Author's Notes

Fourteen years, seven books, eight films, more tears and laughs than I could ever count, and a childhood half lived in pages later, I finally brought myself to write something.

All These Things Stay With Me

The sun had barely crested the hills surrounding Ottery St. Catchpole, and already it was altogether too warm for late October.

Harry, alone with the exception of a rogue gnome or two scudding between the shrubs, leaned against the garden fence and watched the honeyed light erase the stars as it crept lazily over the valley. Everyone else in the Burrow was asleep, and that was all right by him.

It had been over for months now, but sometimes it felt like he still hadn't caught his breath.

Some days, he startled awake, covered in an icy sweat, gripping his wand where it lay under his pillow until the tremors in his limbs subsided and he recognized that he was in Ron's room and not in a tent in the middle of nowhere, cold, half-starved, and one mistake away from getting himself and his friends killed.

Some days, grief collided into him so hard and so unexpectedly that he couldn't help but think, What was the point? What was the point of any of it?

Some days, he'd catch Mrs. Weasley or Hermione or Ginny staring at him, waiting—for what, he didn't dare think about.

And some days, he wondered if it would ever really be over.

ϟ

"Harry?"

He blinked his eyes open slowly. His head had been tipped back against the rough bark of a hazel tree out in the paddocked orchard when a shadow was cast across his closed lids. Hermione, all bushy hair and anxious frown, stood before him.

"Have you been out here all day?"

"Yeah, I suppose I have."

The reply was delivered with a deliberate sort of offhandedness, like he hadn't meant to let the hours escape him so completely without him stepping foot inside. The truth of it was that he hadn't been able to bring himself to face any of the others. Not today. They would have attempted to keep him distracted, to comfort him as they had done every bad day he'd had since coming to stay with the Weasleys, and he neither wanted nor deserved it.

"Mum said to let you know that dinner's ready," said Ron, sinking to sit beside Harry and stretching his long legs out in front of him.

None of them stirred to go inside. Hermione drifted down into the grass as well, her knees tucked against her chest. The three sat there together, close and quiet, as the light faded and the warble of crickets filled the evening.

"Harry," began Hermione, uncertainty quite clear in that one word, "you don't have to be alone. We know—"

"I was thinking about going to see Hagrid," he interrupted.

There was a tense pause that prickled with all the things that were being left unsaid.

Finally, Ron asked, "Tonight?"

Harry nodded, prompting Hermione to study him sharply, her eyes searching his face as though she would find a confession written there.

"We'll come with you."

"No." More gently for her sake, he told them, "I won't be gone long."

She opened her mouth again, but Ron's hand flitted out to touch her arm. When she met his gaze, he only shook his head slightly. That seemed enough to quell whatever row had been brewing, and Harry was grateful.

ϟ

A low pop echoed into the mist hovering over the school grounds. Not many of the protective enchantments had withstood the battle, nor had they yet been replaced. What remained of Hogwarts was hardly worth safeguarding with wards.

Harry stumbled through the pumpkin patch where he had Apparated and knocked on the door of Hagrid's hut. Deep, gruff barking exploded into the night.

"Who goes there?" boomed from amid the baying.

"It's me, Hagrid. It's Harry."

The door flew open, and there Hagrid stood, filling the whole frame easily. He looked surprised but chuffed to see him.

"Harry! In with yeh, 's hot as dragon's breath out here. 'Spect a storm's comin'."

After being slobbered on by a half-wild Fang, he was hastily ushered inside and into the massive, overstuffed armchair which occupied one corner of the room.

Hagrid eased his bulk onto the bed across from him. "How are yeh, Harry?"

His perfunctory lie of okay was lurking behind his teeth, but at the last second, Harry swallowed it, avoiding the question entirely. "I have a favor to ask."

"On'y need ter name it."

There was a rumble of thunder that made the cabin shudder.

"I wanted…," he faltered. This was more difficult than he'd thought it would be. "Would you give me your memory of Halloween night seventeen years ago?"

The ruddy color drained from Hagrid's cheeks. "Why would yeh wan' ter see tha'?"

But all he said in return was a quiet, "Please, Hagrid."

