I LIIIIVE! Sort of. I haven't written much over the last month, and when I have, it's been for other ideas percolating in the back of my mind. Despite that, I figured I should try and get this chapter out. I have no idea when the next update will be. I teach full-time as you all know; I have 3 students who are "home study," meaning they do everything at home but I am still their teacher; there are 8 other students in my classroom to plan for and teach, up from the 6 I started the school year with as kids have moved into the school boundaries; 1 of my students has been in quarantine due to family members testing positive for covid, and will continue to be in quarantine for at least 21 more days; and I'm finishing up my last semester of college. Reality is, I'm swamped and struggling to figure out how to balance things while still prioritizing my family and passion for writing. It's been incredibly difficult, and my penchant for being a workaholic has been more and more apparent over the last month. I eat, sleep, and breathe work. My supervisors frequently yell at me to go home while I'm in my office up until the very last moment I'm allowed to be in the building, only to go home and do more work for at least another hour, if not until bedtime. I know it's not healthy, but shutting off that part of my brain feels impossible most of the time.
Despite all that, here is the next chapter. A bit of it comes from DH chapter 16, "Godric's Hollow." Hope you're all prepared for some angst, sap, and fluff! This chapter has some super important emotional development that I pray comes across well. Enjoy!
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Path Diverged II | ||||||
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Category: Alternate Universe, Post-HBP Characters:Albus Dumbledore, Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin, Ron Weasley, Sirius Black Genres: Action/Adventure, Angst, Romance Warnings: Disturbing Imagery, Mental Abuse, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations Rating: PG-13 Reviews: 220 Summary: The Wizarding world finally knows that Lord Voldemort has returned, and the Second War has begun. As Harry prepares to enter his sixth year at Hogwarts, he is forced to deal with the trauma from his last encounter with Voldemort, the upcoming trial of Dolores Umbridge, Sirius's uncomfortable questions about his childhood, his budding relationship with Ginny Weasley, and the unknown shadow of what lies ahead as the "Chosen One" who must defeat Voldemort once and for all. This is an AU take of Half-Blood Prince following my previous story, Path Diverged. Hitcount: Story Total: 92611; Chapter Total: 2427 Awards: View Trophy Room Author's Notes: |
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Harry ignored the students lingering by the doors to the Great Hall as he approached Sirius and Remus, easily giving into the urge to hug the two men. “It’s good to see you both,” he said, grinning. “Now, are you going to tell me why I’m missing the Halloween feast?” “Yeah,” said Sirius, “but not here. Say goodbye to your girlfriend, we’ve got a schedule to keep.” Harry nodded and turned to Ginny, who had been following a bit behind him, and pulled her into his arms. “Don’t get too bored without me around,” he told her. Ginny grinned. “I’ll do my best,” she said. “I hope you realize Hogwarts is downright dull without you getting into trouble.” Harry snorted. “We’ve been over this,” he told her. “I don’t go looking for trouble –” “It usually finds you, I know,” Ginny finished. “Don’t let it find you while you’re out with those two.” “They’ll keep me safe,” said Harry before kissing her. He waved to Ron and Hermione and set off with Sirius and Remus through the oak front doors and down the steps towards the gates. “So where are we going?” he finally asked. Sirius sighed, suddenly looking somber. “You know what happened today, fifteen years ago,” he said. Harry nodded. The truth was that of course he knew, but it had never really impacted him the way that maybe it ought to. He hadn’t known the truth until his eleventh birthday, and as such, had lived through too many years where it was just another day he typically spent locked up in his cupboard. He’d never quite known how to even try to show this day the respect or maybe even grief it deserved because he had never known his parents outside of photographs, stories, and the scant recollections he carried of that awful night courtesy of the dementors three years ago. “So we’re going to Godric’s Hollow, then?” he forced himself to ask. Remus nodded. “Notwithstanding the year I spent teaching here, I have always gone to visit your parents’ graves each Halloween,” he said. “Sirius wanted to join me this year, and he thought you deserved a chance to be there, too.” Harry glanced at Sirius. “I haven’t been, either,” he said. “Couldn’t bring myself to visit the place after I escaped Azkaban.” Nodding, Harry quietly walked with the two men out of the gates. Remus had Harry take his arm, and then he twisted, Apparating them to Godric’s Hollow, Sirius appearing next to them a moment later with a soft ‘pop.’ They stood in a narrow lane with cottages on either side, the trees nearby golden-leaved in the throes of autumn, the occasional leaf floating down to the lane in the relative stillness of the late-evening air. He looked around as Remus set off in front down the lane, taking in each cottage, wondering which one might have been his childhood home, and he suddenly realized he had no idea what happened if the human subjects of a Fidelius Charm died. “What happened to the… the house?” he forced himself to ask. “Hagrid told me that he fetched me out of the ruins…” “It’s still there,” said Remus quietly. “The Ministry used a lot of enchantments to hide it from the Muggles that live in the village, but otherwise, it’s just as it was that night. We’ll go see it after we visit the graveyard.” The little lane curved to the left and the heart of the village, a small square, was revealed to them. There was what looked like a war memorial in the middle, surrounded by several shops, a post office, a pub, and a little church with a cemetery behind it. Villagers were crisscrossing in front of them, their figures briefly illuminated in patches of streetlamps. They heard a snatch of laughter and pop music as the pub door opened and closed; small children ran across the square, giggling madly, dressed as goblins, zombies, and other scary things they believed to be only myth. “It was a night just like this,” said Sirius unexpectedly. “Muggles running around in costumes for sweets… nothing out of the ordinary.” It struck Harry hard in that moment the kind of childhood he might have had in this place. He might have run around like these small children in silly costumes for sweets… He could have invited friends to his house… He might even have had brothers and sisters… It would have been his mother who made his sixteenth birthday cake instead of Mrs. Weasley. The life he had lost had hardly ever seemed so real to him as at this moment, when he knew he was about to see the place where it had been taken from him. Remus led them to the war memorial, and Harry was startled to see it transform as they approached. 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. “They erected this on the one-year anniversary of their deaths,” said Remus quietly as Harry drew closer, gazing up into his parents’ faces. “I was there. Some of the witches and wizards who attended wanted a large celebration, but Dumbledore insisted on a somber ceremony.” “Good,” said Sirius gruffly, one of his hands landing on Harry’s shoulder. Harry continued to gaze up at the statue. He had never imagined that something like this even existed… How strange it was to see himself represented in stone, a happy baby without a scar on his forehead… “They’re buried in the church’s cemetery,” said Remus after a minute or so of silence. Harry nodded and allowed Remus to guide him across the road towards the church. There was a kissing gate at the entrance. Remus pushed it open and they stepped through, Remus and Sirius lighting their wands to better see their way through the rows of stone. Behind the church lay row upon row of tombstones. Harry glanced around and thought he saw surnames he recognized… Abbott, Dumbledore – “Wait,” said Harry, turning to approach the tombstone which had caught his eye. “Harry?” Ignoring his godfather, Harry knelt before the tombstone that he had spotted and saw, upon the cold, lichen-spotted granite, the words KENDRA DUMBLEDORE and, a short way below her dates of birth and death, AND HER DAUGHTER ARIANA. There was also a quotation: “Did Dumbledore’s family live here, too?” he asked, lightly touching the names. “Yes, they did,” said Sirius. “Lily used to tell me all these stories in her letters that her neighbor would tell her, that author of A History of Magic, what’s her name –?” “Bathilda Bagshot,” said Remus quietly, kneeling beside Harry, as well. “Wish I could remember them better,” said Sirius with a frown, “but I think I’ve got all her letters boxed up in my room. I’ll look for them.” “He had a sister?” said Harry, pointing to the name Ariana. “He’s mentioned a brother to me before, but never a sister.” Remus frowned next to him. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Truth be told, Dumbledore’s not one to discuss his personal life. Anyway, it’s just two more rows past this, c’mon…” It was a few seconds later when Sirius suddenly stepped away and headed for a crumbling, mossy stone, face set in a curious frown. “Sirius?” said Remus as Sirius knelt before the stone. He said nothing, reaching out to trace something on the marker. Harry approached him and looked. The stone was so worn that it was hard to make out what was engraved there, but there was a triangular mark beneath the weathered name – “I think I’ve seen that symbol before,” he said, reaching out to touch it. “Where?” “Er…” Harry thought hard, trying to place where he had seen it. “Oh, it was… er, Luna’s father, Xenophilius Lovegood. He had on a necklace that day the