After Ever After


Walking hand and hand with Rosemary, Alvin took in the world around him. Big, wet snowflakes were falling from the evening's dark sky and slowly, but surely creating a winter wonderland out of the crowded street. Adding to the movie-esque scene, storefront and restaurant windows were light up with Christmas hues and scenes. It was beautiful. Bumping shoulders with his wife as they squeezed past a small family, Alvin once again thought of how grateful he was that Drew, the new assistant manager, agreed to watch Frog Prince for the night. If he hadn't, Rosemary would have had to do the shopping for the kids' last-minute gifts alone.

She would have been fine, even without Alvin, of course; Rosemary knew how to handle herself, but sometimes, he worried. Especially when snow was in the forecast. It had a tendency to make the streets slippery and the last thing Alvin wanted to happen to Rosemary was for her to slip and fall because she couldn't see a patch of ice or slush due to her hands being laden with shopping bags.

Spying the new sweet shop that had opened a few weeks back, Alvin grinned at the sight of a pudgy-faced woman making toffee in the window. Julie loved the pre-packaged stuff they picked up at Tesco's, he was sure a bag of the hand-made kind would make a perfect stocking stuffer for her. "Rose–" he started, only to have his breath taken away by Rosemary squeezing his hand bone-crushingly tight.

Looking at her, he saw that her gaze was fixated on something several feet away. Alvin followed her gaze. Ahead of them, there was a trio of women who were passing around a moblie and laughing. The first two, a blonde and brunette, were strangely familiar, as for the third–

Alvin gasped.

He recognized that woman! The last time he'd seen her, she'd been thirteen, sporting a pageboy cut, and mooning over the highly popular Trixie Pym romance novels, but there was no mistaking that coiffed Weasley-red hair or the vaguely crescent-shaped birthmark that covered half her chin. It was little Lucy Weasley (even if she was not so little anymore).

"What do we do?" he hissed.

Rosemary's clutching of his hand only intensified. "On the count of three, we're going to turn around. She hasn't noticed us yet."

"Okay," Alvin whispered.

Taking a shaky breath, Rosemary counted, "One, two, thr–"

Alvin spun them around just as Lucy's gaze moved away from the blonde. Tense and jittery, they briskly walked back in the direction they had come, all good cheer gone. When they were finally back in their car, he reached for Rosemary. She wrapped her shaking arms around his neck and began to rock them back and forth.

"It's okay," she soothed. "We're fine. She didn't see us."

He tried his best to believe her. Yet, despite the truth Rosemary was whispering, Alvin couldn't shake the fact they had been half a second from having to run all over again. Half a second from ruin.


"And here's a picture of her," Hugo said, finishing up his talk with the Aurors on the behalf of Al (who was pretending to be a half-German squib with poor English speaking skills).

Making a face as Al's moblie was handed to her, the younger of the two Auror, a tiny Indian woman, who'd introduced herself as Riya Ramaswami, clucked her tongue. "We'll have to take this back to the Ministry to get the picture off of it. You wouldn't happen to have a real photo of her, would you?"

Hugo looked at Al. Al glared back at him. He didn't. Who in the world carried hard copies of photos of on them anymore? It was almost 2040! Even centenarians used cheap little moblies to carry pictures of their grandchildren around with them instead of wallets these days. Hugo sighed and replied, "Ah, no. That picture there is the best we have…"

"That's fine," the senior Auror, a trim-figured blonde named Sheba Abbott (Uncle Neville's niece?), said as she took Al's moblie from her partner. "It'll only take a few minutes to get this circulated once it's copied."

"How long will that take?" Al asked, biting his tongue as soon as he realized he'd forgotten to fake an accent.

The Aurors exchanged a glance. "Twenty minutes?" Ramaswami offered, voice lilting with uncertainty.

Al was far from pleased. The Muggle police had sent word to the rest of their department by phone within five minutes of getting his story, his description of Laurel, and a picture of her from him. In ten, the information had been passed onto all nearby news stations, within fifteen, a search perimeter had been drawn up and available police officers sent out to scour the area for his daughter.

"That's not good enough!" he snapped.

The women tensed as Hugo placed a hand on his shoulder. "Albus–" he started, only for his teeth to click shut at realizing what he'd let slip.

As for Al, all he could do was gape at his cousin. Why now? Why did Hugo have to go and slip up and call him Albus instead of Al now?

"Albus?" Abbott whispered. Eyes big, she gasped. "Oh Merlin, you're Albus Potter, aren't you? I thought you looked familiar! Oh, Merlin!" Turning to her partner, she grabbed Ramaswami by the shoulders and said, "Riya, I need you to leave for the Ministry this instant and let them know that this missing little girl is Harry Potter's granddaughter. That'll whip the department into action."

"Wait–" Al started, but it was too late.

The younger Aurora was already halfway across the park, in another ten seconds she would be in the woman's loo, then, in the privacy of a stall, she would disaparate from the park. With an ingratiating smile, Abbott said, "Don't worry Mister Potter, we'll find your little girl."

Feeling a wave of anger wash over him, Al turned on Hugo and snarled, "This is your fault! If you had just kept your fucking eyes on her like I asked you to, we wouldn't even be in this mess!"

"I – I'm sorry," Hugo stammered.

Al's hands itched with the urge to wrap themselves around Hugo's neck. He had never wanted someone this dead before! Not even the young man who had struck and killed Rose. Why had he ever thought it a good idea to listen to Hugo? To trust him? From the time when they were children, his cousin had been a liar, and Al knew this yet he had still been so stupid–

Sucking in a ragged breath, Al turned away from his cousin. He had to get away, if only for a moment.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Hugo shouted after Al.

