beating so fast the locket starts to move.

       She follows Bathilda into her house. Immediately she notices how untidy things are; books are scattered everywhere, some open, some with pages ripped out and strewn across the floor. The coat hanger next to the door has one single coat, with a long rip along the side. Batilda doesn't bother switching the lights on, but, Holly does notice one final candle making it's attempt to survive in the dark.

       The house is cold, too, and Holly frowns, trying not to show her reaction to the house. It looks like it was once a nice house to live in, until something took over. Old age, madness, something... It's enough to put Holly off a little, but not enough for her to properly focus on the way the locket feels, the way she feels...

       She follows Bathilda up the stairs. The further she ascends, the darker it becomes, the curtains presumably hiding any source of light from the street outside. She takes out her wand and whispers, "Lumos," and she finds Bathilda standing close to her.

       Bathilda begins to make an eerie noise, a scratching sort of hiss. Holly thinks, she sounds like a snake, and then she thinks, and she remembers Voldemort, and she then thinks, OH FUCK!

      She turns off her light, planning to make an escape. But the second the light turns off, an awful noise erupts, a hissing noise following. Holly tries to bolt down the stairs but a cold hand grabs onto her, the locket rattling against her chest. She shouts out for Harry and Hermione, and she holds tighter onto her wand, remembering the tournament. I can't distract Nagini like the dragon... No, I can, just differently?

      "HOLLY?"

       She's thrown to the floor, and she shouts, "BATHILDA'S NAGINI!"

       Holly scrambles backwards, trying to get back to the door. She hears the hissing still, and then she hears Harry ask what the snake's saying, forgetting not everyone can understand snakes, and she shouts back at him, "DO I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING SNAKE WHISPERER TO YOU?"

       She grabs onto the curtain, the rail breaking off the wall. Light pours into the room and she spots Bathilda making weird jolts, turning into the snake. Holly thinks about the tournament for a second, remembering the first task. Distract it... How do you distract Nagini? I don't have any Voldey propaganda on me?

       Then it clicks, as much as she wishes it wouldn't.

       Holly concentrates on her panic, on her anger that she's had to grow up like this, that she's living without knowledge of her cousin's safety, of her friends' safety, of her family's safety... And she looks at the twisting monster, and shrieks, "CRUCIO!"

       The half-snake, half-human begins to writhe in pain. Holly scrambles to her feet, bolting down the stairs. She finds Harry halfway up the stairs, and she forces him back down, towards Hermione, holding onto his hand. "We need to go, we need to go—!"

       Hermione's eyes widen as Holly and Harry reach her. "If that's Nagini—"

       "Then he's coming," says Harry.

       Without a word the cloak is thrown upon the three of them, and they Apparate out of the house, back to their tent. The second they return, Holly tears the locket off of her chest, shaking her head and stating, "I hate that thing."

       "We need to leave tomorrow," says Hermione, and Holly nods. "I managed to find a copy of The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore in her house, and a picture of the man that stole from Gregorovitch though, which could help us out?"

       Holly nods, lying down on her bed.

       "I'm done for the day," she lets out, falling asleep in her boots.

✧

       THE NEXT DAY begins the same as every other day — Holly wakes up, checks the mirror, and then glances around, making sure that Harry and Hermione are still safe and sound. She gets out of bed, a note from Harry sitting on the camping table. Back soon.

       She looks around, rubbing her eyes. Hermione's still fast asleep, so Holly sits down at the picnic table, holding onto her mirror. She watches it fade into Hogwarts, and for a while she sits there, watching her cousin sit in the boys' toilets, a blank look across his face. She wishes that their telecommunication hadn't ended when Dumbledore died; she wishes she could speak to him right now, and tell him that she's fine, and ask him how he is. All she wants to know is if he's OK. God, the memory of how awful she felt last year, worrying about her cousin, makes her feel sick. At least then, she could see him...

       The tent opens with Harry, who looks at Holly and goes, "He's back!"

       "What?"

       Harry begins to wake up Hermione, and Holly frowns at him, standing up. She sees another person standing in the opening of the tent, and her jaw drops, just as Ron steps into the tent.

       And then Hermione punches him.

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WE BACK BOIS

i hope you enjoyed, and let me know what you thought!