Chapter Text
Harry Potter felt the warmth of the morning sun upon his face.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, squinting in the yellow light that filtered through his grey curtains. The smell of bacon wafted faintly in the air. He could hear the bustling of pans and cutlery from the floor below him.
He blinked slowly and rubbed his eyes, wondering what time it was.
He lay still for a moment, staring up at the ceiling.
He had been dreaming. It was a good dream, this time. Some nights, he would wake up drenched in sweat with the echo of screams in his ear.
But this time, there was no green light or cackling laughter. There was warmth, and faces, and joy… but the dream faded quickly, like a wave receding back into the sea.
Harry blinked again. Then he remembered something else.
It’s my birthday today.
As if on cue, he heard a soft tapping on his window.
Sitting up, Harry reached for his glasses, which lay on the small wooden nightstand next to him, and settled them on his nose.
As he did, the room came into focus around him, cluttered but familiar. Books of all sizes were stacked on every surface: on the desk, on the floor beside the desk, on the windowsill in a tower that leaned slightly and had been leaning slightly for so long that Harry had stopped worrying about it.
There were two shelves above the desk that Hagrid had helped put up one Saturday afternoon, slightly wonky, and which were now so overloaded with books and various trinkets that they bowed gently in the middle like old bridges. A football was wedged between the wardrobe and the wall, though Harry couldn't remember the last time he'd kicked it.
The walls were covered as well with all sorts of bits and bobs. From a Puddlemere United poster to sketches and drawings he had done when he was younger. Pinned above his desk was a large calendar. The month of July was topped with a photograph of the Scottish Highlands. The number 31 had been circled in red ink twice.
On his bedside table was a photograph in a plain wooden frame. In it was a young man and a young woman, laughing at something outside the frame, their arms around each other, the woman's red hair whipping sideways in a wind Harry couldn't feel. They moved, as photographs sometimes did in this house. The woman’s green eyes glinted with joy when she waved while the man’s dark black hair swept across his face, features that Harry found in himself whenever he looked into a mirror.
The rapping at the glass window broke his thoughts and shuffling out of bed, Harry strode across the room to his window and lifted it open.
A large tawny owl sat on the outside, regarding him with a severe expression as it had been waiting considerably longer than was reasonable. It had a small parcel bound in brown paper tucked under one wing and a letter tied neatly to its leg.
"Sorry,” Harry said apologetically as the owl swept in with a rush of cool morning air, its broad wings filling the small room for a moment before it landed on the lower right post of the four-poster bed, its talons finding the smooth mahogany finial as though it had perched there a hundred times before.
Harry carefully removed both the parcel and the letter from its carrier. After which, he reached for the jar on the windowsill and held out a pinch of dried mealworms. The owl considered them for a moment, then ate from his palm with surprising delicacy.
Chuckling, Harry sat on the edge of his bed and opened his letter first.
On the back of the envelope was written in black ink:
Harry Potter
The Potter's Cottage
Godric's Hollow, West Country
England
The letter smelled faintly of old books and woodsmoke. Harry recognised the handwriting at once, though today the note was shorter than usual.
The parchment was slightly creased on one side, as though it had been folded in a hurry, and there was a small smudge of ink near the bottom that hadn't quite dried before it was sealed.
Remus Lupin had never been a tidy correspondent, but he was always a prompt one, and Harry had relished every letter he received from his father’s friend.
Harry –
Happy birthday! Eleven at last, hard to believe how fast time passes.
Sorry I can't visit today. Tied up with work here in Romania.
Included with this letter is a book that once belonged to your father. He was given it the Christmas before his first year and lent it to me shortly after. He was convinced he could make a Quidditch enthusiast out of me. He could not. It seems only right it should go to you instead.
My first instinct was to send a broomstick. I looked into several models. Unfortunately, first years aren't permitted their own brooms. A rule I find deeply unreasonable but am in no position to argue with. Consider it an outstanding promise.
You'll have had your Hogwarts letter by now, or will shortly. I hope it doesn't come as too much of a shock, though knowing you, I suspect it won't. Go with an open mind and comfortable shoes.
Write back soon —
Remus
P.S. Enjoy the treats.
P.P.S. The staircases at Hogwarts move. You'll get used to it.
Harry set the letter down and carefully unwrapped the brown papered parcel.
Inside was a book, and beneath it was a small collection of chocolates. Their shiny wrappers were printed in deep reds and golds with writing he couldn't read. He turned one over in his fingers. The chocolate was darker than anything from the corner shop in the village, almost black, and it smelled faintly of something warm and unfamiliar. He set them carefully on the nightstand. He would try one after breakfast.