Aurors came to collect our statements about Umbridge with that symbol on it, and he kept playing with it.” He squinted at the name on the stone. “Ig – Ignotus, maybe?” “Peverell,” breathed Sirius as he traced over the rest of the weathered name. “That… I knew I’d heard it before, your dad said…” “What’d my dad say?” Sirius glanced at Harry. “The first time he showed me the Cloak, he said it’d been passed from father to son for generations, possibly from the last of the Peverell line…” He frowned at the strange symbol again. “Xeno Lovegood, you said?” Harry nodded. “I might need to visit him, there’s just something about that name that bothers me.” He rose and pulled Harry up with him. “Sorry, Remus,” he added. Remus smiled tightly. “It’s fine. Just right here.” After a moment’s hesitation, Harry stepped forward. He suddenly felt as if something heavy were pressing on his chest, a sort of grief that had actually weighed on his heart and lungs. The headstone was made of white marble, and this made it easy to read in the light of Sirius and Remus’s wands. He couldn’t make himself look too closely at the words until he was standing directly before it. 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. “What does that mean?” he asked as he took in the quote at the bottom. “‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’ I don’t understand.” “Dumbledore chose it,” said Remus quietly. “It means living beyond death, living after death.” “But they’re not,” said Harry before he could stop himself, feeling the bitterness well up in him as never before. “They – they barely got to live at all. He took that from them.” And tears came before he could stop him, boiling hot as they slid down his face, and what was the point of wiping them off or pretending? For once, he let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, staring down at the leaf-covered grass hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now, surely or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice… “It’s not fair,” whispered Sirius roughly, and Harry found himself turning to his godfather and burying his face against his shoulder. Sirius’s arms wound tightly around him as he struggled not to give into the heartache he had never known what to do with before. Then he felt Remus wrapping his arms around them both a few moments later, and the sobs he wanted to contain suddenly welled up and spilled free into the evening air. Harry had once had so much in his life, but had lost it all in one fell swoop, and he cried for the life he had once had, for the childhood that was so cruelly stolen from him, for all that might have been. The last of his father’s friends held him close until long after the sobs had quieted and the tears had dried up. “Sorry,” muttered Harry into Sirius’s jacket. “Don’t be,” said Sirius, voice rough with emotion. “You’ve never been allowed the chance to mourn.” “How did I get this scar?” Harry asks his Aunt Petunia. She purses her lips at the question. “In the car crash when your parents died,” she snaps. “And don’t ask questions.” Harry forced himself to pull away from Sirius and Remus and took in the headstone again. “It was always just a fact when I was little,” he admitted. “They – they were dead, and I was the remaining burden my aunt and uncle had to deal with.” He rubbed at his face. “You’re right,” he added softly. “It isn’t fair.” They stood in silence for some time before Remus knelt and conjured a bouquet of white lilies and red roses, carefully setting it on the graves of Harry’s parents. “Do you still want to see the house?” he asked as he straightened. Harry took a steadying breath and nodded, Sirius wrapping an arm around his shoulders as they turned to leave the graveyard. Remus led them back through the kissing gates and down the darkening street leading out of the village in the opposite direction from which they had entered. Harry could make out the point where the cottages ended and the lane turned into open country again. They moved past more houses, avoiding small children as they continued to trick-or-treat without a care in the world. “Just up here,” murmured Remus, “end of this row of houses.” And so Harry got his first look at his parents’ house. The hedge had grown wild in the fifteen 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 dark ivy, but the right side of the top floor had been blown apart; that, Harry was sure, was where the curse had backfired. He stood at the gate with Sirius and Remus, gazing up at the wreck of what must once have been a cottage just like those that flanked it. The three of them were quiet for some time before Sirius suddenly spoke. “Hagrid had just stumbled out of the house with you when I arrived,” he said thickly. “I was in shock, I’m sure, not thinking straight, just… I asked Hagrid if they were dead, and he said they were and I… I broke down, completely. He did what he could to comfort me, and I couldn’t tell him, couldn’t admit to what I’d done, convincing your parents to put their trust in the wrong person –” “You didn’t