—CHAPTER TWO—
Farewell Until Tomorrow
The graveyard in Godric's Hollow looks much different than it did the last time Harry had visited it. Now that the cold, unforgiving frost of winter has passed, everything seems brighter, happier, more cheerful despite the sombre mood that hangs in a heavy fog around their small group. The warm sun shines pleasantly throughout the thick cover of trees that surround the small plot, and birds are singing in the trees, almost as if they know this is a new beginning.
They make their way down the walk quietly, winding through generations of Harry's ancestors to the place where his mother and father are buried. Harry's glad he's at least visited this place once before; it isn't as much of a shock to see his parent's names engraved immovably in stone this time. Still, he feels a lump growing in his throat for the hundredth time that day as he stares down at the headstones.
James Potter. Lily Potter. Both died too young, died fighting; beloved mother, father, son, daughter, friend. Who had stood at this grave before? he wonders. Who had been here for their burials? Had Sirius already been imprisoned? Or had he stood here by Remus' side, the two friends supporting each other through the unthinkable? Had they wondered where Wormtail had gone? Had Aunt Petunia ever visited this place in secret?
Dozens of unanswerable questions circle through his mind. Harry feels a small hand slip into his, and he glances over. Ginny smiles back at him, squeezing his fingers before resting her head on his shoulder. He wraps an arm tight around her, pulling her closer, enjoying the warm comfort of a familiar presence. Even through the haze of guilt that Harry is still feeling, he knows that things will get better. The fighting is over, and it's time for him to finally claim his reward. He's allowed to love again, to laugh, to live his life as it was meant to be. No more battles, no more fighting, no more loss. It's finally over.
"Harry," Ginny says softly after a while, pulling him from his thoughts. "Look at this."
She motions toward a grave next to his father's, one that Harry knows lies empty. Sirius Black; friend, hero, fighter. Harry stares at it blankly for a moment; he hadn't noticed it when he'd last been here. It had been covered in snow or ice, or maybe he'd just been in too much of a hurry, too distracted.
"We had it put in two summers ago," Mrs Weasley says, coming to stand next to them. "It was part of his will, just like Remus. They all wanted to be buried together."
"Why…why didn't anyone tell me?" Harry asks in a choked voice that holds no accusation.
"We were going to tell you eventually," she says, smiling down at the headstone with watery eyes. "There just wasn't a good time to bring it up."
There's a soft pop just then, and they turn to find a woman dressed all in black standing next to the two freshly dug graves. She's cradling a small bundle of blankets close to her chest, and she has a mournful expression on her face, though there is no evidence of tears in her eyes.
"Andromeda," Mr Weasley says gently, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry. We'll all miss Nymphadora very much."
Andromeda's lips pull a bit tighter, and she nods. "It was her time… She wouldn't have wanted to live without Remus by her side," she tells him solemnly, rocking the sleeping baby in her arms.
Harry moves closer to her, almost cautious, reaching out a hand toward the bundle. "Can I…?" he asks, glancing up at her.
She smiles at him sadly and holds the baby out to him without speaking. Harry takes him gently in his arms, gazing down at his godson's face for the first time. The baby stirs in his sleep but doesn't wake. "Hello, Teddy," he says softly. "It's nice to finally meet you."
Something wrenches in Harry's heart as he smooths a lock of sandy hair from Teddy's forehead. The boy looks so much like Remus, even at this age. It's hard for him to pass the baby back to Andromeda, hard for him to resist clutching the last piece of Remus as tightly to his chest as he can. But he'll be able to watch Teddy grow up, he reminds himself. He'll teach him to ride a broom, and he'll be there to take him shopping for his first wand. Giving him up now doesn't mean giving him up for good.
Their small ceremony passes quickly after that, just Harry, Hermione, the Weasleys, Andromeda and baby Teddy. They all speak of friends close enough to be family, of the kind of love that binds people inextricably together, and once everyone's said their final words and begun to depart for Fred's burial, Harry takes a moment to be alone with the graves of all the people he's loved and lost. He stares down at the headstones, reaching down to trace his father's name lightly with his fingers.
