When Johnny woke the following day it was several seconds before he remembered what had happened. Then he hoped childishly, that it had been a dream, that Ron was still there and had never left. Yet by turning his head on his pillow he could see Ron's deserted bunk. It was like a dead body in the way it seems to draw his eyes. Johnny got up from his bed from his own bed, keeping his eyes averted from Ron's. Hermione, who was already busy in the kitchen, greeted Johnny with a small kiss to the cheek..

He's gone, Johnny told himself. He's gone. He had to keep thinking it as he washed and dressed as though repetition would dull the shock of it. He's gone and he's not coming back. And that was the simple truth of it, Johnny knew, because their protective enchantments meant that it would be impossible, once they vacated this spot, for Ron to find them again.

He, Harry and Hermione ate breakfast in silence.

The muddy river beside them was rising rapidly and would soon spill over onto their bank. They had lingered a good hour after they would usually have departed their campsite. Finally having entirely repacked the beaded bag three times, Hermione seemed unable to find any more reasons to delay: She, Johnny and Harry grasped hands and Disapparated, reappearing on a windswept heather-covered hillside. The instant they arrived, Hermione dropped Harry's and Johnny's hands and walked away from them, finally sitting down on a large rock, her face on her knees, shaking with what they knew were sobs. Johnny comforted her by wrapping his arms around her and letting Hermione cry into him, while Harry did the usual protective enchantments and setup the tent.

They didn't discuss Ron at all over the next few days. Harry and Johnny was determined never to mention his name again and Hermione seemed to know that it was no use forcing the issue.

By day, they devoted themselves to trying to determine the possible locations of Gryffindor's sword, but the more they talked about the places in which Dumbledore might have hidden it, the more desperate and far-fetched their speculation became. Racking through his brain, Johnny couldn't remember Dumbledore ever mentioning a place in which he might hide something. There were moments when he didn't know whether he was angrier with Ron or with Dumbledore. I thought you knew what you were doing... I thought Dumbledore had told you what to do... I thought you had a real plan!

Johnny and Harry couldn't hide it from themselves: Ron had been right. Dumbledore had left them with virtually nothing. They had discovered one Horcrux, but they had no means of destroying it: The others were as unattainable as they had ever been. Hopelessness threatened to engulf the two boys. Johnny was constantly, painfully on the alert for any indications that Hermione too was about to tell them that she had had enough. That she was leaving.

They were spending many evenings in near silence and Hermione took to bringing out Phineas Nigellus's portrait and propping it up in a chair, as though he might fill part of the gaping hole left by Ron's departure. Despite his previous assertion that he would never visit them again, Phineas Nigellus didn't seem able to resist the chance to find out more about what Harry and Johnny were up to and consented to reappear, blindfolded, every few days of so. They were even glad to see him, because he was company, albeit of a snide and taunting kind. They relished any news about what was happening at Hogwarts, though Phineas Nigellus wasn't an ideal informer. He venerated Snape, the first Slytherin headmaster since he himself had controlled the school, and they had to be careful not to criticise or ask impertinent questions about Snape, or Phineas Nigellus would instantly leave his painting.

However, he did let drop certain snippets. Snape seemed to be facing a constant, low level of mutiny from a hard core of students. Ginny had been banned from going into Hogsmeade. Snape had reinstated Umbridge's old decree forbidding gatherings of three or more students or any unofficial student societies. From all of these things, Johnny deduced that Ginny, and probably Neville and Luna along with her, had been doing their best to continue Dumbledore's Army. Indeed, as Phineas Niggellus talked about Snape's crackdown, Johnny and Harry experienced a split second of madness when they imagined simply going back to school to join the destabilisation of Snape's regime: Being fed and having a soft bad, and other people being in charge, seemed the most wonderful prospect in the world at this moment. But then Johnny remembered that he and Harry was Undesirable Number One and Two, that there was a ten-thousand Galleon price on their heads, and that to walk into Hogwarts these days was just as dangerous as walking into the Ministry of Magic. Indeed, Phineas Nigellus inadvertently emphasised this fact by slipping in leading questions about their whereabouts. Hermione shoved him back inside the beaded bag every time he did this, and Phineas Nigellus invariably refused to reappear for several days after these unceremonious goodbyes.

The weather grew colder and colder. They didn't dare remain in any area too long, so rather than staying in the south of England, where a hard ground frost was the worst of their worries, they continued to meander up and down the country, braving a mountainside, where sleet pounded the tent; a wide, flat marsh, where the tent was flooded with chill water; and a tiny island in the middle of a Scottish loch, where snow half buried the tent in the night. They had already spotted Christmas Trees twinkling from several sitting room windows before there came an evening when Harry resolved to suggest again, what seemed to him and Johnny the only unexplored avenue left to them. They had just eaten an unusually good meal: Johnny had been to a supermarket under the Invisibility Cloak, and they thought that she might be more persuadable than usual on a stomach full of spaghetti Bolognese and tinned pears.

"Hermione?" said Harry, glancing nervously at Johnny who was still sat at the table, twiddling with the pendent Dumbledore and his Grandfather made all those years ago.

