Grief and Closure

Thanks to all readers, favouriteers, followers and reviewers: ObsessedWithHPFanFic, Harriverse, Gemcatcher, ragsweas, and gr8rockstarrox. This chapter took time. It is twice as long as my usual post.


The adults had started building lives of their own, as they tried to live. Remus and Ron had both found jobs as primary school teacher and a shop accountant respectively, which they had started as October rolled in. Unethical, forged documents were the order of the day, and neither had particularly cared.

It had, to the sheer relief of all four of them, evoked a tantrum from Harry who simply didn't want them to leave. It took a bit of time to cajole him; but that he was open enough with them to throw one meant that the Dursleys hadn't been able to damage Harry all that much. It had also earned Harry a scolding, his first from Hermione. He had sulked for a bit after that. Then Remus had taken him aside and had explained why they needed to work.

An hour after that, a fretting Hermione faced with a timid Harry who gave her his best beseeching, innocent look and an apology. She had just drawn him into a tight hug. It was certain to be a novel experience for him, she realised. That (a) he could throw a tantrum, (b) he could be disciplined for an irrational one and expect to know what the boundaries were, and (c) learn that if he accepted when he was wrong and apologised for it, then he could be forgiven, were things he must have never known.

Of course, thinking before acting, and standing his ground when he believed truly that he was right; those were important things to teach too. But they would have to wait. Harry would push their limits, toe the line and sometimes be a brat. That implied a level of trust between the child and the parents. That they had already reached that stage warmed her heart like nothing else. It meant that they now were his parents.

And yes, Hermione was given to thinking about motherhood that clinically. She had always feared being wrong, and motherhood, even to someone who was as driven and therefore automatically assumed to be lacking in passion enough for that by those who constructed glass ceilings (not her husband or her best friend), was too important to mess up. So she had turned to her tried and tested ways. They seemed to work well enough.

Sirius too had taken up his duties as the Head of House Black – to an extent. He had yet to go and confront his mother. But otherwise, as the sole living male Black, even the antagonistic, arrogantly proud, hateful woman couldn't object to the work he was doing. They had faded into ignominy, then their reputation had been restored through Sirius' exoneration and now they enjoyed the curiosity that the name evoked among people who liked to be prurient and pry into matters – only it wasn't to her liking, because it meant that Sirius had indeed opposed the Dark Lord. She hated that shame of her flesh.

Ron and Hermione – especially Ron – though were determined to ensure that Sirius learnt that he had three brothers, after all. The House of Black had not forsaken him as much as he believed.

That posed a small problem. Any time they tried to talk to him about Grimmauld Place even obliquely, he always changed the topic with excessive exuberance. They already knew that the man was going to be horribly affected as October died, and he needed the closure that would come with knowing who Regulus truly was.

They didn't dare hope for any reconciliation between mother and son though, and that was probably for the best.


"Sirius," Ron ominously started after cornering the man. "We need to talk."

Sirius looked up from the paperwork accumulated over three years that he had to deal with, with a frown.

"Yes?"

"About Grimmauld Place..."

"Will you look at this?! What was mother...?"

"Do not change the subject, Sirius," Ron harshly interrupted. "You will not deflect me."

"Perhaps you should know how much I hated and hate that place." He turned a grim resigned face to Ron. "Do you want me to keep distance from Harry?"

"I will not even answer that," Ron growled with a glower. "You are the Head of the family that lived there – your family!"

"The Marauders, Lily and now you are my family," Sirius fiercely declared. "It was never them. I stopped caring for them ages ago!"

"But you still loved Regulus."

Sirius gave a pained grimace and turned his face away, silent. Then he bitterly retorted, "A fat lot of good it did me. I tried to help him, Ron!" He panted like an angry bull-elephant as he stood, his fists threatening to pierce through the lone table in the room that doubled up as the dining table, study and work tables and anything else that it was required to be along those lines. Not even the memory of what Peter evoked that much vitriol as Regulus did. "I tried to keep him safe from mother, from everyone, and how was I repaid?" he angrily demanded.

"By him betraying Voldemort and finding the secret to his immortality, and realising that in the end you were right, as he died hoping for forgiveness from you, more than anyone else."

For a moment, Sirius' face went slack so fast that Ron got up out sheer reflex that being a trained Auror told him when a person was going into shock. He had gripped Sirius under his armpits before he even started to collapse into his chair.

It was only after a newly acquired bottle of firewhiskey, which was a carefully controlled substance, was two fingers empty that Sirius could collect himself enough to talk. "Regulus betrayed...?"

