ii. Anger
At first, I had refused to help, and rather adamantly at that. I knew about Horcruxes, of course. They were Dark magic, but we studied even the Darkest spells in my department in order to understand the very nature of magic, and immortality was certainly one of life's best-kept secrets. I had even wondered if I had encountered some sort of Horcrux in my encounter with Megan Jones. Yet a return visit to the pub where it had happened and an awkward visit with her family had yielded no indication of such a thing, and I had accepted it as the least likely of explanations.
Now Ginny Potter had come to ask for my help in finding a Horcrux--and not just any Horcrux. Did she honestly believe her husband would create one himself? As the wizarding world well knew, Harry Potter had spent a year on the run during the war destroying several dangerous Horcruxes left behind by the Dark Lord. Potter had been almost killed that year, until finally--somehow--he had defeated Voldemort at Hogwarts during one final duel in the Great Hall. I had always wondered how he had managed it, but few people seemed to know the full story, or were willing to tell it.
Creating a Horcrux struck me as something Harry Potter would never do after such an experience. I had met him once, after the war, and I had not got the impression from our conversation that he was afraid to die. Nor did he seem capable, even as Head Auror, of deliberately taking a life in order to split his soul and power the spell. How could his own wife think him capable of such a thing?
After two weeks of persistent owls and a second visit to my office, I finally gave in and came to the house. Mrs. Potter was certain it would be there, somewhere, and she seemed even more convinced that I could find it simply because I was an Unspeakable familiar with the magic involved. I knew I wouldn't find anything because I didn't believe for a second there was a Horcrux for me to find. Harry Potter was dead, and his wife needed to accept that.
Nevertheless, I spent three days with Ginny--she insisted I stop calling her Mrs. Potter, as if she were an old, widowed spinster already--searching through the house where she had spent so many years with her husband. For some reason, it brought back memories of my divorce: of a home once shared in happiness, holding hundreds if not thousands of memories everywhere you turned. I had finally sold the house and moved out; Ginny had children to raise on her own now, and she couldn't rip them from the only home they knew when they had just lost their father. The house would haunt her, if she did not move on from what was beginning to become an obsession as the days went by.
She became increasingly frantic to find anything that might be a Horcrux for her dead husband, to the point of throwing things across the room, often at me: books, photographs, clothing, his wand. Sometimes she would yell, jinxing a simple pair of trainers when it was obvious she was cursing her husband for leaving her alone with them. Other times she would dash away angry tears and abruptly leave the room, whatever item she had been staring at left lying abandoned on the floor. There were recollections of him everywhere, memories of the man she had lost forever, tucked into every corner and crevice.
Having gone through something similar when my wife had moved out, I tried to stay calm and clean up after her, but eventually it became too much. I began to push back, to challenge her. It seemed better than letting her focus her anger on her dead husband and destroy things she would regret later, and I wasn't good at simply listening and offering sympathy with a pat on the back. So she yelled at me instead of at old Auror robes, and I let her. It was exhausting, though, and all the while I was still looking for the signs of Dark magic I knew would reveal a possible Horcrux.
She finally took out his glasses from a small box next to the bed, the same round spectacles everyone in the wizarding world knew and recognized. When I could find no trace of Dark magic on them, she threw them at me with a curse worthy of the crudest drunk at the Hog's Head. I stopped them with my wand, plucked them from midair, and tucked them into my pocket.
"I think we're done here, Mrs. Potter," I said, reverting back to the formal address. She narrowed her eyes at me, and I saw tears in them, but whether they were tears of sadness or anger, at that moment I could not tell. It was over: we had searched everywhere and there was nothing to find. Although I felt a great deal of sympathy for her, I was tired of putting up with her abuse for nothing, when clearly I wasn't helping her move on at all.
"Then get out," she spat, turning her back on me. "You've been no help whatsoever. I don't know why I even bothered coming to see you."
I nodded to myself as I made my way downstairs. I wasn't sure why she had bothered, either. There was no Horcrux; there never had been and never would be.
As I let myself out the door, I literally ran into another classmate from Hogwarts, Hermione Granger, now Weasley. I knew her casually from working together at the Ministry, but she still looked shocked to see me there; she was probably wondering why a strange man was in the house, let alone how I even knew Ginny Potter.
A young girl was with her, flaming red hair and green eyes clearly marking her as one of the Potter children. Lily, I think Ginny had said? She had been spending a good deal of time with her cousins since her father had died and her brothers were at school. Given Ginny's increasingly unstable state of mind, that seemed for the best.
I smiled at the girl, but she gave me a guarded look, with a questioning glance up at her aunt.
"Why don't you go to the kitchen and grab a snack, Lily?" said Hermione, staying remarkably calm in spite of the unsettled look on her face. "I'll be there in a minute or two."
I obviously couldn't leave now; Hermione was clearly not happy to see me there. I could only imagine what she might be thinking. She said the last thing I expected, however.
"So she really did go down to the Department of Mysteries," she murmured, holding my gaze as if challenging me. I nodded.
"She came to see me a few weeks ago," I replied, keeping my voice low so no one heard. "I tried to put her off, but she's been insistent."
Hermione nodded, glancing upstairs with a sad look on her face. "She wants to see Harry. Talk to him." It was more of a statement than a question. I followed her glance and pulled her into the front living room.
"Not exactly."
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, sounding concerned.
"She asked me to help her, yes, but not about contacting Harry. Has she said anything to you about…well, about Horcruxes?"
I could literally see the blood drain from Hermione's face. "She doesn't think…she isn't hoping he…" Her hands flew to her mouth, and I nodded.
"She asked me to help her find a Horcrux." I paused to let it sink in. "For Harry."
Hermione just stared at me, before finally running a shaky hand across her eyes. "And that's why you're here? To look for one of those…those things?"
"I didn't find one," I said quickly, glancing around to make sure no one was listening. "I didn't even know Potter, but I know well enough that a man like him would never make anything like that."
"You don't know the half of it," Hermione whispered, and her eyes were distant, as if remembering something painful from the past. "I can't believe Ginny would even think that."
"She's in denial," I said brusquely. "Although right now she's angry--pissed as hell, even. Which was why I was letting myself out. You might find a bit of a mess upstairs."
Hermione nodded and guided me toward the door. "It's been hard for her, for all of us. Thank you for telling me, Graham."
I stopped at the door and cleared my throat. "I'm sorry for your loss. I know he was a good man, and I wish I could be more help, but…" I let my sentence trail off, because there was nothing I could do, really. It was none of my business; I hardly knew any of them and felt like I was only making their recovery worse by helping Ginny chase down a hopeless obsession.
"You've done nothing wrong," Hermione reassured me, as if somehow sensing my guilt. "I'll talk to her and make sure she doesn't bother you with such nonsense any more."
I nodded and turned to leave before I remembered what was in my pocket. "You might want to keep these safe for her," I said, handing Hermione the round spectacles. Her eyes grew bright, and I saw her swallow hard before she murmured another thank you. I said my goodbye, then slowly left the house behind me and Apparated back to my own quiet flat.
I had a feeling, however, that it was not the last time I would see Ginny Potter.
* * *