"Hmm?" She was curled up in one of the sagging armchairs with The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Harry cleared his throat.

"Hermione, Johnny and I've been thinking, and-"

"Guys, could you help me with something?"

Apparently she hadn't been listening to Harry. She leaned forward and held out The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

"Look at that symbol," she said, pointing to the top of a page. Above what they assumed was the title of the story, there was a picture of what looked like a triangular eye, its pupil crossed with a vertical line.

"I never took Ancient Runes, Hermione," said Harry bluntly, as Johnny's jaw dropped.

"I know that; but 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?"

"No... No, wait a moment." Harry looked closer. "Isn't it the same symbol Luna's dad was wearing round his neck?"

"Well, that's what I thought too!"

"That's my Grandfather's mark, when he was trying to prevent World War Two," said Johnny, his finger tracing the shape.

Hermione stared at him, openmouthed.

"What?"

"It's in every room at the original Grindelwald Manor..."

Hermione looked from Johnny to the weird symbol and back again. "I've never heard that Gellert had a mark. There's no mention of it in anything I've ever read about him."

"Well, Krum reckoned that symbol was carved on a wall at Durmstrang, and Grindelwald put it there," said Harry, causing Johnny to grimace at the name.

Hermione fell back into the old armchair, frowning.

"That's very odd. If it's a symbol of Dark Magic, what's it doing in a book of children's stories?"

"Yeah, it is weird," said Johnny. "And you'd think Scrimgeour would have recognised it. He was Minister, he ought to have been expert on Dark stuff."

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

She didn't speak, but continued to pore over the strange mark. Harry tried again.

"Hermione?"

"Hmm?"

"Johnny and I've been thinking. We- I want to go to Godric's Hollow."

She looked up at him, but her eyes were unfocused, and he was sure she was still thinking about the mysterious mark on the book.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, I've been wondering that too. I really think we'll have to."

"Did you hear him right?" Johnny asked sarcastically.

"Of course I did. You both 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?" asked Harry.

At that, she looked just as bewildered as he felt.

"Well, the sword, Harry! Dumbledore must have known you'd want to go back there, and I mean, Godric's Hollow is Godric Gryffindor's birthplace-"

"Really? Gryffindor came from Godric's Hollow?"

"Jesus Christ," Johnny facepalmed and said something in Italian, before turning back to Harry, "Harry, did you ever even open A History of Magic?"

"Erm," he said, smiling for what felt like the first time in months: The muscles in his face felt oddly stiff. "I might've opened it, you know, when I bought it... just the once...."

"Well, as the village is named after him I'd have thought you might have made the connection," said Hermione. She sounded much more like her old self than she had done of late; Harry and Johnny half expected her to announce that she was off to the library. "There's a bit about the village in A History of Magic, wait..."

She opened the beaded bag and rummaged for a while, finally extracting her copy of their old school textbook, A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot, which she thumbed through until finding the page she wanted.

"'Upon the signature of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689, wizards went into hiding for good. It was natural, perhaps, that they formed their own small communities within a community. Many small villages and hamlets attracted several magical families, who banded together for mutual support and protection. The villages of Tinworsh in Cornwall, Upper Flagley in Yorkshire, and Ottery St. Catchpole on the south coast of England were notable homes to knots of Wizarding families who lived alongside tolerant and sometimes Confunded Muggles. Most celebrated of these half-magical dwelling places is, perhaps, Godric's Hollow, the West Country village where the great wizard Godric Gryffindor was born, and where Bowman Wright, Wizarding smith, forged the first Golden Snitch. The graveyard is full of the names of ancient magical families, and this accounts, no doubt, for the stories of hauntings that have dogged the little church beside it for many centuries.'"

"You and your parents aren't mentioned," Hermione said, closing the book, "because Bagshot doesn't cover anything later than the end of the nineteenth century. But you see? Godric's Hollow, Godric Gryffindor, Gryffindor's sword; don't you think Dumbledore would have expected you to make the connection?"

"Oh yeah..."

"Remember what Muriel said?" Harry asked eventually.

"Who?"

"You know," he hesitated. "Ginny's great-aunt. At the wedding. The one who said you had skinny ankles. She said Bathilda Bagshot still lived in Godric's Hollow."

"Bathilda Bagshot," murmured Hermione, running her index finger over Bathilda's embossed name on the front cover of A History of Magic. "Well, I suppose-"

She gasped so dramatically that Johnny's insides turned over; he drew his wand, looking around at the entrance, half expecting to see a hand forcing its way through the entrance flap, but there was nothing there.

"What?" Johnny said, half angry, half relieved. "What did you do that for? I thought you'd seen a Death Eater unzipping the tent, at least-"

"Guys, what if Bathilda's got the sword? What if Dumbledore entrusted it to her?"

Was it likely that Dumbledore would have hidden the sword of Gryffindor with her? If so, Johnny felt that Dumbledore had left a great deal to chance: Dumbledore had never revealed that he had replaced the sword with a fake, nor had he so much as mentioned a friendship with Bathilda. Now, however, wasn't the moment to cast doubt on Hermione's theory.