"...Voldemort," completed Ron. "Yes. He did become a Death Eater. He did take great pride in it, initially. And then something happened that made him wonder. We don't know what. It all came to a head when Voldemort hid that thing and I believe that he saw an assault on Kreacher as an assault on the House of Black, for the Death Eaters are all his servants, and he would treat them all as he treated Kreacher."

"But...?" asked Sirius, unable to yet muster full sentences.

"But, unlike any other Death Eater, Regulus' curiosity coupled with his disillusionment meant that his loyalties shifted. And he nursed Kreacher back to health, learnt what had truly happened, what Riddle had done. He decided he'd had enough, and he chose to do what was right. We never did ask Kreacher the extent of his change of heart, but however much it was, it was very welcome."

Sirius remained studiously silent for a while, though his clenched jaw, and the two more fingers of the fiery liquid that he downed to ease his clenched throat.

"What do I need to do?"

"You know what you need to do. Go to Grimmauld Place. Talk to Kreacher. I suppose the magic words will be "I want to help you complete Regulus' last orders." I know this is insensitive, but he tells the story better."

His role as the older person done, Ron left Sirius to his thoughts, feeling fairly disoriented himself.


Sirius didn't need to be let into Grimmauld Place. Then again, it was not a place where he would have willingly gone. But for Regulus, he would, just as he had taken Regulus' punishments for him as well.

He still wasn't prepared to face the sozzled harridan who screeched at him from the unkempt mess the room was, into which she had managed to integrate herself like another dilapidated, wood-rotting bookstand.

"YOU! HOW DARE YOU DEFILE THIS HOUSE OF BLACK? YOU SHAME ME BY LIVING! HOW DARE...?"

"Silence," Sirius coldly commanded. "You shall be silent and you shall remain silent, Walburga Black. I see you have spread your rot through this house. A rot of the mind and of spirit, of your morals and your beliefs; a rot that killed my brother." He was squatting on one knee to look the woman who didn't have strength to stand in the eye.

"Regulus died a glorious..." she started to furiously snarl, only for Sirius to cast a silencing charm on her.

He was torn. He hated this woman, as much as anyone he had ever hated. But then she was his mother, his mother. Irrespective of what she was and what he was now, and what they were eight years ago, he wouldn't leave her in squalor that she draped around herself like a fine cloak. Ron and Hermione had, on further questioning, told him that they vaguely remembered the tapestry recording her death as 1987 or 1989, that last digit being blurred beyond more than vague recognition. And he couldn't just leave her be. She was a danger to herself and anyone else who'd come across her path. She couldn't order Kreacher to hurt him, the Head of House, but anyone else was fair game.

"KREACHER!" he bellowed, his voice echoing haphazardly off some empty walls.

After a whole minute, the insane old elf walked into the room, having tried for as much time as he could to resist that call, displaying as much insolence as it could garner. How he had tried! But he couldn't! Mistress Walburga was glaring at him. He had failed. He had responded to the blood traitor's call. "Master," the elf acknowledged in an oily voice, tingeing the word with all the sarcastic inflections available at his disposal.

Sirius stared at both with utmost loathing. They were the banes of his childhood, one torturing him in inventive ways, the other sneaking around and telling on him every time he toed the insane, senseless lines the former drew. You could just hex them and be done, a traitorous part of his mind suggested. But another, one that had always sounded like Lily, James, Remus and Aunt Dorea and Uncle Charles by turns, reminded him why he was here.

It was just one word.

Regulus.

Sirius breathed away his anger and loathing and fury and everything else as he focussed on the bowing elf. "Kreacher, stand up. You are an honoured member of our House, and we bow to none. We protect those entrusted in our care, though our ideals have sometimes gone awry. And we avenge our own when they are wronged."

Kreacher the elf stilled. He was seeing a different face and hearing a different voice. He had adored it since it was that of a baby, then a boy and then a man.

"Regulus was my brother, Kreacher. He was murdered through something that Voldemort did. I do not know how. I want to. He is not at rest. He is worried; enough to visit me in my dreams," he added a white lie on sudden inspiration. "He worries for you; that you punish yourself unjustly for an order that you could not carry out. He bids me to help you. And I shall. My brother was murdered, and I shall avenge him, if you help me."

Kreacher could scarcely believe his ears. "Master shall avenge..."

"I shall avenge Regulus, yes. It was why I begged him to never join Voldemort. I do not believe in blood purity. I do not care whether Regulus did. Many people do, without becoming murderers and slaves to a demented half-blood's whims and fancies, pledging their lives to him." Sirius grimaced as he spoke in a language that the elf, and even his mother, who was, for once, listening to him, could understand. He agreed with Dumbledore about why he had never told anyone about Voldemort's ancestry – it didn't matter. As with the victims, the perpetrators' blood didn't matter. Evil is evil in whatever form it takes. "I have always worried for him, Kreacher. And I couldn't do anything about it till now. But now I can," and here his voice turned to a low determined snarl, "and I shall."

