Harry Potter and the Black Grimoire

CHAPTER TWENTY - GODRIC'S HOLLOW

The next week in the castle seemed to fly by to Harry. Usually when you are waiting impatiently for something time seems to slow down, but this was not the case. Instead the whole 'time flies when you are having fun' saying came into play. He made himself busy with finishing up the rest of the work he had and spending most of the time with Ron, Hermione and Maddie. He even spent some time in the library with Hermione under the pretense that he wanted to look up new spells for the dueling club. Somehow, he thought, researching in the library isn't as dull when you're interested in the subject.

The week was going by fast in his classes, but that didn't mean there was a shortage of homework. McGonnagall had of course loaded them up as well as the rest of their teachers. They had just finished with the Griffin in Care of Magical Creatures, so that was the only particular class without a workload. Hagrid had said that they were just waiting now for the swans to hatch from the Barnacle Tree.

As usual around this time, the castle was being decorated in the spirit of winter and the coming Christmas holiday. The ghosts roamed the hallways singing Christmas carols, the giant trees were present in the Great Hall and there was no lack of icicles hanging from the banisters. People had strung up leaves of mistletoe on doorways everywhere, so the spirit of friendship and happiness was everywhere. Except perhaps with the Slytherins.

The storm that had raged through Hogwarts last Saturday had dropped up to two feet of snow in some places and whenever there was a break Hogwarts students could be seen out on the grounds throwing snowballs or wrestling in the deep whiteness. A few people had sleds, which being a Muggle object, was relatively new to most at Hogwarts. They were becoming very popular though as many students wrote home to request a sled for Christmas.

Friday night came and the atmosphere within the Hogwarts castle was electric. People were running around everywhere gathering items and packing belongings and wishing their friends a good holiday. For the first time in his years at Hogwarts, Harry was participating in this hustle and bustle. He had never left Hogwarts for the winter holidays before, never wishing to spend extra time with the Dursleys. But this time was different. He would be going with Sirius to see his home and what would soon become his home. He had indeed also asked Sirius if Hermione could accompany them to Godric's Hollow and he had relented, seeing the look of pleading in their eyes. He had approved but only under the condition that Harry consent to allow him to invite some people over for Christmas dinner. Mystified but pleased, Harry agreed.

Harry woke up the next morning and got ready quicker than perhaps he had ever done before. Looking out the window he saw that light snowflakes were falling. The blanket of whiteness sparkled like magic across the Hogwarts grounds. Harry and his dorm mates hurriedly packed their last-minute things before going down to breakfast before the train left. Before he went down with the rest of the house, he remembered to go up and tell Hedwig to meet him at Sirius's house. She hopped onto his shoulder, nipped on his ear and flew off into the morning light.

Together him and Hermione went down to the Great Hall to wait for Sirius who would be traveling on the train with them. Ron and Maddie came down a few minutes later but in enough time to wish them goodbye and a happy Christmas.

Harry and Hermione waited in the Entrance Hall with their belongings for Sirius as the rest of the school that was leaving filed out. Finally they spotted him coming out of the staff room with a small suitcase. Most of his things would naturally already be there.

"You two ready?" he asked. He was all smiles.

"You bet!" Harry replied.

"Good! Let's go!"

They went out after the rest of the students and caught a carriage to themselves. It would take them into Hogsmeade station where they would then board a train to Godric's Hollow. Soon they were rambling on through the snow towards the wizarding village.

They met up with Ron again at the station. He was waiting with Maddie and Professor Radford for the Hogwarts Express back to King's Cross. They all chatted jovially for awhile before the train arrived promptly at ten o'clock. They all shared hugs while the conductor and train hands loaded their luggage into the compartments. They said one more goodbye as Ron, Maddie and Melissa Radford got onto the train. They watched it chug away from the platform before going to sit back down to wait for their train. It was scheduled to arrive at ten-thirty and sure enough a bright blue steam engine rode in right on time.

"Ten-thirty to Godric's Hollow!" the conductor shouted from the platform.

"That's us!" Sirius said.

They stowed their luggage and made their way onto the train, which was nowhere near as full as the Hogwarts Express. They had no problem at all finding an empty car and they were soon seated comfortably at the back of the train where they could see almost all the way around the car from the windows.

"How long is the ride, Sirius?" Hermione asked.

"'Bout three hours," he replied. "Better settle yourselves in. It's a beautiful ride though."

