The Photo Album
Chapter 1
The photo album was a heavy, red leather-bound book on the top shelf in the lounge. Lily danced excitedly as her father lifted it down. She loved looking at photos.
Harry sat in the comfy armchair, and lifted Lily onto his lap.
She ran her fingers up and down the old leather, twisted round to smile up at Harry and opened the album.
Lily and Harry had a routine when looking at photos. Even if she knew, Lily would ask Harry who some pictures were of and where they were. Harry loved answering her questions – it made him feel certain that his daughter would remember the people near and dear to him who had died, especially his parents, her grandparents, with whom the photo album began.
"Your grandma and grandad," said Harry. "At their wedding. Look, there's Sirius, my godfather."
"Luke told me that Sirius was a Death Eater and a murderer," Lily whispered apologetically.
She looked up nervously at Harry, hoping he wouldn't be angry.
"Lots of people thought so," replied Harry. "But Sirius convinced me, Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione that he was innocent when we met him in our third year. And then when the Order of the Phoenix was restarted, he offered his house and service to it. That's not exactly a Death Eater thing to do, is it?"
Lily shook her head, glad that her dad had straightened the story out.
"Why didn't Luke know that then?" she asked.
"His dad, Uncle Percy, wasn't in the Order then, and Aunt Penelope didn't know Sirius was innocent until I told her he was my godfather. Luke probably heard his mum and dad talking about it."
"Oh, OK," smiled Lily.
Harry looked down at his mum and dad's happy faces, and Sirius, laughing. He was glad that this was how his children would remember them.
"James was named after Grandad, wasn't he?" asked Lily.
"Yes, and you after Grandma," said Harry, pointing. "You even look a bit like her."
He knew Lily loved to be told this, and sure enough, she beamed, her face full of pride at his words.
"That's Great-grandma and –grandad, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes," smiled Harry. "I never really knew them – if I ever did meet them I've forgotten. But look – there's where my dad got his hair from, his dad. And then I got it from him… and Al and James from me!"
Lily smiled as she turned the page, and then almost fell off Harry's lap in delight as she caught sight of the older Lily when she was a child. The resemblance was uncanny.
The younger Lily's hair, although inherited from her Weasley side, still more or less matched her grandmother's. Their eyes were roughly the same shape, if not the same colour, and their facial features, including their cheeky grins could have been identical.
The page of pictures of Lily showed her at first as a small child, then growing up – her first day at Hogwarts, standing beaming in front of the scarlet train; at 13, gazing in awe at the tawny owl perched on her arm; in a bright kitchen, dancing around with an envelope in her hand – surely her O.W.L results.
Yet in all these pictures, Harry could see (or knew) that his Aunt Petunia was there, watching, jealously angry at all the things she could never have, but her sister could.
He looked at his daughter's red head, bending low over each photograph, drinking in every little detail, trying to find something she'd never seen, to reveal another piece of her grandmother's life. He smiled – a smile full of love and pride…
Eventually, Lily turned the page, to similar photos of her grandfather; including a couple of Quidditch team ones.
James was in the middle of the front row, grinning cockily at the camera, his hair ruffled up, looking as always as though he really had just got off of his broomstick.
Harry looked at his 16-year old father with pride, imagining him Seeking in a match, lifting the Quidditch cup, celebrating in the common room.
It was somehow right that all the things James had done, Harry had done after him.
The people in the next picture all had something in common – they were dead: James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.
"It's the Marauders," Harry told Lily. "They were all unregistered Animagi, but Lupin was a werewolf – they all turned into something different. Grandad turned into..."
"A stag!" exclaimed Lily.
"Yeah, and he was called Prongs. Sirius turned into a dog – he was called Padfoot. Remus was a werewolf, so he was called Moony and Peter turned into a rat, so Wormtail."
Harry's eyes lingered on that last person. How confused he was about his feelings towards that man!
He tried to weigh up all the terrible things Wormtail had done, lying and betraying his parents, framing Sirius, hiding out for so long, just to save his own skin. How could he have done that?
But he was afraid, wasn't he? he reasoned. Voldemort was too powerful to resist…
But my parents did it, came another voice in his head. And others, lots of people decided to resist him and weren't afraid to die trying.
But for all that, Wormtail had spared Harry back in that dungeon. And he'd paid the price.
The look of horror on Pettigrew's face as his silver hand turned on him would stay with Harry for the rest of his life – he couldn't bring himself to rip him out of the picture, as if he had never lived, as if his bad deeds had obliterated his one good.
So Wormtail remained, happy and always looking slightly surprised at his acceptance. It was a better memory of him than any other.
At the bottom of the page, the whole of Harry's parents' year were smiling and waving at the camera.
Lily picked out her grandparents almost at once – her grandmother at the end of the second row, her grandfather just above her, with his hands on her shoulders. It was the seventh year photo, all the witches and wizards in it were preparing to leave their school and set out for the magical working world. How hopeful they all looked…
On the next page was probably Harry's least favourite picture – the first Order of the Phoenix.
As Lily pointed people out, Harry gave her their names and added in his head what Mad-Eye Moody had told them about them when he was 15 - 'she was killed two weeks after this was taken'; 'we only ever found bits of him'; 'they got him and his family'; 'we never found his body'; 'Voldemort killed her himself' – and relived how he had felt when first seeing the photo.
The sight of his mum and dad, surrounded by friends, should have made him happy, but half of their friends were dead and they with them. And to see them sitting so close to their betrayer, their supposed friend, Wormtail!
But the reasons for Wormtail to remain in the album were fresh in his mind and he relented, trying to let his anger and sadness flow away.
Did they know, at the time, that they would die saving their son? Did they know that their son would eventually defeat Voldemort after 17 years of pain and suffering? Yet within those years, Harry knew that he had had happiness and laughter – with Ron, Hermione, Sirius, Ginny…
And that was why he had defeated Voldemort – to avenge his mother and father, yes, but also to keep those he loved safe. In that way, he felt more connected to his parents than ever – all 3 of them had gone to extraordinary lengths to save their loved ones. With that happy and uplifting thought, Harry turned the page.