Harry and Ginny walked hand in hand around the lake. The sun was just starting to rise, and everything was arrayed in dim morning light of pinks and oranges. Neither of them noticed another couple walking near them.

"They shouldn't have to go to funerals of their friends that were killed before age forty, Albus. They're just children." Minerva watched as the younger couple sat down on one of the large rocks at the edge of the lake.

"They are not children anymore, Minerva. We are in the middle of a war, and no one who comes of age during a war comes out of the experience unscathed." Albus put his arm around Minerva's shoulders. "I always liked watching the sunrise. It reminds me that…"

"Today is a new day. In it, we will experience new things that will either make us grow stronger or break us." Severus finished one of his father's favorite sayings. "It's almost time for breakfast."

Albus smiled. "Did you see the entry hall, Severus? The charm work is exquisite."

"I know. I watched them do it. Harry's quite good at charms; though I here it was Longbottom's idea. I came to fetch Harry, he volunteered to do the funeral, and he needs to get dressed for it."

"Did you say that Harry did that? With who?" Minerva had seen the "Quidditch wall" in her son's bedroom at home, but the detail of the painting in the entry hall…

"Longbottom, Lovegood, Granger, Weasley, and Weasley. Harry and Longbottom did the centerpiece. Granger did the message at the top." Severus left his parents and walked around the lake to where Harry and Ginny were seated.

"Harry…you've got to get ready for the funeral. Your dress robes are in your room. Then you'll have to meet with his parents and siblings, because they wish to meet with you. They are in the guest rooms at the moment." Severus saw the immense pain in Harry's eyes at losing yet another adult that he was close to.

"I didn't know he had any family. He never mentioned them."Harry and Ginny followed Severus back toward the castle.

"That's because his parents aren't the nicest people. Well, his father is, but his mother, she's a muggleborn, is about as nasty as Lucius Malfoy. His parents separated when he was bitten at age 6. Remus went to live with his grandmother, she was killed when we were in seventh year, and Lily, yes that Lily, she was eleven months younger than Remus, and their four older brothers went with their father,who went to live as a muggle, took the name of Evans, remarried, and had Petunia, the horrible piece of work you grew up with. Would have fit well with her father's first wife, that one."

"Why didn't anyone ever tell me that?"

"We all thought Petunia did, though she was loath to admit that one of her brothers was a werewolf and her father a pureblooded wizard. All of the siblings besides Petunia turned out to be magical, so she didn't like them either."

"No kidding," Harry muttered. "Tried to starve the magic out of me. She's not here, is she?"

Severus looked at Harry. "No. We couldn't convince her to come. She told her husband that all of her family was dead, even though her father and mother and four of her siblings are still quite well."

"Good. She's not my favorite person."

Harry sat up at the head table during breakfast, like he had for the past few days, but he did not eat. He couldn't. Ginny snuck glances at him all throughout the meal, trying to get him to calm down.

"You're coming with me when I meet the Lupins, aren't you, Severus?"Harry looked pleadingly at his favorite (only living) brother. He was coming to depend more and more on his brother's steady presence.

"Of course I'm coming, Harry. I'm not going to abandon you to a bunch of people you don't know. Especially since Remus' mother is here." Severus cringed. "Your girlfriend is going to go out with us as well. She's not going to leave you either." As soon as breakfast was over, Harry, Severus, and Ginny headed out to the grounds, where the funeral would start in an hour. A small group of people, mostly Order members, Weasleys, and Remus' family, was already assembled in the chairs that had been set up. Severus tapped a tall man with graying red hair on the shoulder.

"Hello, Mr. Lupin. You may not remember me, …"

"Severus, right? Of course I remember you! You're James' brother." He shook Severus' hand firmly, and looked up at Harry. "Is this the young man who will be performing the ceremony today?"

"Yes. Mr. Lupin, this is my brother, Godric. Godric, this is Richard Lupin."

Harry shook Mr. Lupin's hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Lupin. I wish it were under better circumstances. My friends call me Harry."

"My, you're very polite. It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Harry. I hear that you and Remus were close."It was strange for Harry to look at Mr. Lupin, who sounded just like Remus, and not see the familiar sandy hair and amber eyes.

"I grew up with your 'lovely' daughter and son-in-law. They made sure I was polite or they starved me. Enough of that, yes, I was very close to Remus. He spent a lot of extra time teaching me how to do the Patronus Charm during my third year. He was a very kind man, and he understood a lot of the pressure I was under." Harry looked down at Ginny. "Oh, and this is my girlfriend, Ginerva Weasley." Ginny also shook Mr. Lupin's hand.

"I believe your father is quite friendly with my son Michael, isn't he?"

"I believe so. He's told us stories of when they were at Hogwarts together."

Mr. Lupin introduced Harry and Ginny to his wife, Rebecca. "I'm so sorry you had to grow up with my daughter, Harry. She never was very tolerant of magic. I am, of course, because my father was a Squib, so my grandparents were filthy rich purebloods, who surprisingly, didn't kick any of us off of the family tree."

They met Remus' brothers, Julius, Augustus, Michael, and Marcus. All of them looked a lot like Remus, the same color hair and eyes, and all of them were shorter than Harry. Then they met Remus' mother. Rather, she came charging at them, wand in hand.

"So you're the whelp responsible for my daughter's death, eh?" She glared at him, with ferocity that Harry had never seen before, and he had come face to face with Voldemort several times.

"Harry was not responsible for our daughter's death, Caroline. Lily chose to fight for what was right, and if you think that Harry, or any of his family for that matter, was responsible for her death, maybe you should listen better at those death eater meetings I know you've attended. I'm not sure how, since you're muggleborn, but I know you've been." Mr. Lupin stood in front of Harry. It was going to be a very long day.

