I am standing in the back garden of the Burrow. It is morning, just after the dawn. I like to get up this early sometimes, just to see the world waking up. The sky is a clear, crystal blue. There is a crispness to the air despite the fact it is the middle of summer, the early hour causing the slight chill around me.
I love how the world feels just following the sunrise. Along with the period just proceeding the sunset they make up my favourite times of the day. There is such a stillness and calm about everything, and I feel like the whole world is muted as it goes through that hazy phase between sleeping and stirring.
I stay out here a while, sitting on the grass and just enjoy this feeling. The sun begins to rise higher in the sky, creeping over the trees so the rays fall on my body and causes the shadows in the garden to shorten.
Ron and Harry wander out after some time, and join me on the lawn. We have gone through the worst now. All the funerals are over, and we also had a memorial that honoured all the losses and sacrifices that had been made since Voldemort rose to power the first time, now we could finally let those stories come to rest.
Now it was time for the rebuilding of our world, the new era. We would never forget, but it was time for us to move on.
"Do you two want to come mind Teddy with me this afternoon? Andromeda needs a bit of time off so I said I would go round," Harry asks us, the only noise for a while apart for the light singing of birds in the trees. Harry often looks after Teddy and already there is a special bond between the two, and an unquestionable love in Harry's eyes when he talks about him.
I nod that I would like to come and Ron answers, "Yeah, that'd be nice, I love babies."
This is the first I have ever heard about this, and an image comes into my head of Ron rocking a little baby in his arms in a light yellow nursery next to a white cot. He is singing gently to what I know is our child. Its not the sweetest sound in the world seems to be working as the baby is fast asleep.
I never really imagined myself with children, in truth I've never really wanted them, but if they are Ron's kids then maybe one day.
Me and Ron have seen Teddy just once before, but it was at Remus and Tonk's funeral so none of us were really in a fit state to coo over a baby, but I did notice he certainly was a beautiful little boy. The truly beautiful thing about him though is that he was a new life, a symbol of the birth of the new age we were all being brought into. Certainly his short life had already been touched by the hands of war, but there would be no doubt he would be surrounded by people who love him. And when the time comes when he will ask about what happened to his parents he will be told that they were heroes, and that thanks to them and people like them the world he grew up in was safe.
Lost in my thoughts I haven't been keeping track of the conversation going on between Ron and Harry. They are both laughing at something Ron has said, and not the forced laughter we grown accustomed to in the last few weeks, but truly laughing. Harry is doing some sort of laugh/snort hybrid which is making both him and Ron laugh even harder. Ron turns to me with his startling blue eyes shining and I don't think I could actually love him more.
I realise I am happy. Not simply surviving, not just coping. I'm happy. I know there is still a lot left to deal with following the war, plenty more tears still to come. But as I listen to Ron and Harry's laughter I think it's all going to be okay.