He tore a small strip from the brown paper the parcel had come in and found a pencil on his desk. After thinking for a few moments, he wrote:
Hi Remus,
Thank you for the book and the chocolates. How is Romania?
He looked at it. Then added, underneath:
Tell me more about dad and Quidditch next time. Will write again soon.
Harry
He folded it twice, crossed the room, and tucked the note beneath the small leather strap on the owl’s leg. It regarded him thoughtfully as Harry tied the strap together. Then it spread its wings and flew out through the open window.
Turning his attention to the book. Harry picked it up and brushed his hand over the title, stamped in faded gold: Quidditch Through the Ages. The book was old and small, its red cover worn soft with handling, the corners rounded with age.
He opened it to the first page.
In the top corner, written in loose, untidy cursive letters was the name: James Potter
Turning to the first chapter, Harry noted the large photograph that had taken up nearly the entirety of the page. The black and white photo was a Quidditch match in full flight. Seven players on broomsticks wheeling and diving against a grey sky, a large dark ball between them, the crowd in the stands below reduced to a blur of waving arms.
It was the kind of photograph that moved, the players banking and swooping endlessly through the air, robes trailing behind them as they circled the pitch again and again, and Harry found himself staring at it far longer than he meant to.
In the margin beside it, in the same writing he was already beginning to recognise, someone had written two words: One day.
Harry closed the book gently. He set it on his sheets beside Remus's letter.
His thoughts drifted to his parents as he glanced at their photograph. His mother waved brightly at him, while his father stood beside her, smiling.
He knew their names. James and Lily Potter.
He knew about magic, and about the war that had ended with their deaths in this very house. They were killed by the Dark Lord Voldemort on a night Harry could not remember but had spent a great deal of his life thinking and dreaming about.
A shiver ran through him as he recalled many nights when those nightmares would haunt him with a vengeance.
He knew Voldemort had tried to kill him too but failed. After which, he disappeared without a trace. The scar shaped like a lightning bolt on Harry’s forehead was the only thing the Dark Lord had left behind.
Beyond that, no one had told him very much about his parents or Voldemort.
He knew of Albus Dumbledore, a powerful wizard who had found Harry in the wreckage of that night. But Harry himself had no memory of the man, only what he had picked up from other people’s conversations, spoken in lower voices, as though Dumbledore might somehow hear them.
He had been told that Dumbledore had buried his parents, rebuilt their house in Godric’s Hollow, and left Harry there in the care of Elspeth Märchen, a local squib who disliked fuss and rarely spoke about herself. She had known James and Lily since they came to the village, and had been one of his mother’s closest friends. Dumbledore had asked her to take Harry in, and she had not hesitated in accepting the task of being his guardian.
He knew Rubeus Hagrid, the groundskeeper of Hogwarts, who came every few months to help Elspeth with whatever needed fixing. Whether it was a clogged sink, a cracked wall, or something in the garden that had grown out of hand, Hagrid would arrive with tools in his pockets and mud on his boots, smiling as though nothing in the world could trouble him. He was enormous and loud, and he always looked at Harry with a glimmer of tears behind his dark eyes. Sometimes he would clap Harry on the shoulder a little too hard, or start a sentence and stop halfway through, as if he had remembered something he wasn’t meant to say.
And he knew Remus Lupin, who had been coming to the house to tutor him for as long as Harry could remember. Remus taught Harry how to read and write. Harry also learned all the basic lessons any child his age would have been taught: arithmetic, bits of science, world history and geography, and alongside it all the quieter lessons. The history of the wizarding world, how magic worked, what was expected of witches and wizards, and what to be careful of. Remus sent him work between visits and returned it with corrections and neat notes in the margins, the same precise handwriting Harry now recognised from the letter on his desk.
Remus would also give Harry small pieces of information about his parents, carefully and in measured amounts, as though they were something too valuable to hand over all at once. A detail here. A memory there. Never quite enough, but always something.
He never stayed long, and always seemed a little more tired with each visit. But he listened properly when Harry spoke and was always ready with an answer to any of Harry's questions.
His visits had grown less frequent as Harry got older. Harry had learned to fill the gaps himself, working through Muggle books from the village library, or the wizarding ones Elspeth brought home every once in a while and left on his desk without comment.
It wasn’t very much, for eleven years.
But it was, Harry supposed, all he had.
“Harry! Breakfast!”
Elspeth’s voice carried up from below.
“Coming!” Harry called back.
He tucked Remus’s letter carefully inside the front cover of the book, then picked up two of the chocolates from his nightstand. He changed quickly into a dark green jumper and blue jeans, shoved the chocolates into his pocket, and headed for the door.
As he made his way down the stairs, the smell of bacon grew stronger, with eggs and toast underneath it. Harry paused on the landing for a moment and breathed it in.