Harry looked at Severus to confirm Mr. Lupin's accusations. "I did see her a few times. Voldemort loves her. She's ridiculously ruthless when it comes to killing people, worse than Voldemort himself, and that's saying something," he muttered.

As the chairs started filling up, Harry kept an eye the proximity of Caroline to Ginny, who was sitting with her family and Luna. Many students, the ones fourth year and above, were seated near the back, and almost all the teachers and staff were there. When it was time, Harry stood up at the podium, next to the closed casket.

"There was once a boy. A magical little boy, who wanted very much to go to Hogwarts like his four older brothers had. However, he wasn't sure if he would be able to, because under the current Headmaster's reign, Hogwarts did not accept werewolves. But then, a new Headmaster was chosen to replace that one, and that gave the little boy hope that, just maybe, he'd be able to go. So he waited, and just before his twelfth birthday, he received the letter he'd been waiting for. His younger sister, just eleven months younger than him, got one as well. Off they went, together.

On the train, that little boy, full of the optimism that propelled him, met three other little boys. Two of them were pureblood, one with messy black hair and a grin a mile wide, one with equally black hair and blue eyes that showed his intensity to be different from his dark family. The third was a pudgy, stuttering child, fearful of everything. Little did any of them know that they'd become the best of friends. "Harry paused for a moment to clear the lump that seemed to have formed in his throat. He looked out at his audience, and almost all of them, especially Remus' step-mum, Rebecca, Hermione, and Hagrid.

"They were indeed the best of friends. One thing hung unshared between them, though. The little boy hid, as he had always done, the fact that he was a werewolf. But the two black-haired little boys found out when they were in their second year, and vowed to do something about it. For three long years, the three friends worked tirelessly to become Animagi so that they could spend the lonely nights of the full moon with their friend. The only reason it to them so long, was because the non-black-haired boy was not as adept at transfiguration as the other two were. Then late one night, on the night of the full moon, they snuck out to the place where he stayed during those nights. If werewolves could cry, he would have. It was then that he knew that they would do anything for him, and he made up his mind that he'd do anything for them. Eventually, one of the black-haired boys fell in love with the boy's sister. As the world around them got darker, the love that the friends shared bound them closer. Then, slowly, one by one, they died. The black-haired boy, the one married to the boy's sister, died first, trying to protect his wife and baby brother from Voldemort. The sister died next, her sacrifice helping to protect the baby for years.

The other black-haired boy went after the one they knew had betrayed them, the pudgy boy, who was one of Voldemort's most loyal Death Eaters. Since the pudgy boy faked his own death and spent twelve years in his animagus form, a rat, the black-haired boy was thrown in Azkaban unfairly.

So the boy, who has ceased to be a boy with the loss of all of his best friends, was alone for those twelve years. His former Headmaster asked him to come back to Hogwarts to teach Defense. He was the best Defense professor that Hogwarts had employed for years. Then he, the living black-haired man, and the pudgy man were reunited. The pudgy man ran, but the other two enjoyed the time they had together. Loss followed as," Harry let the tears that had been threatening to fall since he had begun speaking, slip slowly out of his eyes, "the black-haired man was killed by his cousin. The man was alone, again, or so he thought. He wasn't." Harry locked eyes with Tonks , Ginny and Hermione.

"He had new friends, new people who would do anything for him. Those that would be the ones that would cry for him at his funeral when the former friend, the one who had ruined the lives of all who had once like him, killed him as well.

Just because he's gone, though, doesn't mean that he, or any of his friends that went down before him, or the ones that may go down in the future, will ever be forgotten. They will live on forever in the hearts, minds, and actions of their students, friends, and families. We honor their memories by living as they lived. Expecto Patronum!" Harry's brilliant white stag burst from his wand, along with two other shapes, a Grim-like shaggy dog, and a shaggy werewolf. All three circled the audience and disappeared, but not before rolling around in the sky together at the edge of the forest. Harry swore he could also see the images of three young men standing at the edge of the forest, but he was sure that was just his imagination. They buried Remus near Hagrid's hut, just as he had stated in his will. Hogwarts had been the one place where he had always belonged.

As the assembly drifted to the Great Hall for lunch, Ginny's hand fell into Harry's. "That was beautiful, Harry. Where did you get all that information about his early life?"

"He didn't just teach me the Patronus charm. He also told me a lot about his Hogwarts years. Some of it I learned from Sirius, some from Sev, some from Dad and Mum. I mostly just made it up as I went along, though. Whatever I said, it came from the heart."

No one noticed the three silvery figures, the ones that Harry had thought he'd seen earlier, float near the forest. "Who knew dear old Harry could talk like that, Moony?"

"I did. I enjoyed the way he referred to you and James as 'the black-haired boys.' If he was pulling that all out of his head, he certainly got the facts right."

"He did. That's because I whispered the complete story into his ear last night as he was sleeping."James smirked.

"Nice painting of us he did, wasn't it, Prongs? Your hair was perfect, for once."

"Padfoot, my hair has always been perfect. I told you, Lils likes the windblown look."

"That's not what she said."

"Why do I have a feeling that you've been having this argument since Sirius died?"

"We have. Thank goodness Wormtail killed you. Now you can stop us!" James threw his silvery arms around Sirius and Remus. "I think we raised Harry well, don't you guys?"

Remus and Sirius grinned."I think we did. Did you know that Severus is taking credit for Harry's Quidditch skills?"

"Are you serious? Sirius, we have some nice brotherly haunting to do."

"Here we go again," Remus sighed. It was good to have them back again. And Harry was right. They were always going to be right by him, watching out, because, as Sirius had told Harry during his third year, 'the ones who love us never truly leave us.'