Hagrid considered him hesitantly for a time, understanding and unease warring within him, then pushed himself to his feet. He retrieved his pink umbrella from its place beside the hearth and snatched up a grubby-looking glass phial from the side table.

The umbrella's tip was brought to his temple, and when he pulled it back, the memory came away with it, silvery-white and gossamer, like a strand from a spider's web. Hagrid tapped the umbrella against the lip of the phial so that the memory slithered inside and corked it shut before handing it over.

"Thank you," said Harry.

"Don' s'pose yeh'll lemme go with yeh?"

"I'll be all right. I'll come back to visit soon, yeah?"

"I'll hold yeh ter tha'," Hagrid said, enfolding him in a bone-crushing hug.

ϟ

The bruised sky loomed heavy and seething, and the stale, sweltering air carried on the wind had a metallic tinge to it, sticking to his tongue. As he climbed the steep incline away from the Forbidden Forest, the heavens broke open with a deafening crack. Though the rain fell thick and fast, Harry's gait towards the castle remained unhurried. He was soused in less than a minute.

"Lumos."

Between the dark and the distance, Hogwarts might have seemed as it ever was, but up close, that illusion fled. The school was another casualty of the battle that had taken so much. Harry picked his way carefully through the rubble littering the front courtyard; shards of glass, crumbled pillars, blackened craters left from the impact of powerful spells. There was even still blood staining the flagstones. All was eerie, abandoned, silent, bringing to mind the Muggle idea of a haunted house, the kind they had at carnivals. He jumped a foot into the air and nearly fired off a hex when a calico darted across his path, hissing and spitting angrily.

It seemed both like yesterday and a lifetime ago that the Great Hall had been decked out with floating candles and live bats for the Halloween feast.

With the narrow beam of light from his wand to guide him, Harry took in more damage, and more, vast, gaping scars marring the only place he had ever called home. Every new mutilation—the tapestries shredded to ribbons, the great oak doors with one side blown straight off its hinges—was a fresh ache.

He felt disoriented to behold what this wonderful, magical place had been reduced to. Hogwarts would be rebuilt in time, yes, but to see it lay in ruins was almost more than he could bear, like witnessing the desecration of something sacred. Flames of anger licked up inside him, but they were smothered by the terrible sense of loss which had been his close companion this summer, leaving him empty. Here was yet more proof that nothing had been left untouched or given reprieve. Not his childhood, not his family, nothing.

He found himself in front of the fractured gargoyle which once guarded the headmaster's study without having consciously made the effort, but that was just as well. He mounted the twisting staircase.

Inside, the office was unchanged, full of cryptic trinkets, pristine, and shrouded in shadows of the past. The headmasters and headmistresses in the portraits lining the walls were fast asleep, or at least, they pretended to be. Harry's gaze rested on Dumbledore, slumped in a high-backed chair with his half-moon spectacles suspended on the end of his crooked nose.

He approached the cabinet containing the stone Pensieve, the glass phial slippery between his shaking fingers. He upended its contents into the basin and watched them curl and shimmer for a moment before plunging inside.

Harry stood at the end of a familiar, dark country lane in Godric's Hollow. The picturesque little row of houses, their doorsteps decorated with lanterns and cauldrons, ended abruptly where the Potters' cottage stood. The caved-in roof was still smoldering faintly, the front door yawning wide open. It was quiet, save for the high, thin wail of something coming from the house.

A hiccupping gasp was what first brought his attention to Hagrid standing beside him in the otherwise deserted lane. Hagrid cleared the gate enclosing the yard in a single stride and bolted into the cottage, ducking to squeeze through the doorway.

James lay in a crumpled heap in the hall exactly where Harry had seen him fall in Voldemort's mind. His glasses were on the ground beside him, the lenses cracked in their frames. He heard Hagrid make a strangled noise, and he surged up the stairs in two bounds. Harry lingered by his father for another moment before going after him.

