A Late Concilation   von Arakone
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                                  Kapitel 3: 
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It had been a nearly two month since the battle at Hogwarts. Harry was at
Grimmauld Place, sorting out a few things. Kreacher was in the kitchen making
supper for him, Ginny, Ron and Hermione. Maybe Fleur and Bill would come, too.
He was in Sirius old room, cleaning it, secretly looking for remains of his
parents or their good friends, his godfather, Sirius, and Remus. Until now he
hadn't found anything. And he was almost done.
He didn't mean to spent his whole life in this house, but he sure enough would
live here for the rest of vacation and then return to Hogwarts to eventually
repeat his final year. Kingsley had already promised him, if he finished his
school, that he'd be able to become an auror. He sighted. He was done cleaning
Sirius room and hadn't found anything about his parents. He took another look at
the picture on the wall where the four Hogwarts boys stood arm in arm. He smiled
a weak smile and left the room.
A wonderful smell of food came out of the kitchen. Harry walked down the stair
case, as silent as possible, and entered the kitchen. Kreacher, still with the
way too large locket around his neck, was busy cooking. When Harry entered, he
turned to him and bowed: “Is Master done cleaning?”, he asked with a flare
of scorn. Kreacher had almost fought with Harry about who should clean out
Sirius room. It had taken Harry quite some time to make him understand that he
wanted to do it, because he needed to do it.
“Yes, I am done, Kreacher.”, he sat down at the table, “How is the
cooking?”
Kreacher sheered up. “Almost done, Master. Guests come soon.”
“I bet they'll be late.”, he smiled. Kreacher looked at him disapproving. If
he had been able to do whatever he liked that look would have said: 'They better
not.'
Kreacher, now. set the table and as soon as he had but the last fork on it, the
bell rang.
“Kreacher getting.”, he croaked and stormed out of the kitchen. Harry
smiled. It felt good to see Kreacher in such a good mood. He could hear voice
out of the hall and stood up. When he reached the door, it was already opened.
Ginny smiled at him: “Hey.”
“Hey.”, he hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She squeezed through
between him and the door and sat down. Ron and Hermione grinned at him. He
grinned back: “Are ya hungry?”
“Sure.”, Ron also stepped into the kitchen. Leaving Hermione and Harry
standing in the door. She blushed: “We've got something for you. Thought you
like it.”
She brought her hands up front from behind her back and held a cage with a
snoring owl up. Harry gasped: “Wow. That... that...”
“It's, because you...”, Ginny sighted, “I mean... because Hedwig's... you
know... gone.”
Harry felt a pungent wave of pain inside him. As in a dream he relived Hedwig's
death, hit by a death curse, falling from his broom. He took the cage with the
big brown owl, which now looked at him through yellow eyes: “Thanks”, he
muttered, than sat down. He opened the cage and let her out. She flew out of the
cage and onto the top of the kitchen table.
“What name will you give her?”, Ginny asked, while Kreacher filled her
plate. “Thanks, Kreacher.”
The little house-elf went pink and his ears lay fled on his head. “Ttthank
you... little Miss said tttthank you.”
Ginny smiled at him, Harry just looked amused. He then turned his head towards
the brown owl, now sleeping. “I don't know.”
“It's a him.”, said Hermione hastily, looking at Harry. He shrugged, then
looked at Ron: “What do you think?”
Ron, who already had started to eat, looked at him: “I don't know, man. It's
your's.”
“Hmmm...”, he looked up again. Scanning the feathers with his eyes, then,
quite suddenly the owl swung into the air, dived, graped some bread from the
table and flew back onto the cupboard. A loud shriek filled the kitchen. With an
angry face, Kreacher looked at the owl: “BAD OWL! BAD OWL!”
Harry started to laugh: “It's okay, Kreacher. He can have it.”
“He's a mischief maker, ain't he?”, Ron said, then starting to eat again.
Harry, too, had now started to eat. He looked up and then said: “Oy, I call
him Fred.”
Ron started to choke. Hermione clapped on his back and looked at Harry: “I
don't know, if that's good?”
“Why not. Fred was quite a mischief maker and he would've been proud, if an
owl was named after him.” He turned to Ginny. “What do you think?”
Ginny looked at him with huge eyes. He had the feeling that he could see tears
in them. Then she nodded: “He'd like that.” Her voice was thick with tears.
Harry smiled and started to eat again. Fred. So, his new owl would be Fred. That
was good.