"Yeah, he might have done! So, are we going to go to Godric's Hollow?"

"Yes, but we'll have to think it through carefully," Hermione was sitting up now, and Johnny could tell that the prospect of having a plan again had lifted her mood as much as his. "We'll need to practice Disapparating together under the Invisibility Cloak for a start, and perhaps Disillusionment Charms would be sensible too, unless you think we should go the whole hog and use Polyjuice Potion? In that case we'll need to collect hair from somebody. I actually think we'd better do that, the thicker our disguises the better..."

"Identity theft is not a joke, Hermione!" Johnny said. "Millions of families suffer every year!"

"Shut up," said Hermione, glaring at Johnny slightly. "I'm pregnant with your child, a unhappy mummy is a bad one."

"Yes Ma'am," Johnny saluted. Johnny let her talk, nodding and agreeing whenever there was a pause, but his mind had left the conversation. For the first time since he had discovered that Hermione was pregnant, he felt excited.

Harry and Johnny would gladly have set out for Godric's Hollow the following day, but Hermione had other ideas. Convinced as she was that Voldemort would expect Harry to return to the scene of his parents' deaths, she was determined that they would set off only after they had ensured that they had the best disguises possible. It was therefore a full week later- once they had surreptitiously obtained hairs from innocent Muggles who were Christmas shopping, and had practiced Apparating and Disapparating while underneath the Invisibility Cloak together- that Hermione agreed to make the journey.

They were to Apparate to the village under cover of darkness, so it was late afternoon when they finally swallowed Polyjuice Potion, Johnny transforming into a balding, middle-aged Muggle man, Hermione into his small and rather mousy wife, and Harry into their six year old child. The beaded bag containing all of their possessions (apart from the Horcrux, which Harry was wearing around his neck) was tucked into an inside pocket of Hermione's buttoned-up coat. Johnny lowered the Invisibility Cloak over them, then they turned into the suffocating darkness once again.

Heart beating in his throat, Johnny opened his eyes. They were standing hand in hand in a snowy lane under a dark blue sky, in which the night's first stars were already glimmering feebly. Cottages stood on either side of the narrow road, Christmas decorations twinkling in their windows. A short way ahead of them, a glow of golden streetlights indicated the center of the village.

"All this snow!" Hermione whispered beneath the cloak. "Why didn't we think of snow? After all our precautions, we'll leave prints! We'll just have to get rid of them- you go in front, I'll do it-"

"Let's take off the Cloak," said Harry, and when Hermione looked frightened, he added, "Oh, come on, we don't look like us and there's no one around."

Harry stowed the Cloak under his jacket and they made their way forward unhampered, the icy air stinging their faces as they passed more cottages. Any one of them might have been the one in which James and Lily had once lived or where Bathilda lived now. Johnny gazed at the front doors, their snow-burdened roofs, and their front porches.

Strung all around with colored lights, there was what looked like a war memorial in the middle, partly obscured by a windblown Christmas tree. There were several shops, a post office, a pub, and a little church whose stained-glass windows were glowing jewel-bright across the square.

The snow here had become impacted: It was hard and slippery where people had trodden on it all day. Villagers were crisscrossing in front of them, their figures briefly illuminated by streetlamps. They heard a snatch of laughter and pop music as the pub door opened and closed; then they heard a carol start up inside the little church.

"Guys, I think it's Christmas Eve!" said Hermione.

"Is it?"

They had lost track of the date; they had not seen a newspaper for weeks.

"I'm sure it is," said Hermione, her eyes upon the church. "They... they'll be in there, won't they? Your family? I can see the graveyard behind it."

Johnny felt a thrill of something that was beyond excitement, more like fear. Now that he was so near, he wondered whether he wanted to see after all.

"Guys, look!" She was pointing at the war memorial. As they had passed it, it had transformed. Instead of an obelisk covered in names, there was a statue of three people: a man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face, and a baby boy sitting in his mother's arms. Snow lay upon all their heads, like fluffy white caps.

They drew closer, gazing up into the faces.

"C'mon," said Harry, when he had looked his fill, and they turned again toward the church. As they crossed the road, Johnny glanced over his shoulder; the statue had turned back into the war memorial.

The singing grew louder as they approached the church. It made Johnny's throat constrict, it reminded him so forcefully of Hogwarts, of Peeves bellowing rude versions of carols from inside suits of armor, of the Great Hall's twelve Christmas trees, of Dumbledore wearing a bonnet he had won in a cracker, of Ron in a hand-knitted sweater....

There was a kissing gate at the entrance to the graveyard. Hermione pushed it open as quietly as possible and they edged through it. On either side of the slippery path to the church doors, the snow lay deep and untouched. They moved off through the snow, carving deep trenches behind them as they walked around the building, keeping to the shadows beneath the brilliant windows.