He didn't look back or even deign to answer. Al was on the edge. He needed Rose. 'But she's gone!' he howled internally. A wave of grief overcoming him, Al wrapped his arms around himself. Unbidden, memories of his wife's kind face and warm hands came to Al. His pain intensifying he began to wish for things that he could never have. If only Rose was alive, if only he could take shelter in her arms…

'You can't have her here beside you, but you can still see her,' a voice deep inside Al whispered. 'Her grave isn't far from here.'

Al's pain began to ebb back into the recesses of his mind. That was right, he could see her. But did he want to? Just a short time ago, Al had vowed to never go back to the cemetery after watching Rose's ashes be lowered into the ground. He hadn't wanted his mind's image of Rose to be slowly replaced by a grave until even her smile was something he had to look in a photo album for to remember correctly. While he still feared to lose the ability to recall Rose's smile without aid, Al would rather see her in any form over not at all. She had been his rock, and even now he needed her to draw strength for what was to come.

Searching his surrounding wildly, Al spotted a wide tree. Casting a furtive stare at the people milling around, he ducked behind it. Closing his eyes, Al thought of the cemetery's iron gates and the white obelisk that crested a hill just behind them. Clenching his hands into a fist, Al disapparated.


Plowing up the hill that separated the cemetery gates from the tombstones it guarded, Al told himself, 'Nearly there, Rose is just a few more meters away.' Unfortunately, it was not as comforting a thought as he hoped it would be. Rosemary could be alive and right next to him, but it would not change much of anything. Laurel, their little drummer girl, was still missing. Hell, she could be dead. A tiny, pale corpse stuffed in some sicko's freezer or in the boot of a car, waiting to be dumped in a bog. Nightmare visions multiplying in his head, Al said, "God, this wouldn't be any easier if you were beside me, but at least you could keep me from going mad!"

Finally, atop the hill, Al paused. Rolling his shoulders, he tipped his head back to clear his mind's eye of vacant blue eyes (he wasn't sure if they were his daughter's, or if they were Rose's, but they were both horrifying visions regardless). Feeling a mite calmer now, Al re-focused on the outside world. The sky above was still blue. It filled him with a sliver of hope for a positive outcome. He would find his little girl – no matter what the cost. Ready to finish the path to Rose's grave, Al scoped it out from where he stood.

There. It was just past the oak tree and that tiny black and blue figure. Blue. Laurel had been wearing a blue jacket when they left the house. His heart beating wildly, Al took a step forward. "Laurel?" he called.

The figure shifted, a pale countenance turning to face him.

Al cursed, annoyed with himself for not putting in his contacts. He couldn't make out the figure's face. Hurrying down the hill, he yelled again, "Laurel!"

Now standing tall, the figure – clearly a little girl – shrieked, "Daddy!" before sprinting full speed at him.

Dropping to his knees, Al swung his arms wide open, creating a perfect net to capture his lacrosse-ball of a daughter. Her full weight catapulting into him, Al wrapped his arms around his little girl and held tight as they fell backward. In no time at all, he was sitting upright again and running his hands up and down Laurel. He marveled at her wholeness. He couldn't find so much as a scrape on her. Al wondered how that could be, but instead of asking, he kissed her dark curls and hugged her closer.

When they finally became two separate beings again, Al frowned. There were tear stains on Laurel's pale cheeks. Wiping the remnants away from beneath her beautiful blue eyes, he asked, "Are you alright?"

"Yes," Laurel mumbled before burying herself back in his chest.

Relieved, Al was completely ready to just hold his little girl and never let go when the nagging wonder of 'How did this happen?' came back again. Unable to ignore it any longer, Al asked, "How on earth did you end up here, Laurel?"

She sighed heavily into his collarbone. "Dunno," she said. "At the park, I was missing Mummy after Julie and me finished picking flowers. Usually, when me and Julie pick flowers, it's to give to you and Mummy. But Mummy's gone. It made me really sad and I told Julie, and she said we should just go play with the boys in the sandbox instead."

"We did a little bit, but then I started remembering how we left flowers here for Mummy after we finished burying her. So I went to start picking them again, but I didn't want to ask you to take them to Mummy, 'cause I thought it would make you even sadder than I was then. So I just started wishing I could do it myself and–" she gestured to the cemetery at large, indicating quite clearly what had followed her wish.

Al gave a shaky laugh. Accidental magic was the cause of all of this! Powerful stuff, too. His little girl could truly end up being one powerful witch someday. Cuddling Laurel even closer, he thought, 'Someday, you'll give me more cause for concern than Lynette.'

Face twisted with confusion, Laurel asked, "You're not mad?"

He shook his head. "Love, you did accidental magic. I can't be mad at you for something you have next to no control over."

"Oh," she replied before settling back down, ear pressed to his heart.

Kissing the top of her head, Al said, "Now, I know you didn't want to ask me to bring you to Mummy because you thought it would upset me, but next time, please do. Daddy can deal with a little pain if you need to see her."

Looking up at him, Al could see the uncertainty in her eyes as she said, "Okay, Dad."

"You scared me, you know that? I thought something had happened to you. That… That maybe you were dead somewhere."

"I'm sorry, Dad!" Laurel cried, sitting upright in his lap.

Using a hand to smooth down her hair, Al murmured, "It's fine, love. But that's why I want you to always ask if you want to go to see Mummy – or anyone else, for that matter. I don't like thinking you might be dead. Do you understand?"

She nodded. "I do. I'll make sure I always ask for you to take me to see Mummy," Laurel promised.

Al smiled at his daughter. "Thank you."


We're just a few chapters from the end now! What did you think of this chapter? Anti-climatic? Or is it a relief that nothing bad happened to Laurel?

Thank you guys so much for reading :)