It was Hermione, who broke the silence, which had emerged, because everyone was
eating: “What are you planning on doing, today?”
“I'd like to go to Godrics Hollow.”, Harry didn't look up this time. He knew
Hermione know had a wondrous look on her face. But it was Ginny, who asked:
“Why's that?”
“I want to see, if anything remained.”
Kreacher had started cleaning the table.
“But you saw it. It's just ruins.”, Hermione said breathlessly.
“Yeah”, now he looked into her questioning brown eyes. “But I still want
to take another look.”
“I go with you.”, Ginny now said, her eyes gleaming.
“Me too.”, Ron stood up. “Wanna go right now?”
“By Merlin's beard”, Hermione sighted, “alright, alright.”
So, after another fifteen minutes of busy rummaging around, they were ready to
leave. They apparated from a small side street just out of Godrics Hollow. The
streets were quite busy, when they entered the little wizard town. Not as it was
the last time they had been here. And not as the last time, this time Harry knew
which way he had to go. He was holding hands with Ginny and forcefully marching
into the direction of his parents' house, which now was only ruins.
“Oh.”, it was Ron, who know must have seen the ruins. “Is it that?”
“Yes.” Harry stopped in front of the wildly grown hedge. He looked at the
cottage and it was, as if his heart made a jump. “Let's go.”
He touched the gate and again there sprang up a sign. Ginny stopped to read it:
“That's... that's just...”
“Touchy?”, Harry smiled.
Ron replied: “Touchy.”
Harry wanted to open the gate, but it didn't move, so he just stepped over it.
The others followed and silently they walked into the ruins. It was dusty and
dirty. He could feel how a soft rain of dust lay itself upon his shoulder. With
an awkward feeling in his stomach he walked through a room, which once would
have been a living room. In a corner of the in dusty covered, half- destroyed
room he could see a toy broom. He went to pick it up and now, tears were running
down his face.
“My first broom.”, he whispered, almost not audible, “Sirius bought it for
my first birthday.”
He stood a moment, then cleaned the broom with his sleeve.
He started to walk around the room, leaving dusty food prints on the moldering
carpet. There was a cabinet, with a few, not recognizable, pictures on. He
picked them up, but, because he couldn't see anything on them, set them down
again.
“Look at this.”, Ron was calling from a room to his right. Ginny and Harry
looked at each other, then they walked towards Ron and Hermione, who were
standing in front of a drawer. Harry looked around a neat desk was standing in
the room, next to it were two armchairs, a small table and a fireplace. On the
other side was a huge bookshelf, which Hermione curiously glanced at.
“Must have been a study.”, she said quietly. Ginny looked around: “And
it's almost not damaged.”
She was right. The door was destroyed and the room was gray of dust, but other
than that it seemed as if someone just had worked here, yesterday. There even
was a small tea set still on the table, with one cup broken.
Harry went to the drawer, where Ron was still standing, while the girls started
to look at the bookshelf. “Did you try opening it?”
“Nope.”, Ron shook his head. “Though you should do it.”
Harry drew in his breath. His hands were shaking badly and a small fire blazed
in his stomach nagging at his heart. He tried to open the drawer, but it
wouldn't.
“Is it locked?”
“No”, Harry shook his head, “It's jammed.”
He pulled at the little handle, but it didn't move. He could feel his spirits
sinking and a funny feeling of loss spread through his body. Ron, now, took his
chances and with one great pull the drawer sprang open, making a cracking noise,
which made everybody jump. “There you go”, Ron panted.
Hermione and Ginny walked over to them and looked over their shoulder. “What's
in it?”, Ginny asked curiously.
Harry carefully started looking through the papers and books. “It's my
mums.” He leafed through a calendar from 1981, where his mother obviously had
marked appointments and other important notes. “Look”, he suddenly said. He
had just arrived at January 9th, because he had started to leaf through it from
the back. There in her neat writing stood 'Sev Birthday, 21 – write a card?'.
'Write a card' was crossed out.
“Why didn't she send him a card?”, Hermione asked. Ron snorted: “Because
he was a Death Eather.”
Harry considered the note. “They hadn't talked to each other in three years or
something.”
“But then, why should she even consider writing a card?”, Ginny asked. This
time it was Hermione, who answered: “Maybe she wanted to make up, but didn't
dare, because he was a Death Eather.”
