Cozy English Cottage at Christmas

Heart beating in his throat, Ha
rry opened his eyes. They were
standing hand in hand in a snowy lane under a dark blue sky, in
which the night’s first stars were
already glimmering feebly. Cot-
tages stood on either side of the
narrow road, Christmas decorations
twinkling in their windows. A shor
t way ahead of them, a glow of
golden streetlights indicated the center of the village.
“All this snow!” Hermione whispe
red beneath the cloak. “Why
didn’t we think of snow? After all
our precautions, we’ll leave prints!
We’ll just have to get rid of them — you go in front, I’ll do it —”
Harry did not want to enter the vi
llage like a pantomime horse,
trying to keep themselves concea
led while magically covering their
traces.
“Let’s take off the Cloak,” sa
id Harry, and when she looked
frightened, “Oh, come on, we don’t
look like us and there’s no one
around.”
He stowed the Cloak under his ja
cket and they made their way
forward unhampered, the icy air stinging their faces as they passed
more cottages: Any one of them
might have been the one in which
James and Lily had once lived or
where Bathilda lived now. Harry
gazed at the front doors, their snow
-burdened roofs, and their front
GODRIC’S HOLLOW
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porches, wondering whether he re
membered any of them, knowing
deep inside that it was impossible,
that he had been little more than
a year old when he had left this pl
ace forever. He was not even sure
whether he would be able
to see the cottage at all; he did not know
what happened when the subjects
of a Fidelius Charm died. Then
the little lane along which they were
walking curved to the left and
the heart of the village, a smal
l square, was revealed to them.
Strung all around with colored li
ghts, there was what looked like
a war memorial in the middle, pa
rtly obscured by a windblown
Christmas tree. There were several sh
ops, a post office, a pub, and a
little church whose stained-glass windows were glowing jewel-bright
across the square.
The snow here had become impa
cted: It was hard and slippery
where people had trodden on it all
day. Villagers were crisscrossing
in front of them, their figures br
iefly illuminated by streetlamps.
They heard a snatch of laughter
and pop music as the pub door
opened and closed; then they heard a
carol start up inside the little
church.
“Harry, I think it’s Christmas Eve!” said Hermione.
“Is it?”
He had lost track of the date;
they had not seen a newspaper for
weeks.
“I’m sure it is,” said Hermione, her eyes upon the church. “They
. . . they’ll be in th
ere, won’t they? Your
mum and dad? I can see
the graveyard behind it.”

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