ADMIN DEE likes this
Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2017 11:32:28 GMT -7
30 april, 2024
godric's hollow
Harry had awoken early that morning. He had gone to sleep the night previous with much on his mind. He had been trying to piece together what was happening with the Purifiers since the school year had started – their silence was unnerving to him, and he was sure it made others equally uncomfortable. It had been last night that he had received some intelligence that had made everything fall together. Harry had promised himself that he wasn’t going to rush headfirst into things like he was a teenager again – all that had done was make situations harder, and in some cases, gotten people killed. After forcing himself to sleep on the information, there still seemed to be only one course of action.
Harry had debated telling someone else several times. His best friend was the Minister, after all; it would be easier to give her the information and let the Aurors run with it. The Gryffindor had long since abandoned his childlike notions that he was the only would that could be the hero. Even if that sentiment had never been the intention, Harry realized in hindsight that his childhood could have been so much easier, for him and for everyone around him, if he would have given up his pride and asked for help when he needed it. It seemed that the adults in his life had always been his last resort, then. But asking for help seemed to be the wrong course of action here. Harry wasn’t sure who he could trust anymore; it seemed obvious that by now, the Purifiers had some sort of presence in the Ministry. He hoped it wasn’t within his own department, but Harry couldn’t promise himself anything. And if this information got into the wrong hands… then things could be a hundred times worse. More people could die.
He got up from his seat at the kitchen table, feeling like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. It had been a long time since he felt that way, Harry mused. But the last time he had walked into something like this, he hadn’t had as much to lose. He had had his friends, yes, and of course the fate of the Wizarding world had hung in the balance, but now it was more than that. He had his wife and his children, his plethora of brothers and sisters in law, and his nieces and nephews. He had people in the Ministry who looked up to him, not as The Boy Who Lived, but as Auror Potter. And there was still the entire Wizarding world, Harry thought to himself with a humorless chuckle. He had written letters to Ginny and James and Albus and Lily, trying to explain why he had made the choice that he made. He knew it was unlikely that they would understand, and his words were clumsy, and nothing like he wished that he could say, but… Harry was content that if the worst happened, he at least had gotten to say goodbye.
There was a rustle from upstairs, and Harry wondered if Ginny was beginning to stir. He hadn’t wanted to take off without seeing her first, but he was also worried that she would talk him out of what he was going to do. Harry knew that it was the best choice, though, and really, his only choice. He didn’t want to live with the guilt he would inevitably feel if he didn’t follow this lead. Even if he was wrong (and Merlin, Harry hoped he was wrong), at least he had the security of knowing that he had tried. Letting himself be talked out of it would only lead to self-loathing, which meant he needed to leave… and soon.
Harry looked at the letters on the table again, and then towards the staircase. He needed to go now. The Gryffindor walked to the door, grabbing his cloak from the hook and pulling it around his shoulders. He opened the front door and stepped into the cool spring air, glancing over his shoulder one last time to drink in the sight of his home before walking down the path that would lead him out of Godric’s Hollow. His silhouette made an imposing figure against the rising sun, but no one in the sleepy neighborhood was awake to see him walk away.
Harry never came home.