Behind the church, row upon row of snowy tombstones protruded from a blanket of pale blue that was flecked with dazzling red, gold, and green wherever the reflections from the stained glass hit the snow. Keeping his hand closed tightly on the wand in his jacket pocket, Johnny moved toward the nearest grave.

"Look at this, it's an Abbott, could be some long-lost relation of Hannah's!"

"Keep your voice down," Hermione begged him.

They waded deeper and deeper into the graveyard, gouging dark tracks into the snow behind them, stooping to peer at the words on old headstones, every now and then squinting into the surrounding darkness to make absolutely sure that they were unaccompanied.

"Johnny, here!"

Hermione and Harry was two rows of tombstones away; Johnny had to wade back to her, his heart positively banging in his chest.

"Is it-?"

"No, but look!"

Harry pointed to the dark stone. Johnny stooped down and saw, upon the frozen, lichen-spotted granite, the words Kendra Dumbledore and, a short way down her dates of birth and death, and Her Daughter Ariana. There was also a quotation:

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

So Rita Skeeter and Muriel had got some of their facts right. The Dumbledore family had indeed lived here, and part of it had died here.

"Are you sure he never mentioned-?" Hermione began, looking at Harry.

"No," said Harry curtly, then, "let's keep looking," and he turned away.

"Here!" cried Hermione again a few moments later from out of the darkness. "Oh no, sorry! I thought it said Potter."

She was rubbing at a crumbling, mossy stone, gazing down at it, a little frown on her face.

"Guys, come back a moment."

"What?" asked Johnny, standing next to her.

"Look at this!"

The grave was extremely old, weathered so that they could hardly make out the name. Hermione showed them the symbol beneath it.

"That's the mark in the book!"

Johnny peered at the place she indicated: The stone was so worn that it was hard to make out what was engraved there, though there did seem to be a triangular mark beneath the nearly illegible name.

"Yeah... it could be..."

Hermione lit her wand and pointed it at the name on the headstone.

"It says Ig-Ignotus, I think...."

"I'm going to keep looking for my parents, all right?" Harry told them, a slight edge to his voice, and he set off again, leaving thrm crouched beside the old grave.

"You okay?" Johnny asked, reaching for Hermione's hand. Hermione bit her lip and nodded, a small smile on her face. The two began to walk through the graveyard together, occasionally spotting a familiar name from someone they met at Hogwarts. That's when Johnny spotted them.

"Harry, they're here... right here," said Johnny, tears welling up in his eyes.

The headstone was only two rows behind Kendra and Ariana's. It was made of white marble, just like Dumbledore's tomb, and this made it easy to read, as it seemed to shine in the dark. They didn't need to kneel or even approach very close to it to make out the words engraved upon it.

JAMES POTTER * LILY POTTER

BORN 27 MARCH 1960 * BORN 30 JANUARY 1960

DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981 * DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

Johnny read the words slowly, as though he would have only one chance to take in their meaning, and he read the last of them aloud.

"'The last enemy that shall be defeated is death'..." A horrible thought came to him, and with a kind of panic. "Isn't that a Death Eater idea? Why is that there?"

"It doesn't mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Johnny," said Hermione, her voice gentle. "It means... you know... living beyond death. Living after death."

A sob left Harry's lips, and Johnny pulled him into his side, letting his cousin cry. Hermione had taken Harry's hand again and was gripping it tightly. Hermione raised her wand, moved it in a circle through the air, and a wreath of Christmas roses blossomed before them. Harry caught it and laid it on his parents' grave.

"Look after him," said a voice behind Johnny. Johnny turned and saw his Aunt Lily standing slightly besides him. She wasn't the ghostly figure he saw in the graveyard during the Tournament, she looked alive, her face and hair full of colour. Lily raised a hand to Johnny's cheek and softly stroked it, planting a kiss to her forehead. "I'm proud to call you my nephew."

"Johnny?" Called Hermione. Johnny, who hadn't realised he closed his eyes, turned back to see Hermione and Harry staring at him, ready to leave. He put on a brave face and put his arm around Hermione's shoulders, and she put hers around his waist, he patted Harry's shoulder and they turned in silence and walked away through the snow, past Dumbledore's mother and sister, back toward the dark church and the out-of-sight kissing gate.

"Guys, stop," said Hermione suddenly.

"What's wrong?" They had only just reached the grave of the unknown Abbott.

"There's someone there. Someone watching us. I can tell. There, over by the bushes."

The three stood quite still, holding on to each other, gazing at the dense black boundary of the graveyard. Johnny couldn't see anything.

"Are you sure?" asked Johnny quietly.

"I saw something move. I could have sworn I did..."

She broke from Johnny to free her wand arm.

"We look like a Muggle family," Harry pointed out.

"A Muggle family who've just been laying flowers on your parents' grave? Harry, I'm sure there's someone over there!"

Johnny thought of A History of Magic; the graveyard was supposed to be haunted; what if-? But then he heard a rustle and saw a little bit of dislodged snow in the bush to which Hermione had pointed. Ghosts couldn't move snow.

"It's a cat," said Johnny, after a second or two, "or a bird. If it was a Death Eater we'd be dead by now. But let's get out of here, and we can put the Cloak back on."