"Someone once told me I ought to be more careful about how I chose my friends," he tells the empty graveyard, his hands shoved in his pockets. "I never really listened to him, though. My friends just kind of fell into my life, but the ones that stuck have grown close enough to be like a second family. And, well, they always say that you don't get to choose your family."
He pauses to look up at the trees overhead, a light breeze blowing the hair off his face. "I hope that wherever you all are, you're together, and you're happy. Mum, Dad, I think I'm going to be all right. Sirius and Remus looked after me as much as they could. I'm going to miss you all, but don't think I'll ever forget any of you."
He pauses for a moment, silent, contemplating this new world of burgeoning possibilities, so many things that were out of the question just a few days ago. He feels a small smile spread across his face and nods his head once, as if in affirmation of his victory. One of his hands rests on his parents' headstone briefly, and then, with a turn of his heel, he's gone.
The sun is just begging to set over the hills of Ottery St Catchpole when Harry appears in front of the Burrow. The house is more or less the same as it was last summer, and Harry feels a thrill of relief run through him when he notices that everything, right down to the fat, brown chickens in the garden, seems to still be in tact. From what he's seen over the past year, there aren't many wizarding structures left in Britain that haven't been at least partially destroyed by himself or Voldemort. The knowledge that the Burrow, of all places, seems to have survived is almost a consolation in itself.
He wanders to the back of the house and finds the Weasleys and Hermione gathered there, heads bent as if saying a prayer. Harry joins them, slipping an arm around Ginny's waist, a mix of emotions rolling through him. Parts of him are happy, excited for the future that he's at last allowed to have, but there are other pieces, pieces that he knows need a bit of attention, that are silently weeping at the loss of such a bright, shining person. Everyone's silent, unsure of what to say, of how to express the passing of such a dear friend and brother.
"I remember this one time," George says suddenly, making everyone jump a bit. They all glance at him, but his eyes are fixed on Fred's grave, unseeing, as though he's speaking directly to his twin. "We were about eleven and had just started at Hogwarts. Everything seemed all new and strange and wonderful, and Fred heard this rumour that there were loads of secret passages out of the school. He decided we should go try to find them." George laughs softly to himself, blinking tears away from his eyes. "So there we were, just these kids in robes two sizes too big, running around the castle in the middle of the night, prodding all the statues and bits of wall we could find with our wands. We didn't have anything to go on but word of mouth that these things even existed, but Fred was determined. 'If I can just get my hands on Zonko's,' he kept saying, 'the school'll never know what hit them.' I didn't believe him, but I went along anyway. He always knew what was best."
He's silent for a moment, and Harry glances around at the others. Hermione is smiling at George with tears in her eyes, Ron blinking furiously with his arm wrapped around her shoulders, and Percy is staring, stony faced, at the casket that holds his younger brother.
"You proved me wrong, Fred," George says finally, a small smile on his face. "If I was half as smart as you, I'd have known you'd always prove me wrong. I miss you, mate, and I'm always going to."
They all begin to trickle back to the house after that, leaving George to have a moment alone to say a last goodbye, and when they make it into the kitchen of the Burrow, Harry calls for Kreacher. The elf appears with a crack, bowing low enough that his stubby nose touches the ground. With a pang, Harry is reminded of Dobby, the mad elf who had finally succeeded in his mission to save Harry's life after all these years.
"What can Kreacher be doing for Master?" the elf asks in his low, gravelly voice.
"I'd like you to find us the largest bottle of Firewhiskey you can carry and bring it back here, please," Harry tells him quietly as Charlie conjures extra chairs out of thin air, placing them around the already crowded scrubbed-wood table.
The elf grins up at Harry and disappears, eager to please. Harry shakes his head, smiling at the transformation Kreacher has undergone during the last few months. A few kind words, a few thoughtful gestures, and he'd made a complete turnaround. Hermione had been right all along. Kreacher reappears quickly, struggling under the weight of a bottle that's almost as tall as he is.