Breakfast had always been his favourite meal of the day. It was the only one that felt the most consistent, always the same at the same time of day.
He heard a pan shift below, and he jumped the last few steps and pushed open the kitchen door.
Elspeth was at the stove when Harry came in. She turned at once when she heard him, as though she had been expecting him.
“Happy birthday, Harry,” she said, smiling.
She said it plainly, the way she said most things. No singing, no fuss. Just the way he liked it.
She crossed the kitchen and gave him a brief, warm hug. It was never a long one, but it was always certain. Then she set her hands on his shoulders and leaned back to look at him in that steady, considering way she had always done, as though she were checking for dirt on his face.
After a moment, she gave a small, satisfied nod and turned back to the stove, where the pan hissed softly.
“Sit down. Eggs are nearly done.”
Harry pulled out his chair and sat. He watched her move about the kitchen with quick, practiced ease.
“I saw the owl,” she said, sliding the eggs from the pan onto a plate. “From Remus, I expect?”
“He sent me a book,” Harry responded brightly. “About Quidditch. Said it used to be Dad’s.”
Elspeth paused for a breath. Then she silently set the plate in front of him, added the toast, poured the tea, and sat down across from him with her own cup before speaking.
“Did he?”
“There were notes in the margins,” Harry said. “His handwriting.”
Elspeth looked at him over the rim of her cup. Whatever she was thinking, she kept it to herself, as she usually did.
She nodded toward the small package that was on the table beside his plate. Harry had been glancing at it from the side of his eyes but did not want to draw attention to it.
“Go on then.” Elspeth finally stated with a smile.
Harry grinned as he eagerly reached for the package. It was light, wrapped in brown paper and tied with plain string. He loosened the knot carefully and folded the paper back.
Inside was a black notebook.
He turned it over to look at the front and back. It was a proper one. Not a school exercise book with a soft cover and thin pages, but something sturdier, with a cover that would last and thick cream pages that didn’t show through. A dark green ribbon marked the place.
He opened it and brushed his hand across the first page.
Harry had always kept journals. Elspeth had started him on it when he was seven, leaving a blank exercise book on his desk without comment. He had filled it in a month and asked for another. She had never said much, only kept him supplied anytime he had finished one.
But this felt different.
Harry saw a folded piece of paper slipping loose from the inside cover. Harry picked it up and unfolded it slowly.
It was a map.
Hand-drawn, in Elspeth’s delicate swirls. Godric’s Hollow, all of it. The garden. The ruins at the end of the lane. The church. Their house, marked with a neat rectangle. The war memorial, the pub, the post office, the path down to the river. Everywhere he knew.
But there were notes written beside things he had passed all his life without understanding.
A small asterisk by the gap in the hedge at the end of the lane.
Where your father used to apparate in. Always the same spot. Said it had good energy.
The large tree in the garden, its roots lifting the path.
Your mother used to read here in the afternoons. She liked the light. The tree was smaller then.
The stone ruins close to the edge of town.
Your parents walked here often, it was their favourite part of town.
Harry sat very still, the map open in front of him. He looked at the tree he had climbed more times than he could count. He looked at the gap in the hedge he had been squeezing through since he was seven. He looked at the ruins he had always been afraid of, not knowing it was a place that his parents loved.
Harry looked up and noticed Elspeth was watching him carefully, watching his reactions with a quiet smile.
Harry looked back down at the map and traced the small asterisk with his finger.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
Elspeth set her cup down.
“Eat your breakfast,” she replied simply. “The bacon is getting cold.”
He ate his breakfast slowly, the way he always did at Elspeth’s table. Meals were meant to be sat through properly, not rushed or picked at standing up, which Elspeth considered bad manners.
There was never any reason to hurry, in any case.
Other boys in Godric’s Hollow had places to be. Harry watched them from the upstairs window, running along the lane with satchels bouncing against their backs, shouting to one another as they went. Sometimes he heard the bus at the end of the road, stopping with a hiss and a clatter before carrying them off. Harry had never been on it.
Remus and Elspeth were the only teachers he had ever known. Remus came and went, setting lessons and sending letters. Elspeth filled in the rest, quietly and without much fuss. Between them, they taught him all he knew.
In truth, there were very few people Harry knew at all. And no one his own age.
Elspeth had told him, some years ago, that Dumbledore had left strict instructions. Harry was to stay close to home. It was said plainly, as most things were, and not explained much further.
Harry had tested it once.
He had been six, and curious, and had slipped out the back door without telling her. He remembered the road seeming much longer than it did now, the hedges higher, the world stretching further than he had expected. He had made it nearly half a mile before Elspeth found him.
