“Um, sir?”

 Severus grunted.

 Squirming, Harry indecisively took a step forward. “Wh…what happened to my parents? I mean…are they buried or, or don't you bury wizards?”

 “What are you talking about?”

 Harry bit his lip. “My… Where are my parents?”

 Severus stilled. Harry thought his eyes looked haunted and he could've sworn that was pain, just now, flashing across the stern features of the man who had so selflessly taken him in. “Godric's Hollow,” he said after a long while, just as Harry began suspecting he might not receive an answer. “They were buried at the cemetery in Godric's Hollow.”

 “Godric's…” Harry bit his lip. “Is that where they lived?”

 Stiffly, Severus nodded, once again wondering how much it was that the boy didn't know. All of it knowledge that the Wizarding world took for granted and assumed this boy of barely twelve knew as well. “Yes, Harry. Yes…it is a village. Your parents lived there, as did your paternal grandparents.”

 “Oh.” A pause where Harry fidgeted and Severus looked out the window with a stony expression on his face. “C-could we go?” Harry asked in a small whisper.

 -x-

 The next day a solemn boy reverently touched the headstone bearing his parents' names and fought not to cry while the imposing man next to him carefully brushed dead leaves from the top of it. Severus knelt down when he was done so that he could pull the weeds away.

 “Did Mum really like Lily of the Valleys?” Harry asked thickly as he set the small bouquet in the clear vase of glass Severus had transfigured from a rock.

 Severus nodded, face drawn and eyes dark and shadowed. Pained. “She loved them. They reminded her of her Grandma Vicky.”

 Harry bit his lip and slowly reached out to touch the sleeve of his Professor's robe. Severus didn't look at him. “I'm sorry,” the boy whispered. “We don't have to come here again—”

 “No, Harry. I can…manage. She was your mother – never allow me to forget that.”