"Kreacher be taking the teacher's bottle from the Hogwarts kitchen, sir," he says, his thin arms shaking. "Is there anything else that Kreacher can be doing for Master?"
Harry fights back a small laugh at the sight of the elf having so much trouble and bends to take the bottle from his hands, placing it on the table. "No, Kreacher, that'll be all," he says as everyone moves to sit down.
"Thank you, Kreacher," Hermione says quietly.
The elf beams at her. "Kreacher is proud and much honoured to be serving Miss Hermy and all of Master's friends," he says before disappearing back to the school.
Ginny conjures eleven shot glasses the size of scotch tumblers and fills them all more than half full, ignoring the disapproving cluck from her mother. George takes his first, and once they all have glasses, he holds his up in a toast.
"To Fred," he says in a shaky voice, downing his entire glass in one go. They all follow suit, wincing as the burning liquid slides down their throats, and by the time they've all toasted Remus and Tonks as well, they've made a rather sizeable dent in the contents of the bottle. Bill refills all their glasses again, and everyone sits back in their seats, clutching at their drinks, throats stinging pleasantly, all of them lost in their thoughts.
"When we were kids," Ginny says after a while, smiling across the table at George, "I always thought you two were just awful." Everyone laughs. "I remember one time you stole my toy broomstick and charmed it pink and made it spray little heart shaped bubbles every time I tried to fly. I was so angry that I spent all night looking up hexes, then stole Mum's wand next morning and hit the both of you with a Bat-Bogey curse so hard that you couldn't see straight for hours. You both took it, though, and I think you were actually rather proud of me."
And so it goes. They talk late into the night about everything and nothing, swapping happy stories and painful ones alike. At some point, Neville shows up to pay his respects and they conjure him a chair, which he sinks into heavily, bleary-eyed and blinking from under a nasty looking gash on his forehead. He recounts the story of the first time he met Remus, the man who had given him his first taste of standing up for himself. The stories eventually shift to ones about their happier times at Hogwarts, and Mr and Mrs Weasley smile at Harry fondly as they tell him what his parents had been like when they knew them: so in love, proud of their new baby boy, tales of Lily's over-eager attempts at teaching her six-month-old son to do Charms, of James buying Harry his first toy broomstick for his first birthday, and of Harry, squealing with delighted laughter as Sirius pulled him from the toy broomstick and onto his own full-size one. Somehow, the story of "Malfoy the Amazing Bouncing Ferret" gets pulled out of the dregs of history, and Harry laughs earnestly along with the rest as Ron says loudly, "No, honestly, I swear to you, he must have gone twenty feet in the air when he bounced!"
It's nearing three in the morning when they finally fall into a comfortable silence, all of them more than a little bit drunk. Harry feels infinitely better, whether from the Firewhiskey or the warm glow of the fire or the company of friends, he can't be sure. But the world doesn't look nearly as bleak anymore as it did when he had woken up this afternoon.
"We should try to get some sleep," Neville says finally, slapping his hand on the table. "The professors are going to start rebuilding the castle tomorrow. Gran reckons anyone who's able should pitch in."
"And right she is," Mrs Weasley says and, always the mother, begins shooing them all off to bed. "Neville, you can stay in Ronald's room. I don't want you splinching yourself because you've had too much."
"Thanks Mrs Weasley," Neville says tiredly as they all start up the stairs.
"And no, Ron. Leave the whiskey here. You aren't to spend the entire night up drinking," she calls after them as Ron attempts to sneak the bottle up with them.
"Aw, come off it, Mum," Ron grumbles, and everything suddenly feels a bit more normal. "If we don't take this one, Harry can just make Kreacher get us more."
She's silent for a moment, pursing her lips as she stares between the three boys, sizing them up. "Well, you're all adults now, so I suppose you can make your own decisions," she says snippily, a bit frustrated. Then, softer, she adds, "But you all look so exhausted. Do try to get at least some sleep. You could use it."