She had never run like that before, or since. He remembered the look on her face more than anything else. Not anger, not at first. Something sharper. Something that had made his stomach drop before she had even said a word.
She had scooped him up at once, holding him tighter than usual, and told him, very clearly, never to leave without telling her again.
He hadn’t.
She had been angrier afterward than Harry had ever seen her before or since.
Still, he was not kept indoors. The back garden was his, more or less. He knew every inch of it. The uneven stretch of grass, the low stone wall at the far end, the places where things grew a little wild if left alone. It was not large, but it was enough… some days.
In his notebooks, Harry wrote about the places he had not seen and adventures he had read about.
He filled pages with stories about knights setting out with nothing but a sword and a promise. Hidden kingdoms waiting to be found. Boys who crossed seas and did not turn back.
He imagined himself as King Arthur leading the knights of the Round Table, or Odysseus wandering for years trying to find his way home. Those stories stayed with him, in a way others didn’t.
Harry’s mind wandered as he bit into his buttered toast, looking around the kitchen as he did.
It was a small, square room, neat but not bare. The table sat by the window, worn smooth at the edges from years of use. A row of mismatched mugs hung beneath a shelf, and there were always a few books stacked near the door, as though they had been set down and forgotten. The kettle ticked quietly on the stove. Everything had its place, and stayed there.
The rest of the house was like that too. Nothing grand, nothing especially new, but solid and well-kept. It had a way of feeling settled, as though it had decided long ago what it was meant to be and saw no reason to change.
Outside the window, the morning had settled into itself. Sunlight lay along the low garden wall, turning the stone gold. The apple tree moved a little in a breeze he couldn’t feel from inside. It looked like any other summer morning.
But he knew it wasn’t, not quite.
Harry glanced at Elspeth as she refilled her cup.
She was fairly tall and with a slim build though not frail, with silver hair she kept pulled back, and grey eyes that noticed things before you finished doing them. She always seemed to know when he was about to speak, or when he had decided not to.
She was not soft in the way some people were. But she was steady. She noticed when things needed doing and did them. She made sure things were right.
Harry had learned that she was a squib when he was eight and had asked why she never used magic. She had told him plainly how she was born into a wizarding family, but without magic of her own. It happens sometimes, she said. She had no regrets.
Harry had never thought very much about what Elspeth was meant to be to him. She had simply always been there, steady and certain as the house itself.
Harry finished the last of his toast and wiped his fingers on his napkin. Then he folded the map carefully and slipped it back into the notebook.
Just then, there came a loud knock at the front door. Not an ordinary knock, not the polite rap of the postman or the careful tap of Mrs. Figg from down the lane checking on Elspeth’s runner beans. This one made the cups rattle slightly in their saucers and sent a faint drift of plaster dust down from the ceiling above the doorframe.
Harry and Elspeth looked at each other across the table.
“That’ll be Hagrid,” sighed Elspeth, standing up. But Harry was already on his feet and ran towards the front door.
When he pulled it open, a familiar giant with a long mane of shaggy black hair and a beard greeted him with a smile. He was slightly out of breath, filling the doorway so completely that Harry could see almost nothing of the garden behind him, only a thin strip of blue sky on either side.
Hagrid was wearing his great moleskin overcoat despite the July heat, and his beard contained what looked like a modest quantity of leaves. In one hand he held a large cake. In the other was a vast black umbrella, dripping slightly, even though Godric’s Hollow lay in clear morning sunshine.
Harry looked at the cake. It was very pink, with thick white icing around the edges that rose and dipped unevenly. In the middle, in large green letters, were the words: Happy Birthday Harry. The letters were a bit uneven, and the Rs were written backwards, but Harry thought it was the best cake he had ever seen.
“It’s brilliant, Hagrid!” Harry said with a grin.
Hagrid beamed so widely his eyes nearly disappeared into his beard.
“Happy birthday, Harry! Look at yeh, eleven years old! Can yeh believe it?”
Hagrid looked at him the way he always did, with tears behind his eyes. Harry had learned not to ask. He had always had the feeling it had something to do with his parents, and that asking would only make Hagrid upset, and no one wanted that.
“Come in, Rubeus,” called Elspeth from behind him, in the tone she always used with Hagrid, fond and slightly resigned. “Mind the—”
There was a sharp scraping sound.
“—doorframe,” Elspeth finished.
“Sorry,” apologized Hagrid, ducking into the narrow hallway and immediately making it feel much smaller. “I’ll fix it before I go.”
“You said that in March,” said Elspeth with an exasperated breath.
“An’ I meant it then an’ all,” He replied with an earnest look.
Her eyes dropped to the umbrella, which was leaving a small but dedicated puddle on the hallway floor. Hagrid followed her gaze and shook his head apologetically.