Meanwhile Harry had again started to look through the little calendar. March
27th, 'James Birthday, 21'. There were a lot more items, such as 'buy present,
make cake, invite Mooney, Padfoot and Wormy, invite Batilda? Dumbledore?', than
there had been at Severus birthday. Also, there was a little heart just after
James name.
“That's so girlish.”, Ron remarked. This time it was Hermione, who sniffed:
“Why is that? She loved him.”
“Well, I thought she was more...”, Ron thought a moment, “...
reasonable.”
“They were just married”, Ginny interfered, her cheeks glowing red.
“But it just doesn't seem to fit to a woman, who fought against dark
wizards.”
“Stop that.”, Harry called. He didn't want them talking of his parents as if
they were characters in a story. He now had started skimming through the rest of
the papers. He found a picture of his father and mother, which after looking at
them waving, he put smiling into his pocket. There were also a lot of unused
parchments, quills, a few bills, a letter from someone Harry didn't know, which
said that they had gone into hiding safely and then he found another letter. It
was still sealed. He picked it up and looked at it. 'Severus' was written on
it.
“Bloody hell?”, Ron let out a whistle. Ginny touched Harry's arm: “Do you
want to open it?”
Harry didn't answer. The letter felt like fire in his hands, as if it was going
to burn any minute.
“You don't want to open it, Harry, do you?”, there was something like fright
in Hermione's voice. When Harry didn't answer again, she said. “What if...”
“It's not.”, Harry said seriously. Ron drew his brows closer together:
“How do you know?”
“My mum was happy with my dad. Otherwise her spell wouldn't have protected
me.”, Harry paused. “So why should she have written a love letter?”
No one answered and Harry broke the seal. He unfolded the parchment carefully,
afraid it would break or decay to dust. He felt his heart beating like hell,
felt his pulse raising up into his throat. He wasn't as sure as he had sounded
that it wasn't what it seemed to be. He swallowed hard then unfolded the last
bit and began to read.
After the first few lines, Harry relaxed. Ginny, who was looking over his
shoulder and reading to, giggled: “She is so cute. She wanted to make up with
him.”
“Yeah,”, Harry said thoughtful, “because it was her, who broke off the
friendship.”
He again felt a wave of joy and loss overwhelming him. Again he noticed that she
wrote her g's just like he did, that she had such a neat handwriting. He reread
the letter again, than handed it to Ron and Hermione, who stood jumpily beside
them. When he let go of the letter, there was a sting in his heart, as if he had
left something behind, which was quite valuable to him.
While Ron and Hermione were reading the letter, Harry looked at the rest of the
things in the drawer. He found another picture, this one of himself, with a cat.
The cat was walking all over him and he was crying. He could just imagine, how
he had wanted to play with the cat and then, when the cat came by, had been
afraid of her. He put that picture in his pocket, too. He also found a recipe
for cake in his mothers writing and also put it in his pocket. The last thing he
found, brought back tears into his eyes. It was a pack of birthday cards, hold
together by a string. Harry loosened the string and unfolded the first card, on
which a cat sat, which grinned and held a cake around her back, on which then
lights started to glow and the cat blew them out. Something a little child would
have found amusing. He opened the card. This time it was a large and untidy
handwriting. 'Happy first Birthday, my son. You are a present to us. We wish all
the luck in the world, a long and happy life. Your loving parents James and Lily
PS: I know you can't read that, but I wish that you become an as good Quidditich
player as I am. Dad'
Harry smiled. He could almost hear his mother. “Oh for Christ's sake, James.
He will never read it.”
Ron and Hermione had finished reading the letter and were now looking at the
Birthday cards.
“That is so cute”, Hermione said. Ginny laughed: “Yeah, and look at the
card. I bet James wanted it.”
“No, he had wanted something with Quidditich on it.”, Ron smirked.
Harry just smiled, then looked up at Hermione, who handed her the letter for
Severus back. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Well”, Harry thought a moment. “He needs to know.”
He refolded the letter carefully and put it in his pocket. Then he looked at the
other birthday cards. One was from Sirius, who wished him a lot of fun with his
new broomstick. One was from Remus, who hoped he would just inherit the best
characteristics of his parents. And one, to his surprise, was from Dumbledore,
who wished that Harry was to grow liking Lemon drops.
Harry put them, too, carefully into his jammed pockets. “Let's go.”, he
said, taking the little plastic broom, “We've got somewhere else to go.”

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