They glanced back repeatedly as they made their way out of the graveyard. Johnny, who didn't feel as brave as he had pretended when reassuring Hermione, was glad to reach the gate and the slippery pavement. They pulled the Invisibility Cloak back over themselves. The pub was fuller than before. Many voices inside it were now singing the carol that they had heard as they approached the church. For a moment, Johnny considered suggesting they take refuge inside it, but before he could say anything Hermione murmured, "Let's go this way," and pulled him and Johnny down the dark street leading out of the village in the opposite direction from which they had entered. Johnny could make out the point where the cottages ended and the lane turned into open country again. They walked as quickly as they dared, past more windows sparkling with multicolored lights, the outlines of Christmas trees dark through the curtains.

"How are we going to find Bathilda's house?" asked Hermione, who was shivering a little and kept glancing back over her shoulder. "Harry? What do you think? Harry?"

Johnny tugged at his arm, but Harry wasn't paying attention. He was looking toward the dark mass that stood at the very end of this row of houses. Next moment he sped up, dragging Hermione and Johnny along with him. Hermione slipped a little on the ice, but Johnny caught her.

"Harry-" Johnny began,

"Look... Look at it..."

"I don't... oh!"

They could see it; the Fidelius Charm must have died with James and Lily. The hedge had grown wild in the sixteen years since Hagrid had taken Harry from the rubble that lay scattered amongst the waist-high grass. Most of the cottage was still standing, though entirely covered in the dark ivy and snow, but the right side of the top floor had been blown apart; that, Johnny was sure, was where the curse had backfired. He, Harry and Hermione stood at the gate, gazing up at the wreck of what must once have been a cottage just like those that flanked it.

"I wonder why nobody's ever rebuilt it?" whispered Hermione.

"Maybe you can't rebuild it?" Harry replied. "Maybe it's like the injuries from Dark Magic and you can't repair the damage?"

Harry slipped a hand from beneath the Cloak and grasped the snowy and thickly rusted gate, not wishing to open it, but simply so he'd some part of the house.

"You're not going to go inside? It looks unsafe, it might- oh, Harry, look!" Hermione squeaked.

Harry's touch on the gate seemed to have done it. A sign had risen out of the ground in front of them, up thorough the tangles of nettles and weeds, like some bizarre, fast-growing flower, and in golden letters upon the wood it said:

On this spot, on this 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 and as a reminder of the violence that tore apart their family.

And all around these neatly lettered words, scribbles had been added by other witches and wizards who had come to see the place where the Boy Who Lived had escaped. Some had merely signed their names in Everlasting Ink; others had carved their initials into the wood, still others had left messages. The most recent of these, shining brightly over sixteen years' worth of magical graffiti, all said similar things.

Good luck, Harry, wherever you are.

If you read this, Harry, we're all behind you!

Long live Harry Potter.

"They shouldn't have written on the sign!" said Hermione, indignant.

But Harry beamed at her.

"It's brilliant. I'm glad they did. I..."

He broke off. A heavily muffled figure was hobbling up the lane toward them, silhouetted by the bright lights in the distant square. Johnny thought, though it was hard to judge, that the figure was a woman. She was moving slowly, possibly frightened of slipping on the snowy ground. Her stoop, her stoutness, her shuffling gait all gave an impression of extreme age. They watched in silence as she drew nearer. Johnny was waiting to see whether she would turn into any of the cottages she was passing, but he knew instinctively that she wouldn't. At last she came to a halt a few yards from them and simply stood there in the middle of the frozen road, facing them.

He didn't need Hermione's pinch to his arm. There was next to no chance that this woman was a Muggle: She was standing there gazing at a house that ought to have been completely invisible to her, if she wasn't a witch. Even assuming that she was a witch, however, it was odd behavior to come out on a night this cold, simply to look at an old ruin. By all the rules of normal magic, meanwhile, she ought not to be able to see Hermione, Harry and him at all. Nevertheless, Johnny had the strangest feeling that she knew that they were there, and also who they were. Just as he had reached this uneasy conclusion, she raised a gloved hand and beckoned them forward.

Hermione moved closer to Johnny under the Cloak, her arm pressed against his.

"How does she know?" Hermione whispered.

Harry and Johnny shook their heads. The woman beckoned again, more vigorously. Johnny could think of many reasons not to obey the summons, and yet his suspicions about her identity were growing stronger every moment that they stood facing each other in the deserted street.

Finally Harry spoke, causing Hermione and Johnny to gasp and jump.

"Are you Bathilda?"

The muffled figure nodded and beckoned again.

Beneath the Cloak Harry, Johnny and Hermione looked at each other. Harry raised his eyebrows; Hermione gave a tiny, nervous nod, while Johnny just shrugged.

They stepped toward the woman and , at once, she turned and hobbled off back the way they had come. Leading them past several houses, she turned in at a gate. They followed her up the front path through a garden nearly as overgrown as the one they had just left. She fumbled for a moment with a key at the front door, then opened it and stepped back to let them pass.