"Er," he started. "Sorry ‘bout tha’. It's pourin' up at Hogwarts,"
Elspeth hummed under her breath.
Hagrid propped the umbrella carefully against the wall, where it continued to drip with quiet determination onto the flagstones.Then he passed Elspeth the pink cake, which she accepted with the careful look of someone judging whether a thing might collapse if handled incorrectly.
“Made it meself,” he added proudly.
“I can see that,” Elspeth commented with a crooked smile as if to hide a laugh that she thought improper to let out.
She led the way back into the kitchen with Harry and Hagrid following behind her.
The kitchen felt much smaller with Hagrid in it.
He lowered himself onto the large chair at the end of the table, the one Elspeth had brought in some years ago for his visits, after the incident with the ordinary chair that they did not discuss. He looked more comfortable at once, as he always did once he was seated and had a surface in front of him wide enough for his elbows.
Elspeth lifted the kettle, gave it a small, assessing tilt, and carried it to the sink. She refilled it without hurry, set it back on the stove, and turned the flame on. Then she moved around Hagrid with easy familiarity without asking him to shift.
“Tea, Rubeus?”
“Wouldn’ say no,” said Hagrid warmly.
They sat for a while in the way they always did when Hagrid visited. Hagrid took up most of the space and a fair amount of the air. Elspeth cut the cake into three neat slices without comment. Harry watched them both, feeling the quiet contentment of being with people who he knew well.
He took a bite of his slice. It was very sweet and a bit dry, with a strong taste of cinnamon.
“It’s really good, Hagrid,” Harry said with a strained smile, swallowing quickly and reaching for his tea to help it down.
“Had a bit of trouble with the oven,” Hagrid admitted, sounding rather pleased about it. “But we got there in the end.”
Elspeth said nothing, which was, for her, a kind of politeness.
When they had finished their slices, Hagrid helped himself to two more. Then he set down his mug and reached into the inside pocket of his overcoat. He rummaged for a moment, the coat seeming to hold far more than it ought to, and then he pulled out an envelope.
Harry suddenly froze as he stared at it.
He had known the letter was coming. Elspeth had prepared him. Remus had too, in his own careful, measured way. He had grown up knowing that on his eleventh birthday, everything would change.
And yet, seeing the letter before him, he almost thought he was still dreaming.
"Dumbledore asked me ter bring it meself," said Hagrid, setting it down on the table in front of Harry with considerable gravity. "Thought it ought ter be done properly. In person, like."
He looked at Harry with those bright eyes. "Go on then, Harry. It's yours."
Harry looked at Elspeth who gave him a small nod.
He slowly picked up the cream coloured envelope and turned it over. The address on the front was written in emerald green ink, in a clear, formal hand.:
Mr. H. Potter
The Back Bedroom
The Potter's Cottage
Godric’s Hollow, West Country
He turned it over. The back was sealed with purple wax and stamped with a crest. A large H with a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake around a shield.
He carefully broke the seal and unfolded the letter.
Dear Mr Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Harry read it once. Then read it again. His eyes darted from one end of a sentence to the next.
Hagrid was watching him with barely contained delight, his large hands wrapped around his large mug, his beard twitching as though he was holding something back.
“Yer parents were some of the best that ever went through Hogwarts, Harry,” he said, his voice a little thicker than usual. “Both of ’em. An’ I reckon—”
He stopped, blinking hard, and looked down at the table. “Well. I reckon they’d be very proud of ya.”
The kitchen was quiet.
Harry lowered the letter to the table. He wondered if this was what it had been like for his parents when they got their letters. Had they felt this too? The tight, fluttering feeling in his stomach, not quite nerves and not quite excitement, but a combination of both.
He knew he would never really know. Still, for a moment, it felt as though he was a little closer to them than he had ever been before.
“I wish they were here.” The words left Harry's mouth before he could stop himself.
Hagrid made a noise that sounded like a stifled sob as he looked very hard at the ceiling.
Elspeth set her cup down with a small, precise click and cleared her throat.
“I suppose this day was always going to come.” Her voice was steady yet her eyes were full of emotion, “It's time for you to leave this house and this village, Harry. To go out into the world, to our world, and find out how you fit within it.”
Harry felt another lump in his throat but this time, it wasn't Hagrid's cake.
“Rubeus,” Elspeth started as she handed Hagrid a napkin to blow his nose in, “If it's no trouble, would you mind accompanying Harry to Diagon Alley tomorrow for his supplies?”
“Y-yes. Course. No trouble. No trouble at all.” Hagrid blubbered as he wiped his eyes.
