This was a bright valley.
A stream ran gently across the green fields, while sunlight melted and spread over everything like honey.
The air carried the smell of fresh grass, mixed with the scent of baked pastries drifting from a wizard's kitchen, and the sweetness of wild apple trees on the distant slope.
A ginger cat lay sprawled out on a wall, its belly rising and falling with each breath.
"We're almost there," Dumbledore said softly.
Behind him, the little wizard in black robes was thinking that Headmaster Dumbledore had once again slipped out of Hogwarts in secret. No wonder Professor McGonagall always ended up making the occasional complaint.
He looked up. He and Dumbledore were standing in an old lane, with a brilliant summer sky overhead and clouds drifting lazily by. Houses stood on either side of the narrow street, their windows sparkling with Christmas decorations. Not far ahead, golden streetlamps marked the center of the village.
Sean knew where this was.
Godric's Hollow.
A village in the west of England.
Hogwarts: A History described it like this:
After the International Statute of Secrecy came into force in 1689, wizards withdrew fully into hiding.
Naturally, perhaps, they began to form their own small communities within larger Muggle communities.
Many little villages attracted a handful of wizarding families, and those families banded together, helping and protecting one another.
Tinworth in Cornwall, Upper Flagley in Yorkshire, and Ottery St. Catchpole on the south coast of England all had wizarding families living among tolerant Muggles, or Muggles kept docile by Confundus Charms.
Of all such half-wizard settlements, the most famous was perhaps Godric's Hollow.
This southwestern village was the birthplace of the great wizard Godric Gryffindor, and also where the wizarding goldsmith Bowman Wright forged the first Golden Snitch.
The graveyard is full of old wizarding surnames, which is no doubt why ghost stories have clung to the little church for centuries.
"Oh, how strange, isn't it? So many decades have passed, and it's still just as I remember it—only with fewer wizards," Dumbledore said lightly as he walked along the path lined with wildflowers. "Do you know where we are?"
"Godric's Hollow, Headmaster," Sean answered.
"Quite right. Walk a bit faster, then, before Minerva realizes we're missing… We're going to the graveyard."
Dumbledore quickened his pace. Though the Headmaster was already well over a hundred, he was astonishingly spry.
Perhaps that was because, by wizarding standards, he was only middle-aged.
As a result, Sean had to jog a little to keep up. In the end, he simply sprang forward and turned into a black cat weaving through the fields and flowers.
Dumbledore cast the black cat a quiet sidelong glance, his eyes holding a long-familiar hint of mischief.
Turning left off the path, the village center—a small square—opened up before them.
In the middle stood something like a war memorial, partly hidden behind pines swaying in the wind, with colored lights hung around it.
There were several shops here, a post office, a pub, and a small church, its stained-glass windows casting jewel-colored light across the square.
The grass underfoot was all packed down from a day's worth of footsteps, hard and slick.
Villagers crossed back and forth in front of them, softly lit by the lamps.
Every now and then someone would stare at Dumbledore in surprise, then quickly cover their mouth; others would come up warmly and simply greet the old Headmaster, only to have their eyes turn damp as they walked away.
Dumbledore smiled and answered each one—wizard men, wizard women, young wizards, old wizards… Though he had not returned here in decades, it seemed the people of this place still knew him.
The black cat heard broken fragments of laughter and pop music when the pub door opened and closed, and also heard a hymn rising from the little church.
The entrance to the graveyard was a narrow gate. Dumbledore pushed it open as gently as he could, and the black cat slipped inside.
The path leading into the graveyard was slick, enough that the black cat had to extend its claws.
Rows of snow-dusted gravestones stood across the ground, speckled here and there with bright red, gold, and green shards of light—the stained-glass windows reflecting onto the snow.
Dumbledore stopped at one spot.
The black cat jumped up onto his shoulder and followed his gaze.
Below was a dark headstone. On the frost-covered granite, mottled with moss, were engraved:
Kendra Dumbledore
and beneath the dates,
and her daughter Ariana
There was also a motto:
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
"You've seen her?"
Dumbledore spoke, but his eyes never left the grave for a moment.
"Not yet. But my ghost friend Leta has seen her."
said the black cat.
"And me?"
Dumbledore asked.
"The Soul Relic's power hasn't recovered yet. You'll have to wait a month."
The black cat leapt down and turned back into a young, delicate-looking wizard.
"Oh, let's have a cup of afternoon tea, and then we'll go see her together. What do you think, Mr. Green?"
Dumbledore looked slightly dazed.
Otherwise, how could he say something like we'll go see Ariana together so casually?
But Sean nodded.
"All right, Headmaster."
So the two of them set off. They entered a small pub.
Dumbledore ordered a bitter red tea with not a single sugar cube in it, while for Sean he ordered jasmine tea loaded to the brim with sugar.
"People feel happiest just before happiness is within reach?"
Dumbledore asked suddenly.
"People grow the most anxious when happiness is moving toward them," Sean replied. "You don't need to do this."
And just like that, Sean understood.
He realized how Dumbledore intended to let him see Ariana.
"I just wanted you to see her beforehand, dear little Green. Otherwise, how would you know it was her?
I once thought my fear had died. But it's still there. As long as she's still there, it will always remain… Think of it as granting an old man's wish."
Dumbledore slipped once more into that dazed state of mind, and Sean felt a pang of sympathy.
"You should trust me," Sean said.
"I trust you with all my heart, Mr. Green. But I do not trust myself. Do I even deserve to see her? I…"
Dumbledore murmured, then broke off.
What caught in his mouth was love.
"Souls wander in the Borderland because of attachment. And there is only one reason one soul can find another—they are waiting for each other."
Sean thought of the old Headmaster of Ilvermorny. Even now, he had never seen her again.
Because her journey had gone too far, and her soul was no longer lingering there, waiting.
"Go and see her, Mr. Dumbledore. If she has been waiting for you all this time, then unless there is truly no other choice, do not retreat."
Sean said.
~~~
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