Memories of Empty Space
I can't remember when I first realised my parents were famous. In so many ways, all three of us grew up with the inescapable shadow of history on our lives. Each of us was named for the dead; for the victims of the man my father had defeated. I always wondered if I lived up to my grandmother's name, Lily. My father never knew her and those who had lived long enough to be able tell him about her nearly all died before they had the chance – all of them victims too.
It was Mum who talked most about those who had been lost in those dark days when she too had fought alongside dad. Mum would tell us stories about Uncle Fred, who died before we were born, and then about Grandpa Potter and his friends from all stories she had heard from Ted's dad before he died. We loved to hear about them. The stories of Hogwarts and all the adventures the castle held. That place was like a fairytale land for each of us for as long as we could remember.
Sometimes Dad did tell us stories, but his were never like Mum's. A shadow would slowly creep over his face as he told us about the brave and honourable deaths of those who went before us. As we grew older, he told a little more each time, slowly painting in the details of the life he had lived long ago. Rare as his stories were, somehow they seem to have made a stronger mark on me than anything Mum told us. Dad's stories made you want to be somebody, to do something great.
I often wished I could have asked more of my dad. I wanted to ask him how it had felt to kill the man that had defined his whole life. Mum once told me gently that when your whole life has been devoted to one cause, that when that cause comes to an end, it is sometimes hard to know what to do with yourself. I began to see that in Dad. He was never so alive as those rare occasions when he told us of the past. Of course, he smiled and he laughed and he was as happy as any other man, but as time went by and I grew older and more aware, I could see the small empty space that he carried with him always, now that everything was over.
Once, as a little girl, I can vividly remember peering round the corner of the bathroom door and watching as my father touched his lightening scar slowly, closing his eyes as though he was concentrating hard. Small wrinkles grew on his forehead and it almost looked as though he was going to cry, though I never remember actually seeing my father shed tears. Then he shook his head and opened his eyes, looking at himself in the mirror with such a searching expression. I didn't understand what had happened that day, and I crept away to play with my dolls, but looking back, I can see more than I could as a child.
Still, I was always my daddy's little girl. Dad loved all of us so much that sometimes I wondered if his heart would break with it. Maybe it was because he never knew his father and mother, I don't know. I remember he had a special place for each of us. Perhaps he favoured Al a little above James, but I didn't much care when he would lean down so I could fling my arms around his neck and then he'd pick me up and hug me in a huge bear hug that was second only in strength to the hug Uncle Hagrid had given me on my first day at Hogwarts. In intensity, those hugs from Dad remain my dearest memory. It was always in those moments that he'd tell me how much he loved me and that I was his beautiful little girl. Although he never said it, I know even now my father would die for me. He would die for every one of us a thousand times.
Once and only once did he talk about his part in what happened that night it all ended. I don't know if he ever told Al and James because it was just the two of us that day. We were baking, I think. Dad never cooked much - we had Kreatcher for that - but sometimes he'd help me to cook the muggle way. Like Uncle Ron and Auntie Hermy, Mum and Dad liked us to learn the muggle way to do things as well as the magical. It was my thing to do with Dad, to make cake. I still prefer to make it without magic - somehow it tastes better that way.
This day, in particular, Dad grew very silent, more so than usual. Then, just as we were putting the mixture into the tin ready for the oven he spoke.
"Did you know, Lil, that I died that night?" he said calmly, helping me scrape the last of the mix from the bowl.
I looked up, astonished. "You can't have died. You're not dead now."
"I did. Well, at least, I think so. Dumbledore sent me back though." There was almost a faint smile on his face, as though there was some happiness in that memory of his last conversation with his old headmaster and dearest friend.
"How does that work?" I asked, confused.
Dad shook the tin to even out the mixture. "I don't know. He hit me with the killing spell and I went somewhere, only to find myself back in the Forbidden Forrest again a few minutes later."
I frowned up at him. "I don't understand." I paused to suck on my forefinger, which had accidentally got covered in cake mix. "Why are you telling me about it now? You never did before."
Dad put the tin down and looked at me. "Because I want you to know what really happened. I want you to understand what it took to… to get us to where we are now, I suppose."
I always noticed Dad never talked about how he 'saved' things or 'sacrificed himself'. It was as though he didn't want to be venerated for what he did more than any kind of false modesty. He wanted people to know he was just like them really, even though they all knew he wasn't at all. And we knew it too. We knew that for all he was our dad, just like everyone else had a dad, yet we also knew that our dad was someone special. We knew our dad really had saved the world.