The nursery was barricaded in, and it was obvious that the brunt of the attack had happened here. Hagrid heaved aside the wreckage piece by piece, heedless of the groans of the protesting floorboards beneath his weight, but they surprisingly held fast. When he shoved aside the final ceiling beam blocking the door, he trudged in gingerly, following the sound of the baby's squalling as he dug through the disturbingly incongruous collection of debris. Broken bricks and a tangled mobile of feathery owls and twinkling stars. A toy broomstick snapped clean in two and charred shingles.

At last, he came upon them, and another sound of mingled horror and misery expelled from his lungs. Red hair puddling around her, Lily was sprawled on the carpet by Harry's cot as if to stand guard over her son even in death. Her green eyes, usually sparkling with laughter and life, gazed blankly ahead into nothingness. Behind her, baby Harry was red-faced with sobbing, fat tears rolling down his chubby cheeks.

Hagrid doubled over to catch up the baby, who looked small as a doxy in his hands, wrapping the wee thing snugly in blankets. "There, there," he crooned, trying to shush him though his own tears were trickling into his beard. "Yeh're safe now, little one."

It was then he must have noticed the jagged cut on baby Harry's forehead. He held him more securely against his moleskin coat, and with one last look around the destroyed nursery, he made his way outside.

No sooner had they emerged from the house than a thrumming growl overtook the air. Harry's heart lodged painfully in his throat.

The very same motorbike he and Hagrid had flown halfway across England dropped from the sky. It had hardly come to a stop before Sirius, looking shockingly young, leapt from it and, sweeping his hair from his eyes agitatedly, ran towards the cottage.

"Hagrid!" he panted, pale as parchment and visibly shaking. "It's not true, is it? Tell me it isn't true!"

If Hagrid's tears had not been enough to confirm the worst, it seemed Sirius had finally spotted the house itself—a house he should not have been able to see at all. His bloodless face went whiter still.

"Oh, God, no," he breathed. His words were almost lost under the baby's continuing whimpers. The sound seemed to rouse him somewhat, and he murmured, "Harry."

At once, he stepped nearer and reached out for the baby, but Hagrid, whether unintentionally or otherwise, had gripped him more firmly, and Sirius noticed.

"Give Harry to me, Hagrid. I'm his godfather, I'll look after him."

"I'm sorry, Sirius, I can'. Harry's ter go ter his aunt an' uncle's. Dumbledore's orders."

"His aunt and—?" His confusion transformed into indignation as revelation struck. "Not Lily's sister and her gormless blighter of a husband? Dumbledore can't possibly be serious!"

"Tha's not fer me ter question."

"But—but—," Sirius spluttered, desperate, "they hate our kind. Lily and James would never want—"

When his voice broke, Hagrid shuffled forward and clasped his shoulder tight. "I'm sorry. Really I am. But I think Dumbledore knows wha' he's abou'. I trust him, an' so should yeh."

The fight seemed to have suddenly gone out of Sirius as he sagged. "Can I hold him, then, before you go?"

Hagrid transferred the small bundle of blankets into his arms and moved back again so that he might give him some semblance of privacy. Harry drew closer to Sirius as he settled the baby more comfortably into the cradle of his elbow. Baby Harry's fingers latched themselves to the front of his robes.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," Sirius whispered wretchedly, "so sorry. I tried to keep you all safe. I should have stayed Secret-Keeper. I should have…"

Harry could see the moment Peter's betrayal struck his godfather. His crushed, weary expression flickered, then turned all at once into hard, blazing lines. The manic gleam in his glassy eyes reminded him more of the man he had met after twelve long years locked up in Azkaban.

Hagrid cleared his throat. "I'd bes' be shovin' off. We've a ways ter go."

Sirius's mind was decidedly elsewhere as he nodded absently, but without warning, he said, "Take my motorbike," adding in an undertone, "I won't need it anymore."

Hagrid looked unconvinced.

"Go on, take it. Get Harry there faster. Keep him safe."

"Thank yeh. I will, I promise yeh tha'."

Sirius bent over Harry, whose eyelids were beginning to droop, and brushed a kiss atop his head, covered in untidy black hair so like James's.

"Goodbye, Harry."

With that, he surrendered him back into Hagrid's care.

