What Death Has Touched

Chapter One

Lily and James Potter died today.

Snape was abandoned, his soul collected today.

Harry was orphaned, Sirius imprisoned; Peter betrayed his friends today.

And then tomorrow Hagrid, slowly, to take the child away.

A melancholy chronological account of the most untimely deaths of Hallow's Eve 1981- of Godric's Hollow the night the world came to an end.

Chapter One

...

It's empty, this street in front of me.

No cars, no people- no movement. It's long since past sunset in early November and the streetlights cast an eerie glow over the wet pavement, a breathy wind fills the lungs of the empty street and the wind chimes of Number 17, rustles the bed sheet hiding a ghost at the window of Number 3. A gently waning moon hangs like a chandelier in a ceiling full of a stars.

It was quiet, that of the peculiar sort, like the electricity had been lost and a city was caught mid-scream, confused and perhaps a little frightened; huddled together in packs to guard themselves from the resounding darkness. But there was no noise there- no sound. Not then. Not on the night that the world came to an end.

But there was something odd happening in Godric's Hollow that night. Something strange, something mysterious. Something that's never been fully explained or even understood.

There were two deaths first, noise then, surely, before all this silence. Twelve soon to come- one orphan. A long-lost best friend first, a half giant next and a godfather with an itch in his heart taking up the back. Three visitors, three witnesses. Three viewers of the dead, of the orphan that night.

Their death was primal. It'd happened before, and it'll happen again. And it will always happen exactly when you think that it can't. 

But it's too late for that now- all the Muggle alarms have come too late. It was a war after all, and in war you guard your own before anyone else's. The world was soaked in a Death Eater mentality, in Slytherin-esque ambition- you just didn't know who your neighbour could be, who was controlling them from behind the curtain, out of sight. It was too much to ask for Muggle witnesses that night, for video footage. But remember that it's the middle of the night, and things like that don't happen here. Not in public. Not where a cleverly placed Disillusionment charm can't hide the obvious.

Despite the bad, the worse, and the inexplicable, lets have a healthy dose of reality, shall we? A sense of normality amongst these strangers on either side.

Even though there was a Fidelius-shaped hole between Number 17 and Number 19 on the west side of Godric's Hollow, one thing the street did have was houses. Loads of them. But they're grey, empty looking. Stone and wood, mostly; faded by the wear of time. They line the street east and west, with the back gardens facing the full moon on a night like tonight. Looking around, it's easy to see that they're abandoned, even though they shouldn't be. Not with the economy the way it is. Not with it being November first and the day after Hallowe'en.

Surely one house still has sweets on the front porch. Surely there are still pirates and fairies and television heroes walking the streets with heavy pillow cases slung over their shoulders.

Surely one person had seen it. Heard the piercing screams without perforated hiccup-y laughter following in its wake. But this wasn't a haunted house- there was no puppet master hiding in the doorway. Death had been here, and where he's been, dead men follow.