Be All My Secrets Remembered

Epilogue: The Beginning

1 November 1981

The Dark Mark still floated above the smoking ruins of the house, the green skull grinning downward. People had come and gone. First the giant, throwing aside bits of rubble until he found what he'd come for. Then the young man on the motorbike who just stood there, his face pale as the sliver of moon that had emerged from behind a cloud. The giant's movements seemed to galvanise him to action, and after an urgent exchange, the giant departed on the motorbike, his precious cargo cradled close. The young man stared after him for a long time. Then broke the stillness of the air in a voice like broken glass. "Wormtail. What have I done?" It was only as the sound of sirens drew near that he retreated to the shadows and disappeared.

Finally the police arrived, shocked and baffled by what they found. The house appeared to have levelled itself, the walls crumbling into the ground. Even more baffling were the dead. A man and a woman, their inexplicably unmarked bodies easily recognisable from several broken photographs lying amidst the rubble. But there was one particularly glaring mystery: a child. They found the remnants of a cot, and one of the photographs showed the handsome young couple with a little green-eyed boy. And yet, they searched every corner of the destroyed house and found nothing. Not a trace.

Three oddly dressed men arrived whilst the police were searching, and after some five minutes' conference, the police left, as if suddenly called elsewhere, leaving the blue and white tape strung up like party streamers. They did not return. Even the growing crowd from the village began to dissipate, melt back to their homes.

***

On the news the next night was the report of an explosion on a street in London. Thirteen people dead. The IRA, of course. It made perfect sense. The man even looked like a terrorist, with long black hair, wild eyes, and the barking laugh of a lunatic, screaming garbled nonsense at the cameras. It was rare enough to find someone who looked the part. In Cambridge, Dr Randolph Meadowes studied the television with horrified recognition but elected to say nothing to his wife. He turned off the programme and stared at the photograph of his dead daughter over the mantel for a very long time.

Not too far away, in Norwich, Martha Pettigrew sat in a chintz-covered armchair, staring at her dead son's finger, handed unceremoniously to her in a small plastic box by a visibly uncomfortable policeman. To be quite honest, we don't know what happened, Mrs Pettigrew. But I'm afraid this was all we found...I'm so very sorry. Setting the box aside, she began to rock back and forth, her tears spent long ago.

In a nondescript flat in London, a little girl with improbably purple hair clutched her new and excitingly real cat and watched in confusion as her mother started crying into the tea she had just brewed. Something about her uncle, but Dora could understand nothing more. Maybe when Dad came home he could explain it.

***

An exhausted-looking young man with streaks of grey in his hair appeared in the morgue at the local hospital and officially identified the bodies as James and Lily Potter, two friends of his from school. When the doctor looked down at the statement from the police, the cause of death was labelled an automobile accident. He had no reason to think otherwise, having only seen the bodies when they were brought in. No, there were no relatives so far as anyone knew, and he gladly gave them up to the visitor. It had been a long day and he was anxious to return home.

As he closed the door behind him, he did not see the young man fall to his knees, fists clenched at his sides. Did not hear the whispered word though, even if he had, it would have made no sense to him. What did stars have to do with anything, after all?

***

In Surrey, Petunia Dursley stared at her nephew, who looked back up at her with Lily's eyes. The eyes she'd always wished she'd had. His name was Harry. She knew that much from Lily's letters, the ones she kept meaning to burn unread only to yield to curiosity every time. And from those other letters she'd received. Only two--one letter of condolence for her parents, and a second telling her Lily and her husband and child had gone into hiding, sketching briefly the reasons why. Lily had not had the time to write. Something caught in Petunia's throat as Harry continued to watch her silently.

"Say something," she whispered. "Say something, you little freak. You don't belong here. But you've gone and killed your mother and now I have no choice. It's all your fault. If it hadn't been for you, none of this would have happened." She was crying now, tears landing on the coverlet. If they were for Lily, she would never admit it.

***

On the second of November, the first tourists arrived at the ruins of the house in Godric's Hollow, where He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had died. Some took pieces of the Muggle police tape still encircling what was left of the walls. Though the Ministry put an end to that very quickly, the stories continued to spread.

And as for the boy?

He Lived.