Kreacher nodded fervently. This was not the brat – not anymore. This was Master. This was the Head of the House of Black, the House he was proudly bound to proudly serve.

"But first," Sirius continued kindly and patiently, "I must know what he means. I must know what he did. I must know his last order." He glanced briefly at his shocked mother, and subtly cancelled the silencing charm.

He didn't need the charm. Walburga was struck dumb by the terrible ordeal Kreacher, broken and sobbing, recounted. Not a word escaped her lips when Kreacher stood up and shrieked, "HE KILLED HIM! THE DARK LORD KILLED MASTER REGULUS! KREACHER COULDN'T HELP!" Suddenly, he bashed his head on the wall as he mourned his own failings, "BAD KREACHER! BAD KREACHER!"

An utterly stifling silence seemed to weigh the whole place down as the two humans who had cared about Regulus Black in their own way digested the tale.

Stupid Regulus. Stupid, young, idiotic Regulus. Why? Why had he not trusted Sirius? He had promised to be there for him when he came to his senses!

But then again, Regulus would have taken that with all the paranoia that was supposed to be the hallmark of one Alastor Moody. And he was sure he would've had a hard time trusting Regulus quickly enough to help.

But he was his brother; his, Sirius' brother. He had chosen well, in the end, rightly, the noble path.

"The Dark Lord killed my son." Walburga's dry, flat emotionless statement startled Sirius and Kreacher both, as she verbalised the one fact that she had latched on to. "We served him, and he killed my son."

Her shock gave way to a slow rictus of rage, the sort that Sirius remembered from his worst punishments. Then he also felt slight resentment about the fact that she would have rejoiced had he died. But that was a very miniscule thought; borne of the fact that she was still his mother, even if she was his greatest tormentor, worse than the Dementors of Azkaban.

She turned to Sirius. "You told him not to become a Death Eater."

"Yes," replied Sirius.

"IT's YOUR FAULT! YOU PLAYED WITH REGULUS' MIND! IF REGULUS HAD NOT BETRAYED THE DARK LORD, HE WOULD HAVE LIVED! HE WOULDN'T HAVE CARED FOR THE MISERABLE ELF! YOU KILLED HIM! IT'S YOUR FAULT!"

And for a moment, Sirius had foolishly hoped she would see the light. And of course she blamed him. It hurt like barbed icy cold curses against bruises, and thanks to this woman, he knew what that felt like. But he at least wasn't shocked by that. He also saw how Kreacher was wilting as the words "he wouldn't have cared for the miserable elf" piled further grief upon the poor creature that was fanatically loyal to Regulus. Was it only Sirius who was abused? No, Sirius realised. Walburga (not mother; Walburga) had abused everyone around her.

Even before Kreacher's head had completed half the swing to bash it against a wall again, Sirius' terse order of, "Do not hurt yourself, Kreacher!" rang out loud and clear. "Regulus cared for you and trusted you, and I am going to do the same. You are not to, ever, harm yourself in any manner. I trust you to hold my beliefs and my honour as that of the House of Black, and as your own. Together, we are going to complete Regulus' work! We are going to study the locket, study what you tried to destroy it, and find a way."

Kreacher shook hard. For all of Sirius' life, Kreacher had waged a war against the man in the only way the elf could. It had no rhyme or reason beyond the fact that Sirius stood directly opposed to the House he was part of; because Sirius stood as a traitor. Obeying Walburga came easy, then. And Master Regulus was a perfect son – till those last actions of his. But Kreacher had obeyed him. And there he had become bound closer to Regulus than he was to the House of Black – for he had chosen Regulus' treachery to the Dark Lord whom the House followed over the House's edict. For the nearly five years since Regulus' death, Kreacher was torn between his loyalties – between brave, kind Master Regulus' last order and Mistress Walburga, who was what remained of House Black as he remembered it.

But now...

But now, with Master Sirius, he didn't have to fight anymore. Master Sirius was the House of Black. And Master Sirius would help him with Master Regulus' orders.

Kreacher collapsed.

Walburga started to cackle, driven completely insane, more than she was believed to be.

Sirius had had enough. He stunned Walburga, and crouched by Kreacher, hoping that the normal things that one would do for unconscious humans would work for elves as well. It did, thankfully.