With that he placed his cloak behind him and lied down, covering his eyes with his arm.

"Wake me when we get there," he said.

"We'll try and remember," Harry said mischievously.

Seeing as they were all alone, Harry and Hermione moved to the other side of the car where they had a good view of the landscape.

Soon they heard the call of the conductor and the whistle and the train started to roll with a billow of smoke. They began their ride throughout the countryside as the scenery became more and more beautiful. Harry couldn't help but with there was no snow on the ground as he imagined it would look stunningly lush and green. But the snow wasn't bad and he and Hermione settled back in the chair, holding each other and looking out of the window.

Soon their eyelids began to get heavy and they drifted off to sleep in each other's arms.

What seemed like minutes later they were being shaken awake by Sirius.

"We're nearly there," he said, eyeing them. "And you know you two are too cute for your own good.

They smiled and wiped their eyes while the separated and stretched. Harry never grew tired of hearing that.

"Remind me so much of Lily and James. They were a horribly cute couple as well."

Harry imagined he would never grow tired of hearing that either.

Sure enough moments later the train started to slow down and they were stopping at an old train station. Hand in hand Harry and Hermione stepped off the train after Sirius and their luggage was brought to them. They were all wished a happy Christmas as they walked into the main terminal. They walked through the building and out of the front doors and back into the sunlight.

Godric's Hollow was just as Harry had pictured it. It was a quaint little town that sat right in the bottom of a valley between two connected mountains. At the moment the mountain peaks were covered in snow and bare trees littered the side of the slope. Most of the houses in the village were old fashioned but appeared to be exceptionally comfortable and homey.

Once on the stone street they caught a carriage pulled by a horse and Sirius directed the coachman to his house.

"Number nice, Godric's Row," he said.

"Gotcha Mr. Black," he said. Apparently they knew him.

He soon found out that just about everybody in the village knew Sirius. As they went down the lanes just about everyone in sight waved or called a greeting to Sirius.

"Popular man," Harry said with a smirk.

"What can I say?" Sirius replied smugly.

Harry was surprised when a few addressed him as well.

"Merry Christmas Sirius! And you too Harry!" one of them shouted.

"They know me here too?"

"'Course they do. Famous Harry Potter and all," he joked.

"I'm beginning to feel a little left out!" Hermione said.

"Oh I'm sure they'll all know you by the time we leave," Sirius assured her. "The people who live here are all a very tight bunch. The families that live here have done so for centuries, from generation to generation. They all knew and loved your parents, Harry. They're all extremely excited to have you back."

"Wow. Didn't think of that."

"Yep. I'll bet you'll find some coming up to you and telling you they haven't seen you since you were a baby too. Many of the older people still remember you as a baby."

"What's the population like?" Hermione asked. "How many wizarding families?"

"Well all of the families have wizards in them. There are some mixed muggle-wizard families, but no all muggle families. Everyone around here knows about our world."

"So where's your house?" Harry asked.

"Just up this lane," Sirius said pointing. "The one at the end. Been in my family for generations. Its just me now."

They looked down the street as they turned the corner and saw a rather large gothic-style house at the end. It was easily the biggest on the street and was surrounded by trees, all bare, of course, and a frozen pond sat in the yard behind the house. The edge of a forest was behind that and then the mountain reared up from the trees. There was a stable on the edge of the wood and they could see several horses and some sheep grazing in a large pen.

"You have horses?!" Hermione asked shrilly.

"Yep. Four."

"I love horses! Can we go riding?"

"Of course you can. We can all do that later, after everyone is settled. I'll show you the town."

Hermione was bursting with glee next to him. Harry had to put his arm around her shoulders to stop her from launching herself out of the carriage when they stopped. Reluctantly she got out and pulled her trunk into the house.

From what Harry could see the house was decorated throughout in dark, shining wood. The foyer of the house had a high ceiling and stairs and balcony was before them. On either side of the entranceway were doors. The dining room on the right and the sitting room on the left. All of the furniture and draperies were dark red lined in gold.

"Gryffindor colors," Harry commented.

"Yep. Come on, I'll show you to your rooms. Yes. Rooms. I don't want you two to do anything I would while you're here. Hermione's parents would kill me if they find out you two had spent the entire holiday shagging in Harry's room."

"No fun at all," Harry jested.

Hermione's face had turned quite pink.