Hagrid stayed a little while longer, finishing his tea and taking yet another slice of cake, though he seemed to forget about it halfway through and set it down, half-eaten. He talked, as he always did, about small things. The state of the road into Godric's Hollow. A Flobberworm problem at Hogwarts that had apparently got out of hand. The surprising quality of Elspeth’s runner beans, which he admired every year with complete sincerity. But his eyes kept drifting back to Harry with that expression Harry had long since stopped trying to understand.
At last, he stood, pushing back the chair, which made a sound of considerable relief.
“Well,” Hagrid said, clearing his throat once, then again. “Best be off. Lots ter sort for tomorrow.”
He bent down and clapped Harry on the shoulder with a hand the size of a small frying pan, then seemed to think better of it and pulled him into a brief, careful hug instead. It was clearly meant not to smother, but it did just that all the same.
“See yeh in the mornin’, Harry,” he said gruffly.
“See you,” Harry muffled in response from somewhere within Hagrid’s coat.
Hagrid released Harry reluctantly but allowed Elspeth to walk him to the door.
Harry followed, standing in the hallway as Hagrid ducked under the frame, promising once again, with great sincerity, to fix it next time. Then winking at Harry, he turned and he was gone, his heavy footsteps fading down the path, the gate clicking softly behind him. The lane went quiet as Elspeth closed the door.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Harry could hear the kitchen clock ticking.
“Best finish our tea,” said Elspeth at last, in exactly the tone she would have used on any other morning.
“Right,” nodded Harry as he returned to the kitchen.
The rest of the day passed unlike any Harry could remember, though on the surface of it, nothing much happened at all.
He carried the letter with him from room to room, as though he needed to check it was still real. He read it at the kitchen table, on the bottom stair, and standing at his bedroom window, looking out over the garden. Each time, it said exactly what it had said before, which was reassuring in one way and astonishing in another.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
He said it under his breath once or twice, just to hear it aloud. It sounded like something from one of his books. Something that happened to other people.
But now, it was happening to him.
In the afternoon, he went out into the garden, the letter folded carefully in his pocket, and sat on the low stone wall that separated it from the garden path. He looked out at Godric’s Hollow in the late July sun. It all looked exactly as it always had. Yet, it did not feel quite the same.
Elspeth’s garden had been tended for so long it seemed to have settled into its own habits. It was not large, but it was full. Along the south-facing wall beneath the kitchen window, a cottage border pressed close with lavender, foxglove, and old roses, their stems trained carefully against the stone. Near the gate, sweet peas climbed a wooden frame in loose, winding lines, their scent thick in the warm air. Along the east wall, runner beans stood in a neat, disciplined row, while beside them the hollyhocks rose in cheerful disregard of any order at all.
In the far corner stood an apple tree, its branches low and wide, the fruit still small and green in the July heat. Near the centre of the lawn, a stone birdbath caught the light, and beside it a small pond, not ornamental so much as useful, edged with water mint and soft, damp grass. Along the base of the garden wall, the ground was left untouched. The grass grew longer there, threaded with moss and scattered stones, as though the garden simply stopped trying.
When Harry had asked about why Elspeth had not touched that section, she responded without looking up from what she was doing, that some parts of a garden were for the garden. Harry had understood this to mean that something was living there, and that it would be best to leave it alone.
As he sat on the wall thinking over the events of the day quietly, Harry heard a soft hiss from somewhere beneath the loose stones along that forbidden section.
Harry grinned immediately as a large grass snake slithered out and raised its head at him.
Harry had not had many friends growing up. This was not quite the same as being lonely. It was simply that his life had never arranged itself in a way that made friends easy. He learned his lessons at home and the rare occasions that Elspeth took him with her to the corner market, she kept him close to her side at all times. The children in Godric’s Hollow belonged to a different way of life. He knew them by sight, sometimes by name, but their lives ran alongside his without interaction. He had learned to accept his circumstances without further question.
What he had, instead, were animals.
Birds landed near him without much hesitation. The village cats curled followed him around the garden before losing interest. Hedgehogs uncurled more quickly around him than they did for most people. He had never thought too much about this. It seemed, simply, to be one of those things about himself that didn't require explanation, like the colour of his eyes or the fact that when he had a new book he could rarely put it down until he had finished it.
But the snakes were different. The snakes he could actually talk to.
He had discovered it when he was five, sitting in almost exactly this spot. Something had moved along the garden wall and when it emerged, Harry had said hello, and, to his surprise, it had answered. The snake had told him that his name was Montgomery, and Harry could call him “Monty” if Harry preferred. By the time Harry was old enough to understand that this was not how things were meant to work, it no longer felt strange.
Elspeth had found out when he had mentioned, at dinner, something Montgomery had told him about the weather. She had set her fork down and looked at him differently. Then she had asked him, very carefully, to explain, which he did.