know Wormtail was the wrong person,” said Remus quietly. “You know how I believed you to be the spy?” said Sirius. “Looking back, it was all things Wormtail would say that made me doubt… the Ministry cracking down on werewolf regulations, and I knew you hated what they were doing, and he made me doubt your allegiance to our side because Voldemort must be promising werewolves the freedoms they desired, that you probably desired, too…” He shook his head. “Thought myself a better person than that, giving back into the preconceptions and prejudices of my parents like I did.” “I don’t blame you for it,” said Remus. “Wormtail made me worry about you, too. Could someone raised by a Dark family really reject their upbringing and do differently? Your brother clearly embraced Voldemort’s propaganda, after all. We both could have been better to each other, but that’s in the past. What matters is the here and now.” Sirius sighed. “I wanted to take you,” he said, looking down at Harry, “I begged Hagrid to give you to me, but he wouldn’t budge, kept insisting that he needed to follow Dumbledore’s orders and take you to the Dursley’s. I was about ready to hex him, but then I looked at the house again and I realized everyone who knew about the Fidelius Charm thought I was the Secret Keeper when it was Wormtail, and I knew I had to find him and make him pay.” He shook his head bitterly. “I told Hagrid to take my flying motorbike because I didn’t think I’d need it anymore, and I set out to figure out where Wormtail had gone.” He stared at the house again and rested a hand on the thickly rusted gate. Harry looked back at the house, but was sidetracked by a sign rising out of the ground in front of them, up through the tangles of nettles and weeds, like some bizarre, fast-growing flower, and in golden letters upon the wood it said: 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 positives messages. Harry couldn’t help but smile as he looked at all the magical graffiti. “Thank you for bringing me here,” he said at length. “This is… I never realized how much I needed this, to be here and see this place.” He looked back up at the house, and felt again the sadness over what he had lost, but it felt almost lighter, easier to bear than before. “You took your first steps at nine months old,” said Sirius abruptly. “Just in the living room, there,” he added, pointing at a large window on the bottom floor. “Lily thought you were getting close to doing it, and I decided to try and help you along by transforming into my Animagus form and moving away from you if you tried crawling, and holding still if you tried walking.” He barked out a short laugh. “You were very cross with me whenever I did that, but it worked!” “I was there that day,” said Remus, smiling. “You had that determined look you tend to get on your face whenever someone tries to stop you from doing something you’re dead-set on doing.” Harry felt a grin crack his face as he ducked his head. “I got you a toy broomstick for your first birthday,” Sirius told him. “Lily wrote to say you were a right menace, smashed a horrible vase her sister had sent her and scared the cat –” “We owned a cat?” asked Harry. “A mangy stray your mum wouldn’t let James throw out,” said Sirius. “Anyway, the broom wouldn’t rise more than what, two, three foot from the ground, but you took to it instantly.” He looked at Harry. “I hear it was much the same in your first flying lesson?” “Yeah,” said Harry, “Malfoy had stolen a Remembrall from Neville, and I just followed him into the air to get it back without thinking about what I was doing and it – it felt almost instinctual.” He smirked at his godfather. “Malfoy was stunned.” “McGonagall told me all about it the first time we spoke your third year,” said Remus. “She wanted to see if I planned on saying anything to you about having known your parents, and I wasn’t planning on it at the time, but I asked her what you were like, and she immediately told me about how you made the house team your first year.” He chuckled. “I doubt she’ll ever tell you herself, but she said you had every bit of Lily’s kindness and James’s brashness all rolled into a bundle of trouble, which she made clear by telling me about your exploits with the Philosopher’s Stone and the Chamber of Secrets.” Harry’s face warmed. “It’s not like I deliberately sought out either of those issues to begin with,” he said. “We know,” laughed Sirius. “Trouble usually finds you, not the other way around.” Harry grinned at him and then looked back at the house. “Do you think they’d be proud of me?” he found himself asking. “In a heartbeat,” said Remus at once. “After Lily tore Petunia a new one, anyway,” added Sirius. “They would be so proud of everything you’ve done thus far.” “Even the flying car?” said Harry skeptically. “James would’ve thought that a riot,” said Sirius with another barking laugh. “Lily would’ve sent a Howler, though,” said Remus. “Ron’s mum did that,” said Harry, nodding and grinning wider. “Molly fusses much more than Lily ever did,” said Remus, “but she