Sirius led them up the red-carpeted stairs and into a doorway on the left. Inside was a nicely furnished sitting room with a bunch of oversized couches that sat before a large fireplace. It looked oddly like the Gryffindor common room. Harry raised his eyebrows at Hermione and she smirked in return.

They went through another door in the side of this room and came to a short hallway. A large bathroom was on the left and another door was at the end.

"This," Sirius said, opening the door, "is your room, Harry."

"Wow." It was the only word he could find.

The room itself was magnificent. It followed the central theme of the house with the blood-red carpeting and dark wood paneled walls. A large, luxurious four-poster sat against the wall of one side of the room. The other side of the room was nothing but windows. They were large and covered most of the wall. They looked out over the house's rear grounds, at the forest and mountain. Harry looked down and saw the horses there, digging through the snow to find some grass. Behind him Hermione had thrown herself down onto his bed and rolled on top of the red blankets.

"I like your bed, Harry."

"Comfortable?" he asked before flinging himself beside her. "Sirius, this is awesome."

"Glad you like it, Harry. This used to be my room. I always loved the view."

"I think I'm going to too," Harry said dreamily, staring out the window from his bed.

"Ok come on. Up! Gotta show you the rest of the house," he said, pulling the teenagers up by the arms.

He led them through each and every room for the next half an hour. To Hermione's delight he had put her in the room just off of the surprisingly large library. She squealed in delight as she saw the shelves and shelves of books.

"Oh I wish I could live here!"

"Now, now. I don't think your parents would appreciate that."

"No, I expect they wouldn't, would they?" Hermione said a bit sheepishly.

Her room was just as nice as Harry's though except the bed was not as lavish and the view wasn't as good.

"This is the guestroom. Lily and James stayed in this room whenever they came to visit."

"Didn't they live in the village?" Harry asked.

"Well yes, but we were still teenagers."

Harry and Hermione looked at him quizzingly.

"So we might have had a few parties and they were too drunk to go home!"

"As much as I expected!" Harry said.

"Well your mother was never the real partier," he said, "But she followed your father everywhere. Whether he was blown out of his mind or not."

"Such troublemakers," Hermione teased.

"We had fun," Sirius stated.

The rest of the rooms were just as lavish and beautiful. In the kitchen the counter-tops were all black marble and a large island centerpiece stood in the middle. There was a small round table in the corner. The floor was a grayish stone tile.

The dining room was perhaps the most luxuriously decorated. A long oak table sat in the middle and a large crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. There was a beautiful fireplace in one wall of the room and a large china cabinet on the other. Tall, exotic looking plants stood in the corners and the windows that formed one side of the room were draped in heavy coverings, red, again lined with golden patterns.

The sitting room was much like the one upstairs but it two of the walls were covered with even more books and another beautiful chandelier hung from the ceiling. A magnificent grand piano sat in the corner. A fire was already burning in the hearth.

There was also and old, dusty attic and a wine cellar in the basement.

"Come on outside, I'll show you the horses and the stables."

This was what Hermione was waiting for. She grabbed her coat and flung it on and was outside before either of them even knew where she had gone. She stopped and leaned on the fence to wait for them. A medium-sized brown horse came up to her and nudged her hands. She petted its nose affectionately.

"That's Lily," Sirius said. "She always loved to ride her at the public stables, so when I bought them I named her after her."

"That's so sweet!"

Harry too reached out to rub the horse that had his mother's name on the nose.

"And that one over there is James. They were somewhat of a couple when I acquired them, so I couldn't separate the two. It seemed appropriate for this one to be James. They were quite young when I bought them. I was just out of Hogwarts."

Harry liked the one named after his father. It was tall and appeared strong. It was gray with a long, flowing mane.

"And the one over there is Lucy, named after my mother and that one is Bubbles."

"Bubbles?" Harry asked.

"Yes. Bubbles."

He decided not to pursue it any further.

"Ok, now let's get back into the house and put all the stuff away, then we can go for a shirt ride. It's gonna be dark soon."

That said they walked back into the house and busied themselves putting their belongings away. Harry put all of his clothes in the large wardrobe that was in his room and laid his books on the desk.

'Finally,' he thought, 'a place I can do my homework in peace.'

Very soon they were all back outside again and Sirius was saddling up three of the horses for them. Sirius was going to ride Bubbles, Hermione, Lily and Harry, James. Lucy was the oldest and didn't like to get ridden a lot, Sirius told them.

