Godric's Hollow was a peaceful rural village located in North West part of Dorset, not far from the county's border with Somerset.
The village had a history that dated back many centuries. In fact, some of the ruins that were still to be found on the edge of the village pre-dated Westminster Abbey. The ruins were what remained of the original village, which had been left empty following the arrival of the Black Death in 1348. Some of the village, such as the Church of St Clementine, had been repaired in the 1550's, with most of the rest of the village being built from scratch at around the same time.
The village almost doubled in size between the years 1689 and 1690. Those who already lived in the village were not to know this, but this increase was largely due to witches and wizards who chose to settle in this village following ratification of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689. The magical people chose this location in particular because of the significance that it held for them. The village was, of course, named for one of the greatest wizards of all time, Godric Gryffindor, who had once owned a large mansion house on the edge of the old village, though that now was gone.
And so the wizards had come, building new cottages from themselves and either side of five new streets that they also built – Lion Lane, Griffin Close, Raven Road, Badger Street and Abbott Road.
From the names given to their streets, it is easy to tell that, for the most part, the wizards and witches were decent folk who soon managed to get along with their muggle neighbours.
Unfortunately this was not always so and the wizards of Godric's Hollow had their fair share of bad encounters with Muggles.
Still, for the most part things went along ok, or they had done until the around 1970 when Voldemort began his first rise to power. The self-styled Dark Lord and his followers loved to amuse themselves by torturing muggles and Godric's Hollow was the perfect place to grab one for an evening's entertainment.
As such the Muggle population had dropped to around sixty, down from more than two hundred, though this decline was also as a result of Muggles moving away out of fear.
In the time following the temporary vanquishing of Voldemort in 1981 the Muggles had steadily increased in number, though had yet to reach the same number of inhabitants as more than two dozen of the houses that had been left empty had been purchased by fashionable "townies" from London and elsewhere who used them for an average of seven long weekends every year, leaving them empty the rest of the time.
The numbers of witches and wizards living in the village, on the other hand, were at an all-time high. Many of the families living there had been hit hard by the war and many wizarding homes were left empty for a time, but the village where Voldemort was vanquished was always going to see an influx of new wizards.
There was one wizarding family that had lived in Godric's Hollow for a long time, predating the other famous families to have lived there, the Potters, the Bagshots and the Dumbledores, by a good few generations. In fact the Abbotts could rightfully say that their early ancestors had in fact lived alongside and worked for Godric Gryffindor himself. Like everyone else they had abandoned the village during the plague but had returned well before the International Statute of Secrecy had been put into place.
For generations there had been an Abbott living in a house on the corner between Badger Street and Abbott Road, which was named after the family, and if things continued as they should, there always would be.
Unfortunately, there were those who would quite happily see families such as the Abbotts driven to extinction in order to further their own purposes.
In a dark corner of the graveyard a man appeared out of thin air. Fortunately the lateness of the hour and the bitter chill in the air meant that all the Muggles were safely in their homes.
Severus Snape held his wand up as his black eyes scanned the area around him. Seeing nothing he began walking towards the gates. As he passed one of the graves he paused and turned to look at it.
It was the grave of James and Lily Potter.
Jealousy welled up within him and with two flicks of his wand two chucks were blown out of the headstone, the first hole appearing where James' name had been and the second being where the name Potter had been, leaving only Lily.
He stood over the grave for a minute longer, wondering how else to desecrate the final resting place of James Potter, but he soon realised that he could not do anymore without desecrating Lily's resting place as well.
Snape turned and stormed out of the graveyard, only to come to a stop a few feet beyond the gate. What at first had looked like a war memorial hand changed shape. What had initially been an obelisk was not a statue of three people, a man, a woman and an infant, sitting together on a stone seat.
James Potter, Lily Evans and their son, Harry.
He stood as if rooted to the spot. He had been aware of this memorial statue but had never seen it before now. Aside from being made out of stone, the statues were very lifelike, extremely lifelike. In fact, one could be forgiven for thinking that rather than having been sculpted out of stone, that the statues had one been real people who had simply been turned into stone through a transfiguration spell.
He made a move as if to go closer, but shook himself. No, he would not do this. He had a mission to do, and getting closer to that statue would only result in attention being brought onto him.
He turned away and continued on towards Abbott Road.
He passed Griffin Close and looked down it to where the cottage where the Potter family had once lived now stood as a ruin.
Unbidden, an image of Lily's smiling face as she sat eagerly beneath the Sorting Hat on their first day at Hogwarts swam before his mind and Snape could not help but think one thoroughly bitter and downright twisted thought:
'She should have stayed with me.'
He remembered it clearly, that day in their fifth year that had resulted in her ending their friendship.
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