She sounded much more like her old self than she had done of late; Harry half expected her to announce that she was off to the library"There's a bit about the village in \iA History of Magic\i, wait
She opened the beaded bag and rummaged for a while, finally extracting her copy of their old school textbook, \iA History of Magic\i by Bathilda Bagshot, which she thumbed through until finding the page she wanted
"\i'Upon the signature of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689, wizards went into hiding for goodIt was natural, perhaps, that they formed their own small communities within a communityMany small villages and hamlets attracted several magical families, who banded together for mutual support and protectionThe villages of Tinworsh in Cornwall, Upper Flagley in Yorkshire, and Ottery StCatchpole on the south coast of England were notable homes to knots of Wizarding families who lived alongside tolerant and sometimes Confunded MugglesMost celebrated of these half-magical dwelling places is, perhaps, Godric's Hollow, the West Country village where the great wizard Godric Gryffindor was born, and where Bowman Wright, Wizarding smith, forged the first Golden SnitchThe graveyard is full of the names of ancient magical http://www.snluxury.com" target="_blank families, and this accounts, no doubt, for the stories of hauntings that have dogged the little church beside it for many centuries'\i
"You and your parents aren't mentioned Hermione said, closing the book, "because Professor Bagshot doesn't cover anything later than the end of the nineteenth centuryBut you see? Godric's Hollow, Godric Gryffindor, Gryffindor's sword; don't you think Dumbledore would have expected you to make the connection?"
"Oh yeah
Harry did not want to admit that he had not been thinking about the sword at all when he suggested they go to Godric's HollowFor him, the lore of the village lay in his parents' graves, the house where he had narrowly escaped death, and in the person of Bathilda Bagshot
"Remember what Muriel said?" he asked eventually
"Who?"
"You know," he hesitatedHe did not want to say Ron's nameThe one who said you had skinny ankles
"Oh," said HermioneIt was a sticky moment: Harry knew that she had sensed Ron's name in the offingHe rushed on:
"She said Bathilda Bagshot still lived in Godric's Hollow
"Bathilda Bagshot," murmured Hermione, running her index finger over Bathilda's embossed name on the front cover of \iA History of Magic\i"Well, I suppose -"
She gasped so dramatically that http://www.snluxury.com/categorys_14_Damier-Geant_1.html" target="_blank Harry's insides turned over; he drew his wand, looking around at the entrance, half expecting to see a hand forcing its way through the entrance flap, but there was nothing there
"What?" he said, half angry, half relieved"What did you do that for? I thought you'd seen a Death Eater unzipping the tent, at least -"
"Harry, \iwhat if Bathilda's got the sword?\i What if Dumbledore entrusted it to her?"
Harry considered this possibilityBathilda would be an extremely old woman by now, and according to Muriel, she was "gaga Was it likely that Dumbledore would have hidden the sword of Gryffindor with her? If so, Harry felt that Dumbledore had left a great deal to chance: Dumbledore had never revealed that he had replaced the sword with a fake, nor had he so much as mentioned a friendship with BathildaNow, however, was not the moment to cast doubt on Hermione's theory, not when she was so surprisingly willing to fall in with Harry's dearest wish
"Yeah, he might have done! So, are we going to go to Godric's Hollow?"
"Yes, but we'll have to think it through carefully, Harry She was sitting up now, and Harry could tell that the prospect of having a plan again had lifted her mood as much as his"We'll need to practice Disapparating together http://www.snluxury.com/categorys_89_Coco-Chanel-Jumbo-Flap-Bag_1.html" target="_blank under the Invisibility Cloak for a start, and perhaps Disillusionment Charms would be sensible too, unless you think we should go the whole hog and use Polyjuice Potion? In that case we'll need to collect hair from somebodyI actually think we'd better do that, Harry, the thicker our disguises the better
Harry let her talk, nodding and agreeing whenever there was a pause, but his mind had left the conversationFor the first time since he had discovered that the sword in Gringotts was a fake, he felt excited
He was about to go home, about to return to the place where he had had a familyIt was in Godric's Hollow that, but for Voldemort, he would have grown up and spent every school holidayHe could have invited friends to his houseHe might even have had brothers and sistersIt would have been his mother who had made his seventeenth birthday cakeThe life he had lost had hardly ever seemed so real to him as at this moment, when he knew he was about to see the place where it had been taken from himAfter Hermione had gone to bed that night, Harry quietly extracted his rucksack from Hermione's beaded bag, and from inside it, the photograph album Hagrid had given him so long agoFor the first time in months, he perused the old pictures of his http://www.snluxury.com/scategory_11_Prada.html" target="_blank parents, smiling and waving up at him from the images, which were all he had left of them now
Harry would gladly have set out for Godric's Hollow the following day, but Hermione had other ideasConvinced as she was that Voldemort would expect Harry to return to the scene of his parents' deaths, she was determined that they would set off only after they had ensured that they had the best disguises possibleIt was therefore a full week later - once they had surreptitiously obtained hairs from innocent Muggles who were Christmas shopping, and had practiced Apparating and Disapparating while underneath the Invisibility Cloak together - that Hermione agreed to make the journey
They were to Apparate to the village under cover of darkness, so it was late afternoon when they finally swallowed Polyjuice Potion, Harry transforming into a balding, middle-aged Muggle man, Hermione into his small and rather mousy wifeThe beaded bag containing all of their possessions (apart from the Horcrux, which Harry was wearing around his neck) was tucked into an inside pocket of Hermione's buttoned-up coatHarry lowered the Invisibility Cloak over them, then they turned into the suffocating darkness once again
Heart beating in his throat, Harry opened his http://www.snluxury.com/categorys_27_Seamaster-300600M_1.html" target="_blank