They rode through the village for an hour before it got dark, stopping occasionally to talk with people who were outside. Harry introduced Hermione to everyone while they always wore a knowing smile. And Sirius was right; many did remember him from when he was a baby.

All in all it felt to Harry like coming home to a family he had never had. He felt completely comfortable in every way. He could talk to the people, they would talk to him and he didn't have to worry about anything while he was under the shadows of the mountains. He was content beyond happiness.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry slept soundly in his new bed that night. He fell asleep with a smile on his face and when he awoke to the morning sun filtering in through the half-closed curtains, he found it was still there. The first thing he did was go to Hermione's room to see if she was awake yet. He found her in the bathroom brushing her hair and they went downstairs together.

Sirius was already awake, busy making breakfast in the kitchen. The smell of fresh eggs and ham floated through the house all the way to their noses and they were drawn to the kitchen like a cat to catnip. They told him 'good morning' before sitting down at the round table.

Soon they were all eating peacefully, Hermione and Harry staring out the windows again, Sirius reading the days issue of the Daily Prophet.

"Should be a good day for you to go riding. The Prophet says were in for a warm spell. Hasn't been this warm in December for sixty years. Snow might melt. No white Christmas."

"You're not going riding with us today?" Harry asked.

"Can't. Ministry's called me in. I've been helping the Aurors track down Death Eaters. But I'll be home before dinner. Shouldn't take me all day."

They were disappointed that Sirius wouldn't be able to join them for the day, but it would give them time to do a little exploring on their own.

"Remember," he said, pulling on his cloak, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do while I'm gone. And I've already asked just about everyone in the village to keep an eye on you, so don't think you can just go causing havoc."

"Party pooper," Harry said sarcastically.

"My duty as your Godfather to keep you safe."

"Yeah, yeah. Go to work so me and Hermione can shag on the dining room table."

"Harry!" she shrieked, going pink again.

"Then we're gonna go and set the forest on fire. Fire is fun!"

"Very funny, Harry," Sirius said, rolling his eyes.

"Ok, I'm going. Be good!"

With that he vanished from the kitchen.

"So how 'bout that table idea?" Harry said suggestively.

"You wish!" she said, dashing upstairs.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Soon the two were dressed and made their way out to the stables where Sirius had already saddled Lily and James. And the Daily Prophet was right, it was unseasonably warm. It was more like early autumn than the middle of winter. It was so warm that they decided to leave their cloaks behind when they rode out of the stables. They were dressed only in jeans and thick sweaters.

They rode their horses through the melting snow back the way they had came the previous day, wishing people a good morning along the way. They all looked quite happy to see the two teenagers out and enjoying the beautiful day.

They rode side by side for hours, content to simply going up and down the streets, greeting as many people as they could. After all, Harry thought, he would be living here; he had to become friendly with the villagers. All of them were friendly as well. Many invited Hermione and him into their homes for tea and cakes, or told him stories about what they remembered when his parents had lived here. By afternoon they were quite tired from riding and all of the getting off and on their horses they had been doing, so they decided to ride into town and see what kind of stores and restaurants it had to offer.

They were not disappointed as the town had just as many interesting places to offer as Hogsmeade. They finally decided to stop at a small café. They tethered their horses outside and went into the café where they ordered sandwiches and pumpkin juice. As they went to look for an open table to sit at, they noticed a group of teenagers that appeared to be a little younger than them. There were three boys and two girls. They were sitting at a large table in the back and were waving to them. Harry raised his eyebrows and nodded his head in their direction. Hermione gave a nod of approval and they walked to the back of the café to join them.

"Hullo," one of the boys said. "I'm Scottie. You're Harry Potter right?"

"That would be me," Harry said cheerily.

"Want to join us?" a girl asked.

"We'd love to. And this is Hermione, my companion," Harry added.

They all greeted Hermione warmly.

Soon Harry and Hermione had come to know the small group of friends as they talked amongst each other. Both thought the group to be highly enjoyable. Scottie and his friend John were quite funny. Bill and the girl that had invited them to sit, Victoria, were a couple and Jean, her best friend, was very welcoming as well.

Harry appreciated that none of them had made a big deal about who he was, or asked to see his scar. He was used to it by now, and didn't mind it, but liked it better when people treated him like just another kid, rather than the Boy-Who-Lived.