Once Sirius had forced a little salt-sugar-and-water down the elf's throat to make him feel a bit less woozy, Kreacher looked at him with a look of resolute adoration that completely unnerved Sirius. He still seemed weak, but his voice was stronger than ever, as he looked Sirius in the eye and proudly declared, "Yes Master Sirius!" in agreement.

That evening after Harry was sent to sleep, Ron, Remus and Hermione found themselves sharing libations with Sirius, who had returned from his childhood house –not home, that was with the Potters – having ordered Kreacher to get a younger elf to help around the House while Kreacher helped him study the locket. Given that Ron and Hermione knew what it was, and how to destroy it and where to find its companions and destroy them too, it wasn't going to be as onerous a task as he had envisioned it.

The day's drama was concocted just to make him face that past, too accept Regulus' actions, an apology that would speak louder than any word ever, and to give him closure. And did he have it, ever!

Walburga couldn't exactly be placed in a care home. She needed a healer, and the only one he knew was one who wouldn't stand in that House again. Andy hated her aunt just as much. He couldn't stand Walburga and she was his mother. So he had confiscated her wand, and ordered Kreacher to never return it to her and to simply care for her enough to keep her in good health, and to remedy the slovenly state of the house and otherwise ignore her. He would have to get a healer for her.

That was a matter for later.

What mattered was that his brother had chosen to do the right thing. He had sacrificed himself for a greater purpose, and though Sirius begrudged him the sacrifice, he would never begrudge him the intent. The last heirs of the House of Black stood firmly rooted in the light. And for that alone, he would be remembered, honoured and celebrated.


With practised strides, Hermione pushed open the gate to the little cemetery in Godric's Hollow.

Every year since that first visit on Christmas Eve 1997, Hermione and Harry had shared that one moment that was theirs and theirs alone. For Harry, who'd never known family otherwise, having someone who he could honestly call his own, someone whom he considered a sister in all ways that mattered, when he went to visit his parents' graves, was succour like no other. Everyone knew it. And nobody had ever spoken a word about it.

It was only after Ginny's death that Ron joined them for what turned out to be the first and last time, even though he kept a respectful distance till Harry and Hermione were done speaking to James and Lily. He never chose to intrude for the half hour the two were with James and Lily. Ron's bouts of self-doubt and a tremendous inferiority complex had, over the years, metamorphosed into a monster called self-loathing. It ate away at him at most inopportune times, and the end result was him always resorting to drink.

It had struck home when he had seen Harry shaking with sobs as he related his latest misery to his parents. His best mate had never even seen his parents' graves – the ones right next to his sister's – till that Christmas Eve during the Hunt. And Ron had abandoned him with one of the worst things he said being about Harry's lack of a proper family. Seamus had put him up in one of the rooms at the tavern to let him sleep the alcohol away. While there was unlikely to be much of a festive spirit in the Potter-Weasley household, they certainly could do without dealing with Ron while he was deep in his cups, babbling about how "Hermione never felt like abandoning anyone" and lamenting his own inadequacy.

On this particular Halloween afternoon, however, Ron did join them. Dressed in black overcoats, all of them, with Harry bundled up heavily despite his protests, they had apparated to Godric's Hollow, to the exact spot they always had apparated to in the future that would never be.

They had ended up telling Harry about magic after all. While for a kid younger than five, someone turning into a dog mightn't have been something extraordinary, Harry ended up freezing Padfoot, the slobbery-licking-happy dog, in more water than a hippogriff drank each day. Ron had cackled himself to tears. As his Auror partner, Harry had told him that freezing those they intended to arrest was an easy way. It slowed down the body like nothing else. He never said anything about safe. Some things never changed. They had to tell him before he inadvertently did damage.

Sirius never attempted to chase Harry as Padfoot again. He basked in being buried under a mountain of blankets though.

Sirius and Remus, both similarly dressed, were each holding one of Harry's hands. On his part, Sirius really didn't know what to think. Should he apologise? Should he rage at Prongs and Lily for leaving them? Should he swear vengeance? His bleak face didn't betray his turmoil though. He looked at the little boy whose hand he held. Harry looked timid, glum, and mostly tired. He was after all to see the graves of parents who hadn't been there, never mind the fact that they had died to protect him. He was too young to understand the sacrifice, and while he never said it, he couldn't really miss two people whom he had never really known.

Of them all, it was only Remus who seemed at peace. He had come to terms with that Halloween, and wasn't caught in its snare. And he knew that they had a lot to look forward to. Oh, he missed them, yes. But they didn't haunt his presence. It was not often that he was the best off in any group of people. It was peculiar how life worked, sometimes.