Rather than following Hagrid as he swung himself astride the motorbike and kicked-started the engine, Harry stayed beside Sirius as he turned to the cottage, squared his shoulders, and walked inside. He saw him stagger into the wall and collapse to his knees when confronted with the sight of his best friend's body. A horrible, almost inhuman howl ripped from Sirius's throat just as Harry felt himself being tugged up, soaring high over the village before everything went foggy and gray around the edges, working its way inward.

The Pensieve deposited him back on the floor of the headmaster's office. He sat up, the tear tracks hot on his cheeks. Another fork of lightning flared outside the window, illuminating the study just long enough for him to see that the black eyes of Snape's portrait were open and fixed steadily on him.

ϟ

Harry's clothes clung to him like a second skin and his hair was plastered to his forehead when he returned to the Burrow. The rain was much lighter here, but he could see by the scraps of moonlight that peeked from between the clouds that plump drops skittered along the rippling surface of the pond.

He let himself into the kitchen and leaned heavily against the door once it was shut. By the time he forced himself to move again, he realized that he was dripping all over the floor. For every puddle he Vanished, another formed just as quickly.

"That might work better if you dried yourself out first."

He whirled, nearly slipping and breaking his neck in a patch of wet. Ginny was seated at the worn table, a steaming mug before her.

"Go on. I'll fix some more tea."

It was much too hot for tea, but Harry said nothing of it. Instead, he pointed his wand at himself and muttered a charm that sent a jet of air from the tip, making his shirt and trousers dry. He was rounding the table when something caught his eye from the living room. Ron and Hermione were asleep on the sofa, her head on his shoulder, his nose nestled in her hair.

Ginny came to stand next to him. "They waited up for you. They were worried."

There was a note of reproach in that.

The kettle began to whistle, and she went to take it off the hob. He claimed the chair across from where she'd been sitting, and soon, she joined him, pushing the tea towards him.

"Thanks," he said.

But he didn't take a drink. From the looks of it, she hadn't touched her own cup either. Meeting her eyes seemed beyond him just then, so he settled for becoming absorbed in tracing the rim of his mug, over and over, playing with the condensation that gathered and letting the frail spiral of steam practically scald his fingers.

Her hand covered his, putting an end to the fidgeting.

"Harry," she said softly.

He looked up at last, his breathing shallow. Ginny's hair was tied back and away from her face. Her freckles and the purple smudges beneath her eyes stood out distinctly against her pale skin, a reminder that she too was grieving, and it sent a pang of shame pulsing through him.

You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us?

Dumbledore's words seemed to dangle in the space between them. They were with him—with them—all this time, like a dismal, hollow void, one that had only grown larger as the years passed. He didn't want to forget, but remembering was far too painful sometimes.

And why should it have been his parents? Or Fred? Or Sirius, or Dobby, or Remus, or Tonks? It was supposed to be him, but here he was, living with the plain and simple truth that his life had been paid for with their blood and sacrifice when every fiber of his being would have taken their places in an instant.

Ginny's eyes were tender and steady, and it made him want to close his own and hide away. Even now they were pleading with him, expectant, patient, drawing out his secrets like nothing else could.

"They died tonight, Ginny," he croaked.

And she whispered, "I know."

It was one of the things he loved about her. She didn't say useless nothings, or try to turn what he felt into something hopeful. She could just sit there and hold his hand and know. With her, it was okay to be sad, to feel lost, and it was enough to understand that healing would come in its own time, and she would be right there to help him pick up the pieces when he was ready.

It was only a matter of seconds before his ragged, exhausted breaths turned into sobs choked with the guilt and anguish that had been building for seven years, a bitter form of refuge.

Her hand slipped out from his, but then she was there, sitting in his lap. In another moment, his face was buried against the smooth, warm skin at the crook of her neck, his glasses squashed between her shoulder and the bridge of his nose. Her gentle fingers threaded through his dark hair and her lips grazed his feverish temple while he cried for all the things he couldn't change and all the things that would never be, for all the things that would have to be let go and those he would cling to with his dying breath.

And after, when his tears had come to an end, when the storm clouds scattered, when the dawn broke pink and untried to begin a new day, she was there with him still.

End Author's Notes

My heart, battered but better for it, belongs to Harry. Always.