Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Places/Godric's Hollow
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| Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter - Place | |
| Godric's Hollow | |
|---|---|
| Location | Unknown |
| Permanent Residents | Bathilda Bagshot, James Potter, Lily Potter |
| First Appearance | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (mentioned), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows |
Contents |
[edit] General Overview
Godric's Hollow is where Harry's parents lived when he was a baby. This is also where they were killed and Voldemort met his first downfall.
Harry did not actually visit the place until Christmas of the seventh year of our story. It is notorious, however, as the place where Harry Potter became known as "the Boy Who Lived".
[edit] Extended Description
It is not said where Godric's Hollow is physically located. However we have some indication from Hagrid. At the start of the story, Hagrid brings back the one year old Harry Potter from Godric's Hollow to Privet Drive in Surrey on a flying motorbike. He says to Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall that Harry "fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."
If we assume that Hagrid flew an approximately straight line, there are only 2 places where Godric's Hollow can be: Southern Wales or Southern Ireland. Apparently, the author has indicated that Godric's Hollow is located in Cottonbridge, England, though that is as yet unconfirmed.
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we are told that, in A History of Magic, Bathilda Bagshot writes that Godric's Hollow, a "West Country village," is one of a number of villages where wizards settled in relatively large numbers after the ratification of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689.
It appears that the Dumbledore family moved to Godric's Hollow when Albus Dumbledore's father Percival was imprisoned. Albus and his mother Kendra, sister Ariana, and brother Aberforth lived here, until Kendra's and Ariana's deaths. At the time, Bathilda Bagshot was their neighbour. Godric's Hollow is famed as the birthplace of Godric Gryffindor, and also as the final resting place of at least one of the Peverell family.
[edit] Analysis
[edit] Questions
- Why was it that the Potter house in Godric's Hollow is almost destroyed on the day when Voldemort tried to kill Harry?
[edit] Greater Picture
Prior to the release of the seventh book, there was a great deal of discussion on various fan sites about the "missing day"; Voldemort had been dead for a full day before Hagrid appeared at Privet Drive with Harry. It was believed by many fans that the occurrences during that day would be important, possibly even pivotal, to events in the seventh book. It is entirely possible that, because of the Fidelius charm still being active, Hagrid would have been unable to find the place until one of the parties to the secret was there. We can safely assume that Sirius Black, as one of the Marauders, would have been aware of the Potters' location; in fact, he does say, in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, that he had seen "the bodies and the destruction" of the house, so he must have known the secret, either before the Fidelius charm was performed, or by Peter Pettigrew informing him of it afterwards. It is entirely possible that Hagrid was unable to enter the remains of the house to recover Harry until Sirius appeared on the scene; and it would have been Sirius who actually removed Harry from the wreckage and passed him to Hagrid to carry back to Little Whinging. However, against this we have Hagrid's word; he says that he had entered the house himself. So we can safely assume that either the Fidelius charm had ceased operation with the death of the Potters, or that Hagrid had been made privy to the secret.
The mention of the "wreckage" of the house is also interesting; the Killing Curse does not destroy things, it only kills people, so it is unlikely that the house would have been destroyed by the reflected curse that killed Voldemort. So how did the house get destroyed? There was speculation that in fact it was Peter Pettigrew who destroyed the house, in a fit of madness at seeing his master, "the most powerful wizard of all time" (or so the Death Eaters think), killed by an infant. Peter would not have tried to harm Harry, out of fear at possibly meeting Voldemort's fate.
At the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry expresses a determination to go back to Godric's Hollow. There were suggestions that the death of one or both of Harry's parents might have been used to create additional Horcruxes, and there was a wide-spread belief that Harry's own death was intended to create another Horcrux; there was some suspicion that Harry might find either Horcruxes, or valuable artifacts meant to become Horcruxes, in Godric's Hollow when we get there in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As it turns out, Harry never entered the house where his parents died; if there were such artifacts there, they did not enter the story.
One other point has been brought up that might be worth mention. Could there be some relation between Godric's Hollow and Godric Gryffindor? It is entirely possible that this is the ancestral home ground of the Gryffindor clan. Hermione does confirm this link in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There is mention that it was Albus Dumbledore who arranged the place where the Potters stayed, which leads us to believe also that this is Dumbledore's home turf. If that is the case, what is the relationship between Dumbledore and Gryffindor? Could Albus Dumbledore be a lineal descendant? Given that the Dumbledore family reportedly moved there after Percival's imprisonment, it is not likely, but the possibility remains.
