'Til Kingdom Come

Part I en route to Godric's Hollow, 1997

Harry didn't know what he expected to find in Godric's Hollow, but it certainly wasn't what he found: a small, thriving town in the northernmost part of the nation, several days' travel from London made a bit more bearable by Ron and Hermione's company as they traversed the countryside in the beaten-up old Camry that Hermione's parents had bought her for her sixteenth birthday. Unfortunately, this also meant that Hermione (refusing to let either of them drive after the spectacle with Mr. Weasley's Anglia several years earlier) was in charge of the static-y old radio; a torment largely ignored by Harry but which seemed to drive Ron absolutely mad.

When they crossed the border into town, greeted by a large, rotting brown sign - clearly weathered - welcoming them to Godric's Hollow, Harry was visibly relieved, as if he'd been afraid that the town might have no longer been standing, and what would they have done then?

"I don't understand why we can't listen to something a little less - girly, is all," said Ron, not for the first time. Or possibly, Harry mused, even the hundredth.

With an indignant huff, Hermione clicked off the radio dial and plunged the car into silence. "We're almost there anyway," she snapped. "And your taste in music is unseemly, to say the least."

"And you sing," Harry added off-handedly, never tearing his eyes from the scenery that passed them as Hermione slowed, craning her neck to search for a sign that would indicate their whereabouts in relation to the Lion's Mane Inn. "And that's a right bit of torture in itself."

It was the tail end of summer, that time of year when the sun blazed hot as an iron in the fire and the air was thick enough to chew. The Camry's air conditioner sputtered desperately in an effort to fend off the sweltering heat, but the three of them were still sweating profusely and the car's interior was beginning to stick to their skin in a rather uncomfortable manner. Ron had folded several stray sheets of paper into what could have been either an accordion or a fan, and was flapping it at his face with great intensity. Harry sat quietly in the passenger seat, ignoring his own discomfort in favor of his thoughts.

It was a nice town. Quaint. Busier than it had any right to be on a Thursday afternoon, but Harry took the crowd, if it could be called that, as a sign of good fortune. The more people there were, the less likely it was that he would be recognized. He was glad he was in the company of friends, yet at the same time he had the nagging feeling that there should be someone else he needed to report back to. To call Sirius and tell him that they were all right - silly, of course, he hadn't had any delusions regarding the death of his godfather and besides, that had been nearly two years ago - or to write a letter to Dumbledore letting him know he'd arrived.

But Dumbledore was dead, too.

That wound was fresher in Harry's mind, and would take far more getting used to. "A world without Albus Dumbledore," Hagrid had said shortly after the funeral (and unaware that Harry was listening), "is no world at all."

He was inclined to agree.

And yet the greatest wizard of all time was dead and buried and the world kept on, living and breathing and turning and fighting and making absolutely no bloody sense, sometimes, but that's what it did. Dumbledore had died, and Hogwarts had closed, and Snape was a traitor - but nothing else had changed.

"Harry!" Hermione's petulant voice tore Harry from his thoughts.

"Um. Yes?" he said.

Ron's face appeared in his window, obscuring his vision completely and bringing him the rest of the way back down to earth. He jumped in his seat, but recovered quickly. "We're ready to get out of the car, mate."

A quick glance around revealed them parked in the lot of the Lion's Mane, Ron already outside and Hermione pulling the keys out of the ignition. They were, in fact, ready to get out of the car. "All right already. You don't have to be a git about it." He unbuckled his seatbelt in one swift motion, and without another word made his way out of the car and around to the back. They'd barely needed to use magic to enhance the car's storage space, but Ron had insisted, and it was a better fit for Hedwig and Pigwidgeon's cages.

The birds themselves were out stretching their wings somewhere overhead and enjoying the thermals. No doubt they'd return when they were good and ready.

It took only moments to unload their suitcases and a few choice belongings - Hermione had insisted that they pack light. "We're not moving in," she'd first chided upon seeing Ron's suitcase. "We're only going to be there for a week, tops. And what is that box for? Harry, put the broom down, you're not going to need it. It's a road trip." She'd drawn out the last few syllables as if to emphasize the fact that she maybe thought the two of them were a bit incompetent.

A flash of red hair caught Harry's eye as they were just stepping over the threshold into the inn; he thought for a moment it might have been Ginny, but it was gone just as quickly and besides, she wouldn't have been fool enough to follow him. He'd explained what he had to do. Alone.

Well, alone with Ron and Hermione. Which sometimes made him wish he was alone.

"Are you okay?" Ron asked in a low voice, just as Hermione had walked up to the desk clerk - "Three rooms under Granger, Hermione." They'd all agreed to make the reservations in her name; both Harry's and Ron's would have elicited too much attention.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine." Harry forced a smile for Ron that must have looked more like a grimace. "Right as rain." He frowned. "What does that even mean? How is rain right, or wrong for that matter?"

Harry tried to be cheerful. For them. But all he really felt was tired, and hollow, and a little bit worn around the edges.

