Written for the Battleships Event at Diagon Alley II. Prompt: A family outing.

Written for the All About You Challenge, for the prompt: lilac.

Written for the Huge TV Shows Quote Bucket Challenge, for the prompt: "Pain doesn't go away. You just make room for it." - The Walking Dead

Thank you to my lovely Beta, RainbowJH, for looking through this story for me :)

A Winter's Grave

January 29th, 2069.

Two blonde children ran ahead, giggling, winter coats wrapped tightly around their figures, not understanding the pain of those behind them. Their breaths were frozen in the wind as soon as they left their lungs, lingering in the air for a moment before they disappeared. The old lady behind them couldn't help but smile at their antics, even if just for a moment, before casting her eyes around the familiar graveyard. The angel with her face pressed into her hands, a memorial monument, stood weathered and stained but strong and grey as ever.

As the path began to bend, she drew in a deep and shaky breath before taking the hand of the man beside her. Even after all these years, the pain was still fresh. She turned to him, taking in the wrinkles around his eyes and the silvery tones of his hair, and smiled.
She looked at the flowers in his hand; irises shone lilac and purpura, lively and vibrant amongst the innocent white of the calla lilies. They were the same flowers they'd brought every year on this day.

"It's okay, Lily," he told her, and she smiled at his attempted reassurance.

"No, it isn't, Scorpius," she told him. "Pain doesn't go away. You just make room for it." She was certain, by now, that those words were true. After waiting a lifetime for the healing to begin, she conceded that it would never happen; she knew that she would always feel the loss as keenly as that first day.

Her husband said nothing and took to watching the path ahead as they reached a turn in the path, leading them ever closer to the destination they didn't want to reach. They'd been waiting to wake up one morning and find it had been a dream, but they'd been forced to admit that their hope was a dream in itself.

The day was cold and the path was slippery; their progress slow, like a pilgrim's march. A robin sat on the moss atop a gravestone as they passed, silent and still. Its red chest seemed to be the only sign of colour in the scene that wasn't on the petals of the flowers in Scorpius' arms. All around them, the grass was blanketed in white; a soft, innocent white that seemed fitting, somehow, even in the midst of their misery.

The rustling of coats from behind them and a clearing of a throat told Lily that her sons were behind them, sombre and silent. Lowall had come with his wife, Cara, and it was their children that ran amok, reminding them what they all continued to live for. Orson was alone and silent. He had no memory of the dead, but still he came every year.

As the sable stone began to show its face above the crowded greys of those in front of it, Lily found herself unable to focus on anything else but the words she knew she would find written there, and her husband's hand in hers. She held it more tightly, needing his courage and loyalty now more than ever.

Their approach seemed to slow down, but they could not stop. They would not stop. Lily needed to read those words, the words she'd had memorised for thirty years, more than she needed air.

As they reached the grave, Scorpius knelt to place the flowers gently on the mound of earth above the body, lying peacefully in its final bed. Lily read the words silently, over and over, as the first tears of the visit began to fall from her eyes. She felt her son's hand rest gently on her shoulder - which son, she didn't know, and fell to kneel beside her beloved.

"Here lies Iris Potter-Malfoy,
Beloved Daughter and Sister,
Born 30th June, 2032
Taken before her time on 29th January, 2039,
Aged 6 years.
Sleep, my little one. Sleep."