He saw it. The Fidelius Charm must have died with James and Lily.
In the sixteen years since Hagrid had carried Harry from the ruins, the hedges had grown wild, and rubble lay buried under waist-high weeds. Most of the house still stood, cloaked in thick black ivy and snow, though the upper right side had been blown apart. Harry thought that must have been where the curse rebounded.
The three of them stood at the gate, gazing at the wreck. Once, it must have looked just like the houses on either side.
"Why hasn't anyone rebuilt it?" Ron whispered.
"Maybe it can't be rebuilt," Harry replied. "Maybe it's like damage from Dark Magic, something that can't be repaired."
He reached out a hand and gripped the rusted iron gate, not to open it, but simply to touch some part of the house.
"You're not thinking of going in, are you? It doesn't look safe, maybe, oh, Harry, look!" Ron pointed toward the ruins.
It seemed Harry's touch had caused it: a wooden sign rose slowly from the ground before them, pushing up through nettles and tall grass like some strange, swiftly growing flower. In golden letters it read:
On this spot, on the night of October 31st, 1981, Lily and James Potter gave their lives.
Their son, Harry, is the only known wizard to have survived the Killing Curse.
This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters and as a reminder of the violence that tore their family apart.
Around the neat, official inscription were dozens of other messages, scrawled by witches and wizards who had come to pay tribute at the place where the Boy Who Lived had escaped death. Some had signed their names in indelible ink; others had carved their initials or left small notes. The newer ones gleamed bright over sixteen years of magical graffiti.
Good luck, Harry, wherever you are.
Hope you see this, Harry, we're all behind you!
Long live Harry Potter!
"They shouldn't write all over it!" Hermione said disapprovingly.
But Harry smiled at her, a warm, open smile.
"It's fine. I'm glad they did. I—"
He stopped.
A heavily bundled figure was shuffling toward them down the narrow street, its dark outline thrown into relief by the glow from the square.
Hermione and Ron raised their wands, pointing them at the figure.
"Who's that?" Ron whispered hoarsely.
"Wait—" Harry said quickly, stopping them from casting a spell.
It was a woman, stooped, bulky, moving with the slow, uncertain gait of extreme old age. When she was only a few steps away, she halted and raised a gloved hand in greeting. In the lamplight from a nearby house, they saw her face clearly.
Bathilda Bagshot.
They had seen her photograph before, in one Anne had shown them.
Hermione and Ron lowered their wands. Hermione frowned at Bathilda and whispered, "But how could she possibly know? We're under Polyjuice Potion!"
Harry shook his head. The old woman beckoned them again, more urgently this time.
"Could Dumbledore have told her?" Ron murmured. "Maybe he knew we'd come here. I mean, if Harry ever came to Godric's Hollow, of course he'd visit this place. Maybe Dumbledore asked her to wait. He knew loads of magic we don't, maybe she does too!"
Hermione shot back at once, "There's no spell that can see through Polyjuice, not even Moody's magical eye could do that!"
"If someone Polyjuiced into looking like Anne, you'd notice right away—"
"Anne would never be impersonated, Ron—"
"Stop it," Harry said firmly, taking a few steps toward Bathilda. "We were trying to find her anyway. Now she's come to find us. Let's go. Even if something's wrong, there are three of us and only one of her."
"Fine," Hermione said reluctantly.
The three of them followed the old woman. She nodded once, then turned and hobbled away, retracing her steps up the street, past several houses, before turning in at a gate. They followed her along a narrow path, through a garden as overgrown and neglected as the last. She fumbled with a key, found the lock, and opened the front door, stepping aside to let them in.
The stench hit them at once, must and decay, the smell of something long unwashed.
Harry moved close beside Bathilda and saw how tiny she was, so old and bent that she barely reached his chest. She closed the door, then turned to gaze up at his face. Her eyes were sunken deep in folds of translucent skin, the whites clouded with cataracts. The web of veins and age spots across her face made him wonder if she could see at all. And even if she could, she'd only see the balding Muggle he was disguised as.
The staleness of mold, dust, dirty clothes, and spoiled food grew thicker in the air. She untied a moth-eaten black scarf, revealing a scalp so thinly covered with white hair that he could see every patch of skin beneath.
"Bathilda?" Harry said softly.
She nodded again and shuffled past them, bumping Hermione aside as if she hadn't seen her, and entered what appeared to be a sitting room.
Hermione and Ron glanced at Harry.