"Oh, mum is going to kill me," Hermione mourned as she turned back to them, three keys in hand. "She doesn't know I have her credit card."

Harry was about to comment that she'd find out once she got the bill, but a sharp stab of pain in his forehead - gone as quickly as it came - silenced him. He must have winced, because Ron raised an eyebrow his way. "You okay?" he repeated.

"Yeah." Harry reached a hand up to his scar out of instinct, then let it fall away mid-motion. Voldemort was alive and well and killing. They already knew that. Right now their mission was elsewhere. "I'll be fine." The words sounded different this time, as if they were coming from somewhere very far away. Harry's mouth tasting overpoweringly of iron. He shook his head as if to clear it, then grabbed hold of his bags again. "So, lead the way," he said as Hermione handed him his key with an accompanying frown.

"Harry -"

He cut her off before she could let him know how Concerned About Him they both were. He knew. He appreciated. There was no use repeating that conversation til they all turned blue in the face. "Come on," he said. "I want to put this stuff down and grab a bite to eat. I'm starving."

They headed toward the left wing of the building, passing a few rather distant faces. The lobby was quiet - most of the business seemed to be about on the street - but well-furnished and cozy in that home away from home sense of the word. Someone had cranked the air conditioner up to full blast, a feat Harry approved of greatly.

"Wait a tick!" the desk clerk called, and they froze.

"Yes?" said Hermione, as the trio turned and she greeted him with a placating smile. Harry could see a dozen things flash across her face, emotions ranging from surprise to fear to relief and back again. "Is something the matter?"

He was a wiry man with a good teeth but a receding hairline, and he was tall enough - and the ceiling low enough - that he would have had to dodge the dusty old chandelier hanging in the middle of the lobby. He made no attempt to hide the fact that he was eyeing Harry's scar with quite some interest.

"Isn't you -" he began.

"No," Harry said, cutting him off abruptly. Then, at the man's startled look, "I get that a lot. Striking resemblance and all."

The clerk remained unconvinced. "Then what's with the -" he made a limp gesture at Harry's forehead. He seemed to be reluctant to complete his sentence, as if drawing too much attention to Harry might make him disappear.

He wasn't wrong. "Got in a fight with my owl," Harry deadpanned. "Lost." He forced a smile, subtle but polite, and added, "If you'll excuse us." He turned again, bags in hand, to continue the walk to their rooms, and felt Ron and Hermione follow suit behind him.

His footsteps echoed on the wooden floor, fast and even and ringing hollow in his ears. He'd not yet made it halfway to the wing when he felt himself being thrown to the floor as Hermione yelled, "Harry, watch out!" and a cold voice behind them casually announced, "Avada kedavra."

Harry squeezed his eyes shut against the flash of violent green light and prayed for the first time he could remember.

Please, he thought. I don't want to die.

And then - "H-Harry? Are you all right?" There was something in Hermione's voice that made his eyes snap open. The room swirled around him like a carousel as he stood, brushing the stirred-up soot from his trousers and taking mental stock of all his limbs. He was alive. And all accounted for. "Yeah. I'm - I'm good." A pause, then, as he followed her eyes - neither she nor Ron were looking at him - "Bloody hell."

The clerk lay slumped across the front desk, dead. His eyes were already beginning to cloud over. At the entranceway stood a tall, bony woman with fiery red hair and an angular face. She wore bright, illustrious green robes and her wand was still pointed at the clerk, level with where his heart would have been before he fell.

Harry felt his hand tighten around his own wand. He didn't remember reaching for it. Didn't care. He couldn't find it in him to speak, to address the strange woman who had brought death to their doorstep and now stood eyeing them with a mixture of suspicion and amusement. "Hello," she said. Her smile was like a lion's grimace.

Ron faltered back a step; Harry could not manage even that. His feet were rooted to the ground as his mind raced for options of escape.

If she wanted to kill you, said a voice in the back of his head, she might have done it already.

Shut up, he told it.

It was Hermione who broke the trio's silence, demanding "Who are you?" in an impressively brazen voice.

Whatever spell she held over them was broken in that moment, as the fear drained from Harry's body just enough to allow logic back in. Hermione seemed to let out a long breath she hadn't realized she was holding, and Ron coughed awkwardly in the brief silence.

She raised an eyebrow and leveled her gaze at Harry, as if his friends were not there. As if there were not a dead body lying five yards away. As if she hadn't been the one to kill him. "Quinn Raiden," the woman - Quinn - said finally, without taking her eyes from Harry's. "Auror." That grimace again. "I'd like it very much if the four of us could have a word in private."

And just like that - the end began.

Quinn looked up from sipping her tea just in time to see Harry's eyes dart away to focus on some nonexistent spot of the wall in hopes of looking nonchalant.

They were in one of the three rooms that Hermione had booked, Quinn sitting at the working desk with perfect posture and one leg crossed over the other. Ron lounged in a big, plushy chair off to the side, Harry sat in a wooden straight-backed chair next to him, and Hermione was pacing quietly, three steps one way and three steps back, never saying a word.

