Emily Potter - Book 7 - The Deathly Hallows

Chapter 7: Far From Home

The car rolled down the lane of Godric's Hollow, the leaves crunching beneath them as they halted to a full stop. Driving into the wizarding town seemed to be almost dream-like, Emily felt like they were travelling into a picture perfect, snow globe worthy world. Almost as immaculate as the Christmas village her Aunt McGonagall would set on the coffee table every fall in anticipation for the holiday.

Emily, Blaise, and Daphne stayed in the car for a while, a flurry of orange, red, and yellow falling down on them like droplets of sunlight.

"You know," Blaise quipped, "No one knows us in this part of England. We don't have to disguise ourselves."

"He does have a point, Em." Daphne reached over from the passenger seat, handing her a pair of sunglasses. Emily looked at her hand, confused and riddled with laughter. "If I wear those, I'd be literally blind. I need my glasses."

"Ah, right." Daphne tossed the frames to Blaise in the backseat, "Wear these and take a walk around the neighborhood first, we might trigger your Trace."

Blaise muttered something incoherent under his breath, shoving the sunglasses up the bridge of his nose before exiting the vehicle. Emily looked around them and saw rows of cottages decorated with pumpkins, lanterns, and wreaths of multicolored leaves. One house even made a snowman out of pumpkins.

Emily made little change to her glamour charm, she merely smoothed down her scarred skin and turned her hair into a light shade of brown while Daphne went for a look she called, "Young Madam Rosmerta."

The girls took off from where they parked, but not before they checked if they locked the car three times. "It must feel odd, you know? Going back to your hometown as a different person..." Daphne lightly mused as they walked to where Blaise was standing. Emily's gaze wandered again to the red brick cottages that lined the street, craving to know how her life would have been if she had grown up in Godric's Hollow.

"I was a year old when I was flown out of here – I think it's only right to come back different from what I was the last time."

As they walked up the hill, the row of perfect cottages stopped. It had seemed like this portion of Godric's Hollow was almost abandoned if not taken cared for the last decade. Their eyes fell on Blaise who stood in front of a battered house that had been scorched mercilessly. Emily saw the dusty, dented mailbox that spelled out Potter in cursive golden lettering.

None of them spoke as if terrified that one breath could have the power to topple the house down to its foundation. Daphne wove her arm into Blaise's, urging them to walk forward while Emily had a moment alone with the house.

Naturally, being an infant at the time of the attack, Emily remembered nothing remarkable in her house. She had imagined far too much what she would do if given the chance to go back to her parents, now that she faced their house, Emily did not know whether to call it her home. I barely remember anything about this place, and yet my heart aches for it.

She left her fingers briefly touch the mailbox, indulging for the last time for what could have been a quiet life. At her touch, a sign had risen out of the ground in front of her through the tangles of weeds and nettles. The wooden sign rose high and proud, and in gold lettering on the plaque it said:

On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981,

Lily and James Potter lost their lives.

Their children, Harry and Emily, remains to be the only wizards

ever to have survived the Killing Curse.