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The stars are still glinting overhead despite the approaching dawn when Harry slips from the Burrow. The edge of the Cloak quickly becomes sodden with dew, clinging wetly to his legs as he strides out into the dark. He'd written a note for Ron but he can't remember what he said. His mind is still filled with the desperate, wordless clamouring desire to get away from everything – away from the Prophet reporters that cluster outside the gate, from the Ministry men and Aurors, from the grateful public. Even the grief and the love of the Weasleys is too smothering, too claustrophobic.
He feels guilty to just steal away in the night, but he needs some space to breathe.
Harry walks until the Burrow is far behind him and over a gentle rise before he takes out his wand.
The destination he chooses is an impulse, a whim, the only place that comes to mind where he won't be hounded.
Harry thinks of Godric's Hollow, and Disapparates.
*
The door sticks then gives with a deep, loud groan, juddering over the curling edge of the hall rug and a drift of dead leaves that have crept in the gap to lie like letters on the carpet. The cottage is as dark as a tomb despite the lightening sky. Ivy has grown up to twine with climbing roses and covered the windows in a heavy matted curtain.
Harry hovers on the stoop, half expecting a horrid flash of memory, a chilling miasma of the Killing Curse, or a ward like the one at Grimmauld Place, designed to scare off intruders. Instead, there's a warm, tickling sensation, faint as a whisper. He feels his skin prickle up into goosebumps before it subsides to a low background hum, like a refrigerator in a distant room.
“Hello,” Harry murmurs.
Stepping forward into the hallway after that is easy.
*
Beside the scents of dust and decay, the ground floor is remarkably intact. In the low light from Harry's wand, it looks like a house that was simply shut up and forgotten about one day without warning. There are no dust cloths over the furniture or pictures, a tray with a teapot, cups and saucers is still sitting at a crooked angle on a side table, and there is a scattering of baby toys on the rug. In the kitchen, there's a haphazard stack of dishes on one side of the sink, on the other, more sitting neatly in a rack, both collections equally coated in grime. The back door is open and there's a deep dent on the wall behind it, where the knob must have battered the plaster in every gale for the last seventeen years.
Beyond the stoop, the back garden is a jungle. The path disappears into greenery after only a couple of steps, and Harry cannot tell whether it drives on straight to the shed in the back corner or meanders here and there. A washing line with a few faded scraps of unidentifiable fabric still pinned to it stretches across the sea of feral plants and swaying grass.
Harry only walks halfway up the stairs to the upper floor before he thinks better of it. The treads creak alarmingly beneath his feet, the scent of rotten wood pungent and thick. Off to the right, he can see a scrap of sky and thin fingers of early morning sunlight creeping though the blackened beams.
The ground floor, then.
There's a lamp in the parlour still half-full of oil. After trimming the wick, it lights easily enough. In the warmth of lamplight rather than the cold blue light of lumos, the room looks cosy, if neglected. A crocheted blanket that would be right at home in the Burrow is draped over the arm of a sofa. It glows with gay colours even through the dust. A spill of ash and charcoaled wood covers the bottom of the grate and some of the hearthstone. A cobwebbed kettle hangs above it.
The door to the room closes neatly enough with only a squeak of dry hinges.
Harry imagines the grate with a crackling fire, the rug and furniture clean. He pictures himself stretching out on the hearth, curled under the bright blanket, one of the frilled cushions from the sofa tucked under his head.
It feels like freedom, like the first deep breath he's taken in months.
Setting the wards is second nature, a familiar routine Harry has done most nights of the last year. The difference today is that the house enchantments that remain hum happily along with his casting, and the spells don't seem to take anywhere near the same amount of energy he's used to.
*
Harry finds parchment easily enough, but it takes him half an hour to find a bottle of ink that isn't dry or completely separated. He picks up and discards three different quills. Two are so brittle they break the moment he presses them to the page and the third sits oddly in his grip. It takes a whole minute before he realises that it's curved for someone who writes with their left hand.
One of his parents was left handed. He'd never known, and now, he'll never know who it was.
Further digging unearths a handsome fountain pen, definitely Muggle made, and after he sucks on the nib and scratches on the parchment with it for a whole minute, it reluctantly starts to work.
Food, he writes first, since the dinner of the night before was long ago.
Tea, he adds next, looking at the kettle, the teapot, the cups.
The stack of dirty dishes in the kitchen makes him write Fairy liquid.
Firewood comes next, but he writes check shed next to it, in case there's a stack of cured logs hiding down the back of the garden.
Tarpaulin, ladder, hammer and nails come next. It's summer yet, but Harry knows the roof will take a long time to mend. If it isn't something he can do himself, he at least wants to keep the rain out.
Aunt Petunia had favoured a modern wood polish that smelt mostly of chemicals and artificial cedar. One of Harry's favourite scents at Hogwarts was the warm honey scent of broomstick polish. It protected the wood, buffed out scratches and brought the surface to a glossy shine. Even with the dust and the decay and the cinders of the long-dead fire, Harry thinks he can smell the hint of honey in the room. Bending close to the desk, he takes a careful sniff and is certain.
Beeswax, he slowly writes, last of all.