Then she had told him, in her level unhurried voice, that he was not to do it anymore.
She had not explained why, beyond saying that it was the kind of thing that drew the wrong kind of attention, and that attention of that kind was something they did not need.
Harry nodded and said he understood. But when Elspeth was not looking or he knew she was far away from the back door, he continued talking to Montgomery anyway.
Harry had liked talking to him, partly because Monty always answered, and partly because he was the only snake who never seemed to leave the garden. Harry surmised that Monty was most likely lonely too. They talked, in their way, about simple things. The warmth of the stones, the weather, what moved through the garden at night, and what could be safely ignored.
Harry had spoken easily enough with other snakes that passed through the garden, but none of them ever stayed for more than a few hours. Perhaps they knew the garden belonged to Monty.
He had chosen not to tell Remus or Hagrid about his ability to converse with snakes after what happened with Elspeth. After a while, it had become simply one more thing that belonged to him alone.
He had felt guilty about it, in a manageable sort of way, but not enough to stop doing it.
Monty was large for a grass snake, the length of Harry's arm and then some, his scales a deep olive green that caught the afternoon light in a way that was almost metallic, the distinctive yellow and black collar behind his head bright and clean. He had moved through the longer grass at the wall's base and then across the shorter lawn with the fluid ease of something entirely at home in its own skin, and stopped near the base of the wall a foot or so from where Harry sat.
The snake looked up at Harry with his round amber eyes, his tongue flickering once, twice, tasting the air with focused attention.
"You smell different today," said Montgomery in his usual matter-of-fact sort of way.
"It's my eleventh birthday," Harry informed him, leaning forward.
Montgomery considered this with the philosophical patience of an animal that tracked time by season rather than by year.
"You do smell older," Monty observed as he moved closer to Harry, “But I sense… something more…”
"I'm going to London tomorrow," Harry told him, wondering if that was what the snake meant.
The grass snake’s tongue flickered.
"You have been before?" Monty asked.
"No," said Harry, shaking his head. "I haven't."
The yellow collar behind his head seemed brighter in the sun, the scales along his neck tightening slightly. Harry had learned over the years that this meant something like alarm.
“It’s a city,” said Harry, after a moment, “A very large one. Full of people.”
Montgomery went still. Not just quiet, but completely still, the way snakes did when they were thinking. Even the faint ripple along his body stilled against the grass.
“How many people?” he asked, his eyes squinting slightly.
“Millions, maybe.” answered Harry with a shrug.
Montgomery did not move for a long moment. His head remained raised, angled slightly toward Harry, tongue flicking once, then stopping entirely.
“Why so many in one place?” He sounded, to Harry’s ear, genuinely puzzled. Almost offended on his behalf.
“They just… live there, I suppose. All of them. Together.”
Montgomery tasted the air several times in quick succession, as though testing the idea and finding nothing in it that made sense.
“I do not go where there are many things,” he hissed softly, moving his head sideways, “Too much noise and movement. It is not good.”
His body slid a fraction closer to the wall. “I go under the stones.”
“I know,” Harry almost giggled watching Monty slither back and forth over the stones he was indicating. “I’ve seen you.”
“You should go under stones,” suggested Montgomery, with quiet certainty, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“I don’t think that’s an option for me, Monty.”
“It is always an option,” the snake countered. His tail gave a small, decisive twitch in the grass. “There are always stones.”
Harry glanced out at the lane and tried to imagine London, streets and crowds and faces moving past him too quickly to follow. He wondered if Monty was right, but where would the stones of London be?
Montgomery’s head tilted, just slightly.
“You are afraid of the many,” Monty stated, his tongue flickering once more.
“A bit,” Harry admitted as he traced a finger on the stone wall he was sitting on.
“The many are dangerous. Much movement. Hard to watch all at once.” Montgomery, with quiet authority. “That is why I go under the stones.”
“You keep saying that.”
The grass snake gazed at Harry intently and moved his olive green head higher.
“Because it is right.”
Harry huffed a small breath as Montgomery lowered his head.
“Also,” the snake added, almost as an afterthought, “there are never many underground.”
Harry smiled slightly.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He felt the letter in his pocket, the edge of it pressing faintly through the fabric, and looked out over the Hollow.
Taking the two chocolates he had stowed away in his pocket, Harry unwrapped them and ate them slowly, one after the other, letting them last.
They tasted dark and a little bitter. He wasn’t sure if he liked them but he didn’t hate them completely. He made a mental note to ask Remus where he had bought them from.