They approached the graves first, Sirius, Remus and Harry. For a whole minute, neither knew what to say. Remus was sure he was going to be alright. He'd had nearly three years alone to cope with it. And he had his Sirius and Harry back now, as well as new friends. But now, that he stood before the two graves, one with a light coating of earth and dust on it, where it made small windswept dunes, and the other clean, with a small bouquet of the flowers with which she shared her name, Remus was struck dumb with a constricted throat.

"Prongs..." started a raspy-voiced Sirius, tears trickling from his eyes. It was real now. It had been real, but till the moment he stood before the graves, Sirius had hoped that this was nothing more than a nightmare. But it was real now. "Lily...Prongsie..." Words failed Sirius. He gripped Harry's hand a bit tighter, as he took several deep breaths. It was a really bittersweet week for him. He had regained his brother in the latter's death, only to have to grieve his death. And now he was grieving for James and Lily. "I am...I am sorry!"

There; he had said it. Somehow, that broke the dam for the rest of the words.

"It was m...my mistake. I...I should have...should have been your secret-keeper...I should have taken Harry and run..."

His words, stumbling as they were, were swept away by the wind like the dust on James' grave, as a faint scent of Lilies, far more than the mild ones that adorned Lily's grave pervaded the air, even as Remus slung an arm around his best friend's shoulders, and Harry, who never liked it when people around him were sad, gripped him around the waist.

Then Remus spoke in a low voice, a hard voice. "We found him Lily. We found Harry. He was with Petunia, you know?" He imagined her rage as she would surely have displayed it and waited for an appropriate time for his imagination of his lost friends' words fill the silence. "Yeah; it was bad. But you know what? Things are looking up now. He has got us. And he has got two people who I think care for, and have cared for him as much as you do." Another imaginary reply filled another silence. "Yes. Curious as it may be, it is true. You want to meet them?"

Hermione and Ron waited aside. It was a moment for three people who had, one way or the other, had contact with the people who were James and Lily. Harry mightn't have truly known them, but he was of their blood, and it was for him that they had sacrificed themselves.

They watched as Remus ushered their little boy ahead after casting a permanent cleaning charm on their graves and another to keep the elements from affecting them, even as Sirius beckoned them closer. He held a similar bouquet of lilies and a pack of chocolate frogs.

Harry carefully deposited his packages – the lilies on James' grave and the chocolate frogs on Lily's. James loved the flowers because of her, and Lily had been caught in James' card collecting obsession.

"Hi mummy, daddy," he greeted. They probably didn't know him anymore, so, "I am Harry." He looked back towards the adults. They nodded to him in silent encouragement. "Um...I..." he faltered. He was timid as he was with strangers. What could he say to them? He frowned and then squatted near the graves and patted them. But Padfoot had said he should talk to them even if he couldn't see them. "Padfoot told me you had to go to live on Avalon...and that you can still hear me." Much of the childish lisping and diction had been corrected by Hermione. "I don't remember you, but everyone says you loved me very much. I love you too!" he fervently added. Then on a sudden burst of inspiration he asked. "Are you alright there? What is Avalon like? Can you come tell us sometimes? I really want to meet you one day." Hermione was raising the boy; of course he was going to ask questions.

He giggled slightly as the wind ruffled his hair. Behind him, Sirius made a funny choking noise.

Bolstered, he described in as much detail as he could about what he did every day, about Uncle Moony, and Padfoot. And then he told them about Ron and Hermione, who had by then come closer. He worriedly asked, "You won't be angry if they become my new mummy and daddy, will you? You will always be my mum and dad, but they want to be too!"

The stones said nothing.

Ron did though, as he slung an arm, enveloping the child. "We have got him now, James, Lily. We have got him, now, and he is our little boy, now. And we aren't letting him go of him; we aren't leaving him." It was real now. And that promise was as much to Ron himself, as it was to two people long dead, and two more who might never exist.

"We promise you, we will love Harry as much as you did, and more, as you did not have the chance to do. Between Sirius, Remus and us, we will raise a Harry to be proud of, a Harry as you'd have wanted him to be," Hermione seamlessly took over. "In us, we carry the love for him that you had, that we had for Rose and Hugo, and we will never let him down. We promise," she solemnly declared, as she hugged and kissed her boy.

And Samhain of the old ones, and Halloween of the new, is the day when the separation between the two worlds is at its lowest.

As Hermione declared their intentions, two lilies from the bouquet that Harry had laid on the graves, enclosed by other larger ones, turned into beautiful rosebuds.

Hermione choked a startled sob, while Ron's grip on Harry tightened. They didn't need their ears to hear the reply.

As do we.