She smelled bad, or perhaps it was her house; Johnny wrinkled his nose as they sidled past her and pulled off the Cloak. She closed the door behind them, her knuckles blue and mottled against the peeling paint, then turned and peered into Harry's face. Her eyes were thick with cataracts and sunken into folds of transparent skin, and her whole face was dotted with broken veins and liver spots. Johnny wondered whether she could make Harry out at all; even if she could, it was the small child's whose identity he had stolen that she would see.

The odor of old age, of dust, of unwashed clothes and stale food intensified as the unwound a moth-eaten black shawl, revealing a head of scant white hair through which the scalp showed clearly.

"Bathilda?" Harry repeated.

She nodded again.

Bathilda shuffled past them, pushing Hermione and Johnny aside as though she hadn't seen them, and vanished into what seemed to be a sitting room.

"Harry, I'm not sure about this," breathed Johnny, pulling Hermione so she was stood behind him.

"Look at the size of her, I think we could overpower her if we had to," said Harry. "Listen, I should have told you, I knew she wasn't all there. Muriel called her 'gaga.'"

"Come!" called Bathilda from the next room.

The three jumped.

"It's okay," said Harry reassuringly, and he led the way into the sitting room.

Bathilda was tottering around the place lighting candles, but it was still very dark, not to mention extremely dirty. Thick dust crunched beneath their feet, and Johnny's nose detected, underneath the dank and mildewed smell, something worse, like meat gone bad. He wondered when was the last time anyone had been inside Bathilda's house to check whether she was coping. She seemed to have forgotten that she could do magic, too, for she lit the candles clumsily by hand, her trailing lace cuff in constant danger of catching fire.

"Let me do that," offered Johnny politely, and he took the matches from her. She stood watching him as he finished lighting the candle stubs that stood on saucers around the room, perched precariously on stacks of books and on side tables crammed with cracked and moldy cups.

The last surface on which Johnny spotted a candle was a bow-fronted chest of drawers on which there stood a large number of photographs. When the flame danced into life, its reflection wavered on their dusty glass and silver. He saw a few tiny movements from the pictures. As Bathilda fumbled with logs for the fire, Johnny muttered "Tergeo": The dust vanished from the photographs, and he saw at once that half a dozen were missing from the largest and most ornate frames. He wondered whether Bathilda or somebody else had removed them. Then the sight of a photograph near the back of the collection caught his eye, and he snatched it up.

It was the golden-haired, merry-faced thief, the one Harry described, smiling lazily up at Johnny out of the silver frame. And it came to Johnny instantly where he had seen the boy before: in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, arm in arm with the teenage Dumbledore, and that must be where all the missing photographs were: in Rita's book.

"Mrs.-Miss-Bagshot?" he said, and his voice shook slightly. "Who is this?"

Bathilda was standing in the middle of the room watching Hermione light the fire for her.

"Miss Bagshot?" Johnny repeated, and he advanced with the picture in his hands as the flames burst into life in the fireplace. Bathilda looked up at his voice.

"Who is this person?" Johnny asked her, pushing the picture forward.

She peered at it solemnly, then up at Johnny.

"Do you know who this is?" he repeated in a much slower and louder voice than usual. "This man? Do you know him? What's he called?"

Bathilda merely looked vague. Johnny felt an awful frustration. How had Rita Skeeter unlocked Bathilda's memories?

"Who is this man?" he repeated loudly.

"Johnny, what area you doing?" asked Harry.

"This picture. It's the thief Harry described to us, it has to be! Please!" he said to Bathilda. "Who is this?"

But she only stared at him.

"Why did you ask us to come with you, Mrs.- Miss- Bagshot?" asked Hermione, raising her own voice. "Was there something you wanted to tell us?"

Giving no sign that she had heard Hermione, Bathilda now shuffled a few steps closer to Harry. With a little jerk of her head she looked back into the hall.

"You want us to leave?" Harry asked.

She repeated the gesture, this time pointing firstly at him, then at herself, then at the ceiling.

"Oh, right... I think she wants me to go upstairs with her."

"All right," said Hermione, "let's go."

But when Hermione and Johnny moved, Bathilda shook her head with surprising vigor, once more pointing first at Harry, then to herself.

"She wants me to go with her, alone."

"Why?" asked Johnny, and his voice rang out sharp and clear in the candlelit room, the old lady shook her head a little at the loud noise.

"Maybe Dumbledore told her to give the sword to me, and only to me?" Suggested Harry.

"Do you really think she knows who you are?" Johnny asked, crossing his arms as he put the photograph down and stood protectively in front of Hermione.

"Yes," said Harry. "I think she does."

"Well, okay then, but be quick, Harry."

"Lead the way," Harry told Bathilda.

"I don't trust this," said Hermione, wrapping her arm around Johnny's waist, resting her head on his back.

"Neither do I-" Johnny was cut off when they heard a loud thump from upstairs. "Harry!?"

