What Death Has Touched

Chapter Two

The clock ticks its way past midnight- It's now November second.

The decorations of Halloween long gone remain, dancing skeletons, white gauze and plastic spiders hanging from the trees. Disembodied smiles lingered in the doorways, pumpkins grinning and laughing like they know the secret that no one else does. They're the ones who saw Voldemort that night, those smiles are more than a gruesome slash of a mouth, they have a story to tell. They had seen Snape and would soon see others. They stood waiting before Sirius Black came rumbling in from the sky on a motorbike, half-delirious with fear and anticipation. They were the ones who danced for him that night, the ones who smiled and waited for the conclusion to come about after all this time.

The stage has been reset. It is no longer the night it once was, the world is not bathed in the colours of destruction- there was no desolation today. In fact, there was happiness. rejoicing- even in the hours following Voldemort's apparent demise, word was spreading. Joy ran rampant with the absence of sadness because not many knew of what had happened- what the price of Voldemort's death truly was. Nobody knew that Lily and James Potter had to die for Voldemort to be vanquished once and for all.

For most, in those hours after he was killed, life was good. A notorious villain had been killed and the world as they knew it was at peace once more. But Dumbledore knew better: he had understood what had happened when his wand shook in the middle of the night, when he had the good sense to alert Hagrid, to collect the child. To not listen to the drunken stories of the innkeepers when they rejoiced at the very idea that Voldemort could be dead.

Every victory comes with a price, a human cost, and on that day, at that time, it happened to be Lily and James Potter on the chopping block. The repercussions from the murders that shook their world and broke their hope. Their now orphaned son was left lying alone and afraid in his cot, abandoned in childhood and desperate for a home.

Hagrid was awoken by Dumbledore just after one o'clock that morning, and left immediately for Godric's Hollow unaware of what he would find there.

So running off of technicalities alone, it was Hagrid who got there second.

He Floo'd from Dumbledore's office into Bathilda Bagshot's flat (deaf as she was, Hagrid didn't expect her to notice, and in fact invited her absence. Dumbledore had warned him specifically, the news was to be secret until more facts were uncovered.) All went according to plan: he stumbled onto her hearth rug and stood silent for a minute or two until he was certain that the old woman wouldn't wake. He opened the door to a rush of cold air, leaves whipping around corners and empty trees bowing in the wind. The street was quiet, the world was silent. According to his pocket watch, it was a little after one thirty in the morning.

It was he who crossed the street, saw the house he had only heard of in hushed conversation. He, who knocked open the door Snape had so carefully closed and stumbled over the steps in his haste to see the facts for himself. He who walked around some blasted furniture (an armchair, a kitchen stool) and kicked the rest aside to gain access to the rest of the house.

It was he who saw the door, the hall. And on the first stairs blocking the staircase he saw the carefully cooled corpse.

...

Hagrid stopped dead, the stark reality of what he was sent to do finally made sense.

Even with the absence of the Dark Mark hovering above the house, he knew at once that Voldemort had been here.

Before him lied the body of a boy he had grown to love, a man he was certain would do amazing things one day. Another father who had died before his time and who's absence ripped a hole in his family. Dead with his eyes open, James Potter lay motionless and cold on the staircase.