A/N: So this is what I came up with when I was very very jetlagged last night. Well, maybe not very very jetlagged, but I kept on thinking the ground was moving when it really wasn't.

Sorry I didn't post anything during the holidays, I was away. Anyway, I've been thinking about this fic for a while before I actually sat down and wrote it, so I hope you like it.

Realisation

It happened when the children arrived. Hermione and Ron said they wouldn't, but I think seeing their home, his home, for seven years would sooth them, so they agreed. Ginny still had a year, although I wasn't too sure that she would last surrounded with the things that would remind her of him.

I watch them in my form of a cat at the edge of the forest. Slowly they get off the train, one by one. Nothing of the chatter and excitement that used to clump the years as they hurried to get off the train to the carriages. No, everything is done slowly, as if they have been lost for a while and don't know what to do, wanting a helping hand.

I do not want to watch, watch their grief knowing how much pain they are in, but I do so anyway. It's enough to make me feel that I've done something in this endless war. For can war be ended with death, when that is not a place among the living?

I watch thoroughly with my wide eyes, looking up at each of them as they walk towards the carriages. Hagrid is not here for the first years this time; he is still in St Mungo's. Instead Firenze calls for them, helping guide them to the boats.

Finally, the three that have suffered the most come past, but with one look at the carriages I realise at the same time they do. Pain flickers across every one of their eyes and I find it slightly amazing that this, this small confirming gesture has not knocked them off their feet, but mine.

I feel breathless because they should be feeling shocked, when all they feel is pain. They already know what they are seeing and that alone seems unfair. There is also the fact that they are feeling pain because it proves that what has happened has happened.

Maybe too much shock for them is why they can take it so easily and I cannot. Because the truth is, I had not wanted what had happened to be true, just like everyone else.

I want him to jump out from their gloomy expression and be with them all, doing what they always do, look for trouble and have fun. But I realise now what has happened, and the thing that maybe hurts the most is that they knew it before I could comprehend.

They had freer minds and hearts, enough to let them mourn and realise the result, when I had only shed a single tear. Maybe in my old withering age I had lost part of that knowing to feel. Maybe it was stuck inside this cat form that has almost taken over me since his death.

All three of them suck in their breath at the same time, and somehow, by silent communication, all three of them turn and start to walk to the castle. That does not surprise me, but I do not follow as they move past me, instead I focus my eyes on the things that cause so much horror but are so innocent.

It is not the first time I've seen them, no my seventh year at Hogwarts had been the first time. But they caused shock and confusion on their beautiful, yet frightening bodies.

Maybe that's the thing that hit me the hardest, that they have all become adults, and yet I, who have been one for a long time, am returning to a child with his death.

I watch the last of the Thestrals move away towards the castle before changing back to human form. I stand on the edge of the forest watching the scene in front of me. That of the first years starting a new life on glowing boats towards the place that will become their haven, and that of the three who hurt the most ending an old life in a place that was their sanctuary but also their hell.

I wonder first where I will be a part in all of this. But before the idea from words in my head I already know the answer. I am here to guide them, guide all of them. To show them the new, and remember the old.

I glance back at the thestrals once more and know that I am something else. I am the thing that will never change in their eyes; I am their rock, the one that they rely on. Because the only way things can go back to normal, is for someone to be normal. As much as I would like to not have that responsibility thrust on my shoulders I know that it's all part of the picture.

Just like the Thestrals are part of the picture. When I am the thing that keeps everything the same, the thestrals turn the wheel the other way. They are the ones that make the realisation sink in.