Jonny and Hermione glanced at each other before sprinting upstairs, their wands out as they burst into the even dirtier bedroom. Bagshot, who was actually Nagini, let go off Harry and kept at the two of them. Hermione and Johnny dived aside with a shriek; Hermione's deflected curse hit the curtained window, which shattered. Frozen air filled the room as Johnny ducked to avoid a shower of broken glass and his foot slipped on a pencil-like something- Harry's wand.

Johnny threw Harry his wand, and now the room was full of the snake, its tail thrashing; Hermione was nowhere to be seen and for a moment Johnny thought the worst, but then there was a loud bang and a flash of red light, and the snake flew into the air, smacking Johnny hard in the face as it went, coil after heavy coil rising up to the ceiling.

"He's coming! Guys, he's coming!" Harry yelled.

As he yelled the snake fell, hissing wildly. Everything was chaos: It smashed shelves from the wall, and splintered china flew everywhere as Johnny jumped over the bed and seized the dark shape he knew to be Hermione-

She shrieked with pain as he pulled her back across the bed: The snake reared again, but Johnny knew that worse than the snake was coming, was perhaps already at the gate.

The snake lunged as Johnny took a running leap, dragging Hermione with him; as it struck, Hermione screamed, "Confringo!" and her spell flew around the room, exploding the wardrobe mirror and ricocheting back at them, bouncing from floor to ceiling; Johnny felt the heat of it sear the back of his hand. Glass cut his cheek as, pulling Hermione with him, he leapt from bed to broken dressing table and then straight out of the smashed window into nothingness, her scream reverberating through the night as they twisted in midair, Harry clutched onto Johnny's ankle...

As Johnny yelled in pain, a vision started to form...

The night wet and windy, two children dressed as pumpkins waddling across the square and the shop windows covered in paper spiders, all the tawdry Muggle trappings of a world in which they did not believe... And he was gliding along, that sense of purpose and power and rightness in him that he always knew on these occasions... Not anger... that was for weaker souls than he... but triumph, yes... He had waited for this, he had hoped for it...

"Nice costume, mister!"

He saw the small boy's smile falter as he ran near enough to see beneath the hood of the cloak, saw the fear cloud his pained face: Then the child turned and ran away... Beneath the robe he fingered the handle of his wand... One simple movement and the child would never reach his mother... but unnecessary, quite unnecessary...

And along a new and darker street he moved, and now his destination was in sight at last, the Fidelius Charm broken, though they did not know it yet... And he made less noise than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement as he drew level with the dark hedge, and steered over it...

They had not drawn the curtains; he saw them quite clearly in their little sitting room, the tall black-haired man in his glasses, making puffs of colored smoke erupt from his wand for the amusement of the small black-haired boy in his blue pajamas. The child was laughing and trying to catch the smoke, to grab it in his small fist...

A door opened and the mother entered, saying words he cold not hear, her long dark-red hair falling over her face. Now the father scooped up the son and handed him to the mother. He threw his wand down upon the sofa and stretched, yawning...

The gate creaked a little as he pushed it open, but James Potter did not hear. His white hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open...

He was over the threshold as James came sprinting into the hall. It was easy, too easy, he had not even picked up his wand...

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"

Hold him off, without a wand in his hand!... He laughed before casting the curse...

"Avada Kedavra!"

The green light filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it made the banisters glow like lighting rods, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut...

He could hear her screaming from the upper floor, trapped, but as long as she was sensible, she, at least, had nothing to fear... He climbed the steps, listening with faint amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in... She had no wand upon her either... How stupid they were, and how trusting, thinking that their safety lay in friends, that weapons could be discarded even for moments...

He forced the door open, cast aside the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with one lazy wave of his wand... and there she stood, the child in her arms. At the sight of him, she dropped her son into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead...

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"

"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now."

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-"

"This is my last warning-"

"Not Harry! Please... have mercy... have mercy... Not Harry! Not Harry! Please- I'll do anything..."

"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"

He could have forced her away from the crib, but it seemed more prudent to finish them all...

The green light flashed around the room and she dropped like her husband. The child had not cried all this time. He could stand, clutching the bars of his crib, and he looked up into the intruder's face with a kind of bright interest, perhaps thinking that it was his father who hid beneath the cloak, making more pretty lights, and his mother would pop up any moment, laughing-

He pointed the wand very carefully into the boy's face: He wanted to see it happen, the destruction of this one, inexplicable danger. The child began to cry: It had seen that he was not James. He did not like it crying, he had never been able to stomach the small ones whining in the orphanage-

"Avada Kedavra!"

And then he broke. He was nothing, nothing but pain and terror, and he must hide himself, not here in the rubble of the ruined house, where the child was trapped screaming, but far away... far away...

"No," he moaned.

The snake rustled on the filthy, cluttered floor, and he had killed the boy, and yet he was the boy...

"No..."

And now he stood at the broken window of Bathilda's house, immersed in memories of his greatest loss, and at his feet the great snake slithered over broken china and glass... He looked down and saw something... something incredible...

"No..."

"Johnny, it's all right, you're all right!" said Harry, shaking Johnny roughly. "Johnny, it's okay, wake up, wake up!"