"I should've mentioned, Muriel said she's a bit... 'confused,'" Harry murmured.
"Come!" Bathilda called from the next room.
"It's all right," Harry reassured them, leading the way inside.
Bathilda tottered around, lighting candles, but the room stayed dim and horribly dirty. The thick dust puffed up beneath their shoes. She seemed to have forgotten she was a witch, clumsily striking matches by hand; the lace on her sleeves kept brushing the flames, threatening to catch.
"Let us," said Harry, taking the matches and handing them to Hermione and Ron.
Bathilda stood watching as they lit candles around the room, some balanced dangerously on stacks of books, others perched atop little tables cluttered with moldy cups.
The last candle Harry lit stood on a bowed chest of drawers covered in framed photographs. As the flames flickered, reflections wavered in the glass and silver frames. The figures inside the photos were faintly moving. While Bathilda fumbled with a few logs for the fire, Harry murmured, "Scourgify."
Dust vanished from the pictures. At once, he saw that six or seven were missing, the largest, most ornate frames were empty. Perhaps Bathilda, or someone else, had removed them. Then one photograph caught his eye.
It was like a flash of lightning tearing across his mind.
Harry recognized the bright, handsome blond thief, the young man who had perched on Gregorovitch's windowsill. In the silver frame he was lounging casually, smiling at the camera. Harry had seen him again at the Ministry, in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, arm in arm with a young Dumbledore. The missing photographs must have been the same ones, those from Rita Skeeter's book.
"Mrs. Bagshot, ma'am?" Harry asked, his voice trembling slightly. "Who is this?"
Bathilda stood in the middle of the room, watching as Hermione and Ron coaxed the fire to life.
"Mrs. Bagshot?" Harry said again, stepping closer with the photo in hand. The flames rose behind him. Bathilda lifted her head at the sound of his voice.
"Who is this man?" Harry asked, holding the picture out to her.
She stared at it solemnly for a long moment, then looked up at him.
"Do you know who this is?" he asked again, slowly, more clearly. "This person, do you recognize him? What's his name?"
Bathilda's expression was blank. Harry's frustration spiked. How had Rita Skeeter managed to unlock her memories?
"Who is he?" he repeated, louder.
"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione called.
"This picture, Hermione, it's the thief, the one from Gregorovitch's place! Please, tell us!" he urged Bathilda. "Who is he?"
She only stared vacantly at him.
"Why did you ask us here, Mrs. Bagshot?" Hermione demanded, raising her voice too. "What did you want to tell us?"
Bathilda didn't seem to hear. She shuffled closer to Harry, tilted her head slightly, and glanced toward the hallway.
"You want us to go out there?" Harry asked.
She repeated the motion, pointing first at him, then at herself, then upward.
"Oh, right. Hermione, I think she wants me to go upstairs with her."
"Fine," Hermione said tensely. "Ron, get up, we're going too." Ron, who had been crouched by the fire, set down the log he was holding.
But as Hermione moved, Bathilda shook her head sharply, and again pointed, at Harry, then herself.
"She wants me to go alone," Harry said.
"Why?" Hermione's voice was high and echoing in the flickering candlelight. Bathilda shook her head at the loudness.
"Maybe Dumbledore told her to speak to Harry alone," Ron suggested. "You know, like there are things only we're supposed to know."
Hermione ignored him, her eyes on Harry. "You really think she knows who you are?"
"Yes," Harry said quietly, looking into the cloudy depths of Bathilda's eyes. "I think she does."
"All right," Hermione said at last. "But be careful, Harry. And if anything happens, call us."
Harry nodded. "Lead the way," he told Bathilda.
She seemed to understand, turning slowly and shuffling toward the door.
As Harry disappeared upstairs, Ron used his wand to clean off a dusty sofa and sank into it. Hermione frowned, moving toward a bookshelf where every volume was thick with grime.
The staircase was steep and narrow; Harry had to fight the urge to steady Bathilda's back with his hand in case she toppled backward, it seemed far too likely. She wheezed faintly as she climbed. At the top, she turned sharply right and led him into a low-ceilinged bedroom.
It was pitch dark and stank horribly. Harry barely made out the shape of a chamber pot beside the bed before Bathilda shut the door, plunging them into complete blackness.
"Lumos," Harry whispered. The tip of his wand flared, and he started violently.
In the few seconds of darkness, Bathilda had moved right beside him. He hadn't heard a sound.