was fierce and always prepared to take a stand for what she believed in. Much like you, Harry.” Harry smiled and listened as the two men spoke more about those days of Harry’s life he would never remember, his first word, first laugh, first smile, first everything in a home that had clearly been filled with love such as what he had only known at the Burrow. It was so little, and yet… It was also everything to him. The moment Ginny saw Harry step into the common room, she was out of her seat and in his arms. “Are you okay?” she asked him. Harry didn’t answer, instead lifting her chin and leaning down to kiss her. Then he was tugging her towards the portrait hole, and Ginny followed willingly as they left and headed for an empty classroom. Harry shut and locked the door and cast Muffliato before turning to face her. Ginny was startled to see he was both teary-eyed and smiling. “They loved me,” he said. Ginny knew at once that he must mean his parents. “Did – you went to Godric’s Hollow tonight, didn’t you?” Harry nodded and pulled her close. “I didn’t know what they might have thought of me before, when I was a child,” he said quietly to her, a hand running through her hair as his chin rested on her head. Ginny listened quietly, arms wrapped around his waist, knowing he needed to get whatever was on his mind out to her. “I knew the Dursley’s didn’t care about me, but I couldn’t put a name to whatever it was other children had, the way their parents liked them and spent time with them. I – I didn’t know what that was, how to name it, how to do more than feel jealous that this caring existed for everyone else and not me.” He took a shuddering breath, and Ginny pressed closer, laying her head against his chest and feeling his heart beating sure and steady against her. “My first year, Voldemort told me that my mum needn’t have died, that she was trying to protect me, and then he wasn’t able to touch me and I couldn’t understand how that could be possible… Dumbledore, when I woke up three days later, he said my mum had died to save me, that because she loved me, it protected me from him, and it… Ginny, I could barely fathom how such a thing was possible, that loving someone enough to die for them could protect them like that. I knew it was true, but I didn’t understand it, couldn’t make sense of what that could even mean.” Harry stopped talking for a minute or so, and Ginny waited him out, knowing he needed time to gather his thoughts properly. “I think I learned the most about love from your family,” he spoke at long last, and Ginny blinked at this, startled yet eager to hear more. “My aunt and uncle would always overwork me or ignore me, but your mum cared about how much I ate, and your dad actually wanted to talk to me and hear what I had to say and that –” He broke off and chuckled. “It was amazing and confusing and I didn’t understand why they were like that towards me because no one had ever been like that before.” He paused, then added, “It was easy to accept worthlessness before that summer.” Ginny almost interrupted to insist that Harry was not worthless, but barely managed to hold her tongue in her desire to let Harry speak his mind. He didn’t tend to talk this much about himself, but now that he was, she was not about to let herself interrupt or potentially stop him somehow. She pressed her lips together and clung to his waist, waiting to hear more. “Your mum was the first adult to hug me,” he said quietly. “Twelve years old and I’d never –” He broke off and shook his head, chin brushing the top of Ginny’s head as he did so. “I’d seen Aunt Petunia hug and kiss Dudley loads of times, but I had no idea what that was like, and then I was so embarrassed by how much I liked that your mum treated me like – like a son, and I thought I must’ve had something like that before I ended up with the Durlseys, but I didn’t really know until tonight.” He pulled back slightly and cupped Ginny’s face. She looked up at him in the dark room and smiled. “And you know now?” she asked softly. He nodded. “I lost so much,” he whispered, “and I – I never fully grasped that before. It isn’t fair.” “You’re right,” said Ginny quickly, “it isn’t fair, but… everything you’ve been through, everything that makes up who you are – it’s why I love you so much.” He kissed her fiercely then, desperately, and Ginny gave into it completely, feeling tears on her face that weren’t entirely her own. She knew in that moment that this was what it was to be alive, to carry on in the face of every death and disappearance that plagued their world, and she couldn’t think of a single thing in this world that mattered more than these moments of determined love when so much was uncertain. “I love you,” Harry gasped out as he pressed her against the nearest wall. What could possibly compare to Harry’s love? Ginny surged upwards into another kiss, tangling her fingers in Harry’s wild locks, showing him how much she loved him, and how deserving he was of that love. Nothing else mattered. |
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