"Johnny," Hermione whispered, seeing Johnny open his eyes. "Do you feel all- all right?"

"Yes," Johnny lied.

He was in the tent, lying on one of the lower bunks beneath a heap of blankets. He could tell that it was almost dawn by the stillness and quality of the cold, flat light beyond the canvas ceiling. He was drenched in sweat; he could feel it on the sheets and blankets.

"We got away," Johnny breathed out.

"Yes," said Hermione. "I had to use a Hover Charm to get you into your bunk. I couldn't lift you. You've been... Well, you haven't been quite..."

There were purple shadows under her brown eyes and he noticed a small sponge in her hand: She had been wiping his face.

"You've been ill," Harry finished for Hermione. "You got bit by the snake."

"How long ago did we leave?"

"Hours ago. It's nearly morning," Harry said, grabbing a chair to sit on.

"And I've been... what, unconscious?"

"Not exactly," said Hermione uncomfortably. "You've been shouting and moaning and... things," she added in a tone that made Johnny feel uneasy.

"The Horcrux seemed to pull off from Harry, and latch onto you," Hermione said, and he knew she wanted to change the subject. "It was stuck, stuck to your chest. You've got a mark; I'm sorry, I had to use a Severing Charm to get it away. The snake hit you too, but I've cleaned the wound and put some dittany on it..."

Johnny pulled the sweaty T-shirt he was wearing away from himself and looked down. There was a scarlet oval over his heart where the locket had burned him. He could also see the half healed puncture marks to his ankle.

"Where've you put the Horcrux?"

"In my bag. I think we should keep it off for a while."

Johnny laid back on his pillows and looked into her pinched gray face.

"We shouldn't have gone to Godric's Hollow. It's my fault, it's all my fault," said Harry, staring down at his hands.

"It's not you fault. We wanted to go too; We really thought Dumbledore might have left the sword there for you," said Johnny quietly.

"Yeah, well... we got that wrong, didn't we?"

"What happened, Harry? What happened when she took you upstairs? Was the snake hiding somewhere? Did it just come out and kill her and attack you?"

"No." he said. "She was the snake... or the snake was her... all along."

"W-what?"

"Bathilda must've been dead a while. The snake was... was inside her. You-Know-Who put it there in Godric's Hollow, to wait. You were right. He knew I'd go back."

"The snake was inside her?"

Johnny opened his eyes again. Hermione looked revolted, nauseated.

"She didn't want to talk in front of you, because it was Parseltongue, all Parseltongue, and I didn't realise, but of course I could understand her. Once we were up in the room, the snake sent a message to You-Know-Who, I heard it happen inside my head, I felt him get excited, he said to keep me there... and then..."

Hermione and Johnny didn't need to know the details.

"...she changed, changed into the snake, and attacked."

Johnny looked down at the puncture marks.

"It wasn't supposed to kill me, just keep me there till You-Know-Who came."

Sick at heart, Johnny sat up and threw back the covers.

"Darling, no, I'm sure you ought to rest!"

"You're the one who needs sleep. No offense, but you look terrible. I'm fine. I'll keep watch for a while. Where's my wand?"

She didn't answer, she merely looked at him.

"Where's my wand, Hermione?" Johnny asked, pulling in his boots and shirt.

She was biting her lip, and tears swam in her eyes.

"Johnny..."

"Where's my wand?"

She reached down beside the bed and held it out to him.

The snake wood and unicorn haired wand was nearly severed in two. One fragile strand of unicorn hair kept both pieces hanging together. The wood had splintered apart completely. Johnny took it into his hands as though it was a living thing that had suffered a terrible injury. He couldn't think properly: Everything was a blur of panic and fear. Then he held out the want to Hermione.

"Mend it. Please."

"Johnny, I don't think, when it's broken like this-"

"Please, Hermione, try!"

"R-Reparo."

The dangling half of the wand resealed itself. Johnny held it up.

"Lumos!"

The wand sparked feebly, then went out. Johnny pointed it at Harry.

"Expelliarmus!"

Harry's wand gave a little jerk, but didn't leave his hand. The feeble attempt at magic was too much for Johnny's wand, which split into two again. He stared at it, aghast, unable to take in what he was seeing... the wand that had survived so much...

"Johnny," Hermione whispered so quietly he could hardly hear her. "I'm so, so sorry. I think it was me. As we were leaving, you know, the snake was coming for us, and so I cast a Blasting Curse, and it rebounded everywhere, and it must have- must have hit-"

"It was an accident," said Johnny mechanically, kissing her forehead. He felt empty, stunned. "We'll- we'll find a way to repair it."

"Johnny, I don't think we're going to be able to," said Hermione, the ears trickling down her face. "Remember... remember Ron? When he broke his wand, crashing the car? It was never the same again, he had to get a new one."

"Well," Johnny said, in a falsely positive voice, "well, I'll just borrow yours or Harry's for now, then. While I keep watch."

Her face glazed with tears, Hermione handed over her wand, and Johnny left her sitting beside Harry.