the last verse ; harry potter [2]

seventeen ; bathilda bagshot

The wind against the three of them as if it was trying to push them back toward the cemetery. It made Diana think of hands pushing them, maybe the hand of Kendra and Ariana Dumbledore or Lily and James Potter. It made her feel guilty, like she was abandoning them.

"Guys, stop."

Hermione had whispered it, holding her arm out.

"What's wrong?" asked Harry.

"There's someone there, over by the bushes. I saw them, they were watching us."

Diana tensed and gripped her wand a little bit tighter. She looked to where Hermione was pointing but only saw darkness.

Hermione pulled them down the street to the opposite end from which they entered. They huddled closely with their wands held tight. They walked as quickly as they dared without stirring any of the villagers, but no matter how fast they went it wasn't fast enough for Diana.

"How are we going to find Bathilda's house?" murmured Hermione, her eyes darting around the lane.

Diana stopped, causing the others to turn to her questioningly.

At the end of the lane from where they stood, large mass appeared at the end.

"Harry. . . I-I think it's your house."

They followed her closely, nearing the mass until they could see it properly.

It was a house---used to be a house, by the look of it. It looked like it had caved in on itself, charred and blackened like it had been burned with more broken planks of wood fallen to the ground than actually on the structure. It was destroyed---only a mere ghost of what it would've been all those years ago. She thought of Lily and James in the cemetery behind them, how they now lay only meters from where they had perished.

They stood at the gate, their eyes peering wondrously at the pile of rubble in front of them.

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

"Maybe you can't rebuild it?" Harry supplied. "Maybe the Dark Magic makes it so you can't repair the damage?"

"Either way," Diana breathed, "why would anyone want to? The place where the Boy Who Lived lived. Why would they tear that down?"

Harry rose a hesitant finger to the gate, but the moment he touched it, a sign rose out of the ground in front of them. In golden letters, it said:

On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981,

Lily and James Potter lost their lives.

Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard everto have survived the Killing Curse.This house, invisible to Muggles, has been leftin its ruined state as a monument to the Pottersand as a reminder of the violencethat tore apart their family.

All around the words, scribbles had been made by witches and wizards who had come to visit the place the Boy Who Lived escaped. Some carved their initials, others signed their name or wrote little notes in Everlasting Ink.

'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!" huffed Hermione.

But Harry beamed at her.