The tension was tangible.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," the Auror said finally with a nod at Hermione and Ron. Harry thought she didn't sound very sorry at all. Her voice was coarse and brittle, like footsteps over glass. "It was not my intent to frighten you."

"Why should we believe anything you say?" Hermione spat, turning suddenly on her heel and contorting her face in what was either fear or fury, they couldn't be sure. "You killed a man. You used an Unforgivable Curse, and you killed a man. No Auror would do such a thing!"

Quinn Raiden didn't miss a beat. "On the contrary. In light of the recent events in London, the Ministry has sanctioned the use of the Unforgivables by Aurors to capture, interrogate or even kill known Dark Wizards on sight. Drastic times, and all."

"I don't believe you," said Ron.

"What else would you have them do? London is near overrun, and if Scrimgeour hadn't taken desperate measures to support what is now a rather desperate cause, the city would have fallen days ago. And that man would have had you" - she jerked her head at Harry - "dead and buried before you could even cry out for your mother. Now it's my job to keep you lot alive until we can get you back home, and that's a task in and of itself."

"What did you say?" Harry asked.

"You want me to repeat the whole thing?" She set down her teacup with just a little more force than might have been necessary.

"N-No. I mean. London. It's - what's happened?"

She stared at him then, really stared, as if he had just grown two heads, cast off his clothing and declared it the National Day of Nudity. She looked - incredulous. There was no other word for it.

"You haven't heard?"

"Please," Hermione said. "We've been on and off the road all week. There was a power outage in the last place we stayed - we've had no news for days."

Quinn seemed to contemplate that for a moment, hands disappearing under her robes for a moment and reappearing with a cigarette and lighter. She fiddled with the lighter a few times (clickclickclickclick) before the flame caught, then took a deep drag before letting it out one corner of her mouth. "Oh, Hecate's tits." She cleared her throat and said, "The Death Eaters began attacking early this week. There were isolated incidences; inconveniences. Nothing more. But they've begun to organize over the course of the last few days. There have been casualties. They're pressing in on the city from all sides." Another drag of the cigarette. "London bridge is falling down, kiddos."

That silenced them.

Harry heard the words, even understood the meaning behind them. But the reality - casualites. A coordinated attack. No word from anyone for the whole week. He could not fathom what it might mean. While they had pranced off to Godric's Hollow at his whim, who might have been lost in the interim?

He had known they would eventually try and take London, but he'd never imagined it would be so soon. What had such a miscalculation cost him? Cost all of them?

"I don't believe you," said Ron again, just as Hermione whispered, "How bad is it?"

She paused to take another drag before answerng him. "It could be better. It could be worse. I haven't been in town for two days, so what I know may well be dated. I'm here to take you home."

Harry wasn't sure if he imagined the light burning sensation at the corner of his forehead. He thought he heard shouts - desperate cries, thought he could smell smoke and decay and the stench of human waste. Those things, he was fairly certain he imagined. But he couldn't stomach the notion that they may be reality - soon, if not already.

"Yes," he said in barely a whisper, just as Hermione said, "We can't." They exchanged tentative looks with each other, Hermione's face guarded with just a little surprise behind her eyes, Harry's fallen and housing exhaustion in his.

"Of course," he said to Quinn.

Hermione was insistent. "Harry, we can't. Not just yet." She crossed her arms across her chest, and Harry could see goosepimples beginning to rise up on her flesh. "We haven't found what it is we came here for."

"An early death?" suggested Quinn, putting out her cigarette on the wooden surface of the table next to her. She stood slowly, eyeing each of them in turn as if she were an entomologist and they, highly rare species of insects. "What could the three of you possibly be looking for all the way out here, anyway?" And then, more gently, "This is no place for you." That part she directed at Harry.

The question seemed simple enough to Harry - what, exactly, was it that he was looking for? Coming to Godric's Hollow had seemed the obvious answer at the time, but now he was no longer certain of the question. Why return to Godric's Hollow? In search of answers? The final horcrux? The life he was destined to never have?

The question seemed simple enough. But he'd be damned if he could think of an answer.

Instead he said, "Please. It's the sort of thing we really wouldn't know until we see it." There. That sounded reasonable enough.

"It's the sort of thing that will get you lot into more trouble than you're worth," the Auror snapped.

"But if it's your job to protect us," said Hermione slyly, "perhaps it'd be best if you stayed with us here for a few days, helped us search. Then we can all head back together."

Cornered.

Harry had to grin.

Quinn swore under her breath. She seemed to offer up the pretense of a moment's consideration (on a matter which they all knew bore no consideration whatsoever), then glared at them as if she were trying to strip their skin from their bones using only the power of her mind.

The trio remained distinctly un-flayed, however, and Quinn let out a frustrated noise that sounded a bit like ungggh and threw up her hands. "Yes. Very well. Fine. Have it your way." She raked her long, acryllic red fingernails lightly down her face then reached inside her robe and withdrew another cigarette.