The afternoon had settled into a kind of stillness. Sunlight lay long and golden across the garden wall, catching on the rough stone and turning it warm. The apple tree cast a wide, uneven shadow across the grass, its leaves dull green against the brightness. The lavender hummed steadily with bees, a low, constant sound that seemed to fill the whole garden. The sweet peas stirred along the fence, their pale colours shifting gently as the breeze came and went, carrying their scent in soft waves that rose and faded without warning.
He had seen it like this all his life. The same wall, the same tree, the same stretch of grass. It had never occurred to him that he might need to remember it. It had always been there, and he had always been able to come back to it without thinking.
He had the clear sense, sitting there in the warm July light, that he had reached the edge of something. Behind him was everything he knew, small enough to walk across in ten minutes. Ahead of him was something much larger, something he could not see the shape of yet.
Tomorrow, he would take his first step into it.
He looked up at the apple tree.
His stare turned into sharp focus. Not for any particular reason he could explain. Just a narrowing of attention. The way he sometimes did when he wanted something to happen and didn’t quite know how to make it happen properly.
The tree shivered.
There was no wind now. The breeze had dropped, the sweet peas hanging still against the fence. The movement came from the tree itself, a faint tremor running through the leaves and along the branches, as though something had passed through it too quickly to be seen.
Harry watched it, very still. Then he raised his arm up.
The energy that flowed from his palm felt familiar. Not new or surprising. But this was not the first time Harry had conjured it with only his thoughts.
He held out his hand with his fingers splayed out then he shut it closed in a fist.
The tree shivered violently, then became still.
Two apples dropped from high in the branches, falling cleanly through the leaves and landing in the grass with a soft, heavy thud.
The sound seemed louder than it should have been.
After that, the garden settled again. The leaves stilled. The bees went on with their work. The light did not change.
Harry let out a slow breath.
Montgomery had already moved on, slipping into the tall grass, unconcerned. Harry watched him go for a moment, then slid down from the wall and crossed the garden.
The apples lay where they had fallen. He picked one up. It was small and hard, the skin smooth and pale green. He turned it over in his hands, feeling the weight of it, the firmness, the faint warmth it had taken from the sun.
He set it back carefully back on the grass.
For a while, he stood there without moving, the shadow of the tree stretching slowly toward him across the lawn.
Then he turned and went inside.
After dinner, Harry was back at his desk.
His Hogwart’s letter lay open in front of him. Beside it was his father's book, which he had been reading since coming in from the garden and had not quite been able to put down. It was not, he had discovered, a particularly long book but it was a very good one. His father had apparently thought so as well, because the margins were full of him.
This is why the Chaser position is the most important and anyone who says otherwise is wrong — scrawled beside a chapter on positional strategy, underlined twice.
Lupin disagrees. Lupin is wrong — beside a diagram of a defensive formation, with a small arrow pointing to the Keeper's position.
I will do this — beside a description of a particularly difficult Chaser manoeuvre that the book's author had described as requiring exceptional natural ability and years of dedicated practice.
Harry paused at that last one. There was no hesitation in it. No question. Just the sort of certainty Harry wasn’t sure he had ever felt about anything in his own life.
He tried to picture it properly. Not just reading about Quidditch, but being there and playing the game. He wondered what it would be like to be on a broomstick. Elspeth had never allowed him to ride on one but he had read in books what broomstick flying entailed. Harry pictured the feeling of the wind rushing past his ears, the ground dropping away beneath him, knowing where to go before he had to think about it. He thought he would like that.
Remus’s letter came to his mind. Consider it an outstanding promise.
Harry thought he would hold his old tutor to that promise one day.
After a while, he set the book aside and looked over the rest of his desk.
The notebook, the map tucked inside. The letter, its green ink and purple seal still bright. The remains of his birthday chocolate, their shiny wrappers scattered across the wood
Harry read his Hogwarts letter one last time, and then folded it along its creases, careful to line them up exactly, and set it back in its envelope. He would need the supply list for his Diagon Alley trip with Hagrid.
Outside, the garden had gone grey and quiet. The colours had faded into shadow, the flowers and the tree turning into shapes more than anything else. The garden wall no longer held the light. Somewhere in the village, a dog barked once, then again, and then stopped.
Harry thought of Montgomery, somewhere under the stones, and wondered if he had already settled in for the night.
Yawning, Harry thought it was time for him to turn in as well. He knew there was a long day awaiting him on the other side of the night.
Somewhere downstairs, Harry heard Elspeth checking the back door latch before bed, as she always did.
He removed his glasses and placed them carefully on his nightstand. He then moved under his covers and turned out the light.
Harry lay on his back and looked up at the ceiling. The moonlight cast long, quiet shadows across it, and for a moment he thought he could see the outlines of pirate ships drifting there.
He watched them until his eyes began to close.
Then, at last, he fell into a dreamless sleep.